Ben Saw: Star Trek

Because I am a lazy jerk, I want to make a few points as opposed to doing a proper review.



I'm going to direct you to Henry's review of Star Trek if you're looking for a proper review. While Henry eschews the plot summary, the thing's an experience far more than a story telling exercise so I really don't think he needed to include one. I do plan on coming back to the story though.....

Anyway, when I work out I usually have a movie going while I'm on the bike (the magic of cheap portable dvd players). This allows me to rip through a whole bunch of movies that I haven't seen and often (let's be honest) I wouldn't otherwise have bothered with. Star Trek is a movie I actually would have 'bothered with' absent the bike, but I watched it there and I've had a bit of a sci-fi kick going since then. As a disclaimer, I never really enjoyed anything I encountered of the old 'Trek'; I was too young for the campy original show to fill me with a sense of wonder or nostalgia and the movies I saw were basically all the cinematic equivalent of Ambien. I didn't have some great hatred for 'Star Trek', but I avoided it in all its forms.

This all gets to the question: is the new 'Star Trek' good? And that's easy: yes. Yes it is. It's fun, light, charming and exciting. It gets capable performances out of its cast (with the guy playing Spock,Zachary Quinto, serving as the highlight for me) and has a really terrific blend of CGI and practical effects. The pratical effects were very welcome, by the way, and I really hope they make a comeback in this kind of movie. My movie-making gripes would be 1. that the cinematography was a little dull and was further hobbled in post-production by some clod with an unhealty obsession with lens flare effects, 2. the movie doesn't feel long but it's not tightly edited enough and 3. there are some pretty exciting action scenes, but none of the space battles were particularly gripping for me (more on this later).

Like I said earlier though, I have to come back to the story because that's where I was most drawn to nitpick........

*Spoilers ahead!* You see, J.J. Abrams needed to make the new 'Star Trek' exciting so he just remade 'Star Wars' (I am certainly not the first person to make this observation) and I was reminded of this CONSTANTLY while I was watching the movie from the very beginning (the big villain attacks a much smaller ship looking for a main character who's ostensible on a diplomatic mission) until the very end (medals are given out in a big ceremony! Chewbacca should have been there to bellow). Like the video I linked to suggests, the basic plots are the same (villain in planet destroying ship hunts down the heroes and does bad stuff), as are many of the key characters (Kirk is a combination of Luke and Han, Spock is effectively a combination of Leia and Chewbacca) but, more distractingly, Abrams borrowed a lot of much smaller moments from 'Star Wars'. The villain brutally kills the commanding officer in the opening scene, the hero fights a big monster on an ice planet and has a key plot reveal in an ice cave (and then they interact with an 'Obi-Wan' character) a la 'Empire Strikes Back', the 'Leia' character's home planet is destroyed while he/she is forced to watch and, to my immense amusement, 'Return of the Jedi' is invoked when the good fleet finds itself heading in to a much more dangerous situation than it anticipated ('It's a Trap!!!'). A lot of shots and movie-making techniques get swiped in the process, from the way that big ships first get visually introduced to entire FRAMES from 'Empire Strikes Back' when the culminating hand-to-hand fight occurs.

I really can't fault Abrams too much for this, he's working from a disadvantage just by dint of history. 'Star Wars' is not sacrosanct and it introduced much of the cinematic vocabulary that this genre in general (and Abrams in particular) draws from. You don't always need to reinvent the wheel and you can get high marks simply giving a fresh spin to a classic approach, especially if your script is sharp and you use your effects well (more or less true for 'Trek' on both counts). Another small disadvantage is the type of action: 'Star Wars' always drew much of its action from World War 2 whereas 'Trek's' historical inspiration for its action was more the adventures of the George-ian to Victorian-era British fleet; while both can be exciting, I'll take WW2-era dogfights any day and that's why the space battles lacked the punch they could have had.

