Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret — Absolutely marvelous

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (2023) • View trailer

Five stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for thematically suggestive material, and mild sexual candor

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.28.23

Film adaptations of popular novels are rarely this faithful.

 

It’s not merely a matter of director/scripter Kelly Fremon Craig retaining all the crucial plot points of Judy Blume’s 1970 coming-of-age classic; it’s easy enough to check such boxes. But Fremon Craig also captures the book’s essential tone and atmosphere, along with the blend of eagerness, humiliation, humor, excitement and stubborn determination that fuels the young protagonist’s journey into nascent womanhood.

 

Margaret (Abby Ryder Fortson, right) — determined to purchase her first bra, but
horrified by the process (check her expression!) — gamely navigates a
fraught-with-peril visit to a department store, in the company of her sympathetic
and knowing mother (Rachel McAdams).

Kudos, as well, to Fremon Craig and the casting agents who found such talented young actors for all the key tween roles: most notably Abby Ryder Fortson’s totally endearing handling of the title character.

Everything — every performance, dramatic hiccup, youthfully exaggerated tragedy and excruciating embarrassment — feels authentic.

 

(The degree to which this is true became obvious quite quickly, during last Saturday’s preview screening, when Constant Companion, in a blend of amazement and horror, kept mumbling things such as “Oh, gawd,” “Just like it happened” and “That was me.”)

 

Although remembered primarily for 12-year-old Margaret’s desperate desire to experience her first period — the frequent subject of her chats with God, and the major reason Blume’s novel has long been the target of blue-nosed book-banners — the parallel plot line, touching on Margaret’s exploration of religion, is equally crucial.

 

The film retains the book’s 1970 setting, and events take place during Margaret Simon’s sixth-grade school year. As the story begins, in a sweetly fleeting montage, Margaret is shown having a blast at summer camp. She then returns to her New York City home, and the tightly knit family unit that includes her parents (Rachel McAdams and Benny Safdie, as Barbara and Herb) and grandmother Sylvia (scene-stealing Kathy Bates, blessed with impeccable line delivery).

 

Unfortunately, this happy reunion is tarnished by the news that her parents are moving them to a New Jersey suburb, leaving Sylvia — Herb’s mother — behind. Distressed by that, and the thought of never seeing her friends again, Margaret is crushed.

 

But she rebounds quickly, thanks to an immediate visit from new neighbor Nancy Wheeler (Elle Graham), a boldly confident girl who’s proud of her developing breasts, and somewhat astonished by Margaret’s, ah, lack of same. Upon learning that they’ll be in the same sixth-grade class, Nancy invites Margaret to become the fourth and final member of a “secret club” that includes Janie Loomis (Amari Alexis Price) and Gretchen Potter (Katherine Mallen Kupferer).

 

Although the latter two girls seem kind and pleasant enough, Nancy — as self-appointed club leader — frequently enhances her own ego, at the not-always-subtle expense of the others. It’s perhaps unfair to call Nancy a “mean girl,” since she never seems deliberately spiteful, but her audacious behavior often pushes the others — and particularly Margaret — beyond their comfort zone. 

 

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness: Sheer insanity

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for frightening images, occasional profanity, and relentless action violence

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.6.22

Magic-laden stories can be problematic.

 

Rules must be established, or else conflict becomes pointless. J.K. Rowling was quite careful, in her Harry Potter books, to ensure well-established strengths and weaknesses on both sides; evil occasionally triumphed, sometimes resulting in the death of beloved characters. Suspense and emotional involvement were maintained throughout the series.

 

On the run from an opponent who can't be stopped by anything, our heroes — from
left, America (Xochitl Gomez), Wong (Benedict Wong) and Doctor Strange
(Benedict Cumberbatch) — pause to consider their next move.

Sloppy writers, on the other hand, simply make up stuff as a given moment demands; the result becomes random and pointless. If our hero suddenly can summon “the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth” — to quote an oft-used spell in the classic 1960s Stan Lee/Steve Ditko Doctor Strange comic book stories — to reverse an incantation cast upon him, well, where’s the suspense in that?

