IHAO on ... Good Morning, Vietnam

This is the film that launched Robin Williams' career, going from stand-up and playing a lovable alien on television to being a funny man in a surprisingly dour war drama.  This film made clear the identity of Robin Williams we all loved, that of the lovable fast-talker who shows real emotion and acts far better than he has any need to in most films he is in.  I wrote a piece on Williams after his unfortunate passing on his film World's Greatest Dad, and in there I touch on my own feelings on Williams and his career.  So now, a little over a month later, its time I watched the film that started it all.

Good Morning, Vietnam is a semi-autobiographical Vietnam war film about a radio jockey for the US military.  He played by his own rules and his own comedy, lifted the spirits of those around him, and maybe some unfortunate mistakes as well.  Not any mistakes that were truly his fault or even shown as true mistakes in the film, but nonetheless, he is forced to by the end of the film leave his surprisingly short tenure as a radio personality in Vietnam with a dishonorable discharge.

The film's drama focuses on two sides to Williams' character's life: the army, and the locals.  In the army, Williams has to deal with fighting to do things his way, bringing good music to the troops out there, and arguing over idiot officers over him who don't know what comedy is.  They end up trying to discretely get him murdered by the Vietcong at one point, but in the end are more easily able to just get him kicked out of his own volition or he'll be charged with treason.  Why?  How?  Well, a young Vietnamese kid he became strong friends with turns up to be a Vietcong bomber.  It isn't particularly subtle or surprising, especially once a GI bar gets blown up, but the emotions and thoughts it brings to mind are interesting.  And since Williams was hanging with a Vietcong member, they offered him his way out so that the officers, who are the antagonists, got what they wanted.

Hurray?

If you can't tell by the above, I found this film a little hollow.  There are some nice scenes, with the aftermath of the explosion at the GI bar being the best of the film, as well as some interesting ones where the idiot lieutenant argues about what comedy is with Williams then proves himself wrong by being terrible as a replacement.  But the whole film just falls flat for me.  There isn't a lot of weight given to the occurrences, the passage of time is very very fast so it feels like only a week or so passes by in the 6 months the film takes place in.  On top of that, the film is a long sit.  And even worse, all the characters, other than Forrest Whitiker's, stay the same from beginning to end.  There is no real purpose in this film.

Now, part of this is because of the writer of the film writing about his own experiences.  He is not a writer by trade.  He was a radio personality.  Good Morning, Vietnam was originally conceived as a sitcom, where these two-dimensional characters would have fit more at home.  But in a film, we get no real movement or change.  We just watch events happen, and then that is the end.  Nothing changes, life moves on, the war continues.

So yeah, I'm pretty sure you can tell I didn't care for it.  War films are a hard sell for me, and while there was stuff I liked, in the end, the whole film just meant nothing to me.  It just acts as a space holder.  Nothing really learned, nothing really experienced, no real stakes.  Just a hollow chamber of a film, with Robin Williams' voice and humor resonating on the inside.

Grade: C-

IHAO DOUBLE FEATURE on ... Monument's Men and LEGO Movie

I was able to double feature two movies that are still big in theatres currently, so why not double feature them together as soon as I can?  I hope you all find these reviews helpful.  Let's get on with it.

Monument's Men is a George Clooney acted, directed, written, and produced film.  I wouldn't call it a "vanity" project, but a passion piece.  Clooney, while the narrative voice and framing structural character of the film, really isn't particularly important beyond hammering home the sentimental purpose of the film over and over.  The film itself is about the true story of the Monument's Men during WW2 who spent their time trying to find all the greatest art, be it paintings, sculptures, or ... other stuff ... I'm sure there was other stuff, but the movie focused on those, anyway, they searched for all the stolen art and tried to stop Nazis from destroying art.

This is a real thing that happened, so let's go ahead and put that out there.  The way things happened probably all happened as well.  Let's just assume other than jokes and little character beats, everything happened.  Ok.  

I found this movie to be sentimental, with very few stakes.  Yes, yes, historical film means that we knew the outcome, but that's not what I'm actually saying about stakes.  "Stakes" are what you need in a film to get invested.  Stakes are created by tension and character action.  The characters are the audience's way into the film.  And I found that Clooney, who did a very good job with the shots and pacing and such on the director's side, created caricature characters that were very simple to understand and like, then used quick vignettes to hop about the plot of the movie, instead of really giving us character moments to build our tension.  Blanchett got the most actual character time, but that quickly went away after the Monument's Men were doing their thing.  

Smiley Frenchman was my favorite character in the movie.  Look at him smile.  :)

With all the stakes removed from characters, all that is left is stakes based on the art itself.  And even there, we see a cheap writing tactic of taking a character and putting all his importance onto a piece of art, so that we are rooting for the Men to find that art as a way to save the character.  It isn't bad or anything, just forced.

Everything Clooney did was good.  My complaints are about the lack.  The lack of interesting choices and scenarios beyond simple vignettes for our characters.  What we did see were are well done.  But if there had been motion between the vignette scenes, if we had really gotten to know the characters beyond the caricatures of "sarcastic elderly dude," "little jewish dude who doesn't like the sarcastic one," "smiley french guy," "husband," "Clooney," if we got to get a real sense of characters, this movie could have been something real special.  The movie handled emotion well, it just didn't truly earn the emotion.  

If you love art.  If you love history.  If you love Europe.  I can very much see this movie being a favorite, even a top 10 for you.  And that's great!  But I personally found it a little lacking, while overall a solid film.  I wouldn't recommend a theatrical viewing (there's nothing really special or necessary about seeing it on the big ole screen) but there are way worse things to rent or Netflix or borrow from that uncle or aunt of yours who you KNOW will own it because it is a war movie that has hunky George Clooney in it.

Grade: B

Chris Pratt is so wonderfully likable as a leading man.  I have to say it right now.  If I liked Tom Hanks, I would compare him to Tom Hanks.  I don't like Tom Hanks, though, so I'm just going to compare him to ... himself, I guess.  I love Pratt.  And he is perfectly suited as a leading fella in this movie and in his new movie, Guardians of the Galaxy.  Trailer below:

This movie is a fun look at the creative force of the Lego.  And a big ole commercial.  There is no denying it, the whole thing is a commercial.  Yes, it goes beyond that, but come one, don't try to fool me people.  The better the movie, the better the commercial.  And it was a very good commercial.

Great joke.  One of probably ... I dunno, a bunch.

The voice acting all around was spot on.  And the world created was even better.  The way it was filmed was fantastic, as it looked like a basically seamless mixture of CGI and stop motion, or just incredible CGI that left fingerprints on things.  It looks very good.  And the movie does go beyond what it could have been to really give us a perfect family film with some new ideas that fit our current culture and parents, as well as our children.  While there are still some things that could have been done, it just leaves room for a sequel, which I'd be shocked if there wasn't one ... actually, I take that back.  This film has a message and moral to it that seems standalone.  So I hope there isn't another.  But there probably will be.  Commercials make lots of money in film form.

This movie really is great.  I don't love it, personally, but I cannot deny great quality when I see it.  And I don't really know what I'd change if I could.  Go see this flick.  You won't regret, and the big screen treatment for these tiny squares is gonna be very much worth your time.  Also, Green Lantern is the new Aquaman.  

Grade: A