Limit of Love: Umizaru 2 (Limit of Love: 海猿) (2006)

This group of 5 either came for an audition for a sentai show or YMCA

Summer disaster movies are largely a disreputable lot. For one, they’re gimmicky, always trying to find a new way to destroy New York City. There are bombs in every mode of transport you can think of! Exploding buildings, tunnels, and vehicles! Is it no wonder then that audiences do get jaded, or that when real life deals you with a real exploding building and bombs in subways, you just want those stupid summer disaster movies to just die off?

Yet there is a single disaster movie that I can respect – Wolfgang Peterson’s The Perfect Storm. On the sea, against the elements, trapped on a single set, the director is forced to ditch the more improbable plot devices, the bells and whistles of CGI armageddon. At the end of the day, water-based disaster movies tend to work better because of their premise is more grounded in reality, and what can happen on a boat is very limited. This is why Poseidon failed, because its director broke these two rules, preferring to rely on tonnes of special effects and mind-numbing explosion counts.

Like it or not, the water-based disaster movie is a strictly genre film, where directors can only make better movies by following the rules and not going out of hand with their fancy creativity. It’s a worksmanlike craft, in other words. Now Umizaru is an example of a well-done film that sticks to the rules of its genre, and yet provides an alternate imagining of the standard (read: Hollywood) disaster flick that audiences here are accustomed to.

We begin by ignoring for the time being the key actors in this drama, and even this drama at all. The feature of this film is a passenger ship the size of a 5-storey high building, sort of like the ones Star Cruise has, but bigger. We’d call it a liner here and name it Superstar Constellation or maybe the Superstar MosesLim, but the quaint Japanese insist that it’s a ferry boat and call it by the cute name of "The Clover". You know, because it’s petite.

Because the show is about the coast guard diving search and rescue team, you know for certain that this ocean liner is fated for some unpleasant end that involves either some explosions in the engine room, a fire spreading to multiple decks of the ship, some flooding compartments, and probably some sinking to top it off. That’s par for the course, but Umizaru 2 has a uniquely Japanese take on the entire disaster movie genre.

Rule #1. Drop the entire shock and awe agenda of CGI, explosions. Umizaru 2 isn’t a cheap movie at all, but it doesn’t spend its huge budget on multiple explosions on the set every few minutes. You have to respect the director’s dedication to a more realistic and gritty type of rescue movie. It is probable that the budget was spent in researching ship layouts, constructing believable sets, and making sure that in real life, you can in fact crawl from the level 3 storeroom to the level 5 stairwell on a Clover class ocean vessel.

Rule #2. Go for the drama feel. There is no horde of screaming passengers doomed to die en masse. That is a ballsy move that only the Japanese would consider for a disaster movie, really. No need to waste precious screen time deposing the unworthy, the whiney, the rich, the stupid and all those social undesirables one by one like a slasher flick. Instead, showcase the national coast guard team in an evacuation that goes completely smoothly (after all, the Japanese are efficient), except there are 2 passengers left on board, and 2 rescue divers who must locate and rescue them and evacuate the ferry before it blows up or sinks. So you have a very compact drama, based on the tension of just 4 people interacting with each other.

Rule #3. Go for more dramatics. Like any Japanese cop movie, rescue team movie and disaster movie, you can never go wrong by introducing additional tension and drama by involving the HQ situation room team, who must find a way to guide the rescue divers and their charges out of the ship. It’s a little like Apollo 13, but the Japanese have been writing scripts involving situation teams for years now, and Umizaru 2 deftly switches between the 2 different types of tension in the rescue operation (will the rescue team get out alive?) and the situation room operation (can they get the rescue team out alive?). Admittedly, if you haven’t been exposed to the real Godzilla movies, the situation room sequences will feel positively boring.

This is the whole point, though: Umizaru 2 works well because it evokes the feeling of macho fraternity, the feel that we are all in it, that subconscious samurai solidarity that people in the front line and the backend of operations believe in. When the film makes you feel that the suited bureaucrats in the situation room are every bit as deserving to be called heroes, then it has succeeded. When the film makes you believe how heroic the rescue team is, without even casting Stallone-class musclemen as the leads, then it has succeeded.