Michael Waldron, sad to say, is a sloppy writer.

 

We should’ve expected as much, given his involvement as creator, executive producer and occasional writer of television’s Loki miniseries, which — despite a promising start — quickly devolved into utter incomprehensibility. The final few episodes were the worst example of random, kitchen-sink scripting I’ve seen in years.

 

Waldron’s approach to this Doctor Strange sequel is no different, and he repeatedly succumbs to the sloppy cliché that is the death of narrative tension: Every character is only as strong, or weak, as s/he needs to be, in order to triumph — or fail — at a given moment. Lather, rinse, repeat. Ad infinitum.

 

This builds to an utterly ludicrous deus ex machina moment during the climax: the equivalent of Dorothy suddenly being told that she always had the means to return to Kansas. I mean, seriously?

 

So:

 

Events begin quietly, as Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) attends the wedding of Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), a former lover who — wisely — chose a different path. The ceremony is interrupted by the sudden appearance of a massive, one-eyed octopoid galumphing through New York’s streets, in tentacled pursuit of America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez).

 

(For those who haven’t kept up with their comic books, Chavez debuted in 2011, as an alternative universe Marvel character.)

 

The creature is defeated by Strange and his “sorcerer supreme” mentor, Wong (Benedict Wong), after which they pepper America with the obvious who/what/why questions. Turns out she has the power to create star-shaped holes in reality, which grant access to other realities in the multiverse (something Strange helped Peter Parker mess with, in the most recent Spider-Man entry).

Doctor Strange: Needs life support

Doctor Strange (2016) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG-13, for nonstop fantasy violence and a nasty crash scene
By Derrick Bang

As a card-carrying member of the original Merry Marvel Marching Society, I kept waiting for Dr. Strange to employ one of his favorite signature phrases: “By the hoary hosts of Hoggoth!”

The Western-educated Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch, right) resists the
possibility of actual magic, until the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) whips up a few quick spells
that remove all doubt. And suddenly Stephen wonders: What else doesn't he know?

Never happened.

Here’s what else never happened: any flicker of emotional involvement with this pinball machine of a movie.

Magic-laced fantasy is much more difficult than creators often assume. Rigorous rules must be set in place, and the supernatural realm carefully conceived, with a comprehensible balance between good and evil: something that J.K. Rowling — as a recent successful example — understands full well.

To get sloppy with such strictures — or ignore them completely — results in a “story” of make-it-up-as-we-go chaos. When no limits are placed on heroes and villains, any conflict becomes meaningless. If a bad guy can bend reality to his will, well, there’s always a sentient magic cloak to help the good guy at a dire moment. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Toss in the potential for an instant re-boot, given the ability to manipulate time, and the result is even more inane.

And b-o-r-i-n-g.

This was the insurmountable problem with late spring’s most recent X-Men adventure, where the über-villain Apocalypse could re-shape the material world with a wave of his hand. That made him effectively unbeatable, until ultimately defeated by some “tricks” that didn’t make any sense, in light of his inherent abilities. Meanwhile, we endured an hour’s worth of meaningless, time-wasting, thud-and-blunder nonsense.

Same here.

Happily, Doctor Strange isn’t laced with the sort of landscape-leveling melees that cratered entire landscapes, in early spring’s Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (another soulless disappointment). Physical mayhem rarely played a part in this second-tier Marvel character’s various adventures. The “master of the mystic arts” instead battled his adversaries with spells and counter-spells, often in fantastic parallel dimensions of unreality that were an excuse — in the hippy-dippy 1960s and early ’70s — for comic book panels laced with eye-popping, psychedelic visuals.

They were the four-color, printed equivalent of the LSD-influenced “star gate” sequence in 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, which dazzled substance-altered viewers for decades.

But no matter how hard Marvel’s writers tried — and this remained an ongoing issue — it was hard to identify with Dr. Stephen Strange. He and his opponents were too powerful, too indefinable, too weird. And too blandly impassive.

Spotlight: The Fourth Estate Rules!

