Back & Forth #5: A Bad Teacher on Stranger Tides
We finish up our journey Back & Forth through time, trading the Horrible for the merely Bad on our way to the Stranger Tides of October 23, 2011: As you may have guessed from the title, the two movies up for review this week are Bad Teacher and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.
We begin with the R-Rated comedy Bad Teacher, starring Cameron Diaz (Knight and Day), Justin Timberlake (In Time), and Jason Segel (who co-starred with Timberlake in this year's Friends With Benefits).
Diaz stars as the gleefully mean-spirited Elisabeth Halsey (the Bad Teacher in question), who must return to work at the school she retired from as a cover to earn herself enough money to pay for the plastic surgery she believes will land her a well-to-do husband.
While dodging the unwanted advances of gym coach Russell Gettis (Segel) and pursuing substitute teacher Scott Delacorte (Timberlake), Halsey grows as a person, coming to realize (as much as such a character can grow and experience epiphany in these kinds of films) that money is not as important or desirable as she previously thought.
The comedy (the best of which was provided by the inappropriately matter-of-fact Segel) is shocking as expected, but not as laugh-inducing as I experienced while watching Horrible Bosses.
Diaz was fun to watch as Halsey, who brings to mind some teachers I had as a child (have a hangover? Movie Day, kids!), but her miniscule personal growth played like an act of reluctant necessity on both sides of the camera--a plot device to bring the film's watered-down madness to a somewhat acceptable end.
B
On to Stranger Tides. Johnny Depp (Jack Sparrow, with "a 'Captain' in there somewhere"), Geoffry Rush (Barbossa), and Kevin McNally (Gibbs) reprise their roles from the previous Pirates films, this time going in search of the Fountain of Youth and running afoul of the infamous Blackbeard (Deadwood's Ian McShane) and his wily daughter, Angelica (Penelope Cruz, Nine).
This fourth installment of the Pirates Of the Caribbean series is a well-choreographed two hours and fifteen minutes of entertaining swashbuckling action, alternately enhanced and detracted from by the clashing deceitful natures of Angelica and Captain Jack, as well as by the sub-plot romance between a priest and a mermaid, both prisoners of Captain Blackbeard.
But with all its charm (including cameos by Judi Dench and Keith Richards, not to mention the acting acheivement that is Captain Jack Sparrow himself), I felt something was amiss with On Stranger Tides.
For one, it seemed half the cast was missing. Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley were nowhere to be seen, nor were the epic ship battles and extra dose of comic relief that the Black Pearl injected into the previous three films.
For another, I enjoy a shorter running time as much as the next movie critic, but not when audience intelligence and plot development are sacrificed in return. Characters betray each other constantly, only to team up again as circumstances require, resulting in a grand-scale absence of resolution and a choice of flash over flesh that had me constantly thinking "They could have done more with that."
On the bright side, such massive irresolution leaves an opening for Pirates Of the Caribbean 5, wherein some flaws of Tides will hopefully be remedied.
B+
As a footnote to the above review, I fail to see the purpose of Disney's latest marketing strategy to release their products only in Blu-Ray and combo pack formats.
In an era when conservation is paramount and recession is in constant drift between possibility and reality, Disney (and it would seem, their latest accquisition, Marvel) is expecting the viewing public to spend more money by restricting its viewers to the Blu-Ray market.
For those of us who do not have Blu-Ray players, being given no other option but the combo pack means being saddled with one to three discs we cannot use. For avid collectors, the combo pack may be just a thing to have, or it may actually be used by someone who has a Blu-Ray player, in which case the player's up-conversion of DVD makes Blu-Ray unnecessary and the enhanced quality of the Blu-Ray disc renders the DVD format obsolete.
As a business decision, it is an almost-intelligent way to inject money into Disney, and thereafter, into the economy. But it cannot work without those able and willing to spend said money.
As far as conservation goes, I refer back to the excess of unnecessary, inaccessible, and obsolete media, to which I add the disposable packaging that comes with said media.