All of the above was a bit distracting for me, but I mostly felt it just needed to be pointed out. Probably the true 'biggest problem' is that while they have Eric Bana's character play the Darth Vader-role, his character doesn't have 1/100th the presence or the menace of Vader. That's a very high bar, granted, but this is still a real drawback because it lowers the tension every time there's a hint of conflict between the opposing forces. It's not that Bana's bad per se, but the character's underwritten and underwhelming and, when you just have Eric Bana yelling in silly make-up, the threat just isn't there. I never appreciate how much a good villain provides the dramatic heart of a story more than when one is absent.

Anyway this comes across as critical, but Star Trek really is a good movie. It should be. After all, it's cribbing from the best..........................

Grade: A-

Henry Saw: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

And so the story continues...


The Harry Potter film series is quite remarkable really. For six films now the Harry Potter (HP) movies have been consistently entertaining, popular, and worthwhile entries into the children's movie canon. In a world where most movie series can't make three worthwhile films, Warner Brothers and 4 different directors (Columbus, Cuaron, Newell, and now the director of the final 3 books - David Yates) have crafted six well-above-average fantasy films. While a lot of the credit must go to J.K. Rowling for coming up with six quality narratives it is still an impressive accomplishment by Warner Brothers.

For the record I think the best two HP movies have been the 3rd (The Prisoner of Azkaban) and the 4th (The Goblet of Fire). Azkaban, directed by Cuaron, was the most visually striking of the films while Goblet, Newell's film, was the best mixture of fun and fantasy. I actually did not really like the fifth film, The Order of the Phoenix, which was Yates' first HP film. I thought it was dull for extended stretches and that Yates' direction lacked some of the grandeur and magic that was found in the first four films. I admit that this might be a feature of the books (which I shamefully have not read) and ties into the growing sense of impending doom, but I just didn't enjoy Phoenix as much as the other films.

That brings us to the Half-Blood Prince. In this installment Harry is still recovering from (spoiler for Order of the Phoenix) the death of his uncle and Voldemort's forces are getting more aggressive. In an effort to learn more about Voldemort, Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) recruits Professor Slughorn (Jim Broadbent) a former teacher at Hogwarts, and asks Harry to try to find out what Slughorn knows about Voldemort. Meanwhile, all the kids at Hogwarts are getting older, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione are dealing with their raging hormones.

Half-Blood Prince is a definite improvement on his last film. Helping Yates is the fact that his three principle actors, Daniel Radcliffe as Harry, Rupert Grint as Ron, and Emma Watson as Hermione have all really matured into their roles. Radcliffe and Watson shine especially bright in this outing. Radcliffe's Harry is growing into a more confident and comfortable young man while Watson makes Hermione's first encounter with self-doubt and heartbreak believable. Also helping to carry the film is Gambon's Dumbledore, who is a much more lively figure than Richard Harris' version was in the first two films, and who brings out the best in Radcliffe.

Not only are the core cast members getting better, but the supporting cast (always a highlight of the series) also coninues to improve. Broadbent, the big new addition, can sometimes annoy by playing things too big but is perfectly cast as Slughorn. Slughorn is a bit of an ass, and is hiding something from Dumbledore (a big no-no), but we can see the decency and tragedy in the character due to Broadbent's strong performance. Helena Bonham Carter has a blast as Bellatrix and Alan Rickman, playing Severus Snape, still makes me smile everytime he's on screen. Perhaps best of all is Evanna Lynch, playing Luna Lovegood, who is probably my favorite supporting player in the film.

The action in this film, wisely, is kept to a minimum. This sounds like a strange thing for me to say as I just accused the fifth film of being too boring, and that had a lot more action than this one, but part of the problem that all these films have all had is that the "wizard fights" are actually incredibly dull. Two people pointing sticks at each other and shouting nonsense words is not that cinematic. More interesting are the characters, their relationships, and seeing how they're growing into the roles they'll have to take in the big confrontation awaiting in the final two films (Book 7 is being split into two movies). The action scenes that are in Half-Blood Prince are an improvement on the last film's, mostly because they're more original and quicker, and partially because we care about the characters more in this one. One highlight includes the opening sequence which is a high speed ride through London and culminates in an attack on the Millennium Bridge near St. Paul's.

