The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2019)

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2019)

Director: Terry Gilliam 

Cast: Adam Driver, Jonathan Pryce 

If you look at the repertoire of films in director Terry Gilliam’s career, you’ll see that a lot of his films have a Quixote quality to them. Many of his films deal with a man who escapes to fantasy worlds in order to avoid the harshness of the real one. For example, in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989), the aging Baron Munchausen calms a war torn town with his tall tales of fantasy and mayhem same as Quixote’s tall tales. Like Don Quixote, the Baron rides a horse wields a sword and fights fantastical creatures. Like Quixote, the Baron gets old when life grows stagnant and only adventure brings him to life! The Baron and Quixote are always avoiding death…from old age…or simply having death itself (read: the grim reaper) literally chasing you around. They are both in love with the “beautiful ladies”. And that’s not the only Quixote like example in Gilliam’s career, Jonathan Price’s character in Brazil (1985) is also a man who escapes into fantasy. In his fantasies he sees himself (much like Quixote) as an armor wearing sword wielding warrior, fighting giant buildings that emerge from the ground…similar to how Quixote has to fight windmills who are “giants”. 

 So yeah, Quixote has always been very close to Gilliam’s heart. And it makes all the sense in the world, because after all, isn’t Gilliam like Quixote himself? A man avoiding the horrors of boring old reality by escaping into his fantasy films? Fighting the giant windmills of Hollywood and life to make his films? I’ve always appreciated Gilliam’s defense of the great escape, the importance in our lives for storytelling, the beauty of theater, the comedic tragedy that is life. It’s one of the reasons I personally connect with director Terry Gilliam’s films and the overall message of his films. They are against reality and all for high adventure and bewilderment! His films are for the zany, crazy part of life as well, how we shouldn’t take things so damn seriously. His films have a feel of someone who wants to amaze and entertain you with the many possibilities of pure fantasy. Of escapism of the highest caliber. 

 Which is why I appreciate The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2019) and how it got made. I mean, here’s a film that Gilliam at one point attempted to make but failed. It’s such a sad tale, yet such an amazing one at the same time. A documentary was shot of the whole thing called Lost in La Mancha (2002) and it’s just mind-blowing. Here’s my review for it, read it and find out why it’s such an amazing experience to see. But in a nutshell, everything went wrong that first time Gilliam attempted to make this film in Spain back in 2000. The actor who was going to play Don Quixote got a back pain and couldn’t ride his horse, a storm destroyed all the sets, millions were lost and all for nothing because quite literally, Gilliam pulled the plug on the film. He gave up on it. Or did he? Thanks to the folks at Amazon, he finally got the chance to make the film. It’s been 25 years in the making so this film is kind of a miracle! 

Here's a picture of Gilliam, on location with Jean Rochefort; Gilliam's choice for Quixote in the first attempt at making this film. Gilliam's face on this pic says a thing or two about what a grueling experience that first attempt was. 

 Was it worth all the pain? The answer is a resounding yes! It’s Gilliam going back to his roots, to that pure fantasy escape, but told in a closer way to Gilliam’s true inspiration in his career: Cervante’s Don Quixote. Of course, this isn’t the Gilliam of the 80’s who would get 60 million dollars to make The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989), this is Gilliam on a tight budget. I’m sure this film could have been made with more special effects…to bring that fantasy to life, but it’s not.  This is a slightly restrained Gilliam in terms of going nuts with special effects. We do get one fun moment in which ‘Quixote’ fights with three giants which is gloriously good, it reminded me of what Gilliam loved to do in the 80’s, it brought to mind that giant that comes out of the ocean with a pirate ship on his head from Time Bandits (1981). And there’s little things here and there throughout the whole film that will remind you of previous Gilliam films, loved that about it. 

 When directors hit their mature years, they tend to make films that are deeper and more profound and not so focused on pure spectacle, and this is that type of film. It’s not special effects left and right, it’s a more character driven tale about this self-centered film director that reconnects with an actor he made his first film with, the film he made is called The Man Who Killed Do Quixote. The actor believes he is Don Quixote and at times, you believe it. Maybe he is? Who knows. That’s for you to decide. But the film once again hits one Gilliam’s favorite themes, fantasy vs. reality. The fear of death and the wanting to live life with an adventurous spirit or die trying. It’s all told from a very meta perspective in the sense that it is a film about filmmaking, the frustrations and the pleasures of being a creative mind. How making a film is a true struggle. 

