ith Face/Off,
under the direction of John Woo, the stakes of the action/thriller have
just been raised. Unlike the usual mindlessness of summer action fare, with
their over-the-top stunts, their one-liners, and their large body counts,
Face/Off -- though it has plenty of the aforementioned -- is delivered
in a thoughtful manner. It's bloodbath approaching art form.
Nicolas
Cage plays the nasty terrorist Castor Troy to John Travolta's troubled good-guy
FBI agent Sean Archer. As they zero in on each other, each wanting to rid
himself of the other, it appears finally that Sean has won. But -- and this
is a big but -- Castor is only in a coma, and a bomb that he's planted still
remains armed to blow Chicago to kingdom come. So, with only three other
agents aware of the plan, Sean has Castor's face flawlessly grafted onto
his head and a microchip implanted for the voice and then has himself put
in prison so that he can get information from Castor's brother. The gaps
in this plan become apparent when Castor wakes up, borrows Sean's face,
then kills the only agents who know what's up, leaving Sean in one hell
of a pickle trapped in prison and Castor free to do what he pleases with
Sean's job and his wife.
Woo, who had made his name as a director of action movies in Hong Kong, wavered in his 1992 U.S. feature-film debut, the plodding Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle Hard Target. He rebounded somewhat with 1994's Broken Arrow, but it's in Face/Off, with its nifty plot scripted by Mike Werb and Michael Colleary, and its sure-fire roster, that Woo proves what he's capable of. His deft choreography of the action lends the film fluidity. In scene after scene together, Cage and Travolta literally circle in on each other. Their self-destructive, entwined identities are the movie equivalent of a snake biting its tail.
Cage and Travolta have the messy task of playing their own characters and then playing the other's. Travolta, once Castor-fied, runs with it, leaving a trail of malice, while Cage expertly switches from the supercharged jerk to feeling family man.
And while Face/Off isn't entirely perfect (it's a bit too long and ends on a brutally cheerful note), it does offer you more bang for your buck, and who could ask for more?
-- Susan Ellis
DISNEY'S
LATEST PROJECT HAS ITS share of shortcomings: The mythology is rather inaccurate,
the music flops in comparison to the dynamic tunes of other relatively recent
Disney flicks, and most of the amusing moments will fly over most children's
heads with the speed of Apollo. Nonetheless, Hercules manages to
be entertaining and enjoyable, perhaps more so for adults than for kids.
Hercules' plot is something of a bastardized mix of Sleeping Beauty, Superman, and Rocky. After the malcontent Hades (James Caan) and his bumbling henchmen (who are strangely reminiscent of the bumbling friends of Simba in the Lion King) cause Hercules to become mortal, he is raised on Earth by a well-meaning farmer and his wife. Sound familiar? In order to regain his status among the gods of Mount Olympus, Hercules must prove himself to be a "true hero," which as we all know from previous Disney movies will probably have to do with the "true meaning" of something or other. Hercules gets buff with his trainer Phil (Danny DeVito), and sets off to save a few damsels in distress. (Too bad one of them isn't named Adrian.)
Hercules does have its more cinematically heroic moments. The EnVogue-esque gospel-spouting chorus makes for more spunk than one might anticipate, and the large production-style number "Zero to Hero" is perhaps the only song that isn't a minor let-down. (But if music is what you want, fire up the VCR and listen to "Be Our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast; it's pretty much all the same.)
While the film's heroine, Meg, does her previous Disney damsels proud, the villainous Hades is not quite up to par with Jafar and Scar (who makes a cameo in Hercules as a rug). Wee ones may think he's a trifle scary if they've never watched television or a movie before, but if you have stopped keeping track of your child's age in months, chances are he or she will give Hades a yawn at most. For Satan, he's rather disappointing; the old face-turns-red-when-he's-angry thing wears out its welcome the 20th time it happens.
Hercules' saving grace will be its rather adult sense of humor. While Meg makes jokes about "no" meaning "yes" and other male-misconceptions, two tots in harm's way ask Hercules to "call IX - I - I!" The wry aside comments that all of the characters spew throughout the movie are well worth the price of admission. Just don't ask them to sing. Some labors should be left undone. -- Elizabeth Lemond
WHILE
BRASSED OFF SPORTS AN AMAZing cast and boasts solid direction by
Mark Herman, the story line suffers from attention-deficit disorder. The
movie successfully lays out interesting themes -- political issues, the
interaction of the personal and the political, domestic and romantic relationships,
hope, and the will to live in the face of despair -- but never thoroughly
explores any of them.
Brassed Off is set in a small mining town in Yorkshire, England, in 1992. Even though it is common knowldege that the town's pit is profitable, it is being considered for closure, prompting bitter accusations of callousness on the part of the government and protest by the community.
Amidst the bleakness of work, the union meetings in which the pros and cons of settling with the government are discussed, and the sparring with their wives over finances and their constant absence, many of the miners find solace and solidarity in the Grimley Colliery Band, a longstanding tradition in the town.
When the push of the brass band comes to the shove of the pit closure, most of the miners/musicians consider dropping the hobby in the name of hard times to the dismay of Danny (Pete Postlethwaite), the band leader who is obsessed with his mission to make it to the national semi-finals. The gap between some of the band members' and the leader's concern for the fate of the band reflects a question raised repeatedly in the film: What is truly important in these men's lives? As the movie goes on, the point is made that while the band may be, practically speaking, dispensable, it is critical in bolstering the miners' spirits.
The plot is complicated by the appearance of Gloria Mullins (Tara Fitzgerald), a talented and attractive horn player, Yorkshire native, and the daughter of a former band leader, who has returned to compile a report for the board threatening to close the pit. When it becomes known that she's been working for the enemy, Gloria is instantly alienated by the band members, and her relationship with an old sweetheart, Andy (Ewan McGregor), also a member of the band, is jeopardized.
Brassed Off might be called sappy -- it's the small-town miners defending their principles versus the big, bad government; a wife forgiving her husband for blowing the last of the family funds on a new trombone as the house gets cleaned out by repo men; a relationship that is tested by circumstance but not so hard that an actual decision has to ever be made; the dying man who regains his strength by virtue of sheer will. But the impressive acting (especially by the tormented and pathetic Phil, played by Stephen Tompkinson) and sincerity of the movie make up for the overly seamless progression of events.
-- Olivia Ralston