Reviews

So far, I'm enjoying this Perry Mason origin story. Spoilers follow:

There was a big reveal early on, when we see Mason appearing as a witness and objecting to questions being asked him by the prosecuting attorney while the actual defense attorney demonstrate his incompetence.

Through flashbacks we learn about a particularly traumatic WW I battlefield experience - clearly the character has been spending the better part of the last 14 years atoning for this.

More hints have been dropped as we see Mason's employer and surrogate father suffering from declining mental faculties and, living on past glories while maintaining his financial lifestyle via three mortgages on his house.

Given all of this, I don't understand why so many people have been complaining that THIS is not Perry Mason. We've never been treated to an origin story for this character - even in the first Perry Mason movie, Mason was already an established attorney in it.

Although the BIG SPOILER for tonight's (13 July) episode is that Mason's employer commits suicide by gas, was anyone surprised?

As I type this, four episodes remain for Mason to somehow go from seedy PI to trial lawyer. Prediction: he'll appear pro hac vice for the defense and win brilliantly.

Remember where you read it first.

For a work of speculative or science fiction to be credible, it must limit the number of demands it makes upon viewers/readers to suspend disbelief. For example, a top-notch, space-based science fiction story may allow for faster-than-light travel, but it generally has to stick to plausible science after that. If a work is pure fantasy, then it is possible to demand more of viewers/readers, but even it must remain internally consistent to whatever set of rules it creates.

Spielberg & Co. attempt to tell a story in which we are asked to accept that law enforcement in the near future has the ability to foresee murders before they actually happen. Fair enough -- we accept this impossible premise in order for the story to unfold, but if the story is to be believable, we should expect no further impositions on our credibility.

Other reviewers have commented on various plot problems, which, though valid, are not fundamentally impossible. There is, however, a major plot element involving the `murder' that Anderton is supposed to commit that is impossible. SPOILER FOLLOWS:

We see the pre-cog vision of the shooting multiple times as we approach the actual confrontation. In this vision, the victim, Leo Crow, has been shot at a distance (one image), and Anderton is seen holding his pistol with arm outstretched, pointing at Crow who is falling away (second image). The second image would be perfectly consistent with someone firing a gun at someone standing a few feet away. However, in the actual event, Anderton doesn't deliberately shoot Crow – he starts to read him his rights (a very well done piece of acting by Cruise). Crow then begs Anderton to kill him, revealing the planned frame-up. In desperation, Crow rushes forward, grabs Anderton's gun hand, pulls Anderton and the gun to his chest, and is able to make the gun discharge. We then get a short (probably less than a second) repeat of the second pre-cog image, now supposedly real, of Crow falling away with Anderton in exactly the same position, body turned sideways, arm outstretch with the pistol aimed at Crow as though he had just shot him. Impossible!!! This would require that after Crow was shot, Anderton would straighten his arm, turn sideways, and point the pistol at Crow. Aside from there being no time to assume that position, no one having just inadvertently shot someone would behave in such a fashion.

It gets worse. A contact pistol wound is very distinct – so much so that even the average layperson would be able to distinguish it from a wound made from several feet away. We therefore must assume that no one would notice the obvious discrepancy between the pre-cog vision of the bullet hit from several feet away (image one) and the reality –- seriously undermining the supposed perfection of future crime detection. This problem in elementary forensics is one that was going to exist once the writers decided on how events would plausibly unfold. Maybe one could overlook this problem by saying that police organizations didn't do forensics anymore, and no one involved ever looked closely at the body of Leo Crow. Like the absurdities with the eyes that miraculously didn't deteriorate to unusability after a few minutes (let alone hours), it would be one more block in the pyramid of improbabilities (noted by other reviewers) needed to keep the plot advancing.

Spielberg & Co. clearly wanted to explore the idea of determinism versus free will. They also wanted to examine whether a perfect crime detection system that saved hundreds of lives every year could be balanced against the exploitation of the 3 people who made it possible -– a classic moral question of, do the needs of the many (to paraphrase Mr. Spock) outweigh the needs of the few? But there really is no moral question at all since the system is not perfect. Pre-cog image one is wrong and free will triumphs over determinism. Spielberg & Co. obviously decided that it wouldn't do to have all of the exposition required to explore the morality of utilitarianism go down the tubes when Leo Crow is shot, so viewers were tricked by false, impossible image two into concluding that this particular (very gifted) pre-cog's visions were perfect but incomplete. This is sloppy script writing and arrogant (or lazy) film direction. It is the final insult, for this viewer at least.

I'd sum up the movie this way: good acting, good sfx and cgi. Message movie ultimately subverted by very badly written plot.

There are a number of standout performances in THE GREEN MILE, particularly by Michael Clark Duncan. As the spiritual center and Christ figure of the story, Duncan is superb. There are so many things to like about this movie (it is an effective and moving indictment of the death penalty) that it is sad to see it undone by a plot absurdity.

Any story that depends on supernatural elements requires that the audience suspend disbelief. However, accepting supernatural elements demands consistency and logic in the other supernatural elements.

