You can't stop a story being told...

In the current landscape of remakes, sequels, prequels, and comic-book movies, it's always refreshing to see people still putting out original ideas at the movies. Not to say I have anything inherently against any of the aforementioned genres, but things like Terry Gilliam's newest outing, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus are always a breath of fresh air. As long as they're good, of course.

Terry Gilliam is one of the very few surrealists that can be a surrealist but also carry on a coherent plot. This is evidenced as far back as his Monty Python days, and with the exception of his unfortunate Brothers Grimm experiment he's really maintained his sensibilities throughout his career, by somehow melding great stories with completely outlandish, surreal, or simply batshit crazy elements, and having them work as a whole. As a side note, I really wish that Tim Burton would take a not from Gilliam because both of them, when working on their original ideas, are absolutely fantastic, and while Burton's current phase of redoing fairy tales and classic films/books is fun, he's at his best when doing his original ideas.

Taking a step back from Dr. Parnassus, we're left with a fairly simple Good vs. Evil/Light vs. Dark story, with Dr. Parnassus representing the light and the Devil (or Mr. Nick as he's called in the film) as the devil. It should be noted that Tom Waits plays the devil and as much talk has been made about Heath Ledger's performance in this film (more on that later), Tom Waits really almost stole the show for me. He was absolutely fantastic. Dr. Parnassus has this special ability to transport people inside their own imagination, basically taking the person to their own “happy place.” Mr. Nick always works himself in somehow, offering the people a choice to stay in their happy place or move toward their darker, more carnal desires. Mr. Nick (I keep wanting to call him Dr. Nick...Hi everybody!) makes these appearances as sort of a plan to convert them, because he and Parnassus long ago made a bet on who could convert the most souls to their respective side.

Now, the only real reasons I was interested in this film in the first place were because Terry Gilliam was at the helm, and because it was Heath Ledger's last film and I (assumingly along with a lot of other people) was curious as to where he could go after his unbeatable performance in the Dark Knight. Neither of these things let me down. Gilliam, as I've already said, stays true to what you would expect from him, and Ledger continues to surprise me. It's interesting that I enjoyed him so much in this film because I honestly can't put a finger on why. As a friend of mine pointed out, anybody could have played his part, the part of a con-man named Anthony who helps out Parnassus and his band of gypsys and we're never quite sure if he's genuine or not. His part didn't have that same “anybody else would have fallen flat on their face attempting this” quality as the Joker did, but I think that's just because this part isn't as complex. All the same, before his untimely passing and evidenced in this film, Ledger developed some sort of intangible quality that just makes me fascinated by him when he's on screen. He can be charismatic, he can be mean, whatever...very interesting, and very sad that we won't get to see any more.

I was also very curious to see how they handled filling in for Ledger in the film since he passed away while they were still filming. They were able to get Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrel to sort of fill in for Heath Ledger, I had heard that much, but how was that going to work? I mean they don't necessarily all look the same. The tweaks they made flowed very well, though, and kept with the tone of the film. Since you're dealing with the imagination, anything is possible, so when suddenly Anthony looks like Johnny Depp, you can pass it off as it just being how the person is imagining him look. Very clever. Depp and Law both do fantastic jobs still acting as if Ledger was still giving the peformance. Johny Depp did an especially exceptional job, even down to the mannerisms. Colin Farrel, on the other hand, sort of fell a bit flat though. I'm not a huge fan of his anyway, but it felt more like he was trying to play it his own way instead of working as an already established character like the other two did.

All in all, Dr. Parnassus is a very fun ride, with great characters, beautiful imagery, beautiful people (Lily Cole...wawaweewa), and one weird looking old man. Oh! And a Dwarf! Who knew Vern Troyer could actually act? Not me. Anyway, as I said before, I'm so glad there are people still wiling to put out art that they want to put out, and as sad as it is that we lost a great actor and a seemingly great guy in Heath Ledger, I'm glad his career was punctuated with a good note.

cursed be the ground...

I should have known something was amiss when in the first minute or so of Book of Eli you are treated to a dead guy in a forest where ash is raining down and a hairless cat who is either planning on eating said dead guy or is just looking for a friend. Within that same minute, we see a man that we will come to know as Eli in a gas mask and a bow and arrow. He lets loose with a needlessly complex slow motion arrow shot (complete with the arrow piercing one of the falling pieces of ash) at the poor hapless cat. Now, all of this wouldn't be so bad, but it sets the bar as far as not explaining anything. In the very next scene we see Eli walking in the arid landscape, with his new cat dinner in tow, no longer wearing his gas mask. Why was he wearing it in the first place? Why was it raining ash a minute ago and not now? Why was the cat hairless? Why did we need to see a slow motion shot of an arrow piercing ash? I should have known something was amiss when we already weren't getting answers right off the bat, and these were only a few of the unanswered questions that permeate the rest of the movie.

Barring the intro sequence that has nothing to do with the rest of the movie, the first half of the movie is actually pretty enjoyable. You've got the landscape of Mad Max, the isolation of I Am Legend, and the sort of western feel of Kill Bill, Vol. 2. Denzel is great to watch as usual, and you get the feeling from the get-go that Eli has been through a good bit, what with some sort of apocalypse apparently having taken place in the not so distant past. There's actually a great sequence of him kind of getting a chance to relax in an abandoned house and listen to his apocalypse-proof iPod while eating his cat. His character gets even more interesting when he has a run-in with some Mad Max-style "hijackers" and promptly dispatches them...with style. This sets another standard, but a good one this time. The action sequences throughout the whole movie are just awesome. They movement of the shots are all really interesting, and there's no crazy cuts and shaky cam to make you either wonder what the hell you're looking at or just not care because you're too busy puking.

