2006 / 106 Minutes / R
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz

This past weekend, Madison finally caught up with the rest of the nation. We finally got the latest from Woody Allen (“Match Point”) and Terrence Malick (“The New World”), two films that have been enjoying critical acclaim and awards speculation since opening in Los Angeles and New York in mid-December. According to most critics, these two offerings are among the best that modern film has to offer, towering and intelligent achievements. And yet, I wasn’t in the mood for either of those films. No. I was in the mood to see a woman dressed in skin-tight leather fight vampires and werewolves.

I wasn’t a big fan of the original “Underworld”, though I must admit that I didn’t hate it as much as my roommate did. For some reason, Ben has a vendetta against that movie. True, it’s not the hottest. It’s rather slow for an action film and it spends a lot of time on a plot that isn’t as ingenious and spectacular as its writers and director must have assumed it was. But it wasn’t terrible. It was simply mediocre. And yet…something about the trailers for its sequel intrigued me. It looked like the sort of brain-dead, action-packed fun that I have, frankly, missed. Maybe I’m tired of seeing movies that are actually good, who knows. I guess I’ve sat through too many well-written, well-directed films about people wrecking their own lives in the pursuit of some loftier goal (“Capote”, “Munich”, “Squid and the Whale”, et al) recently, because it was nice to just turn my brain off and let walls of noise, gore and action spill over me.

And yet, for a movie of this kind, “Underworld: Evolution” is still somewhat over-plotted. That was the main problem of the first film. It’s a movie about a secret war between vampires (known in these movies as “Death Dealers”, apparently because the word “vampire” sounds stupid) and werewolves (known as “Lycans” because someone probably thought that was clever) and yet, from the attention and time spent on the plot of the first film, you’d think director Len Wiseman thought he was adapting a Shakespeare play. There were betrayals and shocking revelations (which weren’t all that shocking, really) and all kinds of stuff that wasn’t as interesting as it should be. “Underworld: Evolution” provides more of the same. This time, however, we in the audience are given a better feel for this world. We are given a greater insight into the war between the Lycans and the, ahem, Death Dealers (it gets lamer every time I type it). We get a better understanding of the beef that exists between these two species. Unfortunately, after we get this understanding, the werewolves kind of fade into the background. This new film is more concerned with the politics of vampires. There’s a hierarchy to vampire society and “Underworld: Evolution” (since I’m sick of typing that we shall henceforth refer to the movie as “U:E”) has a lot of fun exploring it. It does so better than most films of its kind, though not as well as the original “Blade” which is the end-all, be-all of this kind of movie. I thought the original “Underworld” did quite well at establishing the atmosphere of this world and “U:E” shares that strength.

The reason I like this movie better, however, is simple: it kicks a lot more ass. None of us have come to a movie like this to see expert plotting and superb character development. If we get it, sure, we’ll take it. It’s an extra bonus. But first and foremost, a film like this exists to provide thrilling action sequences. For the most part, the original “Underworld” neglected this part of the equation. It wanted to be “The Matrix” with vampires and, well, it wasn’t. “U: E” doesn’t seem to possess such lofty aspirations. It seems to me that “U: E” just wants to be a better movie than the original. In this, it succeeds. The bad guy is better, for one thing. Though Bill Nighy is a cool actor and the perfect guy to play either a vampire king or a Keith Richards-esque rock fossil, he didn’t really get to go for the throat as he should have in the first “Underworld”. We get a few flashbacks of him here and he’s more menacing in those flashbacks than he was in the whole first movie. But the main bad-ass here is Marcus (played to the hilt by Tony Curran). Marcus is the original vampire, the one who started it all and spawned all the other bloodsucking freaks. Initially, Selene (Kate Beckinsale, with her ass thankfully turned toward the camera as often as possible) wants to resurrect Marcus from hibernation so she can explain why she slaughtered most of the head vampires in “Underworld” (or…something, her reasons are fairly murky). However, it soon becomes apparent that this was a boneheaded move. Marcus, you see, barely even bothers looking human. He just flies around impaling people with these wickedly cool wing things of his and generally looking like the worst nightmare of the guy who draws Meat Loaf’s album covers. He’s a pretty imposing bad guy and though we’re not sure what he hopes to accomplish by resurrecting his imprisoned brother (who, incidentally, was the world’s original werewolf) we’re instantly rooting against it. Anything this guy wants to do has just GOT to be bad news.