Half-Blood Prince does have flaws though, flaws that prevent it from reaching the same heights as the 3rd and 4th films. For starters, this film does feel like it is entirely set-up for the big finale. Very well done set-up, but set-up nonetheless. There is also a little too much of the relationship business, which also suffers from Rupert Grint just not being quite as charming in the role of Ron as the part calls for. He's good as comic relief, and as Harry Potter's best friend, but doesn't totally sell being a "big man on campus". I also missed Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort, and though Fiennes' nephew does a good job as young Voldemort in flashbacks, the film is missing a central villain.

Finally, the conclusion is a bit rushed, and the big event that concludes the film loses some of its impact that I heard it had in the book. The title of the film is explained away in a brief scene towards the end that almost feels tacked on and left this viewer, who has not read the books, a little confused as to what I was supposed to take away from it.

Still, the very last scene left me excited for the conclusion of the series, and inspired me to finally order the books and try and finish them before the last two films come out. I have a feeling that Half-Blood Prince might work a bit better when all 8 movies are sitting on your DVD shelf, but as is, it's still not half bad.

Grade: B

Best Scene: I really did like that high speed ride through London but I'll say the attack on the Weasley's house...

Henry Saw: Duplicity

Not my favorite...


I'll be brief as this came out in March and I just now got around to seeing it:

Tony Gilroy, who became a critical darling with Michael Clayton last year, wrote and directed this film about two cooperate spies who conspire together to try and con rival companies out of millions of dollars. Clive Owen and Julia Roberts, the happy couple from Closer, are the two spies here and Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson play the rival executives.

Duplicity tries to mimic the tone of the Ocean's 11 films but with even more rapid fire dialogue and many more plot twists. It is too reliant on the audience just going along with whatever Roberts and Owen are up to, and not thinking about the plot or trying to figure out what's going on, that it lost me on too many occasions.

It's not a stupid film, and it's a noble try to recreate the type of battle of the sexes you might see Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant engage in, but the plot became a little too convoluted without ever really creating a sense of intrigue or suspense. In the end, I just didn't care about anyone or anything in the film, and can't recall really ever laughing or even nodding approvingly.

Not a bad film, there's nothing terribly wrong with it (though there are too many back-stabs and reveals I think) but it just isn't nearly as cool or as sharp as it thinks it is.

Grade: C+

Best Scene: When we see how Roberts and Owen really first reunited after seeing how they first reunited after their first encounter (it's that kind of movie...)

Henry Saw: Bruno

I just didn't find it that funny...


So one could write a great deal about how they feel about how Sasha Baron Cohen, first as Borat and now as Bruno, gets people to say and do things they wouldn't normally want caught on camera and then shows it to the world. A full discussion of the methods, ethics, etc. of it all is quite possible but it isn't what you'll see here. I want to focus on the film and not the back story. So, quickly, I'll say I have no problem with giving people enough rope to hang themselves, and as long as I'm laughing, I really don't care how he does it. With Borat I was always on board. Even though I thought the character was already played out due to all the bad imitations one would hear around the time of that film's release (2006), I thought Borat was hilarious and really entertaining. Bruno...in the words of Borat...not so much.

Again, I just didn't think it was that funny. Cohen plays his character Bruno, a homosexual Austrian fashion critic, who moves to the United States in order to try and become the most famous Austrian since Hitler. Towards these efforts he films a TV show pilot, tries to make a sex tape with Ron Paul, tries to bring peace to the middle east (which he calls "Middle-Earth"), and finally, tries to learn how to become a heterosexual.

I admire Cohen in many ways. I think he is a very funny man, with a lightning fast wit, and balls the size of Saturn. There are some scenes in this film where I found it incredible he was able to stay in character. Still, the movie's inherent flaw is that the character of Bruno just isn't appealing in anyway. Where Borat was a ignorant innocent, Bruno is just a nasty idiot, and never has our sympathies. Instead, we end up feeling bad for the people he is pulling pranks on, even if they come off pretty bad as well, so the whole movie is just kind of a painful exercise.

