HOLIDAY DISAPPOINTMENTS: “Holmes,” “Hugo,” and “Young Adult”

By Dan Cohen, Santa Monica Reporter

“GAMES OF SHADOWS”

Any resemblance between “Game of Shadows,” Robert Downey, Jr.’s latest turn as Sherlock Holmes, and the first installment, from two years ago, is purely coincidental. Where the first was witty and fleet footed, this one is dull and flat footed. It’s an extravagantly expensive mess, sure to bore the same audience that was delighted by its antecedent.

I was fooled by the dynamic trailer; “Game of Shadows” looked liked an extension of all that was puckishly charming about director Guy Richie’s first run at the Holmes canon. And he aims for the same tone, only the script falls short, leaving him to grapple with long winded dialogue that lumbers where it means to skip before devolving into action scenes that are overlong and overblown. I say overlong because we’re better off wanting to see just a little more than being force fed too much.  But this is a trap that Hollywood finds hard to resist.

There are inspired moments; Holmes unexpectedly appearing in drag or cleverly camouflaged as a part of the décor in his study.  The lush interiors support the illusion of period creation. And no expense has been spared to goose the many locations. Downey, Jude Law, and Stephen Fry, as Holmes brother, do their best to make it seem like they’re having fun with every new threat that comes at them.  But with the exception of Jared Harris, who’s equipped with a fair degree of wit as Holmes’ arch nemesis, Moriarty, the cast struggles to prop up a fussy screenplay rife with self conscious devices that feel like elements that might have been rejected from the first outing.

Way too much is made of the homoerotic slant that colors Holmes and Watson’s relationship. Last time it was set in opposition to Holmes’ dalliance with perky Irene Adler, played by Rachel McAdams.  Sadly, McAdams appears only briefly this time around. Without her the script keeps returning to the ongoing joke of the two male leads’ campy codependence, a strategy that is no longer novel.

It’s ok to goose an audience with explosions and stop motion editing, but there have to be clearly defined story points to make them really sing. Too often the set ups for the action is explained after the fact.  In the stories Arthur Conan Doyle was constantly putting Holmes in the position of explaining his reasons after the fact. But the page is different. The all important elements of suspense are better served when explanations are delivered before the action instead of afterwards. After is often too late for us to be truly involved.

I’m sorry this movie doesn’t work, I really am. I hope that if the series survives to see a third episode, the creators will recover and deliver something as diverting as their first effort.

“YOUNG ADULT”

Charlize Theron is a terrific actress.  Is there anyone who’d argue that? In spite of an indelible physical presence she can make us see her any way she wants. If you saw the entirely superior “Monster,” or the uneven “Life and Death of Peter Sellers,” you know exactly what I mean.

But she doesn’t have to add thirty pounds or dental implants to keep you involved.  She’s a stunning movie star with awe inspiring control of her gifts.  She can let you know what she’s thinking or how she feels with the flick of her eyebrow or any other feature on her remarkable face. She’s bigger than the supporting roles she’s played in “2 Days in the Valley,”  “The Italian Job” and “Hancock.” Just by showing up she makes a movie better.

In the Diablo Cody written “Young Adult” Theron brings a willfully superficial character to life with detail and nuance.  She’s found the feelings between the lines, expressing them in her face and body. If only the material was up to her skills.

This is the latest effort from director Jason Reitman, who delivered three outstanding comic dramas in a row; “Thank You For Smoking,” “Juno,” and “Up in the Air.” An impressive acheivement. When it comes to comic drama his only serious competition is Alexander Payne, the director of “The Descendants.”

Mavis Gary is a Minneapolis based writer of “young adult” novels, but they don’t carry her name; she’s ghosting for the writer who conceived the series.  Right from the start we find out the franchise has run out of steam, and Mavis is behind in completing the last volume. Instead of working she spends most of her time drunk or sleeping with a guy for whom she shows little or no interest.

For reasons that are unclear she goes back to the small town she came from, with the aim of retrieving her high school boyfriend, (Patrick Wilson,) now married with an infant daughter.  After crashing in a local motel she mounts an ill conceived campaign to “liberate” him from his middle class mooring.  Along the way she latches onto another former classmate, (Patton Oswalt,) a partially disabled victim of a hate crime who she leans on whenever things go wrong.

The movie details several passages that show Mavis physically remaking herself, to better tempt Wilson’s married man. At the same time it exposes her condescending attitude to her hometown and everybody in it. At bottom she’s little more than a sick drunk with problems that go way beyond the movie’s limited scope.

Reitman showed a great affinity for Diablo’s intimate and funny “Juno.” You felt like he gave the actors enough space to exploit every innuendo in the understated problem comedy about a pregnant but endlessly resourceful teenager, the break through role for Ellen Page.  With Theron  on board there was every reason to believe the Cody/Reitman team would make something special out of the troubled character in “Young Adult.”