The plot is fairly murky and it’s made worse toward the beginning because “U:E” assumes you have the ability to remember specific moments in “U” and understand their meaning. Having seen “U” two years ago, once, in a slightly drowsy state, I was rather lost by much of this. It all clicked for me by the forty-five minute mark, however, and from then on I had a blast. This movie doesn’t neglect its plot, but it moves more quickly and it has a lot more action in it. There’s a cool chase between Marcus in full demon mode and large, commercial truck. There’s a pretty bad-ass scene where Marcus is so hungry for blood that he drains a stable full of horses (I guess humans just didn’t have enough nourishment, horses must be the Old Country Buffet of the vampire set). There are some cool gunfights. There are many daring escapes and altercations with various enemies, both Lycan and D.D. And, just when I was about to bemoan the lack of werewolves in the film (for some reason, I enjoy werewolf movies) the ending really amps up the number of lycanthropes and provides an even higher level of menacing, bad-ass, glorified B-movie entertainment.

The actors are basically irrelevant in this film, but some of them are worth mentioning. Tony Curran, as I already mentioned, is nicely intimidating. Bill Nighy rocks in his limited screen time. Kate Beckinsale does about as well as she can with what she has to work with (and she displays a lot more flesh this time which is worth the price of matinee admission in and of itself). And Derek Jacobi brings some welcome class to the enterprise in a rather regal role. Scott Speedman isn’t all that great (I’ve never seen him in anything where I thought he was too spectacular) but he isn’t distracting, so it could’ve been worse. Still, I think the movie might have had more of an emotional resonance if a better actor had occupied Speedman’s role. (This may have been the major stumbling block of the first film, come to think of it.) As is, it feels like Beckinsale has risked a little too much for a guy whose best attribute is that he’s handsome in a generic sort of way.

All in all, it’s not a great fantasy adventure (like “Sith” or “Serenity”) but it’s never boring, it’s got some fun action sequences, and it’s got more plot than most action movies. It’s not as good as “The Matrix” but it’s better and a lot more coherent than the hollow Matrix sequels. It ain’t Shakespeare but, unlike “U”, “U:E” doesn’t pretend to be.

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2005 / 164 Minutes / R
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz

In my “King Kong” review, I mentioned that Peter Jackson had filled the gap that filmmakers like Spielberg and, despite one great film in his recent resume, George Lucas had long left vacant: making the sort of big, imaginative entertainment that makes you forget everything outside the borders of the screen for a little while. Well, while Peter is doing the sorts of movies that Lucas and Spielberg used to make with such regularity, Spielberg is busy doing something new, something completely different. There is a reason that Steve isn’t making those sorts of movies anymore. Steve has more important things on his mind.

With all its flaws, “War of the Worlds” had more intensity and went to darker places than any movie of its kind ever had. And, while that movie no longer rocks me the way it did early last summer, it’s still a potent, intense film with interesting notions that disguises itself as a Hollywood blockbuster. The difference between that and a movies like “Close Encounters” is what makes Steve such a continually amazing filmmaker. His sensibilities seem to have drastically changed. And while he still works a little sentimentality into each film (like the ending of “War of the Worlds”, the part that works the least) he has been making some of the darkest Hollywood fare in recent memory. There is a grit and muscle to his recent work that is only occasionally evident in his early stuff. “Minority Report” isn’t as good as “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, but it has a dark thread running through it that the earlier film did not. There is a grit and menace to “Minority Report”, “A.I.” and, most of all, “Munich”. That darkness has always lurked beneath the surface in Spielberg’s work, even his most cheerful. Remember that menacing image of the “astronauts” invading a suburban home in “E.T.”? That image still holds the power of a potent nightmare. But in his recent crop of films, Steve has brought that facet of his talent to the forefront. It’s the reason his recent films live and breathe, and the reason I’m so glad he stopped trying to suppress that instinct as he seems to have done in the “Jurassic Park” films. The reason the “Jurassic Parks” don’t work as well as most of his other work was that his heart didn’t seem to be in it. He seemed to be going through the motions. Starting with “Schindler’s List” Steve has turned into a more mature, thoughtful filmmaker, doing only the movies he feels truly called upon to make…and I love him for it. Had he kept making hollow spectacles like “Jurassic Park”, he would have remained a technically proficient filmmaker, but his films would have been lifeless. The difference between Spielberg and other filmmakers working in the fantasy realm is the difference between “War of the Worlds” and a movie like “Independence Day”. Technically, “Independence Day” works, but it doesn’t speak to the real world, it doesn’t really matter. “War of the Worlds” is challenging and thought-provoking and, above all, it matters. His movies still have the spark and energy of the old Spielberg. It’s just that, now, he puts his imagination and technical artistry to the service of more challenging fare. The more he challenges himself, the more he challenges us in the audience, and the more I, for one, love him for it. He’ll never be the guy who made “Raiders of the Lost Ark” again, but at least he won’t be the guy trying to make “Raiders of the Lost Ark” again. He’s not a formerly great filmmaker struggling to regain his touch by making clones of his greatest achievement (which is sort of how Lucas’s recent work seems to be…except for “Sith” which finally beats with the vitality of his early imaginative work). And, as much as I love the current work of Peter Jackson, I wonder if he will have the ability to put his tools and talents to such daring work and keep reinventing himself the way that Steven Spielberg has.

