Oblivion

I'm still feeling pretty whiny about Star Trek, so I'm going to chat for a bit about a movie I DID like, even though I saw it a few weeks ago (on my birthday, actually!).

I had moderate expectations for Oblivion - I think Tom Cruise is a talented and capable actor, even if he is pretty crazypants in real life, and generally I enjoy movies he's in (Minority Report is one of my favorites, in fact).  And the general attitude about Oblivion seemed to be "That was better than I expected!", so it seemed like a safe bet.

Guys, this movie is great.  The story is solid (it's an adaptation of a graphic novel written by Joseph Kosinski, who also directed Tron: Legacy. ~The more you know~) and had a few twists I wasn't expecting, and the filmmakers do some really interesting and risky things that COULD have tanked it - but they didn't.

The biggest risk it takes, in my opinion, is in pacing - Oblivion is never in a hurry to impress you.  It has a lot of the window dressing of a big summer blockbuster, but the first hour or so is pretty much Tom Cruise wandering around a vacant Planet Earth reminiscing about a life he's never lived (pre-alien war, we're told.  Cruise and his partner Vicka, played by Andrea Riseborough, fix the drones that take care of giant water processing machines.  They have just two weeks left before they get to abandon ship and join what's left of humanity on colony Titan).  It moves incredibly leisurely, treading just this side away from boring.  It's captivating, though, because Cruise and the writers hit on just the right combination of nostalgia and weirdness to keep it interesting.

Ultimately, that pace is used to establish the world the movie is in, right before the rug gets yanked out from under you.  When the story starts shifting gears, though, the first chunk makes more sense.  Plot twists get dropped like breadcrumbs, the action spirals up slowly, and when the big reveals start happening it's almost breathtaking the way the filmmakers have played you.

Nothing comes out of nowhere - that whole opening sequence is seeded with clues that don't become clues until you know what the context is.  Going in, I thought I had a pretty good grasp on what the twist would be and what Morgan Freeman's role in all of this was; turns out what I thought I knew was correct, but only partially, and not in the way that really matters.

Oblivion also has an emotional resonance that surprised me, because I'm not used to genre or summer films being this willing to sacrifice explosions for the sake of emotional connection.  For all its scale (and there's a lot of scale - sweeping, barren landscapes, shiny futuristic planes and living platforms, lots of white and metals and a pretty cool suspension pool), the story feels small and intimate - it's the story of Morgan Freeman and his rebels, or course, but it's really the story of Cruise's Jack.  The big reveal and climax at the end feel earned, because you've spent so much perceived time with Jack, which means that Oblivion retains the emotional core that so much genre film misses (I was reminded of Avatar, actually, in that both are big, shiny science fiction tales, but Oblivion is actually resonant and, you know, good.)

Oblivion looks very much like a giant sci-fi summer blockbuster - with Cruise in the main actor seat and big, impressive visuals, superficially the film looks much bigger than what it ends up being: one man's struggle with identity and purpose.  

Actors Miscast

The other day I found out that Natalie Dormer is playing Margaery Tyrell in season two of Game of Thrones.  I think this is the first serious miscast that HBO has done in the series, and I said so on Twitter - and then my friend Spencer said, "Hey!  Talking about miscast actors would make a good blog post!"  And I agreed.  His first example was Harrison Ford as Jack Ryan in Clear and Present Danger, which unfortunately I can't comment on because I've never seen the film.  But!  I came up with some pretty solid examples of my own for you!

I think it is sometimes easy to forget that what actors are doing onscreen is their job - some are better at it than others, and some probably enjoy doing it more than others, but when it comes right down to it they are all doing it to support themselves.  And, if they're good (and lucky), eventually they get to the point where they can pretty much pick and choose the roles that they play.  Most of the time, this is a good thing - a good actor in a good (or even halfway decent) role can really take a movie from "merely good" to "truly great."

But sometimes this doesn't happen.

For whatever reason, whether they need the paycheck or they thought the role would be fun or they got persuaded against their better judgment, actors we like take roles that suck.  Or, they take roles that don't necessarily suck, but that they're really not right for.  Here are my thoughts on some seriously miscast roles, and who I would have preferred to see in them instead.

Alan Rickman, Sweeney Todd
: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

I love Alan Rickman.  Sometimes I go see things just because he's in them (Bottle Shock, Perfume: the Story of a Murderer, Blow Dry, and Dogma, to name just a few).  And in his defense, most of those are really good films (well, except Perfume).  But he is an obvious weak link in Sweeney Todd, a film that I will freely admit I didn't care for anyway, because he can't sing.

