The Wicker Man
Wicker Man, The (1973)
★★ / ★★★★
Sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward) arrived in an island to investigate the disappearance of a little girl. But when he asked the residents about information regarding the missing child, they claimed that they didn’t know her, as if she never existed. The longer Sergeant Howie stayed on the island, the more he felt a certain level of unease. He was horrified by the village’s strange practices like teachers (Diane Cilento) openly discussing phallic symbols to her students, public sexual intercourse, and umbilical cords hung on a small trees planted on graves. “The Wicker Man,” directed by Robin Hardy, was a strange horror film because I didn’t always feel as horrified as the main character. There were times when I couldn’t help but feel like the film was simply a product of its time or that Sergeant Howie was simply being close-minded. After all, he was a deeply devout Christian. He turned almost aggressive when he encountered anything that challenged his beliefs. In some ways, he wasn’t particularly likable because of the manner in which he judged the villagers, as weird as their culture might be, without trying to understand, even in the rudimentary ways, why the residents moved away from Christianity, symbolized by an abandoned church in ruins. The film also placed emphasis on folk music. It worked in some scenes because the soothing music was an interesting contrast to the unsettling images we saw. However, it wasn’t as effective in other more crucial scenes especially when the real horror, like when Sergeant Howie discovered what the villagers, led by Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee), were really up to. There were also some scenes that were somewhat difficult to decipher. For instance, when the bartender’s daughter, Willow (Britt Ekland), was dancing in the nude next to Sergeant Howie’s room, was she performing some sort of witchcraft that affected our protagonist physically and psychologically or was it all a dream, something that hinted at Sergeant Howie’s sexual frustration because he considered it a sin to engage in sexual practices before marriage? Certain strands led to dead ends which caused confusion. Perhaps it was the fact that I saw a shortened version of the film. Those missing twenty minutes could possibly shed light to questions related to the secret revealed later in the picture. “The Wicker Man” relied on mood and atmosphere more than images designed to linger in our minds and make us jump. There’s nothing wrong with that. I felt dread during Sergeant Howie’s investigation and the way the residents answered his questions but never really getting to the point. In the end, what mattered most was it all had to come together. I felt as though it did not.
Abduction
Abduction (2011)
★★ / ★★★★
Nathan (Taylor Lautner) was led to believe that he was any other teenager raised in suburbia: He went to parties with his friends (Denzel Whitaker, William Peltz), got into trouble for not coming home until the next morning, and had a crush on his neighbor, Karen (Lily Collins), who happened to have a boyfriend. When Nathan and Karen’s sociology teacher assigned them to work together on a project, Karen stumbled upon a website that listed people who were missing. One of the photos of the kids resembled Nathan. This instantly grabbed his attention because it explained why he didn’t feel quite right when he was around his parents (Maria Bello, Jason Isaacs). Upon further examination of the picture, Nathan noticed that he and the kid had the same shirt with a stain on the exact spot. “Abduction,” written by Shawn Christensen and directed John Singleton, exhibited solid control as it moved from soapy teen flick territory to heart-pounding possible government conspiracy. I enjoyed that even though the protagonist was capable of defending himself using boxing and various martial arts, not once was he required to pull a trigger to kill his attackers. It was interesting because although there were action sequences, I wasn’t watching an action star at its center, but an actor who had the potential of someday becoming an action star. There was a commitment and enthusiasm I enjoyed from watching Lautner. His bruise-inducing punches, bone-crunching kicks, and wild somersaults were executed with energy so I was invested in what was happening and why certain things unfolded the way they did. More than a handful of them were convenient but I didn’t mind; I was having a good time. However, the picture featured supporting characters that I wished we knew more about, particularly CIA Agent Burton (Alfred Molina), Nathan’s psychiatrist, Dr. Bennett (Sigourney Weaver), and the villainous Kozlow (Michael Nyqvist). I felt as though they were forced to take the backseat in order to make room for supposedly romantic scenes between Nathan and Karen. The material was crippled when the two traded extremely cheesy lines. For instance, as the couple shared a passionate kiss on the train, Karen claimed Nathan was a much better kisser than in the eighth grade. The response was somewhere along the lines of, “That’s because I didn’t know what I was doing back in the eighth grade.” I had to cringe; I think I even did a face palm. They were awkward enough with each other and the script didn’t help to alleviate the bad chemistry. I understood that the filmmakers needed to have less adrenaline-fueled scenes in order to allow the film to breathe, but they didn’t need to slap us upside the head with egregious dialogue and, yes, of the duo delicately holding hands and trading knowing smiles. “Abduction” was occasionally inconsistent but entirely watchable given the parameters it set out for itself.
The Hangover Part II
Hangover Part II, The (2011)
★ / ★★★★
Two years after a bachelor’s party turned into horrendous but hilarious mess in Las Vegas, Phil, (Bradley Cooper), Alan (Zach Galifianakis), and Doug (Justin Bartha) headed to Thailand to see Stu (Ed Helms) get married to Lauren (Jamie Chung), despite the father of the bride’s disapproval of the groom. Two nights before the big day, the four friends, along with Lauren’s sixteen-year-old brother, Teddy (Mason Lee), each quaffed a bottle of harmless beer at the beach. The next day, Phil and Alan woke up alongside Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong), an international criminal, with Doug and Teddy missing. Like last time, the party had no choice but to retrace their steps, find the persons of interest, and get back to the wedding in time. The cardinal sin that “The Hangover Part II,” written by Craig Mazin, Scott Armstrong, and Todd Phillips, committed was underestimating their audiences’ capacity to appreciate a sequel that, in the least, tried to be original. I had no qualms about the characters making an utter fool of themselves by getting into the most ridiculous situations involving Russians and their pet monkey, prostitutes with something unexpected in their panties, and Paul Giamatti being devilishly magnetic as a crime boss, but giving us a facsimile of its predecessor was not only lazy on the filmmakers’ part, it was also quite pessimistic and insulting. Given that the first film was such a success nationally and internationally, one would expect that the writers would at least try to come up with something different so that, after watching the final product, we would be begging to see more. The characters weren’t allowed to move past their adventures in Vegas and I wondered, with great frustration, why not. Alan kept bringing up what had happened in Vegas two years ago in almost every other scene. It was counterproductive because instead of drawing us into this specific new adventure and slowly revealing why frolicking all over Thailand was special in its own right, referencing to its counterpart forced us to compare analogous scenes–this one overwhelmingly inferior. The jokes ranged from bad to completely absent. I didn’t see what was so funny about smoking monkeys and ten-year-old kids engaging in underaged drinking. Nor did I recognize why the characters eventually broke out in song instead of just engaging in silence. At times, scenes with a poverty of words can work given the right timing and direction. These guys embodied hedonism which, in reality, almost always comes with a price. Instead of being boisterous jerks all the time, stereotypically American in that they had no regard or respect toward other cultures, why not allow them to sit and consider the fact that perhaps their heedlessness led them exactly where they should be and deservingly so? “The Hangover Part II,” clumsily directed by Todd Phillips, was a comedy that was diffident in terms of dealing with real emotions. Sure, it was about having fun and getting into trouble afterwards. But the filmmakers had forgotten that their project was about friendship, too. From what I saw, these guys were not worthy of each other’s friendships. Then why should they be worthy of our time?