Umizaru 2 is the sequel to Umizaru, which strangely enough, was never shown in cinemas here. You’d probably have not heard of the original movie or the TV series it spawned. It wouldn’t hurt to know that Limit of Love brings back the protagonist Daisuke Senzaki (Ito Hideaki), his buddy Tetsuya Yoshioka (Ruyuta Sato), and fiancé Kana (Ai Sato), who helmed the original movie and the TV series. As a true sequel, Umizaru 2 concludes the growth of all 3 people, from divers in training to full fledged coast guards, from a dating couple to a couple on the verge of marriage. Audiences should be able to follow the plot even without watching the original film or the series as this film can stand on its own legs, but they will miss the fun of seeing Tokito Saburo return in an unexpected position for this sequel.

Umizaru 2 is a decent disaster movie, and sufficiently different from Hollywood fare. Depending on your tolerance for the plot conventions of the typical Japanese television drama and your love of Japanese kitsch, you might either find this just an average film that does everything just right, but only just, or a wildly entertaining film.

First published at incinemas on 10 August 2006

Break-up, the (2006)

Actually, this alternate ending sequence from the extras is the only reason why you might want to rent the DVD.

Vince Vaughn is a very watchable actor. He has good comic sense, ad libs his lines, and is even capable of playing uncomfortable, slightly creepy people in non-comic roles (for example, in Thumbsucker). Vince Vaughn displays none of these qualities in The Break-up, a romantic comedy that has 1 interesting idea, 10 genuinely funny minutes, and 2 screaming matches between its main characters.

The smart idea behind The Break-up is this: instead of a romantic comedy showing how two people meet and fall in love, how about a romantic comedy showing how a married couple break up acrimoniously, but in the midst of their pre-separation feuding and calculated plots to annoy and humiliate each other, realise that they’re not fighting over ownership of their swanky condo, but for their relationship?

Hollywood and the movies it produces are always dependent on limitations of its A-list actors and screenwriters. The truth of the matter is The Break-up would have been made into a good film in the 1980s or the 1950s, but not now. Neither acting or scriptwriting talent is on hand for what The Break-up would ideally look like– a romantic comedy variation on The War of the Roses and Ruthless People.

Character-wise, Vaughn and Aniston are sorely miscast. Vaughn is an excellent comedian while Aniston is still stuck in her Friends era cutie pie image. Neither can do mean. Sure, Vaughn can carry off slob well, and Aniston can scream and shout her lines, but that doesn’t amount to anything at all.

Script-wise, The Break-up is a car wreck. It lacks any sense of fun, dark humour, satire, angst, or pathos. Yes, we have a couple on the verge of pulling the plug on their marriage. That’s fine, but the writers have absolutely no sense what they want out of this excellent premise. Is this film a mean social satire at suburban divorce? Or perhaps a zany look at completely mismatched, inherently incompatible couples and their friends? Or a depressing study of a marriage in decay, like late Ingmar Bergman? We have absolutely no idea either. There are mediocre attempts at all these possibilities, but the comedy falls flat, the insight is shallow to the point of non-existence, there is only one moment of uncomfortable comedy that might qualify as satire, and the shouting matches and shenanigans between Aniston and Vaughn are so very pedestrian.

What is far worse about the scripting is this: the writers forget to balance out Gary (Vince Vaughn) and Brooke (Jennifer Aniston). Whether they intended a comedy, satire, social commentary or a drama, the important thing is to have the couple be equally mean, equally likeable, or equally dislikeable. Instead, Gary not only lacks any funny lines, he also lacks any redeeming quality and comes across as an arrogant oaf to Brooke’s American pie image. With an imbalance like this, it is impossible for audiences to derive any satisfaction or entertainment from the bickering couple, simply because they will have to side with Brooke.

