Best Picture #4: ARGO (2012)

Ben Affleck cements his transformation from unfortunate tabloid feature to A-list director with Argo, which is not only a masterpiece of suspense filmmaking but one of the most entertaining and absurdly funny films of the year. It tells a story that could only be true, and ironically feels a little bit less realistic than Affleck’s two previous features, Gone Baby Gone and The Town.

A brief animated introduction gives us the Cliff’s Notes version of the historical background for the Iranian hostage crisis. We begin at the American embassy in Tehran just as revolutionaries, driven to action by the U.S.’s propping up of a dictator who served their oil interests, storm the front gates and take over. In a gripping suspense sequence that sets the tone for the rest of the film, six Americans escape and hide themselves at the Canadian embassy.

The U.S. government catches word and tasks the CIA with getting the six trapped Americans out. Bereft of sensible ideas, agent Tony Mendez (Affleck) comes up with the only crazy thing that might work: invent a fake Hollywood sci-fi movie, pose the Americans as a Canadian film crew, send them to scout desert locations, and fly them out safely.

This proves to be their “best bad idea,” as labeled by Mendez's supervisor (Bryan Cranston), but it proves just absurd enough to work. Hollywood has always reached across enemy lines; even fascist dictators such as Kim Jong-il have professed their love for the movies. The six escaped hostages (Tate Donovan, Clea Duvall, Scoot McNairy, Rory Cochrane, Christopher Denham, Kerry Bishe) are essentially making a movie themselves: each has to play the part of a crew member on the made-up film, which proves to be tough work, especially under fire and on a deadline.

The making of the fake movie is fascinating. Mendez collaborates with makeup artist John Chambers (John Goodman), who was revealed to be a frequent CIA collaborator, and B-movie producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin), to give authenticity to the film. They even set up a staged reading of the script (Mendez and crew settle on a Star Wars knockoff called Argo) with costumes that rival David Lynch's Dune. Arkin is particularly memorable as a Roger Corman-like producer who’s neither rich nor famous but is a veritable king of trash cinema; imagine if Broadway Danny Rose were born on the opposite coast.

With precision, Mendez orchestrates the Americans’ way out of Iran, in a plan in which the slightest deviation could mean their end. A scout through the streets of Tehran, in which Iranian officials request to meet the “Canadian” crew, is brutally tense. Affleck keeps the film going at a rapid pace, and shows us each step of their tenuous escape as it progresses toward each terrifying obstacle.

Only toward the climax do Affleck and his screenwriter, Chris Terrio, step wrong and make the movie, well, too Hollywood. It is not such a problem that they take liberties with the true events for dramatic purposes. In the end, the sum of the story appears to be true, even if some of the parts are exaggerated. Affleck is also sure to avoid the U-571 problem of labeling the rescue a solely “American” effort; he gives due credit to the Canadians for making the rescue possible, providing passports, and putting their own embassy at risk to do so.

For what it's worth, Affleck's character reportedly is not quite as singlehandedly responsible for orchestrating the effort as the movie suggests, and there was at least one Canadian official unmentioned in the film who appeared to put more on the line than Mendez.  Ken Taylor, the ambassador played by Victor Garber in the film, claims that his fellow Canadians could have made the extraction without the Americans getting involved at all.  This muddying of facts would matter more if Argo were a rah-rah trumpet of American exceptionalism, but Affleck's tone is not the slightest bit jingoistic.  It does not present itself as a film about Americans coming to the rescue of some helpless foreigners; I think the movie, being a movie, needed a hero, and Mendez was the one they settled on.

The climactic escape—I hope it’s not a spoiler to reveal the historical truth, that the six Americans did in fact make it out alive—is unfortunately trumped up a little bit too much. The natural tension of the events would have been enough to hold our interest, but the movie introduces too many plot points that seem artificial. We could have done without the phony end-of-act-two shutdown of the operation that’s meant to deify Mendez once he disobeys orders and continues it anyway. Since we know it’s going to happen anyway, it’s a plot turn with no purpose. There's also a needless complication in which the Arkin character is kept from answering a key phone call by a movie shoot in the streets.

Though its status as a docudrama is questionable because of some obviously contrived scenarios and a Hollywoodized lead character, Argo is still a great thriller.  It begins with a seemingly unworkable premise, then walks us through it in an elaborate and compelling way.  For all the tests it fails, it passes this one: it thrills.