The movie might have worked better if the script was darker and funnier; if it had been goosed by a fusillade of acid dialogue, or if the characters were allowed to wreak serious havoc on one another, the way they do in “Bridesmaids.” But writer Cody has chosen to keep the people grounded. She wants us to believe in Mavis although she doesn’t want to venture into the messy depths at the bottom of her troubled psyche.  Mavis goes deep into her delusions, but without the sort of conflict that would increase the tension or our involvement. Her story plays more like a bicycle crash than a train wreck.

Theron works to keep Mavis alive in every on screen moment, and you want to cheer her on, even as the movie lulls you into apathy. Patton Oswalt, struggling with a part that, at least in theory, is even more difficult, adds depth and a few moments of levity. But the movie gets to a point and then more or less stands still.

There’s a great scene near the end, where Oswalt’s damaged sister, (Collete Wolfe) and Mavis, sit across a table and blurt out their respective truths. It’s an exhilarating moment when two people from different planets suddenly connect with unexpected candor. It’s electric, but too late to make the movie as compelling as the effort the actors have put forth trying to make it breathe.

” HUGO”

“Hugo” is an ambitious experiment that languishes for too much of its running time, in spite of the best efforts of the great Martin Scorsese, and his storied collaborators, editor Thelma Schoonmaker and production designer Dante Ferreti, among many others.

The story line, taken from a well known childrens’ novel, deals with the meeting of the aging cinema pioneer Georges Melies, and a young orphan who keeps the clocks running in the Paris train station.  The movie is a lavish super production that lumbers when it should tiptoe.

Part of the problem, but not all, can be laid at the altar of the mercilessly oppressive 3D technique to which so many studio executives have come to worship.  What they’re doing, in cases like this is, anchoring a heavy weight to an already cumbersome property and then sending it into heavy storms when they’re barely seaworthy to begin with.

Hugo, (Asa Butterfield,) is a penniless urchin who lives in the clock tower above the Paris train station sometime during the ‘30s. Orphaned by a fire that killed his father, (briefly played by Jude Law) he lives by his wits, mainly stealing, although the movie doesn’t do a good job of showing this. Right from the start it’s overly concerned with its bona fides as a “family” film. When the elderly owner of a toy shop, (Ben Kingsley,) catches him pilfering, the boy forfeits a valuable notebook owned by his departed dad. Thus sets in motion the clockwork plot that eventually reveals the old man to be the famous film pioneer, George Melies, and the subject of his notebook, one of his greatest creations.

There are a dozen intricate vistas before the title credit. For the most part they’re breathtaking. The problem is you’d rather be inside them than sitting in the theater, watching. Right from the start the 3D becomes the real subject of the movie; it works better as a travelogue than a narrative.  Then the characters start talking, and the movie’s real problems begin. Since they float in various distances on a plane thatchanges with every shot, they seem to be talking at instead of to each other. This is especially true as Hugo forms a tenuous relationship with the little girl whose grandfather has taken his notebook. The 3D images seem to be at odds with the development of any chemistry.

Sasha Baron Cohen, famous for “Borat,” appears as the station Gendarme, in a part that’s way too big for its importance to the real stakes. At his best Cohen seems stiff and uncomfortable, probably because he’s directed in some of the movie’s most awkward physical comedy. There’s more than one close up where he appears alone in the frame, dangling in front of you, with nothing to do.  The talented Emily Mortimer, playing a flower girl he covets but can’t talk to, has fewer than a handful of lines, so we never learn much about her. The two of them add little to the movie, beyond length.

About midway the two children sneak into a movie house where Harold Lloyd’s famed “Safety Last” is screening.  Scorcese cull moments from the great clock tower scene, one of the many stunts Lloyd performed without the benefit of CGI or a stunt double. These short bits, graced by Lloyds unique persona, are more fluid, energetic, and joyful than half the contrivances of the super production that bookends them. When the story finally gets around to George Melies and his wondrous work in the early silent period, Scorcese delivers some truly enchanting moments.  But by this time, about 90 minutes in, we’re already soured on the movie as a whole.

Many movie lovers have surrendered to “Hugo,” because it’s intended as a loving homage to the lifeblood of a great film artist. I wanted to join them, but couldn’t, in spite of my high regard for Scorcese. There’s just too much baggage from the source material with all its contrivances. And you have to wonder what the producers were after. Did the really think they could evoke the magic of Melies, conjured long before the establishment of actual movie theaters, then package it and sell it to the video game generation?

In light of “Hugo,” and so many others, I’m not sure what to make of 3D. Whether it’s going through a difficult adolescence or proving itself unsuited to anything but animation or sports, I haven’t a clue. On a case by case basis, however, I’ve seen it fail more often than succeed. The images are mostly too dark, the editing too slow, and the individual scenes overly burdened with detail.  In a way the 3D seems to be a character itself, in need of the kind of directors who have not yet come of age.

As “Hugo” struggled through so many predictable turns of plot I wondered what Melies, who’s primitive but inspired special effects still tickle the imagination, would make of today’s CGI and 3D?