The Break-up might have been funny if Brooke wasn’t such an innocent aggrieved party, or if Vaughn was not a total prick. Make Brooke an annoying and sanctimonious character, give Gary some likeable qualities. Either way, there would be something entertaining or fitting about the two…

The meat of the movie lies in the feuds the couple engage in. The condo is the prize for the party able to endure the annoyances that their ex-spouse puts up (he invites his buddies for strip poker in the living room, she invites her brother’s band over for rehearsal). All this feels episodic, like a comedy drama, but the sequences strangely lack humour of any kind and are painful to watch. What a bored audience with all the time in the world can do to block out the bad cinematic experience is to think, and come to the realisation: the two were never meant to be together, so how on earth did they get married in the first place? Then, the movie falls apart rather quickly. You might want to run out of the exit before then.

One good thing about this movie is it eschews the standard romantic comedy ending. But then, you weren’t expecting it to anyway because film completely demolishes any chance, or scenario that could bring back them together. The other good thing is the supporting cast, especially Judy Davis as Brooke’s eccentric art gallery boss ,most of whom are actually funnier than Vince Vaughn, but some of their routines could be hit and miss affairs (Richard Meyers). Overall, there isn’t enough fun in The Break-up to warrant even a DVD rental 6 months down the road.

First published at incinemas on 17 August 2006

Insomnia (DVD) (2002)

Seasonal affective disorder is particularly pronounced in the higher latitudes

A friend of mine told me once that noir is not a genre but a state of mind. I laughed at him for all of 5 seconds before realising that yes, you can forgo the realism (Sin City), the detective protagonist (A History of Violence), or even mirror the morally conflicted cop with a morally conflicted criminal (Infernal Affairs) and still end up with what undoubtedly feels like a noir film anyway.

The noir trend this decade is typified by directors who make an creative exercise of producing noir films by forgoing certain sacred cows of the genre, but the most radical move to date was made by Erik Skjoldbjærg, with his decision to relocate the detective story to a small town just inside the Arctic Circle, where there are 24 hours of daylight in summer. If you think on the meaning of the word noir, this is about the most sacred cow that can be slaughtered. In this 2002 US remake and adaptation of the Norwegian film of the same name, the original conceit is revisited, given depth and even broadened.

In this installment of Insomnia, Al Pacino plays LAPD detective Will Dormer, who is sent (or perhaps has pulled some strings to be sent) to a small town in Alaska to investigate a murder, together with his partner Hap Eckhart (Martin Donovan).

The local police department may feel this is a routine investigation that will no doubt be sped up by Dormer’s legendary skill, but the detective is also trying to get out of the heat of a departmental investigation. Apparently, like some noir heroes, Dormer is willing to bend a few rules in order to get the guilty the justice they deserve – or maybe not, but we aren’t sure, and neither does Eckhart, who decides to cooperate with the departmental investigation.

In the land of the midnight sun, what happens is the noir film becomes interiorised. Or as my friend put it, the essence of noir then becomes a state of mind that the director must impress upon the audience. What I liked is how Christopher Nolan does it by refocusing the film on the state of mind of Dormer, documenting the decline of his body and mind from insomnia (until one acclimatises to 24-hour daylight, it is somewhat difficult to sleep), guilt, and paranoia.

When the murderer turns up in an unexpected fashion in the half-way mark of the movie, another conceit is introduced: from a whodunit, Insomnia switches to a “why did he do it” mystery, and more importantly, the interaction between Dormer and his designated prey is complicated by the fact that the murderer is more than aware of the investigations in New York, and wants to simultaneously help and blackmail Dormer in return for his freedom.

Will the detective bend the rules yet one more time? Will he bend the rules instead to ensure the capture of the murderer? Nolan in his remake does some tweaking of the plot to ensure that Dormer is a shade more sympathetic to audiences, a move that actually brings the character to noir specifications of an amoral but conflicted protagonist. Also, the casting choice and direction of the murderer is an act of brilliance – no one expects Robin Williams is able to pull off a “normal to the point of banality” killer, which is more creepy than a demented killer type, and somewhat appropriate for this noir with many twists.

