ENTOURAGE
Season 5 Episode 3
“The All Out Fall Out”
Written by Rob Weiss
Directed by Mark Mylod


Ahhh, there’s Mrs. Ari! And Shauna!
Woot!!!

The Vince-facing-bankruptcy subplot evolves into a Vince-making-a-paid appearance-at-a-sweet 16 subplot, with Fran Drescher as the sweet 16’s mother (Kevin Pollak plays the da), and pretty much the only bright spot here is Debi Mazar. (Drama getting drunk in his post-Jacqueline break-up depression and hurling all over the cake is definitely not a bright spot.)
Then there’s the Ari and Mrs. Ari anniversary subplot, where Adam Davies gets caught in the crossfire, and while the b!tchslap was priceless, the biggest bright spot here has to be Perrey Reeves.


Oh, and Carla Gugino’s also in the house, to relay the message that Nine Brave Souls has caught the attention of Ed Norton, who wants to rechristen it Smokejumpers and turn it into a studio picture…
Hrrrm… can we see where this is going?


(Images courtesy of hbo.com.)

THE INCREDIBLE HULK
(Review)

Following an opening credits sequence that quickly and firmly establishes this as reboot more than straight-up continuation of Ang Lee’s flawed Hulk, Louis Leterrier’s The Incredible Hulk finds the on-the-run Bruce Banner (this time played by Edward Norton) hiding out in Brazil.
Doing his darnedest to learn the language and keep his head down, he works at a bottling factory while simultaneously learning to control his anger and exploring avenues to purge himself of the not-very-jolly green giant that lurks inside him.
It’s an interesting way to kick-start this pseudo-sequel, with a very conscious nod to the character’s 70’s TV incarnation (likewise titled The Incredible Hulk), which followed the episodic template of Banner in a new town, hiding out, working some odd job or other, till some occurrence would trigger the Hulk’s emergence, and the poor man would need to uproot himself once more, till he found a new place to hang his hat 7 days later.
Acknowledging the contribution the TV show has had on the public’s awareness of the character is one of the things The Incredible Hulk gets right. In fact, the script by Zak Penn (subsequently re-tooled by Norton) seems designed to have something for everyone: that opening act for the TV fans; the romantic angle—with Liv Tyler taking over for Jennifer Connelly—for the drama enthusiasts; the repeated clashes with Emil Blonsky/the Abomination—played by Tim Roth—for the comic book fanboys.
In this, and some other aspects, The Incredible Hulk plays much better than Lee’s effort. That, however, doesn’t make it a complete success.

To its credit, the film’s main players are very nearly a solid bunch.
To begin with, Norton makes a more credible Banner than Eric Bana. Bana’s an excellent actor, don’t get me wrong, but his more conventional silver screen good looks made his take on the character seem less tortured somehow, less the character from the comic books rather than a Hollywood version of that character.
Norton’s Banner, on the other hand, seems to hearken back, not just to the comic book scientist dealt a cruel hand by fate, but again, also to the Bill Bixby TV version of the character, the eternal wanderer both out of his depth and out of place, trying to regain the peace of mind and heart that the gamma poisoning has taken away from him.
And while William Hurt makes for a passably effective—if not overwhelmingly memorable—General Ross, Tim Roth manages to make a practically one-dimensional antagonist something worth watching.

But even as Roth (and Norton, for that matter) can usually be depended upon to bring the thespic goods to the screen, Liv Tyler can sometimes be one of a film’s weak cast links; see Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Thankfully, here, she delivers just enough of what the script and role demand of her to make her Betty credible as Banner’s long-suffering true love.
Most valuable supporting player though, goes without a doubt, to Tim Blake Nelson, whose Samuel Sterns is cut from the excitable, unstable genius cloth, and who we can only hope will—should The Incredible Hulk make some green at the box office—be seen more of in a sequel (or in that seemingly impending Avengers movie).
Ty Burrell (from the Dawn of the Dead remake and the recently cancelled Back To You) though, just seems like an odd choice for Doc Samson, who we see only enough of to establish him as the man with the thankless task of having kept Betty’s heart warm while she waited for her true love to come back into her life. (And trying to imagine how Burrell will essay Samson if and when his hair should turn green somewhere down the road seems even odder…)

Now, while Lee’s Hulk took one step forward by couching the established four-colour mythos in the emotional complexity he always brings to his films, he also took it two steps backward by choosing to shoot and edit the film as if it were, in fact, a comic book movie.
What I ended up seeing was a schizophrenic film that strove to make the characters real and three-dimensional, while constantly reminding me of the source material’s two-dimensional pulp origins. It seemed to yearn to transcend the material, but at the same time displayed a superficial—and ultimately distracting—fascination with the comic medium’s narrative conventions.
Leterrier’s The Incredible Hulk though, clearly embraces its comic book (and television) origins, while striving to bring to the fore the romantic relationship that has always been part and parcel of Bruce Banner’s story. It also wisely curbs any over-reaching ambitions, steering clear of the cluttered narrative landscapes of Marvel entries like Spider-Man 3 and X-Men: The Last Stand.