Spotlight (2015) • View trailer 
Five stars. Rated R, for profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.20.15

Crusading newspaper journalists have been a cinema staple ever since the Ben Hecht/Charles MacArthur stage play The Front Page first hit the big screen in 1931, but true classics are rare.

The Devil is in the details: Michael (Mark Ruffalo, center) and Sacha (Rachel McAdams)
grow increasingly excited — and horrified — as a fairly simple computer search by Matt
(Brian d'Arcy) reveals that they're likely dealing with far more than just five or six
pedophile priests.

Meet John Doe, The Big Carnival, Deadline USA and Absence of Malice come to mind, and they all have one thing in common: They’re fictitious stories.

Memorable films based on actual reporters who pursued real-world scoops are more scarce, in part because few screenwriters can spin compelling drama from the day-after-grinding-day research slog that precedes a “breaking” news story, which (to the outside world) seems to come out of nowhere. The gold standard in this category remains All the President’s Men, in great part due to screenwriter William Goldman’s superb, Oscar-winning adaptation of the Bob Woodward/Carl Bernstein book.

Goldman now has equally talented company: Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer, who’ve done a masterful job with Spotlight — McCarthy also serving as director — and its depiction of the four Boston Globe reporters who won a 2003 Pulitzer Prize for their astonishing series of stories exposing the long-term cover-up of child abuse by members of the Boston Catholic Church clergy.

As was the case with All the President’s Men, Spotlight isn’t merely an engaging — even suspenseful — drama, fueled by excellent performances from a well-selected ensemble cast; it’s a valuable historical document that details a frankly heinous abuse of trust and power. It’s simultaneously cathartic and horrific: a crisply condensed depiction of an extremely complicated story that expands so far beyond initial expectations, that — were it fiction — it likely wouldn’t be believed.

But it’s not fiction; it’s grim, infuriating and relentlessly heartbreaking fact.

Not to mention another reminder of the significant service performed by newspapers and their dedicated staffs, and the frankly alarming hole we’ll be in, as a country, if the Fourth Estate is allowed to be replaced by the frivolous, empty-calorie content of “web journalism” (an oxymoron if ever one existed).

McCarthy is an actor who burst on the filmmaking scene when he wrote and directed 2003’s The Station Agent, one of the finest, quirkiest dramedies of the new century. Singer has a wealth of TV scripting credits in his still-brief career, notably The West Wing and Fringe, and he made the jump to movies with the 2013 Julian Assange dramatization, The Fifth Estate.

Both McCarthy and Singer have an ear for realistic dialog, and particularly the careful “dance” that takes place during painfully raw and intimate conversations. This film is laden with such scenes — some quite difficult to watch — and all handled masterfully both by the film’s stars, and by lesser cast members appearing perhaps only briefly.

A Most Wanted Man: Superb espionage drama

A Most Wanted Man (2014) • View trailer 
4.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.25.14

John Le Carré continues to write gripping espionage thrillers, and he has the added bonus of seeing many of them translated intelligently to the big screen.

A Most Wanted Man is no exception.

Having brought naive young lawyer Annabel Richter (Rachel McAdams) into custody against
her will, German intelligence agent Gunther Bachmann (Philip Seymour Hoffman) patiently —
oh, so patiently — explains the folly of her recent behavior, in an effort to get her to reveal
information about the young man she believes needs her help.

This compelling adaptation is helmed by Dutch director Anton Corbijn, who first came to our attention back in 2010 with his disappointing handling of The American, an adaptation of Martin Booth’s A Very Private Gentleman. In fairness, that film’s failure had more to do with its dull, dreary script and a miscast George Clooney’s soulless performance, along with the fact that it was difficult to sympathize with a career assassin possessing few redeeming qualities.

Corbijn obviously learned a lot from that experience, because A Most Wanted Man boasts everything that his previous thriller lacked. For starters, le Carré’s riveting plot is ripped from contemporary headlines and fueled by the moral dilemma that troubles all progressive Western countries: Can we justify subverting established law in the pursuit of terrorists who refuse to “play fair”?

Le Carré’s densely complex novel has been compressed ingeniously by scripter Andrew Bovell, who deftly stripped away an entire set of supporting players (the British) in order to amplify the German setting and characters, primarily the veteran black-ops surveillance agent who has become the heart of this narrative.