Whether it is for Nolan actually improves on the original, the acting of Al Pacino and Robin Williams, or the cat and mouse game between the two, Insomnia is worth the viewing and more than worth the DVD purchase.

First published at incinemas on 2 August 2006

Mr and Mrs Smith (DVD) (2005)

Maybe Doug Liman was doing a parody of John Woo making a romantic comedy, like one of those sketches you see on Saturday Night Life, where Kevin Spacey once did impressions of Walter Mathau, Christopher Walken and Richard Dreyfus auditioning for roles in Star Wars.

Or maybe this movie proves a theory a movie kaki once expounded on, aeons ago. To wit: Any film is a product of the movie industry, and what genre of movies are doable and how well they turn out are determined by the limitations of its A-list actors. And if I may build on my friend’s excellent observation, the current film products of Hollywood are also determined by the limitations of its scriptwriters, aside from the qualities of its A-list stars.

Take for example Mr and Mrs Smith. A couple happily ("numbingly", "soul-destroyingly", in the suburban speak) married to each other for 5 or 6 years turn out to be keeping secrets from each other. He’s an assassin for some agency. She’s an assassin for another agency. And these are rival agencies competing for the same contracts and kills, so you can imagine how fatal this revelation is to their marriage, and what manner of measures the couple will take to clarify the rather awkward position of being betrayed by each other.

Bickering couples being very nasty to each other, to the point of wanting each other dead – and actually trying to kill each other, while continuing their verbal battles. We have seen this done before, most recently with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in War of the Roses, or Danny DeVito and Bette Midler in Ruthless People. Going even closer to married assassins scenario, we have Jack Nicholson and Kathleen Turner in Prizzi’s Honor. Going much further back, there is a treasure chest of classics from the Golden Age featuring almost all-out gender war between strong male leads and fiercer female leads.

What makes Mr and Mrs Smith a failure is the lack of A-list actors who can pull off these roles with believability. Sure, Brad Pitt is Mr Pretty Boy and occasional action star, but he cannot play an unpleasant man, and is completely unsuitable for black comedy. Sure, Angelina Jolie is Ms Tomb Raider, but her limited acting range is so severely limited, she can’t even do comedy, let alone dark comedy. So ,we are left with a movie where the two leads pout a lot, yet fail to convey any sexual tension, and are utterly unconvincing as people who would want to do each other in.

What could be worse? The screenplay is a clumsy, 3-legged lumbering beast. Never mind that it fails to create truly dark, truly funny, or even humorous dialogue needed for the genre and concept this film requires. Never mind that in place of truly dark and funny dialogue, we are treated to banal repartee that disgraces the name of repartee and only manages to elicit laughs because of its anticlimactic banality. The problem with the screenplay is it cannot decide what to do once the couple (the blandly named John and Jane Smith) find out the secret identity of their spouse. Will it be a dark comedy? Will it be an action movie? Will it be a car chase movie? Will it be a weapons porn movie? Will it be a John Woo movie? The scriptwriter doesn’t know and tries to smash the plot in a new direction every 20 minutes.

Your patience will be stretched as the gear shifts come in fast and furious, yet incoherently. Your credibility will be stretched in the final moments, when Doug Liman and Simon Kinberg just toss out the entire premise and (badly constructed) build-up for a John Woo shootout in a supermarket. So they work in assassination agencies, are have about 50 assassins targeting them at the end, and the Smiths don’t even need to aim to shoot their enemies, they can fire their rifles, two in a hand, and look as if they’re doing some kind of balletic dance?

I guess that’s what happens when the screenplay happens to be the Masters thesis by a recent film graduate. Or maybe that’s what happens when Liman’s screenplay had to go through more than 50 rewrites by studio hacks. Maybe, just maybe, someone at the studio should’ve just taken a look at the script and the stars that were cast, and just said there’s no way we can make this movie a reality. Since that didn’t happen, the resulting movie is a joke.