*** 1/2 out of ****

Best Picture #3: LES MISERABLES
Best Picture #2: SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK
Best Picture #1: DJANGO UNCHAINED

Best Picture #3: LES MISERABLES (2012)

No matter what anyone has to say about Django Unchained, Les Miserables is sure to be the most polarizing movie of the Oscar season.  For the most part, movie musicals have a niche audience nowadays: there are those who will accept a movie in which the characters sing and dance their way through the plot, and those who won't.  Fans of Victor Hugo's novel may not be terribly pleased with the boiling down of his epic to its essentials (Roger Ebert was not a fan).  Like Joel Schumacher's surprisingly decent-for-what-it-is movie version of The Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables will probably not interest those who aren't familiar with or fond of the stage musical.  But those who appreciate it will find the musical beautifully transferred to the screen, with a splendid production and an excellent cast.

In early 19th-century France, prisoner Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) is released from prison after serving a 19-year sentence for stealing a loaf of bread.  After a kind priest does him a good deed, he assumes a new identity as mayor of a small town and pledges to live a good honest life.  When he overlooks the poor treatment of a seamstress (Anne Hathaway) who works for him, he pledges to devote the rest of his life to caring for her daughter, Cosette.  However, he must be careful to avoid the pursuit of police captain Javert (Russell Crowe), who is after him for breaking parole and is the only man who recognizes him for who he used to be.

Much of the second half of the film takes place against the backdrop of the June Rebellion of 1832, in which Paris Republicans fought royalist soldiers in the streets.  Valjean finds himself in the center of the revolution, fighting at the side of young Marius (Eddie Redmayne), who has fallen head over heels in love with the now-grown Cosette (Amanda Seyfried).

Though the movie gives only a Cliff's Notes version of the historical event at its center, its place in the story is clear.  The musical's theme is of how selflessness can lend meaning to a life; Valjean's life means nothing until he dedicates it to caring for Cosette, and Marius and his soldiers are given purpose with their dedication to the rebellion.  Javert, by contrast, is a man of no compassion and only laws, and his frustration that any criminal could grow to be so kind leads to his downfall.

The major difference between the stage musical and the movie, sure to be debated among fans, is the quality of singing voices.  The stage musical is usually populated by singers who act; the necessary change that director Tom Hooper has made is to cast actors who sing instead.  The actors for the most part do not have Broadway-quality voices.  The exceptions are Jackman, who's a veteran of many musicals, and Samantha Barks, who plays Marius's friend Eponine and delivers a heartbreaking rendition of "On My Own" (and thankfully beat out Taylor Swift for the part).

All the other actors sing like actors, which is perfectly fine.  A movie requires a more intimate vocal interpretation than a stage show does, and the cast all deliver fine vocal performances.  Crowe in particular has taken a lot of flack for his lackluster singing voice; actually, he's very good, and his limitations as a singer don't count against his embodiment of the driven, staunch Javert.  The only players who disappoint are Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter, who as the "Master of the House" and his wife are not particularly bad, but fail to bring energy to a couple of fairly lamely written comic relief parts.

Hooper's direction of the material is a balance between the epic and the intimate.  The production is grand, the scenery lush, the music gorgeous and sweeping.  But Hooper doesn't take a larger-than-life approach to his characters; he prefers long takes with limited focus (most of the numbers were recorded live on set).  For the key number "I Dreamed a Dream," delivered beautifully by Ms. Hathaway, Hooper never once pulls the camera away from her face as we witness her destruction before our very eyes.

Though it will certainly have its detractors, Les Mis is quite good.  At a time when it couldn't have been easy to make a big-budgeted production of a lavish musical, Tom Hooper has gotten it done.

*** 1/2 out of ****

Best Picture #2: SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK (2012)

It's a risky move to try to make a Hollywood romantic comedy about mental illness, but that is what David O. Russell has done with Silver Linings Playbook.  Movies like this always run the risk of being either too contrived or too maudlin, especially when dealing with something as complex and personal as bipolar disorder.  Russell and his cast have masterfully avoided this pitfall.  Like CrazyStupidLove, it tells a story that's as contrived as any romantic comedy has ever been, but it's better because it takes its subject matter seriously.  And its cast is nothing less than superb.