That would be Gunther Bachmann, played to ferocious perfection by Philip Seymour Hoffman: the last film he completed before his tragic and untimely death.

To say that Hoffman’s performance is mesmerizing would be gross understatement; the man owns the screen, and this film. The forever disheveled Bachmann is a study in contrasts: a beady-eyed, chain-smoking, whisky-drinking fox who flouts established authority and couldn’t care less about currying favor, and yet possesses investigative skills that cannot be dismissed, even by colleagues and superiors who loathe him.

Hoffman has for quite some time transcended the artifice of performance; he’s one of very few film actors who doesn’t merely “play” a part, but instead fully inhabits the role of moment. That’s particularly true here, where we quickly cease to see Hoffman and instead watch, fascinated, as Gunther Bachmann embraces the sacred trust placed in his hands: to make the world a safer place.

That’s a key line: Watch Hoffman’s body language, and his expression, when he is given the opportunity to toss it back at the individual who first says it to him. Rarely will you see such an impeccably crafted blend of amusement, irony and barely controlled fury.

About Time: Needs more ripening

About Time (2013) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rating: R, and quite stupidly, for fleeting profanity and mild sensuality
By Derrick Bang

At first blush, this fantasy rom-com seems to be about young love, and finding the perfect soul-mate.

Or maybe it’s a cautionary tale about missed opportunities.

Tim (Domhnall Gleeson, left) can't begin to grasp what his father (Bill Nighy) has just
confessed: that the men in their family have the ability to travel backwards in time.
Very soon, though, Tim will realize that he does indeed share this incredible talent ...
and he'll have plenty of fun — and not a little heartbreak — trying to get a handle
on what he can and cannot do.

No, wait, it might be a parable on the importance of embracing every single moment of life’s precious gift.

In the final analysis, though, writer/director Richard Curtis’ deeply personal film focuses on the indestructible — and loving — bond between fathers and sons. And alla that other stuff mentioned above.

One can’t help feeling that this is a valentine to Curtis’ own father: either a celebration of a happy relationship with the elder Curtis (who recently died), or a heartfelt wish that they could have enjoyed the affectionate bond that links this story’s Tim Lake (Domhnall Gleeson) and his father (Bill Nighy).

Which is interesting, since this bittersweet film is being marketed as a sweet, whimsical love story between Tim and Mary (Rachel McAdams). One gets the sense that Universal Pictures is approaching this publicity campaign very warily, not quite certain whether this creature is fish or fowl.

About Time is about all the elements cited above, of course, which is both its greatest virtue and underlying curse. As often is the case with a filmmaker’s long-gestating pet project, Curtis can’t quite get a handle on how best to articulate this unusual saga; as a result, his film wanders a bit, even stumbles at times.

This slightly unfocused approach is surprising — and disappointing — given that Curtis so unerringly kept a few dozen infatuated characters spinning quite successfully in his 2003 masterpiece, Love, Actually. This new film, in contrast, offers dozens of sparkling little moments, all charming in their own right, which wind up being greater than the sum of their parts.

And once we reach the climax, complete with a moral delivered with all the formality of a fable from Aesop, Curtis doesn’t know how to conclude; he stutters his way through a lengthy, didactic epilogue that dilutes much of what came before. We’re clearly intended to be left with a sense of radiant joy over life’s endless possibilities, but instead — at best — we part with Shakespeare’s sweet sorrow.

At worst, with deep regret over our own missed opportunities. Probably not the mood Curtis intended.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows — Nothing elementary about this sequel!

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011) • View trailer
Four stars. Rating: PG-13, and rather generously, for intense action and violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.16.11

Mention Sherlock Holmes, Prof. James Moriarty and Switzerland’s Reichenbach Falls in the same breath, and even the most casual fan of Arthur Conan Doyle’s famed consulting detective will have certain expectations.

With certain death via gunfire and even cannon fire hurrying their flight, Holmes
(Robert Downey Jr., center) and Watson (Jude Law) try to lead Simza (Noomi
Rapace) to the safety of a dense forest, as trees, shrubs and even rocks
explode around them.

