The Bored Locker

I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t hear all the hype surrounding The Hurt Locker. This movie about the war in Iraq was supposed to be the best “modern” war film since Black Hawk Down and supposedly was the one film that can stop Avatar from winning the Best Picture award at the 2010 Oscars. I had been putting off watching it for months because there was always something that, to me at least, seemed more interesting to do. But, I finally gave in on the night before the Academy Awards.

Sergeant First Class William James (Jeremy Renner) leads the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit of the US Army’s Bravo Company in Baghdad, Iraq. The former head, was killed while trying to disarm a remote-detonated explosive device and James tries to fit in with his new troops. It becomes increasingly obvious to Sgt. JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) that James is a bit of a loose cannon, effective but also reckless. A raid on a warehouse reveals the dead body of a boy who’s been implanted with bombs. Believing the boy to be someone who sold DVDs to him, James leads the team to hunt down insurgents who detonated a bomb, but results in Eldridge getting shot in the leg. Though the EOD team’s tour of duty eventually ends, SFC James realizes the one thing he loves is being in the war zone.

Director Kathryn Bigelow has done something that so few directors, male or female, have attempted to do: make a serious war movie. The Hurt Locker isn’t pretty and it doesn’t present itself as anything but a heavy drama. By casting relative unknowns, the filmmakers ground the film in realism and make the scenario more believable.

Unfortunately for me, it also bored me no end. The first half of this film just drags on and on after the death of the former head of the EOD played by Guy Pearce. Steeped in dialogue and lots of military jargon, I somehow found myself nodding off after James first arrives in Baghdad. Yes, the sniper scenes and the explosions are great visually while also carrying a healthy amount of tension, but that didn’t make up for that boring start. For me, if a movie bores me at any point, then it clearly doesn’t deserve an Academy Award for Best Picture.

Bigelow should be commended for bringing all of these myriad elements together into a movie, but I cannot and will not commend her for nearly knocking me out at the start of her film. Renner’s portrayal of the adrenaline junkie SFC James was credible and it might be the vehicle to finally make him a star, but it still took him so long to make me sympathetic that I almost gave up on him.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences can give The Hurt Locker all the awards they want. They can do it as a slap in the face of James Cameron and Avatar, as well as Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, or Neill Blomkamp’s District 9, and Disney’s Up. For me, I was still more engaged in each of these latter movies than with Bigelow’s award-winning piece.

Down the Rabbit Hole Once More

I was never a fan of the “Alice in Wonderland” story. Growing up watching Disney movies, “Alice” was one of the few that I never saw in full or just never really enjoyed watching. Maybe it was too weird, or maybe the effects were too creepy, I just never got hooked by it. I did find Mickey Mouse’s version of “Through the Looking Glass” funky though. There was something about Mickey going through a mirror that appealed to me as a kid.

Over the years, I had grown to appreciate Lewis Carroll’s “Alice”. I’m of the mind that it’s never fully been intended for children and that the author must have been on some pretty strong drugs when he was writing it. Iconic characters such as the White Rabbit, the Red Queen, the Cheshire Cat, and of course, the Mad Hatter, have made their way into popular culture and everyone is pretty familiar with them in one form or another. However, when word first leaked that director Tim Burton and actor Johnny Depp were going to do their own version of Alice in Wonderland I really looked forward to it.

A 19-year-old Alice Kingsley (Mia Wasikowska) is being forced to conform to the norms of proper Victorian English society. Struggling against these rules, she follows a white rabbit down a hole and stumbles into a different yet familiar world altogether. Bombarded by questions from residents of “Underland” if she is “the real Alice”, she ends up scarred by the monstrous Bandersnatch while running away from the army of the Red Queen (Helena Bonham-Carter). Seeking the aid of the Mad Hatter (Depp), Alice learns that the Red Queen and the Knave of Hearts (Crispin Glover) attacked the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) with the Vorpal Sword and the dragon-like Jabberwocky. The White Queen believes that Alice can be Underland’s champion, someone who can actually beat the Jabberwocky and end the Red Queen’s tyranny. Does she have what it takes to rise to the occasion?

As in any Tim Burton film, the visuals in Alice in Wonderland are very rich. Now that Burton has actually embraced true digital filmmaking, he gets to truly run wild with his imagination. SPOILER ALERT!!! I wasn’t really aware of how much green screen effects Burton utilized for this movie until after  had seen it, and I think that really helped me get more immersed into his vision of Wonderland. There is a marked difference between the world above and below ground, and it goes beyond the crazy creatures that inhabit the latter. Through the use of modern special effects, it’s become easier for anthropomorphic creatures to interact with “real” actors and for the Red Queen to be shown with a bulbous head. For me personally, that only enhances the “wonder” in Wonderland.

We’ve already seen the acting chops from Depp and Bonham-Carter countless times before, so it wasn’t a surprise to see them lose themselves in their respective roles. I still remember Glover from his days as George McFly in the Back to the Future trilogy, but he does seem to embrace playing weirdoes nowadays. It was a joy to hear Alan Rickman’s voice emerge from Ambsalom the Caterpillar’s mouth in this film as he lent a good amount of creepiness and gravitas to the role. Though Wasikowska is a relative novice in film, she really does shine in this, her first starring role. After getting over her initial resemblance to Gwyneth Paltrow, I found myself just looking at her as Alice and wondering if she can follow this role with something as meaty.

Burton’s Alice is a definite trip. It’s a sequel to the original Disney toon as well as the version that most of us are familiar with yet it manages to stand on its own. The familiarity that we all have with these characters didn’t hurt my appreciation for it, in fact, it made me like the film even more. There are moments where the plot does slow down, but I feel that it’s visual spectacle more than covers up for those shortcomings.