Her (2013) review

When you really get down to it, the premise for this film is… well, let’s face it, a little weird. I mean, we’re talking about a film where a man falls in love with the female voice of his computer’s operating system. It’s hard to deny it but it is true. But even with that in mind, why does this end up being one of the best films of the year (or of 2013, to be exact)? Well, that is because even with this film’s strange story, director Spike Jonze (‘Being John Malkovich’, ‘Where the Wild Things Are’) succeeds when it comes to the film’s overall execution to the point where this relationship between a man and a computer doesn’t feel as strange as it may sound. The writing is top-notch because the characters, as well as their dialogue, feel real, allowing us to become emotionally connected to these people, even when one of them is just a voice in a computer. When you take that and add not only Jonze’s excellent direction but terrific performances from the cast, then you have one truly excellent film on your hands.

The film follows Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix); a man who writes personal love letters for people who find themselves unable to express their emotions towards their significant others. However, at the same time, Theodore is lonely and introverted, struggling to deal with his impending divorce to his wife/childhood sweetheart, Catherine (Rooney Mara). One day, he purchases a new operating system for his computer, OS 1, the first artificially intelligent system of its kind that is programmed to adapt and evolve like human beings. After being asked whether he wants the system to have either a male or female identity, he decides that his operating system should have a female voice and as a result he is introduced to his new ‘system’ who gives herself the name Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson). As Theodore and Samantha begin to bond, with the former starting to enjoy life more and the latter continuing to grow from her experiences, their relationship begins to get a bit more serious amidst her ‘limitations’.

This film mainly prospers because of the excellent writing (this film serving as Jonze’s first solo outing as a writer). Even when it’s working around a sci fi-ish premise, the characters still very much feel real and down-to-earth. That is also reflected in the dialogue. Regardless of your experiences with romantic relationships, good and/or bad, I think that you might be able to relate to a few of these characters because of their feelings and their interactions with each other. Heck, even Samantha, the operating system, feels real, not only because of how expressive she is and how she sees the world but also because of her relationship with Theodore. As weird as it may seem, it does manage to feel tangible. These two do have really superb chemistry which helps to ease the fact that this guy is basically in love with his computer. It’s quite something to be able to make us feel emotionally invested in a relationship as strange as this one and Jonze succeeds at doing just that.

Joaquin Phoenix is fantastic in the part of Theodore. He successfully disappears into the role of this man who may be able to express the romantic emotions that some people might not be able to say, but at the same time is lonely, introverted, and upset because of how his previous relationship is falling apart. This makes him incredibly sympathetic and Phoenix gives one of the best performances of his career. Likewise, Scarlett Johansson also shines as Samantha. She expresses so much emotion just by being a voice in the movie and that alone. I’m hoping that the Oscars will recognize her work, especially after she was ‘disqualified’ from being nominated for a Golden Globe. As for the rest of the cast, most of them only play minor roles in the film; of the film’s three female leads (not counting Johansson), Amy Adams has the biggest overall role compared to the other two (Rooney Mara as Theodore’s ex-wife Catherine and Olivia Wilde as a woman who goes on a blind date with him) but all three of them give their characters a sense of realism just like Phoenix and Johansson do with their characters.

‘Her’ is a film that may have a strange premise, but in execution, is full of real characters and dialogue that allow us to become emotionally invested in their actions. Yes, even to the point where we can believe in a relationship between a man and the female voice of his computer. There’s not much I can say about this film that’s bad. I mean, if I did have one solitary complaint, it would probably be that the film feels just a little bit too long at the end but even then that’s not really too much of a problem because everything else in the film is so good. The film has great direction, great writing, great performances, and a really great score (done here by Arcade Fire) among other things. I’m not too familiar with Jonze’s work as a director (I haven’t seen his other three films at the time I am writing this) but in the end, this might end up being one of his best out of the four films he has directed up to this point.

Rating: 4.5/5

Warm Bodies (2013) review

Sometimes there is a movie that pisses you off so much, you become weary of any future movies that come out that have the same premise as that movie. For me, one of those movies is Twilight; the film franchise that somehow became a worldwide phenomenon despite the fact that it is was nothing more than a poorly-written, poorly-acted, and just poorly-made melodrama. So as you might have guessed, I wasn't really looking forward to 'Warm Bodies', a film that has the same premise of a human girl falling love with a paranormal creature, in this case a zombie, and was from the same company that distributed Twilight, Summit Entertainment. But believe it or not, 'Warm Bodies' is a really good film for pretty much doing what Twilight failed to do in many areas, from the romance to actually making its two leads likable.

The film takes place after the world is affected by a zombie apocalypse. One zombie in particular (Nicholas Hoult), who remembers that his name started with an 'R', spends most of his days wandering around an airport along with the other zombies while any surviving humans are hidden from the zombies in a heavily guarded enclave. One day, when a group of young men and women head out to acquire medical supplies, R and some other zombies attack and R ends up eating the brains of one of the humans, Perry Kelvin (Dave Franco). However, by doing so, he starts to fall in love with Perry's girlfriend Julie (Teresa Palmer), the daughter of General Grigio (John Malkovich), the leader of the human resistance. As R and Julie start to fall in love, R starts to become more human, a change that is spreading to his fellow zombies as well.

 

For the record, this is a very simple story (it's pretty much Romeo an Juliet, just with zombies) so if you're a huge zombie fan, then you might be a little disappointed with this film as it takes a couple of liberties in how they portray zombies here. It's a romantic comedy first, and a zombie film second so it's going to be a little cheesy. Still, for a romantic comedy, this actually has to be one of the best-written romantic comedies in recent years. Sure, there could have been just a bit more humor, but once this film gets going, it ends up being really entertaining. A lot of the humor comes from R's inner monologue because, of course, he's a zombie and he can't speak as well as a human. Overall, the writing is quite solid though they could have gone just a bit farther with the premise.