Director Guy Ritchie delivers on those expectations, albeit in a roundabout, cheeky and visually exhilarating manner. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is much more audaciously stylized than its 2009 predecessor, which is to say it’s a throwback to the gleefully demented Ritchie who brought us 2000’s Snatch.

This outing with the analytical super-sleuth feels more like an unholy mash-up of Quentin Tarantino and classic Jackie Chan movies, with just enough vintage Holmes — I’m thinking Basil Rathbone’s era — to satisfy Baker Street Irregulars wanting to hear at least some of Doyle’s immortal prose.

Indeed, it’s difficult to repress a shiver of delight when, after Holmes’ unsatisfying face-to-face encounter with Moriarty (Jared Harris) — and the elliptical conversation it contains — the detective eyes his demonic counterpart and says, with the utmost solemnity Robert Downey Jr. can bring to bear, “If I were assured of the former, I would cheerfully accept the latter.”

And if that line doesn’t resonate, then hie thee hence to the nearest copy of Doyle’s “The Final Problem,” in order to best appreciate the phrase’s pregnant implications.

But that suspensefully charged meeting comes well into Ritchie’s film, by which point we’ve already had a great deal of fun.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows opens with an extended prologue that reunites Holmes (Downey) with the larcenous Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams, also returning from the first film), the only woman whose intellect ever impressed the master detective. Adler has fallen in with ill-advised companions; one nasty skirmish later, Holmes possesses a bit more information regarding the criminal mastermind pulling the strings connected to a series of recent calamities.

London — indeed, the entire Western European continent — has been plagued with a series of bombings and other acts of sedition, reflexively blamed on vaguely defined “anarchists” supposedly hoping to topple governments. But Holmes suspects a more sinister plot behind these various attacks, and believes that everything can be traced to a brilliant mathematics professor whose reputation is so spotless that he counts the British prime minister among his closest confidants.

Absent physical evidence, Moriarty can’t be touched ... and, certain as he is, Holmes lacks proof.

Midnight in Paris: Enchanted dream

Midnight in Paris (2011) • View trailer for Midnight in Paris
4.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, and needlessly, for mild sexual content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.17.11


Back in 1979, Woody Allen opened his film Manhattan with the following rhapsodic voice-over:

He adored New York City. He romanticized it all out of proportion. To him, New York meant beautiful women and street-smart guys who seemed to know all the angles. No matter what the season was, this was still a town that existed in black-and-white, and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin.

The displaced Gil (Owen Wilson), already enchanted by his unexpected
surroundings, is further mesmerized by the coquettish Adriana (Marion
Cotillard), who guides him through a side of Paris that offers fresh surprises
from one moment to the next.

A bit more than three decades later, three minor swaps — the city so named, luxurious color for black-and-white, Cole Porter for George Gershwin — could have allowed the same soliloquy to apply to the deliriously romantic montage of images that kicks off Allen’s Midnight in Paris.

This is an idealized vision of Paris, much the way Manhattan was an idealized vision of New York: cinematic love letters to iconic cities with palpable heartbeats. The Paris of Allen’s new film doesn’t — can’t — really exist, any more than the similarly strawberry-lensed Paris of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s 2001 masterpiece, Amélie.

Although Allen remains an astonishingly prolific filmmaker — 42 big-screen features to his credit, going back to 1966, with an even more impressive one per year, without fail, since 1982 — he hasn’t had a no-argument-about-it critical and popular hit since 1986’s Hannah and Her Sisters. That’s not to say he hasn’t done fine work since then — Radio Days, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Mighty Aphrodite and Vicky Cristina Barcelona immediately come to mind — but merely that such films aren’t likely to stand alongside his best.

Well, add another title to Allen’s list of classics, because Midnight in Paris is grand, glorious, witty fun ... and extremely sharp and savvy filmmaking.

Although the delectable conceit that fuels this story has echoes of Brigadoon and even Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Allen’s shrewdly clever script moves in an entirely different direction and takes a playful poke at folks who tediously — or naively — insist that things were much better “in the good ol’ days.” Indeed, Allen eats his cake and has it, too, by waxing poetically about the charms of times past ... while cautioning those who’d try to take up residence.

