August 2013 Movies: "Les Mis" Was Anything But Miserable, "Now You See Me" Should Be Seen, Butler Isn't So "Law Abiding", and "Kick-Ass" Needs to Have It's... Well, You Know the Rest!

Out of all the movies I saw this in August (no matter when they were made or released), here are the ones I liked the most, and the ones I didn't like so much:

Movie of the Month:

Les Misérables

A few months ago, I saw this in the same month I saw Oz the Great and Powerful and Life of Pi, which I named in my journal then (and in this blog yesterday) as "Movie of the Month" and the "Runner Up".  I couldn’t let this movie pass by a second time without naming it as Movie of the Month.  It was that good, and a second viewing found me liking it just as much as before, if not more so, for it allowed me to cement my feelings about certain performances, voices, and songs.  

I found Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, Aaron Tveit, Samantha Banks, young Isabelle Allen, and even Russell Crowe to be as good, or better, than they were before, and though critics seemed to be making fun of Russell Crowe’s voice (see the hilarious Honest Trailer linked here), to my ear it was actually Hugh Jackman that strained my auditory senses more often, with that Honest Trailer linked above stating Jackman has a "really annoying vibrato".  I'd have to agree.  Sasha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter as the main villains did a great job, but provided only a bit of occasional comic villainy and song, and nothing more.  Best songs:  “I Dreamed a Dream” by Anne Hathaway, “On My Own” by Samantha Banks, “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” by Eddie Redmayne, "Red and Black" by Aaron Tveit and the cast, and perhaps even both of Russell Crowe's solos, "Stars," and "Javert's Suicide".  

Runner Up:

Now You See Me

Many movies these days are full of mindless action, gore, romance, or humor, and you can check your brain at the door!  This one, about four famous magicians joining forces to rob a bank and then performing two more increasingly impossible tricks on a global scale, requires you to use your noggin trying to keep up with all the twists and sleights of hand, and just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, as most characters here do until they are duped, at no time can you trust that what you are seeing is what you’ve really just seen.  The all-star cast features Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, and Dave Franco as the four magicians, Mark Rufallo and Mélanie Laurent as the agents hot on their trail, and with Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman as the ones possibly pulling all the strings – or are they???  This was an absolute delight, especially for thriller fans, as the twists come fast and furious throughout this heavily plot driven but thoroughly entertaining exercise!
     By the way:  COOL POSTER!!!  MC Escher would be so proud!

Stinker of the Month:

Law Abiding Citizen

This was convoluted, with no noble characters to identify with or root for.  Both Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler play deplorable people here.  They took the very sympathetic character of Clyde Shelton, played by Butler, whose wife and young daughter are ruthlessly murdered at the beginning of the film, and ruined him by turning him into a despicable murderer in his own right, turning vigilante and then some!  They also tried to make Foxx’s smarmy lawyer character into a moral guy by the end, but neither is a great example of humanity.  Trying to find justice for his slain family, Shelton is appalled when the prosecuting attorney Nick Rice accepts a plea bargain with the ruthless animal who actually did the killing, turning on his silent partner in crime.  Because of this plea bargain, the accomplice gets the death penalty, and the actual killer is released from jail in a few years!  It’s at this point that Shelton, a former CIA specialist, sets his rather ruthless, sadistic, and yes, ridiculous plan in motion, killing both of the men who killed his wife, and then allowing himself to be caught to make a mockery of the justice system, targeting anyone and everyone involved in his case.  It is then, and only then, when pushed to extremes, that Rice begins to feel anything approaching a conscience about his earlier decisions, attempting to outsmart a now coldblooded, brilliant madman with a dead family and a chip on his shoulder the size of Cleveland!  Neither character is redeemed in the end, and I felt like I needed to take a shower!   

Little Stinker:

Kick-Ass

I so wanted to like this film, despite the swearing even in the title, since this was an inspired, original film about a geek who decides to become a super-hero named Kick-Ass (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and ends up joining forces with a father/daughter team named Big Daddy and Hit Girl (Nicolas Cage and Cloë Grace Moretz).  There’s also a subplot about another possible superhero named Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), but he turns out to be a super-villian.

     There was a lot to like here, and perhaps if it was made years ago, I might have liked it more. There are themes of loyalty and bravery, and fighting for justice and against evil, and those are noble concepts.  Unfortunately, they took the basic outline of this good story and these interesting "super-hero" concepts and threw in lots of swearing, violence, murder, and sex.  True, the main characters are vigilantes standing up to and killing a ruthless mobster and a bunch of his drug dealing goons, but does it not bother anyone that most of the killing and the worst swearing onscreen comes from the 11 year old Hit Girl?  The sex comes from Kick-Ass, whose true identity is dweeb Dave Lizewski, a teenager obsessed with his female teacher and the pretty girl from school.  She becomes his friend only when she takes pity on him, and thinks he’s gay and wants a gay pal.  When he reveals to her that he is, in fact, Kick-Ass, and is not gay, she is immediately offended... and then sleeps with him... several times.  There are certainly better, and more moral, superheroes, whether they are actual superheroes like The Avengers and The X-Men, or the wannabes, such as those in Mystery Men and Sky High.  Are these characters actually aspiring to greatness, or just being debased by the evil elements they fight against?