Rent this if you’re a fan of Brangelina. Rent this if you want to break up with your boyfriend or girlfriend. Otherwise, just hunt down Prizzi’s Honor, War of the Roses, or Ruthless People.

Little Man (2006)

Q: What can be worse than making an unoriginal and uninspired film?
A: Making a film that is a blatant work of plagiarism.

As a movie reviewer, I can tell you that unoriginality is not a sin. For remakes and quite often in genre films, directors and scriptwriters end up making more polished and refined films the more they take on the same type of material. However, I have an intolerance when filmmakers lift ideas, scenes, and dialogue wholesale from a previous work and pass it off as their own, without acknowledging the originator of the idea. That’s called plagiarism, and if you do it in school, you will no longer have a place in school. Simply put, it’s the sin of being completely uncreative, pretending otherwise, hoping no one notices, and then hoping to profit from it.

Q: What can be worse than making a plagiaristic work?
A: When your film plagiarises a short cartoon from the 1954.

In Baby Buggy Bunny, Babyface Finster, a criminal who happens to be a dwarf, has to masquerade as a baby in order to get retrieve his ill-gotten gains from a clever bank robbery, after the money is dropped down Bug Bunny’s rabbit hole.

In Little Man, “Babyface” Calvin (Marlon Wayans), a criminal who happens to be a dwarf (the torso of Linden Porco), has to masquerade as a baby (the torso of Gabriel Pimental) in order to retrieve his ill-gotten gains from a clever jewellery store heist, after the jewel is dropped into the purse of Vanessa (Kerry Washington).

Q: What can be worse than that, then?
A: When it’s so blatant almost everyone notices the rip-off (i.e. US critics who saw this in May, like Art Biniger).

There’s the scene where Bugs Bunny discovers a military tattoo on the baby. That scene is repeated when Darryl (Shawn Wayans) and Vanessa discover a military tattoo on the baby.

There’s another scene where the baby is given the “upsy daisy” by an initially reluctant adoptive parent. Occurs in both films.

There’s yet another key scene, the “lights out gag”, where baby clubs a henchman over the head every time he turns off the lights, and you get to see what’s happening in silhouette.

And these are some of the best scenes in Little Man. This is not only unoriginal, it is mindlessly uncreative, and the Wayans brothers didn’t even bother to acknowledge their debt to Chuck Jones or Michael Maltese, the creators of Baby Buggy Bunny, in the end credits. Did the Wayanses think movie audiences wouldn’t notice? The old Bugs Bunny cartoon is syndicated and still showing around the world!

Q: You’re not going to tell me there’s more.
A: When everyone also notices how utterly incompetent the filmmakers are.

The main comedy in Little Man appears to be the Wayans brothers trademark scatological and raunchy jokes. In this case, just think of all the NC16 situations a grown man masquerading as a baby can get in, and you have half of the jokes in this movie, which centre around inappropriate contact between that man/baby and his adoptive mother and other female caregivers.

Problem: Marlon Wayans’s head is glued very badly to the torsos of Porco and Pimental that you can see how much it moves the wrong way from the body, or how much his head jiggles (a sign of cheap and nasty CGI). You will giggle not at the risqué jokes, but at the horrible CGI.

Then, imagine all the jokes involving hits to the groin, urine on the face, and you’ll have the other half of the jokes in this movie.

Problem: You’ve seen these jokes elsewhere, in Scary Movie 2 and 3, and in other ranchy movies from the past 2 years. The Wayans brothers have actually achieved something they’ve never done before, which is to make a movie with recycled raunchy jokes that have been watered down. If you’re going to make a bad comedy, at least put in some effort with these grotesque jokes!

Ordinarily, I’d say this is the worst movie you can watch this year, but then audiences did flock to the cinemas to watch Superman Returns, where the titular hero exists in a world that doesn’t notice Clark Kent looks exactly like Superman, even with his spectacles on. These same audience should flock to the cinemas to watch Little Man, where the titular anti-hero exists in a world that doesn’t notice the cute little baby looks exactly like an ugly dwarf.

First published at incinemas on 7 September 2006