Gil (Owen Wilson) and his fiancée, Inez (Rachel McAdams) are vacationing in Paris while planning their upcoming wedding: an impending union of remarkably dissimilar sensibilities. Although a wildly successful Hollywood screenwriter, Gil chafes at the soulless emptiness of this career, and thus is trying to write a novel; he rather vaguely hopes that Paris will prove a proper environment for this effort. Inez, perfectly content with the largess that Gil’s income provides, wastes no opportunity to belittle or bluntly dismiss this new artistic goal. Gil tolerates her put-downs with good-natured calm, in part because he secretly worries that she may be right.

Morning Glory: Partly Cloudy

Morning Glory (2010) • View trailer for Morning Glory
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for fleeting profanity and mild sensuality
By Derrick Bang

I’ve got good news for those who’ve waited years for a smart, personable young starlet to inherit the Romantic Comedienne Throne left vacant ever since Meg Ryan flamed out after 1998’s You’ve Got Mail.

Good news, in the form of two words: Rachel McAdams.

Whether appealing to his integrity, brow-beating or begging, the perky and
persuasive Becky (Rachel McAdams) can't get Mike (Harrison Ford) to climb
off his high horse long enough to become an active participant in her
morning TV show.

She fits the job requirement to perfection, and tosses in a few charming ingredients all her own. Her fireball performance in Morning Glory can’t help being the center of attention; hands down, she’s always the most interesting person in the room.

Her career-driven character in this story is endearing despite our frequently wanting to strangle her: playfully erotic while somehow tantalizingly unapproachable; whip-smart and savvy although possessing not the slightest clue about how to put her own best foot forward. Hard-charging, yet vulnerable. Dedicated, determined, loyal and utterly oblivious to negative vibes that would send lesser mortals shrieking to a safer realm.

The “realm” in question here is the dog-eat-dog world of a fourth-ranked television morning show: the happy-chat purgatory that disgorges perky “infotainment” delivered by on-air talking heads surgically unable to stop smiling.

The modern TV creation where actual “news” long ago perished from malnutrition.

Aline Brosh McKenna’s script doesn’t dwell overmuch on network TV’s complicity in the dumbing-down of America, but the implication is felt. The game has changed because the goals have changed: Where once the industry respected and rewarded journalists who dug up and reported stories of merit and substance, and the race reflected a healthy desire to scoop everybody else with the next Watergate or Valerie Plame scandal, now it’s just a sprint to the overnight and weekly ratings … and if that means cooking segments, stupid pet tricks and sending desk anchors out in funny costumes, well, devil take the hindmost.

Sherlock Holmes: The game's afoot!

Sherlock Holmes (2009) • View trailer for Sherlock Holmes
Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for violence, dramatic intensity and brief sensuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.30.09
Buy DVD: Sherlock Holmes • Buy Blu-Ray: Sherlock Holmes [Blu-ray]

Arthur Conan Doyle purists likely will sputter and take solace in the canonical 56 short stories and four novels, while more aggressive members of various Baker Street Irregulars societies will pen waspish editorials in their newsletters, but that won't change the facts: Director Guy Ritchie's audacious re-imagining of the world's most famous consulting detective is impressively realized.

And a lot of fun.

Watson (Jude Law, left) and Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.), relaxing in their digs
at 221 B Baker Street, ponder a particularly devilish detail in a case that grows
weirder -- and possibly more supernatural -- by the day.

Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes — with a stylish original script by Michael Robert Johnson, Anthony Peckham, Simon Kinberg and Lionel Wigram — isn't even close to being the most outré send-up of Holmes and his faithful companion, Dr. Watson; half a dozen earlier projects could vie for that title (my vote for the most wretched being the 1977 Dudley Moore/Peter Cook version of The Hound of the Baskervilles, easily one of the worst movies ever unleashed on an unsuspecting public).

