50 Shades of Grey **1/2

Short Take: This film adaptation of the bestselling novel is a cross between The Story of O and a made-for-TV movie on Lifetime or Oxygen.

Reel Take: While I am not a fan nor have I read the source material by E.L. James, I am absolutely fascinated in 50 Shades of Grey as a cultural tidal wave. Not only is there the book (books actually) and the movie, but numerous product spinoffs as well including a “50 Shades of Grey Teddy Bear” complete with designer suit and miniature handcuffs that retails for $90.

How does a poorly written BDSM novel (to judge from what I heard in the film and compared to the benchmark of the genre, The Story of O) become this huge juggernaut? I have my theories but I will keep mum on that subject as this is meant to be a movie review not an analysis of a puzzling social phenomenon.

So how is it as a movie? It did exceed my expectations which weren’t very high to begin with. Sam Taylor-Johnson also directed one of my favorite films, Nowhere Boy, about a teenage John Lennon, back in 2009. After this she can pick whatever project she wants. 50 Shades is already the most successful Valentine’s movie ever, as well as having the most successful R rated opening weekend in history. As this review went to press, it had made almost $100 million domestically in a little over 4 days.

Taylor-Johnson has made a handsome film. The photography is designer worthy, the décor is Bruce Wayne stylish, and the music is mostly mood setting and effective, but what of the actors? Dakota Johnson and Jaime Dornan aren’t bad but they and their characters aren’t allowed to make much of an impression. They’re window dressing and nothing more. The movie is all about the situation and several different young performers could easily have filled these roles.

Unlike the 1975 film version of The Story of O (see DVD pick), 50 Shades goes out of its way to seem more serious and important than it is. The glossy production values (the tasteful BDSM “playroom” belongs in Vogue or Vanity Fair) not only give it faux importance but serve to disguise and sugar coat the fact that this is all about a dominant man seeking to impose his personality on a not totally submissive but definitely curious woman through pain and pleasure (in that order).

I confess to liking the first half of the film because of its resemblance to classic romance literature. It could have taken place anywhere within the past 300 years with a simple change of costume and setting. Once it switches over to the “dark side”, I lost interest. Movies (and books) like 50 Shades of Grey simply feed our ever increasing voyeuristic culture and it can and will be easily misinterpreted.

Rated R for strong sexual content including graphic nudity and unusual behavior and for strong language.

Review by Chip Kaufmann

Jupiter Ascending ****1/2

Short Take: Jupiter Ascending is the latest unusual offering from Andy and Lana Wachowski, who earlier gave us The Matrix trilogy, V For Vendetta, and Cloud Atlas.

Reel Take: Don’t pay attention to all the negative criticism against this movie. In truth, Jupiter Ascending is terrific – adrenaline-pumping, funny, and visually spectacular. I loved all 127 minutes of this gloriously goofy space adventure. If you demand logic, however, or subtlety, or even a chance to catch your breath, it’s not for you.

Jupiter Ascending is the latest offering from the wild and crazy Wachowski siblings, who exploded on the movie scene 16 years ago with The Matrix, and its famous “bullet-time” effects, starring Keanu Reeves. In Jupiter, the filmmakers are cosmic magpies, poking around in life’s conundrums (Where do we go when we die? Are we both male and female?) and pulling out glittering threads from other movies. Much of the fun of watching Jupiter is tracing its lineage. Start with TV’s Ancient Aliens, then remember Soylent Green. On to Star Wars (of course) and throw in Cinderella, Hunger Games, and even, The Graduate. An homage to the anti-bureacracy classic Brazil, includes a hilarious cameo with Terry Gilliam himself.

In Chicago, a young cleaning woman named Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) dreams of escaping her boisterous Russian émigré family and living a life of luxury. One harrowing day, a horde of ratty-looking ETs tries to kill her.

In flies Caine Wise (Channing Tatum) on his gravity-defying skateboard boots. He rescues Jupiter just in the nick of time, something he does a lot in the movie because the gal never meets a balcony she doesn’t want to fall off. Caine is a military hunter who has the genes of a wolf, but the good manners of a Golden Retriever, meaning no matter how much he wants to make love with Jupiter, he remains dutifully chaste – such restraint, of course, drives Jupiter and every woman in the audience mad with desire.

At the house of a bee-keeper named Stinger (Sean Bean), who is Caine’s former military commander, Jupiter learns her new appellation is “Your Majesty.” She is the reincarnation of the late matriarch of the universe’s ruling Abrasax family. In essence, Jupiter is the legal owner of planet Earth.

