I Love You, Man (2009)

Despite falling into a classical and formulaic plot, I Love You, Man is a socially engaging piece of cinema that somehow feels authentic in its own respect. Written and directed by John Hamburg, the film follows Peter Klaven who has just got engaged to Zooey Rice. Peter, however does not seem to have anyone special he’d like to share the good news with. After overhearing Zooey's friends tell her that they are concerned Peter does not have any friends, he realizes he needs to find some male friends in order to have a best man for his wedding. This concept forms the foundations to a rather simplistic but overwhelmingly derisive film.

The film is aimed at and advertised for a typical female audience, even though the film primarily focuses on the male figure, in particular masculinity and male sexuality. The film therefore segregates itself from the conventions of the romantic comedy by taking its conventions and almost criticising them entirely. The space that both Peter and his “friend” Sydney spend time together is not a space of “manliness” devoted to the male sex, but rather a space that the female audience can intrude in, giving them an insight into the opposite sex, creating comedy for them. This is not to say the male audience is excluded from the film. For them, the film becomes more than a tool for getting some comedy from, but a meaningful way of looking at the contemporary state of the male self and how this relates to the society in which we exist.

Paul Rudd as Peter Klaven demonstrates good performances, but sadly Rashida Jones (Zooey Rice) does not. Her performances at times verge on amateur which was exposed because of the nature of her role. She was not the ‘typical female figure’ who was about to fall into ‘normal marriage‘, and her character demanded a much more flexible approach which she unfortunately did not achieve. Rudd, on the other hand, stayed true to the nature of his role and the many diverse situations he was faced with, really lifting his profile as a prolific Hollywood actor. The directing most certainly added to the emotions expressed from the film, even if, at times, John Hamburg could have prevented so many shots being to static, prolonging one single situation. This effect at times make certain moments of the film seem too long winded and unfortunately unnecessary.

With a whole range of films of its kind being released as of late, I Love You, Man could have been a predictable, formulaic addition to a genre suffering from genetic exhaustion. The key quality from the film most certainly comes from its unexpected ability to draw in different audience types and providing different messages to them. Women will laugh, Men will laugh at the woman. Overall, I Love You, Man is a unique and highly unforeseen piece of cinema that is jam packed with laughs and moments of endless humour. Even though the plot is shallow, the depth of the film lies beneath, just like the feelings that poor Peter cannot admit to.

Knowing (2009)

Knowing, written and directed by Alex Proyas (Dark City) follows a young boy named Caleb who receives Lucinda's envelope from fifty years ago. Lucinda, a young school girl at the time dies of a supposed drug overdose and time ellipses to the present day. Caleb’s father John Koestler, a widower and professor of astrophysics, takes notice in the paper, and further examination makes him realize that part of these digits form dates and death tolls of every major disaster over the past fifty years, in chronological order, and suggests three disasters yet to come.

Knowing is a clever, deep and iconographically beautiful. The plot isn’t the prominent aspect of the film, but the way the plot is unveiled and structured. Scenes complement each other and lead to a satisfying and unpredictable conclusion. In this way, the film is a hybrid between an initial thriller that transforms into a rather astonishing sci-fi epic. The end of the film when we discover that the world will soon end in which Caleb is rescued by aliens is both sentimental and true to the genre transformation that the film explores.

Knowing doesn’t only have astonishing special effects, but they integrate so well with the films style and premise that the plot flows to us through the image which creates the experience. In the two initial accidents in the plane and train respectively, the effects are not overwhelming because they underpin the films style and message so well. Many will discredit Knowing, not providing the film with the attention it deserves. Unlike The Day After Tomorrow (2004) in which the effects drown the plot and overall story, Knowing uses its effects to build upon and expand the narrative which transpires it into a contemporary sci-fi epic.

Knowing has good performances from John Koestler (Nicholas Cage) and Diana Wayland (Rose Byrne) but they are not astonishing. This somehow doesn’t matter because the script is so compelling and imaginative that it forces the characters to flow with it, discarding the overall shallow performances that are represented.

The film starts of with an exploration to the films history, it then drives us into a sense of integrity during the middle of the film and then returns us into a future state, in contrast to the sense of history at the beginning. The film seems like it covers the earths history, not just the previous fifty years. Overall Knowing is a compelling and highly imaginative sci-fi epic. A must for fans of the genre and most certainly beyond.