 I loved this movie for many things, among them that shift between fantasy, memory and dream world, then back to reality. That code switching between worlds is excellent and vintage Terry Gilliam territory. So this is basically like Gilliam’s life thesis, encapsulating everything his learned about life and filmmaking and giving it to us. It’s such a pity that the film is actually going through legal issues (the struggle continues!) and it could only be shown one day in a few theaters…I was lucky to see it on the 42^ndStreet Regal Theater in New York. I was kind of hoping he was in the audience…because it’s a one-night event and it was New York. I could have sworn I heard his peculiar Terry Gilliam laugh at one point...I swear he was watching it with the audience. Or was it a fantasy in my mind? I’ll never really know. Final take on Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is that its Gilliam going back to his roots. It has a lot of what made Brazil and Adventures of Baron Munchausen great, but on a smaller budget and more focused on story and performances. Adam Driver and Jonathan Pryce deliver amazing performances and make the film that much more pleasurable. Glad to see Gilliam is still making great films. Through Gilliam, Cervante’s heart and spirit beat fierce and free still!  

Rating: 4 out of 5 

G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)

Title: G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)

Director: Jon M. Chu

Cast: Jonathan Pryce, Dwayne Johnson, Bruce Willis, Channing Tatum, Ray Park, Byung Hung Lee, RZA

Review: 

G.I. Joe Retaliation is a film I watched with some trepidation because of how the studio got cold feet last summer and took the film off their summer roster. That’s right, Paramount Pictures and MGM spent a couple of millions promoting this sequel as a summer 2012 release then felt unsure about the film, yanked it out of its release date and shifted it to May 2013, almost a whole year after it was made; their reasons? Supposedly they wanted to amp up the effects and convert the thing to 3D. Me? I think they were fixing a couple of things here and there that they didn’t like about the film. Maybe they felt they had a lackluster film and decided to add a scene or two, just to make things flow a little better? Studios do these re-shoots all the time; they are fine by me as long as the end result is worth it. So, was the whole damn thing worth it? Did the studios course of action with this film work?

G.I. Joe Retaliation is about Cobra Commander breaking out of a super high tech underground prison and attempting, yet again, to “rule the world”. How does he plan to achieve this? By kidnapping the president and placing one of his loyal servants known as ‘Zartan’ (master of disguise) in his place. You see, Zartan can morph and look exactly like the president, so without America knowing it, they have a member of Cobra ruling the nation. And soon, at the right time, Cobra will take over! But how will he hold the world at ransom? And how can a disbanded G.I. Joe team stop him from achieving his world dominating goals?

So yeah, I wasn’t all that excited for this movie, in fact, I wasn’t planning on seeing it in theaters, because in my book, when a studio gets cold feet with a movie the way they did with this one, it raises a red flag for me immediately. It means the studio didn’t have faith in their product and thought it would fail if released. But then something happened. The film was released and it shot straight to the first spot at the box office! Reviews were saying “it wasn’t all that bad” and that it surpassed the first one, which wasn’t all that difficult considering how lackluster the first one was; making a better film wasn't a tough task. The real task was giving this one that G.I. Joe feel, something that I felt the original lacked, yet this one has in spades. The term used to describe a film like this one amongst film reviewers is “fluff”, which basically means it’s not an important film, it’s the kind of film you watch, are entertained by and then quickly forget because it doesn’t make a lasting impression on you. I personally think this is exactly the kind of film Retaliation is; pure and simple fluff, but that isn’t a bad thing if that’s what you know you’re going to see.  I knew this was what I was in for, so I just went with the flow. Did I end up having a good time?  Hells yeah. I mean, as everyone is saying, it is way better then the first. It isn’t as jokey, it’s tone is slightly more realistic, but I stress the “slightly”; the film is still very much a comic book film.

First the good points: this film feels like G.I. Joe movie, the vehicles they use in the film were apparently really based on the toys because I recognized a lot of them from my pre-teen years, back when I collected G.I. Joe toys with a vengeance. I was one of these kids who had a bunch of jets and tanks and Joes, and placed them in a bunch of positions, by the end of the day I’d have this big ass war going on, ha, the memories. But yeah, this movie will have you getting a couple of flashbacks if you were a hardcore Joe fan. Coolest part about the whole movie is that Cobra finally looks like freaking Cobra! I loved that about it. Cobra Commander looked so freaking cool with his mirror surface helmet. The voice, the wardrobe all screamed classic Cobra Commander. There are moments where Cobra is looking over his empire  that are too cool for school. On the downside, we didn’t get enough of Cobra; I wanted more of the guy! Instead we get Jonathan Pryce playing Zartan; he’s the villain for most of the picture, I wanted more Cobra!  