Everybody speeds off to a galaxy far, far away where Jupiter meets her genetic siblings. They are a nasty bunch. Balem (Eddie Redmayne, Oscar nominee for The Theory of Everything) is a whispering control freak who wants Jupiter dead. Her other evil brother, Titus (Douglas Booth), is prettier than Jupiter so it takes longer to realize you have to hiss at him, too. Sister Kalique (Tuppence Middleton), resembling a young Hillary Clinton, explains to Jupiter that “time is the most precious commodity in the universe.” The Abrasax corporate industry is harvesting human beings en masse to extract the elixir that bestows the family’s immortality. Next target – Earth.

And on it goes… Jupiter has to ascend to the challenge to save her home planet. Caine has to chase after her. One battle after another, betrayals and derring-do, countless costume changes, incredible architecture, weird-looking extraterrestrial, lots and lots of flying, whizzing, zooming, smashing and tons of fireworks. Oh, it’s wonderful.

Rated PG-13 for violence, sequences of sci-fi action, suggestive content, and partial nudity.

Guest Review by Marcianne Miller

Kingsman: The Secret Service ****1/2

Short Take: This affectionate but highly irreverent spoof of 1960s spy films is part James Bond, part Pulp Fiction with a touch of Downton Abbey thrown in for good measure.

Reel Take: When I came out of Kingsman: The Secret Service I promptly slipped on some snowy ice and came crashing to the ground. I wasn’t hurt but I was surprised, but not half as surprised as I was by this movie.

What looks in the trailer to be a spoof of James Bond movies with a dash of The Avengers (the 1998 movie not the old TV show or the current Marvel franchise) turns out to be much, much more. There are references from an astonishing number of movies from the first Casino Royale (1967), to Pulp Fiction to Tim Burton’s Batman to director Matthew Vaughan’s own Kick Ass.

In addition to the movie references there are shrewd and sometimes savage social commentaries in the actions and the dialogue of many of the characters. Trying to describe them in so brief a space as this would be impossible. Just go see the movie. While the overt stuff is precisely that, there are plenty of subtleties to be savored thanks to a sharp and witty screenplay from Jane Goldman (Stardust, The Woman in Black) and director Vaughan.

Kingsman is a super secret intelligence agency, British of course, that works for no government but uses its agents to try and maintain a proper world. The agents are all code named after King Arthur’s knights and come from English upper crust. One of them, Galahad (Colin Firth), takes the lower class son (Taron Egerton) of a late agent who saved his life, and tries to mold him into a crack agent and perfect gentlemen (you can’t have one without the other).

Threatening the stability of the world is Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson), an internet magnate who plans to destroy 4/5ths of the world’s population through their cell phones in order to bring about an end to global warming. Jackson’s wonderfully over-the-top performance as a sort of lisping Jack Nicholson style Joker is an absolute delight.

Also in the cast are Michael Caine as Arthur, the organization head, Mark Strong as the Q stand-in, Merlin and, in a big surprise, Mark Hamill as a university professor who is key to Samuel L. Jackson’s plan (he’s very good and virtually unrecognizable). Also we mustn’t forget Jackson’s bladed bodyguard Gazelle (shades of Oscar Pistorius) excitingly played by Sofia Boutella. There’s even a cute pug that plays a key part in the story.

Sound intrigued? I certainly hope so because Kingsman is a remarkable film that works as food for thought and solid entertainment. Think of it as The Grand Budapest Hotel of spy movies. But be warned that it is extremely violent (hundreds of people get killed) but their deaths are stylized and mostly bloodless. There are also some segments that may be considered in poor taste especially if you’re a member of a certain headline grabbing fundamentalist church in Kansas.

Rated R for strong violence, strong language, and brief sexual content.

Review by Chip Kaufmann

Mr. Turner ****

Short Take: Exquisite biopic on the life of 19th century English painter J.M.W. Turner features a stunning performance by Timothy Spall but its length, leisurely pace, and subject matter will not appeal to most people.

Reel Take: If this review were from a purely personal point of view rather than a critical one, Mr. Turner would easily earn 5 stars with no hesitation because it’s simply my kind of movie. However it won’t be that for most people simply because of what it is. It’s a large scale cinematic biography of the early 19th century English painter J.M.W. Turner and that will keep many people, mostly men, away from it.