The Uninvited (2009)

The Uninvited will most certainly divide the audience that the film is aimed towards. At once it is a rather clichéd contemporary horror film, until it references its background as a 2003 South Korean horror film A Tale of Two Sisters to create a rather inimitable and fresh horror film, one bound with thematic purpose and stylistic integrity. Directed by the Guard Brothers, the film follows Anna who has been bound to a mental hospital since the death of her mother ten months earlier, who is now ready to return back home. Her psychiatrist tells her to "finish what she started" which ironically forms the enigma which underlines the entire narrative. Anna's father takes her home, where she is reunited with her sister, Alex who also introduces Rachel (Elizabeth Banks), her mother's former nurse who is now dating Anna's father.

The Uninvited is not what it seems at the surface both literally and metaphorically speaking. The film is bound with enigmas which never quite add up even if you put together the fragments of the film that the Guard Brothers represent on screen. The film is shot in a way that allows us to piece the images together and form our own interpretation on a fairly basic and linear plotline. The shots are usually very fast-pace and even the location is never completely static, swapping between reality and dream, house and lake, rural and urban etc. While the film may appear to be a conventional horror film aimed at a mindless teenage audience, the film contains quite a depth beneath the screen that actually takes a lot to piece together to fully understand the sensation the film is trying to convey.

Anna is convinced that Rachel is evil and induces her sister in the process. The two of them together scheme against her to try to prove to their father that she is evil. This is where I will end with the plot synopsis. The film, noticeably, has some interesting characters, even if they are supporting actors driven into the mind-set of the film. Having said that, the film integrates so many different personalities and emotions from each of the characters that it seems as if there really isn’t a lead role, even if we believe that Anna is so. This is where we begin to question who the “uninvited” are? Perhaps some of the characters do have too many lines to speak that they almost become intrusive on the sisters lives? Or is Rachel an “uninvited” guest into the families home?

The Uninvited will most certainly please horror fans, but perhaps not so much those outsiders to the genre. The film uses horror conventions but twists and manipulates them, something that the horror audience will most certainly appreciate. The film has a unique twist on familiar situations and events that they feel they are somehow attuned to. Overall The Uninvited is a well done, stylistically effective horror film that will most certainly satisfy many. You are therefore invited!

Taken (2009)

Taken follows Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) a divorced and retired CIA operative whose 17-year-old daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) wants to go to Paris but actually intends to follow band U2 around Europe. Arriving in Paris, Kim and her friend Amanda are victim to Albanian sex traffickers who stalk the friends, wanting nothing but to violate their innocence. Taken undoubtedly impacts on the viewer, the narrative has a good structure, and the audience are often left on the edge of their seat, victim to the gritty realism that strikes the teens on screen. The visual style to the film is gripping, often complementing the tone of the sex traffickers as something real and not to be messed with. The film, however, is often very linear, Neeson constantly strives to guess the Albanian's moves leaving the audience with no choice but to wait for the outcome of the film as opposed to an active engagement with the narrative itself.

From the actual kidnapping staged with Kim actually on the phone with dad to Bryan arriving in Paris and immediately causing a pileup outside the airport the film does not take a breath to allow a moment of reflect or psychological explanations for the antagonists motives, as the work in the film is all done for us. One is left wondering if the film was not located in France with rather unique cinematography, would Taken come across as a futuristic James Bond with Neeson as the masculine counterpart. Noticeably the film does contain a contradiction. The cinematography suggests a sense of gritty realism something that creates the tension in the film; whereas the action on screen, however, steps away from this realism, especially in the Yacht scene when Neeson fights off near enough every man on board, contradicting the somewhat practical atmosphere the film was trying to create. Overall, Taken is a satisfying contemporary thriller, adding a new angle to a well established genre, even if it has its flaws throughout.

The Unborn (2009)

The Unborn, written and directed by David S. Goyer follows the life of Casey Beldon (Odette Yustman) who is beset by merciless dreams, and a grotesque child who she suspects is her dead twin who died in her mothers womb and now wants to be born. What is unique and so engaging about The Unborn is it steps away from horrors conventional notions of murder and afterlife and focuses on life before it even exits. In this way, the film tries to separate itself from the traditional horror narrative, but with very little success. There are repetitive shots of windows and mirrors in the film which doesn’t show the horror to be in the mirror reflection that we so often expect, but in the bathroom cabinet itself which suggests the films rejection of traditional horror conventions when it really didn’t have the authority or ingenuity to do so. Beldon discovers at the end of the film that she, herself, is also having twins, which is fairly predictable and rather ironic considering how different the film always strived to be.