So, despite the film’s rhythm being less than ideal (some sequences—yes, even some of the action pieces—drag a bit), and its CGI still not quite achieving entirely realistic and convincing levels, this arguably makes for better viewing than Lee’s Hulk.
It’s also most definitely better than some of the other past Marvel cinematic fare, like Ghost Rider and Elektra, so if only for that, Marvel should be commended.
Now if only they learn to be circumspect, and not jump the gun while in the heady wake of Iron Man’s box office success (that terribly premature announcement of a 2010-2011 schedule is most definitely not being circumspect), then they stand a better chance of keeping this winning streak going.

Parting shot: Reviews of some other Marvel comic book films—including Ghost Rider, Elektra, and the Fantastic Four movies—can be found in the Archive, where reviews of Leterrier’s Danny the Dog and the Zak Penn-written Suspect Zero are also ensconced.

(The Incredible Hulk OS [design by Crew Creative Advertising] courtesy of impawards.com.)

reVIEW (38)
FALLEN

“There are moments which mark your life. Moments when you realize nothing will ever be the same, and time is divided into two parts: before this, and after this.”

A bit of voice-over narration that sounds suspiciously as if it was lifted from Rosellen Brown’s excellent novel, Before And After, and a good case in point of what’s wrong with Gregory Hoblit’s Fallen: there is nothing original here.
A convicted serial killer named Reece (Elias Koteas) is executed for his crimes, but somehow manages to wreak more havoc on the innocent. Let’s see: Shocker, The First Power, The Horror Show.
Early on in the film, we are also shown that there is actually an entity that jumps from body to body, and it’s actually this entity that’s behind the murders. Ummm… The Hidden? Even Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday used this tack.

Now, one may argue that in this day and age, nothing is original anymore; Shakespeare’s done it all.
At the very least though, one can still give old material a new spin and come up with a good (or at times, great) piece of work: Ridley Scott’s visionary Alien reworked the Ten Little Indians scenario, gave us a haunted house in outer space, and produced a sci-fi/horror classic.
Sadly, Fallen doesn’t aim very high. It fails to do anything innovative with the material, and worse, doesn’t even succeed in giving the audience a thrill-packed ride.

“Cops are chosen people, Lou.”
-- Hobbes

The fault lies in Fallen’s script; written by Nicholas Kazan (who penned the riveting Reversal of Fortune for Barbet Schroeder), the screenplay is amazingly flat, a tension-free exercise in by-the-numbers suspense.
Denzel Washington (as Detective John Hobbes), though bringing a certain sensitivity and sympathy to his character, doesn’t get much to work with. And though I’m always glad to see Donald Sutherland (as Lt. Stanton), he isn’t given much to work with either, and ends up underutilized and wasted.

It seems a mystery why setting up the entire scenario for Hobbes and his adversary Azazel, takes a full hour, considering that anyone who’s seen the film’s trailer knows what Fallen is about.
Then, just when you think there could be a promising direction for the narrative to take—when theology teacher Greatta Milano (Schindler’s List’s Embeth Davidtz) mentions a possible source of help—Kazan’s script seems to just disregard the avenue completely, leaving the audience to languidly follow in the movie’s footsteps (or rather, bound two or three steps ahead, waiting impatiently for the film to catch up).
And though the squad room banter is snappy and commendable, one doesn’t really sign up for Fallen to see Hill Street Blues on the big screen either.

Of course, the film isn’t helped any by Hoblit’s matter-of-course directing.
Let’s face it—Hoblit’s Primal Fear wasn’t anything to write home about either; the only noteworthy thing about Primal Fear was Edward Norton’s stunning performance. (Well… okay. Laura Linney was good too.)
Sure, the Azazel POV shots in Fallen are interesting, but Michael Wadleigh did it in Wolfen, as did Paul Schrader in his remake of Cat People.
Save for a couple of intense body-jumping sequences about halfway through Fallen, most of the time, the audience is left with idle moments, allowing their minds to wander freely (much like the disembodied Azazel) and predict what’s going to happen next.
Ultimately, you just know how the film will end, including whose body Azazel will occupy in the final battle of wills with Hobbes.

“I have so many, many ways.”
-- Azazel

Curious, this penchant Azazel has for singing; I have yet to come across any reference to indicate Azazel has some musical bent (unless I’m reading the wrong books). The only link I can find (and it’s a long stretch, tenuous at best) is in the original Greek root for the word “tragedy.”
Or maybe Azazel just picked up the habit recently, in karaoke bars…
But I digress.
Going back to Fallen, ultimately we’re left with a drab film that doesn’t break any new ground, and spending two hours to find this out is, to my mind, not a very productive way to pass the time.
Not even the “surprise” concerning the voice-over bits (which are quite frankly annoying and intrusive) does much for the film.
Which all leads me to one inescapable conclusion: if you aren’t going to say anything new, then what’s the point?
As good old Jack once said in As Good As It Gets, “If you can’t at least be mildly interesting, then shut the hell up.”
A rather apt quote for this film, I think.

(Fallen OS courtesy of impawards.com; DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com.)

(The above is a slightly altered version of a previously published review entitled, “Fallen Flat On Its Face.”)