What makes Mr. Turner so outstanding, in my opinion, is the absolutely uncanny way that director Mike Leigh has recreated Turner’s world. It’s not just the costuming and the physical settings, which are absolutely flawless, it’s the very soul of the film in what the characters do and say and especially the way they say it.

Director Leigh had his actors rehearse his script long before shooting got underway so that they could inhabit the characters as real 19th century beings. They not only look the part but speak it as well. The script is written in the style of an early 19th century novel and the characters use archaic words and grammatical structure. This more than anything else gives you the feeling that you have been transported back in time.

Mike Leigh, now 73 and usually known for his British slice-of-life dramas, has done something similar to this once before. Back in 1988 he made Topsy-Turvy, a film about the creation of Gilbert & Sullivan’s most popular Savoy opera The Mikado. For that film he recreated G&S’s Victorian world down to the minutest detail and that “you are there” feeling is all over that movie as well. Needless to say Topsy-Turvy is also “my kind of movie.”

In addition to getting the period settings right, Leigh is also able to draw a series of remarkable performances from his ensemble cast but none more so than from Timothy Spall. He simply is Turner and inhabits the character the way that actor Charles Laughton used to back in the 1930s. In fact, he rather resembles Laughton’s Quasimodo from the 1939 Hunchback of Notre Dame only minus the physical deformities.

Yet as much as I admire the film, it is very long (150 minutes) and is paced very slowly. There’s also not a lot of physical action going on. Think of Girl With A Pearl Earring only longer and much more deliberate. In addition to the settings and the performances, the cinematography is breathtaking. Cinematographer Dick Pope not only recreates the 19th century but also the hues and textures not only of Turner’s paintings but of the landscapes that inspired them.

So 4 stars overall for Mr. Turner. It’s an incredibly well made movie that will have a very limited appeal. See it on the big screen if you can for there its vistas will silence any criticism if you allow them too.

Rated R for some sexual content.

Review by Chip Kaufmann

Seventh Son ***1/2

Short Take: Another in the long line of evil witch / fairy tale movies is nothing special but it does boast enjoyable over-the top performances from Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore.

Reel Take: I went to see Seventh Son and got exactly what I expected which in this case is a good thing. A nothing special fairy tale / fantasy film that effectively kept me entertained for its 102 minute running time. I enjoy rubbish like this and having two top performers like Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore not only chew the scenery but make a “soup to nuts” meal out of it, just makes it all the more enjoyable.

Joining them in this cinematic banquet are such quality players as Olivia Williams (The Sixth Sense), Jason Scott Lee (Map of the Human Heart), and Djimon Hounsou (Blood Diamond). It may be just a paycheck to them but all paychecks should be this much fun. In fact fun is the key word. Seventh Son doesn’t pretend to be anything else. It’s a throwback to such 1960s popcorn movie fare as The Magic Sword and Captain Sindbad only with better special effects.

The film is based on the first of a series of 13 fantasy novels by Brit author Joseph Delaney known as The Wardstone Chronicles in the U.K. and The Last Apprentice in the U.S. The first (The Spook’s Apprentice) was published in 2004 while the latest (The Spook’s Revenge) appeared last year. They tell the story of Thomas Ward, the seventh son of a seventh son who trains to become a spook or master fighter of the supernatural.

I haven’t read any of the books, but according to several online comments, the movie makes several changes (don’t they always) with the most significant being upping the age of Tom who is 12 when the series of books begins. Ben Barnes who portrays the titular character is somewhat older than that.

The movie version of the story follows the adventures of Master Gregory (Bridges) who roams an unspecified countryside battling witches and their supernatural creatures. In the opening a young Gregory imprisons a powerful witch named Mother Malkin (Moore) who escapes many years later to seek her revenge. She kills his apprentice forcing him to quickly recruit another one. That is how Tom Ward (Barnes) enters the picture.

After a rushed and haphazard training period they must battle Mother Malkin and her army of supernatural demons. Complicating matters is Malkin’s niece Alice (Alicia Vikander) who is torn between love for Tom and her mother who is also a witch. Needless to say, as in most young adult fiction of this type, things work out in the end…for now.

Director Sergei Bodrov (Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan) marshals his actors and moves things along nicely while veteran special effects director John Dykstra (Star Wars) and his crew of technicians do the rest. Seventh Son is not a top drawer fantasy film, but it’s a pleasant enough diversion if you enjoy these types of movies, which I do.

Rated PG-13 for fantasy violence, frightening images, and brief strong language.

Review by Chip Kaufmann