Multiple times I felt myself laughing either because I felt I had to, or because the idea behind a scene was funny, even while the execution failed. Getting both an Israeli and a Palestinian official to sit a table with each other and then confusing Hummus and Hamas while talking to them? Humorous idea, but the scene goes on too long, and actually isn't any fun even if it is kind of funny. The film has peaks (his appearance on a mostly African American attended talk-show for one) but it's valleys are extreme and they just kill the movie. The scene with Ron Paul left a particularly bad taste in my mouth, and once you got over the initial shock of what was happening, really didn't contain any laughs beyond the basic concept.

Bruno is not a film you have to see in theaters. It's a short film that peppers some brilliant lines and moments with mostly awkward, forced, and squirm-worthy interactions between Bruno and his victim. Definitely a bit of a disappointment, a lot more could have been done with the concept, and ultimately a forgettable exercise in shock.

Grade: C

Best Scene: The parents who are willing to let their kids do...anything.

Henry Saw (on a plane): Coraline

Ohhhh, now this was interesting...


I really like stop-motion clay animation as a film art form. Of course the pinnacle of this style is The Nightmare Before Christmas, but films like Corpse Bride and Chicken Run were always interesting to look at, even if I didn't love those films. Well I don't know if I loved Coraline either but I really, really liked it. It's a very solid entry into the "dark children's film" sub-genre and it's the only film I watched on the plane that I regretted not having seen on the big screen.

IMDB's plot description for Coraline: A young girl walks through a secret door in her new home and discovers an alternate version of her life. On the surface, this parallel reality is eerily similar to her real life - only much better. But when her adventure turns dangerous, and her counterfeit parents (including Other Mother) try to keep her forever, Coraline must count on her resourcefulness, determination, and bravery to get back home - and save her family.

Coraline is based on a children's book by Neil Gaiman, known mostly for his comic book (Sandman) and novel (American Gods) work, but whose film credits include Beowulf, Stardust, and the little seen Mirror Mask. Coraline is by far the best film Gaiman has been a part of and if I were him I would be very proud of the job that director Henry Selick (who made Nightmare Before Christmas by the way) did in adapting his work.

Released in theaters on both 3D and 2D theaters in mid-February, Coraline is first and foremost a visual feast, and I didn't feel like I was being deprived by not watching the film in 3D and on a tiny little screen; the film still looks wonderful. While the character designs don't have the odd beauty of Nightmare Before Christmas, all the action and set pieces are a joy to behold. Also, very minor spoiler, but there is something very eerie about how all the characters in the "alternate" world that Coraline visits have buttons where their eyes should be. It's a very simple and minimal change but it has a strong effect.

Coraline herself, voiced by the always scary-good Dakota Fanning, is a likeable lead character. She's precocious but not irritating, and when she does act spoiled or makes a questionable decision we understand it because of what we know about the character. The supporting roles, including Teri Hatcher playing both Coraline's mother and the main villain of the film, are not as memorable but they serve their roles and help the texture of the story.

And that's my favorite part of the film: the story. This feels like a classic children's film almost immediately. It's playing with the same ideas we've seen in kid's movies going back to The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland, but because of the film's style and it's maturity, it feels fresh and holds your interest. This isn't shocking, Gaiman is a good author and I'm now curious to read the original book, but it was a nice surprise how engrossing this movie was.

So I definitely recommend Coraline. It's not for little kids, more 10 and 11 year olds than 5 and 6 year olds, but I also think this is a film that both boys and girls can enjoy. It's a visual treat, has some cool set pieces, and is much smarter than the average children's film. This is a dark film at times, and it doesn't all quite wrap up with a pretty bow at the end, but I appreciated that. I said at the start of this that I'm not sure if I loved this film, well now I think I kinda did, and if you asked me right now to pick between Up (the other great kids film of the year thus far) and Coraline...well I'd concede Up might be the better film but I think I liked Coraline a little bit more.

Grade: A-

Best Scene: When we find out what Coraline has to do to stay in the alternate world.

Henry Saw (on a plane): Monsters Vs. Aliens

I wish I had seen this one in theaters...


