| 25 January 2012
Two very different films on the marquis this week, but both were really terrific in their own way. Go with either of these titles and you won’t go wrong.
SEE 50/50, the wonderful comedy based on the true life cancer survival experiences of writer Will Reiser. This fantastic film makes you laugh when you think you shouldn’t, it makes you laugh when you don’t want to laugh, it makes you laugh when you’re sure you can’t laugh, and then, just when you think you can’t stop laughing, it guides you back to reality.
Hit the title/read more to continue reading. . .
50/50 is the story of Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), an average guy in his late 20s who goes to the doctor with some harmless-seeming symptoms, only to learn he has a rare form of cancer. Adam takes the news in stride, but slowly realizes that, at least initally, the real burden is how everyone else acts, from his airy, artsy girlfriend Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard) to his gregarious best friend Kyle (Seth Rogen) to his overemotional, overprotective mom (Anjelica Huston). Adam finds some relief in his sessions with Katherine, a novice would-be psychotherapist (Anna Kendrick), but eventually succumbs to fear and depression, as anyone would. Those feelings are compounded by his feeling of isolation, when Kyle bursts into his house with a picture of Rachael kissing another man, believing he’s somehow doing Adam a favor. Adam winds up breaking up with Rachael and feeling distanced from Kyle.
Moment of Dread: Gordon-Levitt & Huston waiting for the doctor’s prognosis
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is tremendous in this film, and his affable blend of intensity and vulnerability is reminiscent of great “everyman actors” like Henry Fonda or, more recently, Edward Norton. Norton opened eyes in dark films like American History X and Fight Club. Although Gordon-Levitt is known for breezier fare like this film and 500 Days of Summer, he’s no stranger to swimming in the deep water (Mysterious Skin), and that amazing range is on full display here. His interactions with on-screen mom Anjelica Huston are at first hilarious, then uncomfortably familiar, until finally they are heartbreaking, as Adam gets closer and closer to his surgery date - the point at which he will either survive or die. Another terrific supporting performance is delivered by Philip Baker Hall, as one of Adam’s “chemo buddies” at the hospital, who serves as part comic relief and part tragic chorus.
Moment of Comfort: Kendrick & Gordon-Levitt
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50/50 delivers exquisite moments of human sweetness and pain in reasonably equal doses. Moving, funny and completely involving, if this film doesn’t make you laugh, you’re a humorless dud. If it doesn’t make you cry, you’re a soulless one as well.
SEE Real Steel, the part-boxing film, part family-film, part sci/action adventure, ALL fun movie from director Shawn Levy. First off, let me say that Real Steel features 10 foot high half-ton robots bashing each other’s metal faces in. If you don’t immediately want to see it just based on that description, then perhaps you need not read further. But you’ll be depriving yourself of a truly enjoyable film.
Hugh Jackman plays Charlie Kenton, a washed up boxer who moves into the futuristic sport of robot boxing and becomes washed up at that too. Charlie is a ne’er-do-well who winds up on the road with his estranged son Max (Dakota Goyo), one of those irresistible movie-kids who talks like a grown-up without being nauseatingly precocious. Charlie is down on his luck, and down on himself, but a pep talk from gym-owner Bailey (Evangeline Lilly - think Mickey from Rocky, only younger and hotter), some urging and puppy dog eyes from Max, and a chance discovery of a beat up old robot named Atom changes his mind. Atom is the equivalent of finding a 1976 Plymouth Valiant. It ain’t flashy. It ain’t pretty. It certainly ain’t high tech. The two things the little bot have going for it are an unusual “shadow program” that allows it to mimic any move it sees and the fact that it was built to be a sparring bot, so it’s basically been designed to get the shit beat out of it without breaking. I’d tell you the rest but I’ll bet you already know it. Real Steel doesn’t work on the basis of its original story, in fact, the story is pretty much Rocky with robots, but that’s not the point.
Evangeline Lily as Bailey Burgess Meredith as Mickey
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There are films with grand ambitions that want to tell big important stories and there are pictures that are just plain fun - this one is the latter. If you’re making a big fun Hollywood movie, it helps to have something unique and original to show people. Did I mention the 10 foot high 1000 pound robots bashing each other’s metal faces in? It also helps to have a good story, even if it’s not an original one, and this film works it’s base themes well - underdog overcomes big odds, estranged father and son reconnect during a great adventure, bad guy gets redemption by changing his ways. As we know from Team America, you’re also gonna need a montage (even Rocky had a montage).
You also need enthusiastic, honest performances and that’s where Jackman comes in. I liked him as fast-talking, slick Charlie a lot more than I liked him as tight-lipped, brooding Wolverine, but in both cases, Jackman sold the character as 100% committed. Goyo makes the most of a familiar kid’s role in a film like this and Lilly adds a nice twist to the pretty girl role by sounding a lot like, well, like Mickey from Rocky (only without Burgess Meredith’s growly snarl). .
Real Steel has a good pedigree going. Besides the frequent homages to Rocky, to which it owes a lot, it had the good sense to make the robot boxing sequences look as a real as possible by bringing in Sugar Ray Leonard as a technical advisor. The fight scenes are fantastic actions scenes as a result. The story is based on a short story by the author of I am Legend. And did I mention the robots bashing each other’s faces in? It has that too.
Robot Fight!
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Most of all, this film never loses sense of what it’s supposed to be, which is to say it maintains from start to finish a sense of fun. When Max uses Atom’s shadow function to teach it to dance, which becomes Atom’s “walk-up” routine before his fights, one of the kid’s moves is “the robot.” Ever seen a robot do the robot? You won’t if you don’t watch this film. As Charlie himself says at one point: “It’s just a show, Max. People want to see something they’ve never seen. “ I guarantee this film gives you that.
Real Steel is a fun movie with a well-told albeit well-worn story that gives you a half dozen reasons to smile every 10 minutes. Go in expecting only that (and the robots, did I mention the robots?) and you definitely won’t be disappointed.