How cool does Cobra look?

Also on the downside of things, they treated so many characters like crap. I mean, all the Joes from the first film simply disappear or die, and we’re left with a rag tag bunch of Joes. I loved the addition of Dwayne Johnson into the whole G.I. Joe universe, but I hated the fact that for example they disposed so easily of ‘Destro’ one of the coolest villains that the Cobra’s count with. And where the hell was The Baroness? She was never even spoken of! But whatever, this is a comic book movie and things like this are bound to happen. I’m sure what happened was that the actors simply didn’t want to return to a movie they thought would end up being crap, I bet they all wish they had returned now! I’m sure they will return for a third entry, especially when we take in consideration how successful this film has turned out to be; nobody likes to say no to a blockbuster. Dwayne Johnson fits perfectly in this film, but they also decided to add Bruce Willis as ‘the original Joe’ but he ends up doing the same thing he’s being doing in most movies he is in now, smirking, shooting machine guns and saying one liners.

I enjoyed the fact that thematically speaking the film isn’t entirely hollow, actually, the story touches upon old fears that have, in an interesting turn of events, suddenly re-emerged in the world. I’m talking about nuclear paranoia; memories of the Cold War flashing on everbodies minds, countries threatening to blow each other away. Suddenly we got North Korea threatening to blow the world to smithereens with its nuclear weapons, and the whole world seems to be entering into some sort of cold war yet again. I guess governments want to amp up that all important fear factor in the world, some world leaders like to get cocky and show they are the biggest and baddest. So anyhow, there’s a cool moment in the film where many of the world’s rulers meet in one room to discuss the fate of the world and for a moment it seems like the world will be blown to shreds. I liked that contemporary theme, it rang true. Actually, those scenes had some people giggling in the theater, myself included, the whole idea of these crazy dudes shooting nuclear weapons at each other is so contemporary, so right of the moment. It brought to mind Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb (1964). The film points out, in the midst of all its comic book hijinks that the fate of the world lies in the hands of a couple of power hungry nutcases, it’s kind of scary when you think about it.

This new film is stylish, and has a couple of really cool action moments, like for example there’s this whole sequence where Snake Eyes has to escape a temple that’s up in some icy mountains, and he has to rappel the hell out of there, and so suddenly we get this really cool sequence with Ninjas fighting while rappelling down a mountain, which was too cool for school. I mean, the filmmakers themselves even ended the scene by cutting to another scene with people clapping as if giving themselves a pat on the back for the whole thing. Retaliation switches from huge action sequences to political intrigue scenes and it's all very entertaining in my book, it worked. Seeing power hungry politicians pressing red buttons is always entertaining! Even the idea gets me on the edge of my seat, G.I. Joe: Retaliation plays with all these fears that humanity must be feeling as I type this.  Retaliation was directed by a guy called Jon M. Chu, the guy responsible for bringing us such masterpieces as Step Up 2: The Streets (2008) and Step Up 3D (2010); I guess those films made enough money at the box office that he was given the chance to make this one, and that’s cool by me, he showed he could pull off an effects heavy film. Lucky for him that Retaliation has made so much money because a third film in the franchise has been greenlit, something tells me it will be bigger and better. Hopefully the series will continue its steady rise in quality. It might be fluff, but it’s fun fluff.

Rating: 4 out of 5  

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)

Title: G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)

Director: Stephen Summers

So the latest craze in Hollywood is taking a cartoon from the 80s and turning it into a big budget special effects filled movie. It happened with the Transformers, which Michael Bay and his trigger happy crew turned into a huge box office success. Not to mention that the film already spawned an equally successful sequel, which by the way was for me one of the worst films made this year, but that’s a whole other review. The latest of these 80’s cartoon adaptations is G.I. Joe, which was one of the most successful cartoon series to emerge out of the 80s. Whoever was a kid during those years has to remember the show. It lasted half an hour and basically served as a commercial to sell the Hasbro produced G.I. Joe toy line. Its basic premise was that of a top secret military operation which was trying to stop Cobra, a terrorist organization hell bent on conquering the world. Aside from that, the show itself also served as a propaganda machine for the U.S. Military. Now I see that, but when I was a kid I did not realize this at all, to me it was just a cool show. In reality, it was a show trying to infuse kids with a desire to serve the U.S. Military services with pride, get that patriotic pride going at an early age. I guess it was made in part to get kids to want to serve their country just like the characters did in the show. The main slogan of the show lets you know this: “G.I. Joe! A Real American Hero!” The premise of this new film has the Joe’s trying to stop Cobra from destroying the world with a new kind of technology. Basically, a bomb of nano machines (read: microscopic machines) that will eat through anything and continue eating through whatever comes along its path. The Joe’s have to stop Cobra from using this new weapon to bring the world to its knees.