Monsters Vs. Aliens (MvA from now on) does not work very well on an airplane. It's a "big" movie, it's a "ride" of a movie, and it is definitely a "made to be seen in 3D" movie...none of this translates on to a tiny video screen.

MvA is about a young woman named Susan (Reese Witherspoon) who gets hit by a meteorite on the day of her wedding. Instead of getting married she grows to gigantic stature (think Attack of the 50 Foot Woman) and is captured by the government. Trapped in a government facility, she meets B.O.B. (the Blob as voiced by Seth Rogan), The Missing Link (The Creature from the Blue Lagoon as voiced by Will Arnett) and Dr. Cockroach (The Fly as voiced by Hugh Laurie). Meanwhile, an Alien ship lands on earth and causes some destruction. With our regular weapons useless, the President (Stephen Colbert) is forced to call on the Monsters to battle the Aliens...hence the title.

I was actually hoping to really like this film. It's a simple and fun concept that I think I would have loved when I was younger. And I did enjoy the film, somewhat, but I think viewing it on the tiny screen actually exposed flaws that I might not have noticed on the big screen. In theaters, I think I would have just reacted to the film the way the filmmakers wanted me to. There are multiple scenes in this movie that feel like they were designed to be a ride at Universal Studios (this is a Dreamworks film). This is actually a compliment, these scenes are exciting, and have a very kinetic flow. The problem is I kept thinking "Man, this would have been cool on the big screen in 3D."

Now this is not strictly a negative on the film's part. It was made to be seen on the big screen in 3D...not a 8 inch airplane screen...but shouldn't that not really matter for a good movie? Maybe the action scenes felt a little too tailored to be seen in 3D, and a little too much like they'd be more fun to play in a video game, for me to totally get into them.

With the action scenes not carrying the film for me, the humor was what I really followed. The comedy in this film ranges from flat dumb to laugh out loud at times. The funniest moments and gags in the film belong to the three main monsters, especially Seth Rogan as B.O.B. Now, somehow, since becoming famous in 2007, Seth Rogan has done voice work in three different animated movies. In both Horton Hears a Who and Kung Foo Panda, Rogan's deep and throaty voice was lent, to lesser effect, to more diminutive characters than a giant walking pile of goo. Rogan is perfectly cast as B.O.B. and defintely has the best lines in the film. Arnet (his fourth animated film by the way) and Laurie (who you know better as Dr. House) do alright jobs but their characters are given much worse material.

Other than our cast of monsters there is very little else to laugh at. Colbert is distracting as the President (and is given an awful scene where he greets the Alien's ship with the Axel Foley theme song...you get it...it's like Close Encounters but with more Crazy Frog...), Paul Rudd is also wasted as Susan's fiance, and Witherspoon is just the straight woman to all this.

I don't really have much more to say. Monsters Vs. Aliens is a film I imagine I would have loved had I seen it in theaters when I was 10. But seeing it the way I did, at my age, all I really noticed was how most of the jokes fell flat and how the action made me want to play the video game adaptation more than it made my heart rate go up.

If you have little kids you are going to want to get this movie, get the edition that comes with 3D glasses, but I bet one viewing will be enough for you.

Grade: B-

Best Scene: When Susan brings her three monster friends home to meet her family

Henry Saw (on a plane): I Love You, Man

Recently had a 7 hour flight back across the Atlantic. Caught up with three films I did not get to see in theaters earlier this year: Coraline, Monsters Vs. Aliens, and I Love You, Man.

I love Virgin Airlines. The food isn't the best, but they're entertainment system is always stock-full with movies I want to watch. This trip, during the long seven hours back from London, I was able to see some movies that I had been curious to catch in theaters but just hadn't gotten around to seeing. We'll start with the weakest of the three films I watched:


When I Love You, Man came out in mid-March I remember Ben being quite eager to see it. He's a Paul Rudd fan, thinks he's good when acting as a dude who kinda hates everyone around him, but I'm sorry to tell Ben that's not the kind of character Rudd plays here, and I Love You, Man (let's just call it ILYM from now on) is a bit of a misfire. The film, predicated on the idea that you will just be charmed by its two leads Paul Rudd and Jason Segal, is not as funny as other recent comedic films of this ilk like Forgetting Sarah Marshall or Knocked Up.