(Spoiler)

In this movie, Coffey's talent as a healer becomes known to the guards and the warden. Near the end of the movie, Coffey is able to pass on a memory/image of the person who actually committed the crime he was convicted of to the guard/narrator (Tom Hanks). Although Coffey is clearly innocent, we are told that nothing can be done to save him. This is totally absurd. In the real world, where there is no evidence for actual spiritual or psychic healing, practicianers (or charlatans) enjoy fantastic success. If there were a REAL healer, who could also transfer images from the minds of killers to other people, then publicizing his talent would be a trivial exercise. We already know that officials came to the prison to see a mouse perform -- why wouldn't people come to see a genuine healer? Finding powerful supporters who would argue for clemency would be the next logical step. In essence, the momentum of the movie is to kill Coffey since he is a Christ-figure, and the plot is the ultimate casualty.

Trying to paper over the hole with the idea that Coffey was ready to lay down the burden of empathizing all of the world's pain and embrace death just didn't work and felt condescending.

Rating: 5 = Performances (8) - plot hole (3)

There are a lot of things good about this movie. It's taut, well acted, and generally well plotted (but see below). Good performances all around, including the late, great J.T. Walsh.

However, I must express my extreme annoyance with a major plot hole. Near the end of the movie, Dennis Hopper's character agrees to give up his semi-auto pistol, which he places on the ground, removing and pocketing the magazine/clip. This pistol is then picked up by J.T. Walsh's character. It eventually ends up in the possession of Lara Flynn Boyle's character. She threatens Nick Cage with the gun, who refuses to be intimidated because he "knows" the gun is unloaded. The problem is that the gun cannot be unloaded. We saw it fired once, earlier, before Hopper relinquishes it, which meant that there had to be a round in the chamber at the time Hopper put the gun on the ground. Removing the magazine alone doesn't render a gun unloaded. The round in the chamber has to be ejected to do that, and this was never done in the movie. (NOTE: the Al Pacino movie, SCENT OF A WOMAN gets this right. At the end of the scene where he has been talked out of suicide, he ejects the round from the chamber of his .45 semi-auto from which he had earlier removed the clip.)

Nick Cage is supposed to be viewed as being clever by remembering that the gun is unloaded, but in the real (as opposed to Hollywood world), he'd be dead, killed by the last round in the gun.

Rating: 7 - 2 (for the awful plot hole) = 5

It's pretty clear that Alan Ball was inspired by the Hemmingway short story, "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" when he wrote AMERICAN BEAUTY. Obviously Ball wanted to explore more themes than Hemmingway, and he paints on a broader canvass, but the essential plot is the same: a sad wimp of a man with an unloving and unfaithful wife gets his life together and achieves happiness on the same day he is shot in the back of the head and killed.

A significant departure in Ball's story is that the wife clearly intends to kill her husband but is pre-empted by the repressed homosexual neighbor, Colonel Fitts, whereas Macomber is killed by his wife in a manner that could be, but is assumed not to be, an accident. The motivation for Macomber's wife and Burnham's wife to commit murder is essentially the same: they have both lost their power over their formerly spineless husbands.

Ball attempts to avoid Hemmingway's misogyny by giving the impression that Burnham's wife learns from her husband's death. After discovering him, she breaks into tears and throws her gun in the trash. Why it might be desirable to disarm oneself when a family member was killed by person or persons unknown, who might still be lurking in the shadows, is never explained. Given the underlying politics of the film one might conclude that Burnham's wife "finds" herself by getting rid of the evil gun. Another possibility is that the image we get throughout the movie of the wife as a self-absorbed idiot is just reinforced at the end and that she doesn't grow at all.

Despite the weak resolution of the wife's motivation/growth, the other significant characters are well drawn, if predictable. The Colonel's son as an intelligent, artistic, and responsible young man who happens to be a big-time drug dealer is a nice touch.

Ultimately, Kevin Spacey's performance is what elevates this film to must see status. I give it a 7 out of 10.

This movie has a number of strong elements: great soundtrack, crisp editing, and solid visual and sound effects. What really makes this movie work for me, however, is the character of the Predator himself. A number of reviewers have commented on the creature suit but have failed to acknowledge the fine work of Kevin Peter Hall inside. Hall had to create the character of the Predator working only by gesture and body language and did so magnificently. In many ways, the Predator -- and Hall -- upstage Arny.

The action in the movie builds to a final confrontation that bears more than a passing resemblance to the various cinematic treatments of the classic short story, "The Most Dangerous Game" in which a big game hunter hunts humans (the most dangerous game) for sport. We are introduced to the Predator -- the extra-terrestrial big game hunter -- a piece at a time. We assemble these pieces -- sounds, POV shots, shots of the Predator tending a wound, and so on -- to begin to form an impression of who the Predator is. This way the movie reveals the Predator to us is nothing short of brilliant.

For instance, the Predator has a distinctive percussive, guttural trill sound that it makes periodically. If one is paying very close attention, this sound will be heard the first time in conjunction with the sounds of other jungle fauna. There is no suggestion that the Predator has anything to do with it. It is only later, when the sound is directly associated with the Predator, that you'll realize that the Predator was stalking the team from early in the action.

The Predator also has a refined aural mimicking ability -- think duck call. Early on we hear the Predator practising imitating the speech and even laughter of various members of the team. In particular, I direct your attention to Billy's laugh, which the Predator mimics. Listen closely for the number of times you hear Billy laugh, and then notice how often that he's not part of the group that is laughing.

(Spoiler)

At the end of the movie, Arny refrains from delivering the killing blow and says to himself, "What the hell are you?" The alien mimics Arny, repeating the same statement. Was it just the mindless duck call-like lure, or was the Predator acknowledging his adversary?