Ritchie is, it therefore must be said, being pilloried both unnecessarily and unfairly. True, this new Sherlock Holmes owes much to co-producer Joel Silver's bombastic, testosterone-fueled school of filmmaking; the frequent bouts of fisticuffs border on the bone-shattering absurd, and at least one of the more vicious death-traps seems to have escaped from the Saw horror franchise.

But the sense and mood of Doyle's brooding detective, along with his environment, are spot-on. Production designer Sarah Greenwood (Atonement, Pride and Prejudice) has done a phenomenal job of re-creating Victorian London, albeit with considerable assistance from the special-effects team that — as just one example — fills the Thames with meticulously authentic 19th century water craft.

Elsewhere, the half-constructed Tower Bridge looms with exposed steel frames and wooden walkways across that same mighty river: an imposing set piece that we just know will figure prominently in this story's climax.

Holmes' cluttered lodgings at 221 B Baker Street are brought to life with similar fidelity to Doyle's original vision. While I couldn't spot the detective's correspondence stuck to the fireplace mantel with an oversized knife, I did note the glass-covered hive of bees, phrenology charts, anatomical drawings, chemical retorts and sagging piles of dog-eared books and scattered newspapers.

And if Robert Downey Jr.'s Holmes combats the frustration of boredom with bare-knuckle boxing, as opposed to a seven-percent solution of cocaine, that seems a minor quibble; either way, the man remains the cheerful misogynist and raging manic depressive that we all know and love.

Indeed, Downey's mesmerizing performance — his coldly analytical approach to any conundrum, his wild mood swings, his foolhardy tendency to charge where angels would fear to tread — ranks as one of cinema's most authentic portrayals of Doyle's famed detective.

The Time Traveler's Wife: It flies

The Time Traveler's Wife (2009) • View trailer for The Time Traveler's Wife
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for profanity, fleeting nudity and sexual candor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.14.09
Buy DVD: The Time Traveler's Wife• Buy Blu-Ray: The Time Traveler's Wife [Blu-ray]


Many patrons will start bawling 15 minutes into director Robert Schwentke's swooningly romantic adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife, and they probably won't stop until the lights come up.

If then.

Even though she understands -- has always understood -- the severe problems
resulting from her decision to fall in love with Henry (Eric Bana), sometimes
Clare (Rachel McAdams) finds the situation more than she can endure. Briefly
walking out of a room, to return and find him vanished, is bad enough; having
no idea how long he'll be gone ... ah, that's the crippling part.

Screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin's understated, impressively compact handling of Niffenegger's popular novel is further buoyed by quietly layered performances from stars Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana, who credibly sell their characters' highly irregular relationship. The gimmick is presented in such a refreshingly matter-of-fact manner — this is the situation; deal with it — that we can't help embracing it, just as these two tragic protagonists live for the moments when they can embrace each other.

The Time Traveler's Wife is an unapologetic romantic fantasy, very much in the mold of 1943's A Guy Named Joe, remade in 1989 as Always, or 1998's Meet Joe Black. As with those earlier films, this one must be accepted on the story's own terms: If you can't get beyond the premise, then don't bother; audience members who whole-heartedly fall under this film's spell will look unfavorably upon anybody snickering on the sidelines.

Things begin quietly enough, as young Henry enjoys a late-night car ride with his mother. Although seemingly innocuous, Schwentke and cinematographer Florian Ballhaus frame the scene in such a manner that we quickly sense impending disaster. Indeed, the inevitable accident is horrific, but for more than one reason: Henry's mother's last sight is that of her son, inexplicably vanishing — being wiped away from reality, much like sand dissolving through an hourglass — seconds before the crash.

The boy pops back into existence just as unexpectedly, close enough to witness the crash, and tightly hugged by a man who also appears out of nowhere ... and explains that he's Henry's older self. The older man lingers just long enough to assure the boy that everything will work out; he then vanishes as quickly as he materialized.

Leaving his clothes behind.

Young Henry has, for the first time, manifested the ability that will haunt him from this day forward: an uncontrollable "gift" for jumping forward or backward in time. We never see the adolescent Henry again, Rubin's script instead focusing on the man (now Bana) who has come to terms with his "talent" as best he can.