I'll say it again: Alan Rickman can't sing.  And Sweeney Todd...is a musical.  See the trouble here?

Under normal circumstances, Rickman would have been pitch-perfect as the nefarious, brooding Judge Turpin.  But he apparently can't hit a note to save his life.  And the film definitely suffered for it.

So who would I rather have put in this role?  Um, duh:

Mandy Patinkin is broody, grizzled, and experienced on both the screen and the stage.  And I know he can sing, because I have the original Broadway recordings of several of his performances.  He would have brought the same kind of gravitas as Rickman to the role, with the proper pipes behind it.

Edward Norton, The Hulk

I CAN'T be the only one who said "lol whut?" when this casting decision got announced.  Edward Norton is brilliant and refined and introspective at his best, and the Hulk...well, the Hulk is a giant green man-thing that breaks windows and tears up SWAT teams.  I kind of get what Leterrier was going for here, because I think the right way to get your audience to sympathize with this particular Marvel being is to get them sympathetic with Bruce Banner, but this almost takes it too far.  Hearing Norton say that iconic tagline ("You wouldn't like me when I'm angry...") with all his dark subtlety was too much for me.  Norton should save his talent for the bigger roles that demand it, like, say, Eisenheim in The Illusionist.

A better choice by far:

I'm cheating a little, because Mark Ruffalo is already slated to take over the Hulk in the upcoming Avengers flick.  But I don't care because if I'd given it some thought beforehand he probably would have been my choice anyway.  Ruffalo generally has a less complicated approach to his characters than Norton - and that's not an insult, by the way.  I thought he was excellent in The Kids Are All Right, Shutter Island, and The Brothers Bloom, all characters which he played very straightforward.  And that's what this role needs; you shouldn't have to work as hard as Norton did to make the Hulk sympathetic.  He suffered a horrible scientific accident, and that's really all the depth he needs.

Ruffalo is also a little meatier than Norton, so visually he fits the role much better as well.

Speaking of The Brothers Bloom...

Rachel Weisz, The Brothers Bloom

Rachel Weisz is one of those people who always comes across as an incredibly likeable person in the real world, because of all the charm and depth she brings to her characters.  But as Penelope the heiress, the bubbly, frenetic multi-hobbied romantic interest, she's wasted.  Penelope was written with charm, she didn't need the excess that Weisz brought to the table, and the end result was someone so saccharine that I was frankly irritated with her by the end.

She needed a bit of tang to go with all that sugar.  My suggestion?

Amanda Peet is ALSO a charming woman, but she can do rough-around-the-edges in a way Weisz really can't.  That kind of edge is what Penelope needed to go from being a pretty simple, bored, rich girl to actually being interesting.

Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, Interview With A Vampire

I don't really know how the emotive, whiny Louis translated into tall, naturally blonde, caustic Pitt...or how the commanding, charismatic, and decadent Lestat became the smaller, weaslier, naturally brunette Cruise.  In a movie where the mood should have been everything, these actors were hitting the wrong notes.  My solution?

Switch the roles.

Pitt is physically larger, commands more of your attention, and is more naturally likeable.  Cruise is small and dark and squirrelly, and while I really do like him and think he's turned out some brilliant work, he needed to be the needier, whinier, more sycophantic Louis.  As the tempestuously moody, libertine-dandy Lestat he just falls way flat.

Kristen Stewart, Twilight

When you're working from shit source material and you have shit characters, you need a REALLY GOOD and REALLY LIKEABLE actor to have a hope of saving the final product.  Not only did Twilight serve up a steaming pile of crap story, but it did so with a cardboard actress whose main source of emotion seems to be raking her hands through her hair.

How would I have saved Twilight?  Could Twilight be saved? (Probably not.)  But a step in the right direction would have been...

I'm torn, actually.  Both of these girls could have pulled off the role with a modicum of charisma:

Amber Tamblyn and Emma Roberts both have a wonderful acerbic wit that would have made Bella passingly tolerable.  I feel like, if the directors had let them, they both could have brought a much harder edge to the character and made her slightly less of a pathetic mess.  But maybe that's wishful thinking on my part.  And they both at least know how to smile for pictures on the red carpet.

I think I come down slightly in favor of Roberts here, but mostly I come down on "Why did this movie ever get made in the first place?"

Ben Kingsley: BloodRayne, Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time, Tuck Everlasting, The Love Guru

BEN.  YOU WERE GHANDI.  YOU HAVE AWARDS AND AN OSCAR.  STOP IT.

Sorry, that last one is more of a first-class actor in bad movies, rather than in wrong roles.  But I needed to get it off my chest.

Got one I missed?  Let me know in the comments!