IMDB's plot description: Paul Rudd plays a semi-successful real estate agent who, upon getting engaged to the woman of his dreams, Rashida Jones, discovers, to his dismay and chagrin, that he has no male friend close enough to serve as his Best Man. Peter immediately sets out to rectify the situation, embarking on a series of bizarre and awkward man-dates, before meeting Jason Segel, a charming, opinionated man with whom he instantly bonds. But the closer the two men get, the more Rudd's relationship with Rashia Jones suffers, ultimately forcing him to choose between his fiancée and his new found bro.

ILYM is not without laughs, Rudd and Segal are funny, but the film's biggest flaw is how many jokes just fall flat. Rudd's character, perpetually awkward when among other guys, is just annoying at times. Repeating expressions he thinks make him sound cool ("Slapping the bass", or doing different impersonations that all end up sounding Irish) are groan worthy more often than not. Segal, who plays the film more straight than Rudd (this surprised me) comes off as the greater comedic talent despite the fact that I don't actually think he is funnier than Rudd, and he's given less to do.

Inevitably, when you get two funny actors in a film together, there's going to be some laugh out loud moments. Segal doing an Andre the Giant impression was great, and there was a scene on a golf course I really enjoyed, but the film does not maintain a consistent tone or comedic level throughout its run time. The end, like many other movies in this genre, just stops trying to make you laugh at a certain point.

ILYM was funnier than Role Models, so it has that going for it, but it was a similarly forgettable movie. Too much awkward humor that would have felt more appropriate, if just as lame, with Ben Stiller in the lead. I was surprised to see how many good reviews it got at Rotten Tomatoes, and it is an unobjectionable movie I suppose, but it could have been a lot stronger. If you wanna watch ILYM when it's on Starz in 12 months than that's okay...it will elicit some smiles out of you...but don't spend money to see this film.

Grade: C+

Best Scene: The scene on the Golf Course...or Paul Rudd puking on Jon Favreau

Henry Saw: The Hurt Locker

The best movie of the year thus far -



This isn't my favorite movie of the year, or the most enjoyable movie of the year, or the film from 2009 I think I will see the most times in my life...but if the Oscars were to occur tomorrow, The Hurt Locker would get my vote for Best Picture.

The film, directed by Katherine Bigelow of Near Dark and Point Break fame, follows three American soldiers stationed in Iraq in 2004 who are part of a bomb defusing and removal squad. The three soldiers, played by Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, and Brian Geraghty all react to their job and being in combat in different ways. Geraghty's character is obsessed by the razor-thin difference between life and death. Mackie's character is only really able to get through the war, and each new encounter with a bomb, by relying on his professionalism and protocol.

Renner, the most interesting character and actor in the film, is the one who deals with the bombs directly. Often forced to wear a slightly ridiculous looking protective suit, Renner's character is fascinating because of his passion for defusing bombs. He's good at it and he knows it. At times he is reckless (one of the great scenes in the movie involves Renner's character refusing to walkaway from a bomb even though the building at risk has been evacuated - he's obsessed with solving how it has been rigged) but Renner avoids acting like a Captain Ahab...we never question the character's courage or nobility.



Bigelow filmed The Hurt Locker using hand-held cameras, and where "shaky" cam usually drives me nuts, it somehow didn't bother me at all here. War movies, in general, are the genre best suited to using handy-cams and Bigelow accomplishes her assumed goal of immersing you in the battle scenes and the environment. Bigelow does a splendid job with the whole film. Some scenes are filled with suspense, others are done with a great deal of patience (including a virtuoso "sniper" sequence), and others with an appropriate eye for dark humor and ironic tragedy. This is by far her best film.