Combo packs and Blu-Ray may be somewhat economically sound, but conservative they are not. I hope to see Captian America in DVD format when I go to purchase it this coming week.
We begin with the R-Rated comedy Bad Teacher, starring Cameron Diaz (Knight and Day), Justin Timberlake (In Time), and Jason Segel (who co-starred with Timberlake in this year's Friends With Benefits).Diaz stars as the gleefully mean-spirited Elisabeth Halsey (the Bad Teacher in question), who must return to work at the school she retired from as a cover to earn herself enough money to pay for the plastic surgery she believes will land her a well-to-do husband.
While dodging the unwanted advances of gym coach Russell Gettis (Segel) and pursuing substitute teacher Scott Delacorte (Timberlake), Halsey grows as a person, coming to realize (as much as such a character can grow and experience epiphany in these kinds of films) that money is not as important or desirable as she previously thought.
The comedy (the best of which was provided by the inappropriately matter-of-fact Segel) is shocking as expected, but not as laugh-inducing as I experienced while watching Horrible Bosses.
Diaz was fun to watch as Halsey, who brings to mind some teachers I had as a child (have a hangover? Movie Day, kids!), but her miniscule personal growth played like an act of reluctant necessity on both sides of the camera--a plot device to bring the film's watered-down madness to a somewhat acceptable end.
B
On to Stranger Tides. Johnny Depp (Jack Sparrow, with "a 'Captain' in there somewhere"), Geoffry Rush (Barbossa), and Kevin McNally (Gibbs) reprise their roles from the previous Pirates films, this time going in search of the Fountain of Youth and running afoul of the infamous Blackbeard (Deadwood's Ian McShane) and his wily daughter, Angelica (Penelope Cruz, Nine).This fourth installment of the Pirates Of the Caribbean series is a well-choreographed two hours and fifteen minutes of entertaining swashbuckling action, alternately enhanced and detracted from by the clashing deceitful natures of Angelica and Captain Jack, as well as by the sub-plot romance between a priest and a mermaid, both prisoners of Captain Blackbeard.
But with all its charm (including cameos by Judi Dench and Keith Richards, not to mention the acting acheivement that is Captain Jack Sparrow himself), I felt something was amiss with On Stranger Tides.
For one, it seemed half the cast was missing. Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley were nowhere to be seen, nor were the epic ship battles and extra dose of comic relief that the Black Pearl injected into the previous three films.
For another, I enjoy a shorter running time as much as the next movie critic, but not when audience intelligence and plot development are sacrificed in return. Characters betray each other constantly, only to team up again as circumstances require, resulting in a grand-scale absence of resolution and a choice of flash over flesh that had me constantly thinking "They could have done more with that."
On the bright side, such massive irresolution leaves an opening for Pirates Of the Caribbean 5, wherein some flaws of Tides will hopefully be remedied.
B+
As a footnote to the above review, I fail to see the purpose of Disney's latest marketing strategy to release their products only in Blu-Ray and combo pack formats.
In an era when conservation is paramount and recession is in constant drift between possibility and reality, Disney (and it would seem, their latest accquisition, Marvel) is expecting the viewing public to spend more money by restricting its viewers to the Blu-Ray market.
For those of us who do not have Blu-Ray players, being given no other option but the combo pack means being saddled with one to three discs we cannot use. For avid collectors, the combo pack may be just a thing to have, or it may actually be used by someone who has a Blu-Ray player, in which case the player's up-conversion of DVD makes Blu-Ray unnecessary and the enhanced quality of the Blu-Ray disc renders the DVD format obsolete.
As a business decision, it is an almost-intelligent way to inject money into Disney, and thereafter, into the economy. But it cannot work without those able and willing to spend said money.
As far as conservation goes, I refer back to the excess of unnecessary, inaccessible, and obsolete media, to which I add the disposable packaging that comes with said media.
Combo packs and Blu-Ray may be somewhat economically sound, but conservative they are not. I hope to see Captian America in DVD format when I go to purchase it this coming week.
Comments
Post a Comment