I set out to write a review of Steven’s latest film and, instead, I have written an essay on why Spielberg (whose biggest recent flaw is that he does not quite know when to bring a movie to its end) remains such a vibrant force in the world of cinema. Well, the reason I felt motivated to do that is simple: “Munich” is just that damned good. And the reason it’s so damned good is the reason that a movie like “Syriana” isn’t. “Munich” is about politics and terrorism and the geo-political landscape. And yet it is a decidedly human epic. “Syriana” used its characters as mouthpieces for the political points it was trying to make, as puppets to move along a complex narrative of greed and global corruption. “Munich” is, first and foremost, about the people involved in such global actions, the foot soldiers called upon to carry out the agendas of governments and entire peoples. It deals with politics and issues like morality, cultural identity and the spider web effects of revenge, but it gives those issues a face. It makes those traits identifiable by giving us characters to which we can relate. And it does so often in little moments that carry the weight that an hour of film could: the opening scene of “Munich” illustrates geo-political politics in a way most movies only dream about, simply by showing a terrorist attack and the reactions of a diverse group of people watching that attack progress on television.

“Munich” is tangentially about the 1972 terrorist attack by Palestinians on Israeli athletes at the Olympics in Munich, Germany. But it is mostly about the aftermath of that attack. It is the story of a small group of Israeli agents (led by the magnetic Eric Bana) assigned to track down and kill those most directly responsible for the Munich attack. It is fitting that the film is called “Munich”, though very little of it is actually about the Munich attacks. The events of “Munich” are the catalyst for everything else that happens, and they are the ghosts haunting each man involved in this story.

First of all, “Munich” is surprisingly entertaining. The acts of revenge brought about by the men at the center of this film are staged with the flavor and taut efficiency of such great 1970’s thrillers as “The Parallax View” and “Black Sunday”. As a simple thriller, the film works amazingly well and beats with the distinct flavor of those 70’s thrillers, right down to the costumes and the camera work. The killings are incredibly tense and powerful, the suspense here is palpable as the men hunt down and destroy each man on their list. Particularly strong is a sequence near the beginning of the film when the Israeli assassins plant a bomb to kill one of their targets, only to have his young daughter get in the way. Their efforts to stop the bomb in time had me perched on the very edge of my seat.

Within the framework of this effective, absorbing thriller, Steve explores the personal aspects of the assassins and their mission. Are they really doing the right thing? Are they doing it for the right reasons? Are they being set up? Are they, themselves, being hunted? Can they even live with what they are doing? The external conflict is fascinating enough, but Spielberg heightens it and enhances the tension of it by getting inside the assassins’ heads and showing us the conflict raging there as well. Eric Bana, Cieran Hinds, Daniel Craig, Hanns Zischler, and Matthieu Kassovitz all do excellent jobs of humanizing these hunters. They are not cold, efficient killing machines. Instead, they are surprisingly common men doing the job that their country has called them to do, and trying to retain their innate humanity in the process. Their performances combine with Tony Kushner’s screenplay to riveting effect.

As if those two factors weren’t enough, the film also operates on the political level. It explores the motivations behind the initial Munich attack, the murky quagmire that is Middle Eastern relations, the motives behind the retaliations and the part that this small drama plays in the overall structure of the Middle East, not to mention the rest of the planet…up to this very day. And it does all this in a manner that is never anything less than fascinating. The filmmakers have done an excellent job of integrating these ideas and facts effortlessly into the narrative structure of the film so that the entire movie does not collapse under the weight of them, nor does the film grind to a halt to illustrate these observations. All of this is just brilliantly done, and brings the movie to yet another level of artistry and greatness.

Not only does it balance these ideas, characters and plot threads so nimbly, but the movie does so with entertainment, flair and panache. There are moments of simple beauty here, moments of non-sugary sentimentality, moments of nearly unbearable suspense, moments of simple humanity, moments of heartache and loss, and moments of true relevance. No other movie I’ve seen this year balances this much content with such simple dexterity. No other movie I’ve seen this year has this much story to tell or tells it so easily and effectively. And Steven Spielberg has assembled this film, covering all this content and territory, and with all this emotional resonance, in a mere six months. And that is yet another testament to the power of Spielberg as a filmmaker. It is the reason he continues to enlighten, entertain and challenge us with each new film. It is the reason he still matters, and matters perhaps more than any filmmaker before or since. Scorsese and De Palma have some of his technical flair, but they (arguably) take fewer chances than him and their films are far less captivating. Not only that, but they are nowhere near as efficient.

Steven Spielberg doesn’t make movies like he used to. But, unlike most filmmakers, I get the feeling that he chooses not to. He keeps pushing himself, and his audience, in new and exciting directions. He’s never made a film like “Munich”. In fact, I would argue that nobody has.

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