Further, this is the best narrative film (i.e. not documentary film) made about the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rendition, The Lucky Ones, Traitor, In the Valley of Elah, Stop-Loss, Home of the Brave...they're all pretty weak films. Body of Lies and The Kingdom, probably my favorite two films about this subject, were okay films but I wouldn't rank either film above a B. The Hurt Locker stands out for it's fresh take on the war film, the fact that it leaves any and all politics at the door (this film is about the soldiers and not the war itself), that it avoids celebrating war while also not having an obtrusive anti-war stance (not unlike Black Hawk Down - the best war film of the last 25 years), and, finally, because of Renner who gives the best performance of the year thus far.

I don't want to write much more on the film, I want to leave it a surprise as it was for me (though lookout for some cameos from Guy Pearce and Ralph Fiennes among others), but you should definitely check out the Hurt Locker. It's the goods, a movie that honors our soldiers without glamorizing them, and offers more genuine suspense and pathos then any film thus far this year.

Grade: A

Best Scene: The scene I mentioned above where Renner's character becomes determined to figure out how a car has been wired to blow...

Henry Saw: Public Enemies

Well my most highly anticipated film of the summer is here...I really liked it...but it isn't perfect



Sometimes you know how you're gonna feel about a movie before you even see it. This is different than being excited for a film (or dreading one for that matter). I'm talking about when you look at all aspects of a movie going in and you're just certain how it's going to play for you. For instance: I knew I was going to hate Year One. I hate Jack Black, I dislike Michael Cera, all the trailers made it look painful...I just knew that it wasn't going to somehow win me over. Well Public Enemies is the opposite - I knew I was going to like this movie even if it had problems.

For starters, I find dramatized looks at the 1920's and 1930's Prohibition / Great Depression driven crime waves fascinating. Despite all having flaws I think Bonnie and Clyde (a definite classic), The Untouchables (a stylish but empty film), and Road To Perdition (an under-rated gem that isn't any fun) to all be really interesting and eminently watchable movies. The old Warner Brothers gangster films of the 1930's, like the original Scarface or Angels with Dirty Faces, are entertaining and provocative reflections of the era in they were made and hold up surprising well. Even a film like Dick Tracy, a movie I can't stand by the way, or the old Loony Toons that featured comical gangsters, are fun to watch to see how pop culture has digested and represented the principle heroes and villains of this tumultuous decade.

Second, I'm a pretty big believer in Michael Mann. I do think the man has made some clunkers (coughMIAMIVICEcough) and that the film that seems to widely be considered his best, Heat, is more than a little overrated. But you look at The Insider (brilliant film), Last of the Mohicans (one of my favorite films of all time) or Collateral and it's obvious that the man knows how to put together an exciting and intelligent film. Public Enemies seemed perfect for Mann as it combined the period film immersion and scope of Mohicans, the shootouts found in Heat and Miami Vice (by far the best parts of those films), and the interesting character conflict of Collateral all put into a really intriguing environment.

I was also certain I'd like this movie when I saw the who the cast would be. While the movie didn't have any of my favorite actors I thought it was very well cast. Johnny Depp playing a cool and efficient bank robber who got the public on his side. Marion Cotillard had the right face for a movie set in 1930's Chicago. Bale, the most "intense" actor in Hollywood, was a good fit for the straigt-laced G-Man on Dillinger's tail.

So, when I walked into the theater on Friday night, I was pretty sure I was going to walk out having really liked the movie. And that's exactly how I felt about Public Enemies: I liked it...I didn't love it...and that's a little disappointing. The films opening scenes of Dillinger leading a prison break and then robbing a bank were well done but these early scenes exemplified some issues I would have with the rest of the movie.

The leading complaint I've heard about Public Enemies is the camera work - this doesn't look like any gangster movie you've seen before. Mann uses hand-held Digital cameras for the entirety of the film. It is the same style he made Miami Vice and Collateral with, so while it isn't surprising, it is jarring to see a film set in the 1930's that has that look. Using this camera style in a period film, is not quite as effective as those two modern thrillers and at times it feels more like home movie recreations than a major Hollywood production. I've heard others complain the camera work reminded them of The Blair Witch Project, I disagree (it's never full on shaky cam), but I can see what they're saying. The Camera is often a split second behind what's happening - a gun will fire off screen and then the camera will turn towards it - which was supposed to immerse you in the action of the film but that doesn't quite come through.