Basically this movie was exactly what I was expecting. Not much invested in depth or a good story, but lots invested in special effects an action. The movie brings absolutely nothing new to the table in terms of storytelling, in fact, it feels tired and done. Many of the plot devices on this film can be traced down to other films we’ve already seen before. For example, when you see the final confrontation between G.I. Joe and the Cobras where the Joes infiltrate Cobras hidden underwater lair, you kind of feel like you are watching a remake of Return of the Jedi or something. Right down to having the Joe’s go into the underwater base as if they were infiltrating the Death Star and escaping mere moments before it blows up into smithereens, just like the death star blows up in the last moments of Return of the Jedi. There’s a confrontation between two ninjas in the film (named Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow) that feels and looks a heck of a lot like the final confrontation between Darth Maul and Quai Gon Jin in Star Wars Episode I. The suits that the Joe’s use in the film which augment their strength and agility are directly influenced by Paramount Pictures Iron Man (2008). Scenes like that just let me see that the director wasn’t trying to be original at all. He was just going down the easy path of doing what others have already done. For Christ sake, we even get a character who is evil but tries to turn good, just like Anakin.

That’s the main problem with films like this one. They are produced so fast, and so little time is taken to come up with a worthwhile story to tell that we just end up getting more of the same. But aside from that, did the film entertain? Let’s face it, while watching a film of this kind, I don’t going in expecting a masterpiece. I was just looking for a fun time, and I went to the theater simply out of nostalgia for this old cartoon show I use to watch when I was 12 years old. I went to see these characters Id seen in my childhood brought to cinematic life. And I have to be honest, that’s exactly what I got. We get some of the key characters from the show, and they looked exactly like what I would have expected them too. The premise of the film mimicked that of the show, which was always about trying to stop Cobra from trying to take over the world. There was nothing ever truly profound of life changing about the shows themes, it was just a poorly animated show made to sell toys. The movie took the cartoons basic premise and went with it.

Have to admit it, nostalgia got the best part of me. It was cool to see the Joe’s secret facilities with all these nifty vehicles and jets, it brought me back to when I was 12, watching the show . It was cool to see Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow kicking each others asses. It was cool to see Cobra becoming Cobra and Destro becoming Destro. And I’m sure this is a movie that many a little kid will find entertaining. Me, I was just a big kid in the theater remembering the Joes. And I had a good time in doing so, there’s lots of car explosions, lots of non stop action sequences, and lots of fx to keep you entertained for half an hour. After a while though, you might feel the CGI overdose light go off inside your head, cause let me tell you, there are times when I felt like the only real thing in the film where the actors and the other 90% of the film was made up of computer generated images. But whatever, that’s a whole new genre of films that’s emerging. That’s where Hollywood wants to go now. I guess it brings down costs some, its cheaper to build something in a computer then building it for real. Sadly, this is the state of big budget special effects films, 90% of what you see on screen exists only within the confines of a computer.

But most of director Stephen Summers movies have always been like this. One look at his resume and you will find CGI infested films like The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, Deep Rising and Van Helsing. Also one look at this films cast and you see that Summers has brought many of his old friends back, like Arnold Vosloo who played the mummy in The Mummy movies. Heck, even Brendan Frasier is here in a small role training some of the newer Joe’s.It was a fun movie for what it was. I recommend it to fans of the G.I. Joe cartoons. Those thirty something guys who grew up watching this show in their afternoons after school. I’m sure they will be happy to see their childhood heroes brought to life. Movie goers who dont know what the hell G.I. Joe is will find an empty yet entertaining special effects driven film, that’s derivative of other films and doesn’t try in the least to show us something new or meaningful. It simply wants to wow you with its gee whiz effects, never keep you bored for its entire duration, and have you leave the theater feeling like you just had a sugar rush, only thing is you'll probably forget the film five seconds after you leave the theater.

Rating: 2 1/2 out of 5