Now, Eli's not out looking for trouble, which is made abundantly clear when he listens from a hiding spot as a woman is raped and assumingly killed below. He just keeps repeating "stay on the path, it is none of your concern." Not to say he's a jerk who just lets women get raped and murdered and doesn't care...that just proves that whatever mission he's on must be pretty important. All we really know about this personal mission he's on, other than it being important of course, is that it involves his book and going west. I will say that one of the main things I was worried about with this movie was that the big twist was going to be that the book he's carrying is the Bible. I was worried about it because it was just SO obvious. The good news is that you realize it's the Bible pretty early on, so no spoilers there!

Eventually Eli makes it to a little town that seems to be doing pretty well for itself despite the circumstances. Eli stops in to get his battery for his iPod charged (somehow) by, of all people, Tom Waits. I assume this is just the same character Tom played in Mystery Men, just older and wiser now. Anyway while he's waiting for Tom Waits to fix his stuff, Eli wanders over to the local bar where he tries to get some water, which is in very short supply apparently and understandably. He barters with the bartender and trades some lovely leather gloves and a pretty stylin' bandanna for filling up his canteen with water. The bartender calls his coworker, Solara (Mila Kunis...finally!) to go fetch it. At the same time we see Gary Oldman's character upstairs as the trying-to-be-ironically-named-and-only-kind-of-succeeding Carnegie. He's pretty pissed because he's apparently been sending teams out (the same teams that raped and murdered that girl back on the side of the road!) to try and track down a book for him. I wonder if it could be the same book that Eli's been carrying around!! Whilst waiting at the bar Eli pushes a cat (with hair!) off the bar and this enrages one of the screwheads from the aforementioned gang so this starts a big showdown in the bar, so that's fun. It ends with a bunch of people dead and Gary Oldman wanting to have a chat with this newcomer.

After talking with Eli a bit Carnegie decides he can use a guy who seems pretty smart and is also really good at killing. He tries to get Eli to join his team and Eli of course refuses cause he's gotta go west. Carnegie gives him a room for the night to think it over and sends Mila Kunis in that night to 'persuade' him. For pretty much any other male in the universe this would work, but not our buddy Eli. Instead they have a nice dinner and he teaches her how to say grace. The next day when she reports to Carnegie she teaches her mom how to say grace too, which makes Carnegie realize Eli has the book! The game is afoot!

I know that's a lot of plot summary, but I did that because up to that point the movie was great. A little hokey but I was into it. There's a great sort of confrontation where we find out that Carnegie wants the book so he can almost become the savior/ruler of these last people left on Earth, whereas Eli wants the book to preserve it and genuinely teach people about the good word. This could have been a fantastic dynamic to explore, touching on the real Christians in the world versus the false prophet televangelist jerkbags, but instead he kind of revisits his role of Zorg from the Fifth Element and just devolves into 'bad guy chases good guy cause good guy has what bad guy wants.' Also Solara tags along with Eli for some reason, I guess cause she either just wants to get away from Carnegie or because she thinks walking along the road and killing people with a big sharp thing and reading the Bible would be fun.

Once this chase is on, the movie really starts to kind of lose control of itself, but where it really goes off the rails is when Denzel and Mila hole up in a little house with two crazy old comic-relief old people (does this movie really need comic-relief?) and somehow withstand a torrent of bullets, missles, and everything else from Carnegie. This whole sequence completely turned my brain off and I stopped caring about the movie at all. It had some cheese but I could handle it but with the old people, and the exploding house that doesn't fall down somehow I just checked out. If the movie was a train, this house sequence is the rock on the track that sent it off the tracks into a small town, killing hundreds.

There still is a twist toward the end and it's actually a pretty good one, and kind of makes you think back to how well they set it up, but by the point the twist comes the movie is so far gone it can't even be saved by that. Even the ending seems like they were trying to come up with it as they went along. They finally get to where they're going and Eli, having been shot point-blank in the chest and is still not dead yet, still has one more ridiculous feat to accomplish before he passes away. Oh by the way, the place they've been trying to get to is San Francisco, and more specifically-Alcatraz (this has no bearing on the plot before it so it's not a spoiler), and when they have to row (why was there a row boat?) to the prison it is some of the worst green-screen work I have ever seen.

I don't want to give anything away but the very last sequence featuring Solara before they fade to black and roll the credits is just laughable. And I'm all for looking at anything that Mila Kunis is doing, but this ending is just horrible. It makes no sense and the cheese factor is through the roof. All in all this film just goes to prove that even in a world so bleak that everything is gun metal grey, not even Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, and Mila Kunis can save you from shoddy writing.

BONUS!!: Speaking of shoddy writing, I never said anything about Sherlock Holmes. Honestly there was nothing to say. Everything was great, but the screenplay was just lacking. Zero character development so it was hard to care about anybody. Directing was great, the look was great, the actors were great. The writing was not. To sum it up in a word: meh.