The other thing that could be noticed about these early scenes is that Mann really isn't concerned with making the movie fun. Now let me say right now that I thought the movie was very fun to watch, but that's me, and as I said I really like things associated with that era. Mann plays the film very seriously. While Depp makes Dillinger an interesting and charismatic character the script is not very concerned with portraying Dillinger as the public saw him: A flamboyant robin hood figure. There's some of that, they accurately show how Dillinger would leap over the bank teller's desk like Zorro, but you wouldn't be able to say that the film's tone is anything but quite hard and meditative.

Still, the opening worked for me and I liked how it threw us right into the main part of our narrative. It didn't give us a long intro to each character - it trusted us to get who these guys were - and just started with a bank heist scene with no buildup. It was great to see this as the planning behind these bank jobs was not that interesting but the efficiency and professionalism showed while pulling them off is.

Also in the opening moments we are introduced to Christian Bale's Melvin Purvis, the FBI agent who would get credit for taking down Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and others, in what is probably Bale's best scene. Set to Otis Taylor's "Ten Million Slaves", we see Bale pursuing and killing Channing Tatum's Pretty Boy Floyd in an exciting introduction where Bale's monotonely glum and flat performance actually has some cold purpose. I can mention here that the repeated use of Otis Taylor's, and later Bille Holliday's, music is very effective throughout the film.

The movie plays out as you know it will, Dillinger's cat and mouse game with the FBI is the heart of the movie, with Dillinger's relationship to his girlfriend Billie (Cotillard) and J. Edgar Hoover's (Billy Crudup) effort to assert the newly formed FBI's authority as subplots. In general the overall narative of the film isn't the film's strength but simply setting out to recreate the final year of Dillinger's life was enough for me.

The acting in the film ranges from merely okay to great. Bale, looking kind of bored throughout, does not impress as Melvin Purvis. While it's true that the role didn't offer enough substance to his role, Bale still could have mined it for more, and Bale completes a much weaker 2009 summer than his blockbuster 2008. Cotillard is just kind of there, she has the look but not the magnetism for the role, but she does get a nice scene when the FBI "interrogates" her. The other supporting roles, Crudup as Hoover, Stephen Graham as Baby Face Nelson, Stephen Dorff as Dillinger's partner Homer Van Meter are all well chosen and help sell the setting of the action.

The standout is Depp who nails the role of Dillinger. Thoughtful, naive, playful, professional, a little psychotic, loving, a bit of a cad...it's all there. This is Depp's best performance in quite awhile, and his best non-cartoony (i.e. not Jack Sparrow) performance since Donnie Brasco. No matter what the flaws of the movie were I was always engrossed when Depp was on screen.

Mann's direction, outside of the strange camerawork decision, is solid as always. His gunfights are exciting, the confrontational scenes are well paced, and his handling of the last night of Dillinger's life is masterfully done. The film isn't as luscious as Sam Mendes' Road to Perdition but Mann clearly enjoyed making a film set in a 1930's version of his hometown of Chicago and the film's aesthetic nicely blends the active life of Chicago and the empty landscapes of rural Illinois.

The film is long, and a little scattered, and I am not crazy about how they fudge some of the sequencing of historical events (they have Baby Face Nelson dying before Dillinger which isn't how it happened in real life) but that's what happens with historical dramas. So I was slightly let down by Public Enemies, I had hoped it would be a Best Picture contender and it just isn't, but it is a very solid entry into the gangster cannon. The flaws, though undeniable, simply did not bother me that much when measured against how good Mann and Depp are at what they do, and how compelling a subject Dillinger makes for a film. So I was right, I knew I would like this movie and I did, but unfortunately I did not love it.

Grade: B+

Best Scene: It's a tie - The opening scene showing Purvis gunning down Floyd and then Depp's final scenes as Dillinger goes to see a gangster movie on the last night of his life.