Tropic Thunder (2008)

Filmic reflectivity involves the exploration of the inner workings of Hollywood as a means of attracting an interest from the mass audience; something that Tropic Thunder unremittingly achieves. Not only is the script constructed from one-liners of ongoing humour and absurdity, but the cast (consisting of Ben Stiller and Jack Black) excel in constructing situations that are so illogical, we almost forget that we are watching a product of their misfortunes- creating the film Four Leaf set in Vietnam.

Inevitably, filming does not go as calculated, and once the director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) dies, the actors are driven into disequilibrium, facing the ‘Flaming Dragon’ gang in their province of the Golden Triangle. The humour spawns from the characters diverse cultural representations which merge tightly together creating a ‘Tropic Thunder’; not a thunder of rage and darkness but one of obscene humour and absurdity which connect with us directly. What could have easily been a film of meaningless gags and torture actually resulted in a potent summer blockbuster showing significance from its opening.

Suburban Girl (2007)

There is a reason the producers changed the title of the film from The Girls Guide to Hunting & Fishing to Suburban Girl. Where the former paints a picture of life and nature, the film has taken this and transformed it to adapt to Brett Eisenbergs (played by Sarah Michelle Geller) more restricted life as an ambitious New York editor who falls for the charms and security of Archie Knox (Alec Baldwin). Through a series of organised chapters, Brett offers the presumed female audience mutual identification through personal issues that the audience will empathise with as existing in their own lives. Although the performances from both Sarah Michelle Geller and Alec Baldwin were satisfying, the narratives transition between solemn and humorous issues unfortunately turned a potentially pleasing romantic story into something more perplexing, obscuring the real emotion and energy that the film could have offered.

Resident Evil : Extinction (2007)

Resident Evil: Extinction follows the path of Alice (Milla Jovovich), who is now alone in the desert wastelands of the remains of the United States. Alice now has superhuman strength and psionic abilities gained from her brief imprisonment by Umbrella. With a whole new locale in the desert with an isolated fill, the film tries to somehow fill this sense of isolation with a rather complicated, hi-tech series of action sequences which actually erased what was a least a little scary from the previous two films.

Where the first films used the locale to create a sense of tension from this mindless creatures, the setting in this film relies so heavily on its action sequences and technology that it somehow loses its sense of purpose, disorientating the feel that made the series unique in the first place. It’s even more humorous how the film pays homage to the likes of Day of the Dead with their experimental ‘zombie’ but turns away from what made them films work into something unnecessarily complex and technological as if to develop on something that was already good in the first place. Resident Evil: Extinction without doubt tried to be ‘different’ from your average zombie horror film, but its own technology got in the way of what could have been a reasonable sequel to a series that has never quite set off anyway.

8 Mile (2002)

8 Mile, directed by Curtis Hanson and written by Scott Silver, is a film with a familiar formula, in which the want-to-be performer (Eminem) first fails at his dream, then succeeds, is unhappy in romance but lucky in his friends. Jimmy Smith Jr (Eminem) plays a rather authentic youth who is rejected by his culture, and society at large, having only his dream to aspire to. This is not the first time, however, this type of film has featured popstars aspiring for a deeper ambition. Britney Spears and the Spice Girls have both tried to translate their musical careers into acting, but none as successful as Eminem.

What works with 8 Mile is it doesn’t overplay the notion of success. Yes, Eminem is exposed as a true star at the end, but the camera still sees him carrying a garbage full of clothes as if to symbolise a future full of success that has not quite reached him yet. The 8 mile in the films title, therefore leads us to believe that this is an autobiographical account of Eminem's life remains largely unknown but his role in the film will impact on represents a success that is always near, but just that extra 8 miles that we have to strive for. Whether the film the lives of many, particularly those who dream but never see them come true. Success is something that we all strive for, but our past and ourselves at large are the biggest obstacles in our dreams coming true and these are key themes that underpin the film. Overall, 8 Mile is a gritty, down to earth hip-hop drama and is surely not a victim of its own success.