Speaking of R, the character is what really sells the movie for me. Remember, this is a film that is in the same genre as the film starring a dull and creepy vampire who pines for a teenage girl who is at least a century younger than him. R, on the other hand, is very engaging, and as mentioned earlier, funny thanks to his inner monologue. You really have to hand it to Nicholas Hoult for his performance here, as he clearly blows Robert Pattinson out of the water and does a terrific job. As for Teresa Palmer, while her character is just a little flat, she also does a good job as well. Because of these two, I was able to get into the romance which, of course, I could never get into with Twilight because it was just boring and the two leads were just straight up unlikable. This film's romance is actually pretty sweet.

Basically what I'm trying to get across here is that for those of you thinking that this film is just a 'Twilight clone', you will be surprised by how good this film actually is. Sure, it's not perfect; there could have been some more humor and maybe it could have been a little less cheesy. But still, for a romantic comedy, it's one of the better films from this genre that I have seen in a while. If anything else, it's a hell of a lot better than Twilight because I was actually able to get into the romance and the male lead was really engaging. For anyone like me who had to suffer through the Twilight films, this will be a breath of fresh air for you.

Rating: 4/5

WORST FILM OF THE YEAR

(WARNING: There will be spoilers because, well, I don't really recommend that you see the following film in the first place)

 

As I mentioned in my Top 5 Disappointing Films of the Year post, 2012 was such a great year for movies that there was only one film that I saw all year that I really hated, which meant that I can't really do a Top 5 worst films of the year list. But, I will still talk about this one movie and explain why it is my pick for the worst film of 2012. Well, the movie in question today is a romantic comedy, a genre that usually does result in some rather bad and unfunny films. But this one in particular actually has a really good cast backing it up and yet nothing good comes out of it. I am course referring to...

THIS MEANS WAR

This film is one of those comedies that revolves around two characters who are long-time friends but then they become rivals and try to sabotage each other in order to get something that they both want but can't have at the same time. In the case of this film, we have two CIA agents who are vying for the affections of the same woman. I'll get to the 'humor' of this movie in a bit, but first I'm going to talk about the really big problem of the movie and that is the whole romance aspect of it all. Now, I am not referring to the chemistry between the film's leads as Tom Hardy and Chris Pine do both have really good chemistry with Reese Witherspoon. It's another thing entirely that ruins the whole movie. To explain this in full detail, I'm going to have to go into the film's plot first.

Pine and Hardy play FDR Foster (yes, that is really Pine's character's name) and Tuck, two CIA agents who would take a bullet for each other, as Tuck points out in one scene. Tuck has just gone through a divorce and decides to get back on the market. He soon meets Lauren (Witherspoon), a product testing executive who is also dealing with relationship issues after her ex-boyfriend get engaged. The two hit it off, but then FDR strolls in and ends up dating her as well, at first not knowing that she's also dating his best friend. Eventually, the two guys do find out they're dating the same woman and originally agree not to tell her that they're friends, or even try to sabotage each other. But, they eventually do start sabotaging each other (using CIA equipment) while on dates with Lauren.


Now, the thing that really bugs me about this romance is how Witherspoon's character doesn't even try to tell each of her 'boyfriends' that she's dating someone else. She just lets it slide and even worse, I feel that she picked the wrong guy at the end. Now you see, Tuck is portrayed as the nice guy of the two friends (yes, Tom Hardy, the same guy who broke Batman's back) while FDR is the womanizer of the two. The movie does try to have FDR change his ways while he is dating Lauren, but that still doesn't really change much. So, in the end, she ends up going with FDR. Sure, Tuck does get back with his ex-wife at the end of the film, but I just feel that he should have ended up with Lauren.

Really, the implausibility of this movie frequently hits record highs. Not only do FDR and Tuck use the CIA's equipment without their permission, but they don't even get in trouble for doing so. Their only excuse is really 'The Patriot Act' and also, for the record, they use the equipment to stalk Lauren, which is just plain creepy and makes both of these characters pretty unlikable in that sense. The romance plays such an important part in this movie that the film just straight up ignores the other subplot of the film that has FDR and Tuck going after a criminal named Heinrich, played by Til Schweiger, who is very underused in this film except for at the end when he kidnaps Lauren just so that Tuck and FDR can resolve their differences and rescue her.

And then we get to the humor, which as you may have guessed is very much lacking, particularly during the first half which is not just unfunny but kind of painful actually to watch. The only real funny moment I remember from this half of the movie wasn't even a joke. It revolved around this scene where Tuck is confronted by a larger man. The reason why I bring this up is because Tom Hardy is noticeably smaller in this film than he has been in some of his other movies. I just find it funny that this other guy is confronting him because I just imagine how the scene would turn out if Hardy was Bane or his character from 'Warrior'. To put it simply, I wouldn't mess with Hardy, even if he's rather small like he is in this film.

However, once FDR and Tuck do start to sabotage each other, the humor does actually pick up the pace which is why I don't think this is a total waste of time. It also does help that both Pine and Hardy do have really good chemistry with Witherspoon and heck, even the two of them work off each other well. But really, this is one film that I really, really, really don't recommend. It's a film that Tom Hardy and Chris Pine won't be thinking fondly of in the future, and unfortunately this is the kind of movie that poor Reese Witherspoon is probably going to be connected to from now on. In my original review for the film, I stated that this film is only worth renting but even still, I'd recommend you look elsewhere first.

Final Rating: 1/5