Pat (Bradley Cooper) is released from a mental institution to the custody of his parents (Jacki Weaver and Robert De Niro).  Relentlessly positive, he hopes to get himself into good mental health right away so he can repair his relationship with his wife Nikki (Brea Bee), who currently has a restraining order against him.  He's an all-too-common case who thinks he has everything figured out, although everyone around him knows he still needs help.  Trouble is, his environment may not be the most conducive to his mental health.  Dad is an obsessive-compulsive bookie and often blames Pat when his football team loses.  Mom is a trooper who's doing her best to keep everything in order, but her control is constantly tested.

Then he meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), the younger sister of a friend.  Tiffany has also struggled with depression, and has recently lost her husband.  She inserts herself into his life, sometimes by force.  Pat resists, but when Tiffany offers to relay messages to Nikki for him, so long as he agrees to help her in several ways.  This gives him the drive to make himself better, but he soon begins to discover what's really important to him.

We can foresee the movie's conclusion right from the start, and it's to the actors' and director's credit that it doesn't seem forced.  Russell, who is not one to succumb to the Hollywood formula, lends authenticity to the screenplay, even when the plot takes it to some fairly familiar places (key set pieces take place at a football game and, climactically, a dance contest).

Cooper hits just the right note as a likable character with a violent past who we'd like to see get better.  De Niro is perfect as a goodhearted father who just doesn't realize when he's being a bad influence.  As the penitent mom and wife, Weaver exudes maternal nobility.  Chris Tucker is hilarious as a former roommate of Pat's who often turns up unexpected.  Anupam Kher is particularly memorable as Pat's psychiatrist, the kind of person who is a staunch and reliable authority but isn't above painting his face for a football game.

Lawrence steals the show.  The character of Tiffany is risky territory, as characters of this type usually end up as magical pixie girls who exist for no reason other than to rescue the hero.  Thanks to Lawrence's performance, Tiffany is a flesh-and-blood character who is understandably offended and repulsed with Pat at first, but grows to understand and love him.  Because Lawrence and Cooper are believable, we follow them into everything the overwritten plot throws at them.  Still only 22, this is Lawrence's second nomination for Best Actress, and it is the second time she deserves to win.

*** 1/2 out of ****

Best Picture #1: DJANGO UNCHAINED (2012)

A rollercoaster of thoughts went through my head while watching Quentin Tarantino's troubling, occasionally brilliant Django Unchained.  His film has not come without its share of controversy, given that it's essentially a comic book movie about slavery directed by a white man.  Many have questioned Tarantino's right to make such a film, and one prominent filmmaker has labeled it disrespectful while refusing to see it.

I think the problem is that we all have expectations for what a Tarantino film will be.  He has dealt mostly in pulp, and most of his films have been near-satirical explorations of genre rather than life.  He makes movies that inhabit a movie universe.  Even his World War II film, the wonderful Inglourious Basterds, was set squarely in the world of the movies.  While the specter of the Holocaust certainly haunted Basterds to an extent, Django is his first film to deal up front with a real-life atrocity.

And so the tone of Django is subtly different from that of his earlier films.  We've grown to expect a Tarantino comedy, but that is not what Django is, though there are several laugh-out-loud moments.  The laughter stops after a while, as it should.  The movie's outright brutality is shocking, because we aren't afforded the usual distance from violence that we expect.  Because we start with Tarantino's cheeky dialogue and are then thrown into a world of horrific violence, Django is often an enraging film.  It takes a while before we notice that Tarantino is actually making a serious movie.

Not a serious film, mind you, but a serious movie.  Django is a comic book movie after all, one with clear-cut heroes and villains, and exaggerated situations with stylized violence.  It also doesn't have much of anything to say about slavery itself, other than that it was a very bad thing that is not far enough in our past.  But Tarantino takes the subject matter seriously, doesn't trivialize slavery, and creates an elaborate and horrific universe around the pre-Civil War South.

What Tarantino hasn't changed is his knack for quirky, odd, memorable characters.  He has created a couple of terrific heroes in his two lead characters, as well as a fine performance from Jamie Foxx and yet another unique character from Christoph Waltz.  This time Waltz is on the heroes' side, playing Dr. King Schultz, a onetime dentist who now works as a bounty hunter.  He raids a couple of slavers in search of one slave, Django (Foxx), who can lead him to the men he's seeking.  Soon the two men decide to become partners in bounty hunting, and Dr. Schultz promises to help Django find and free his long-lost wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington).

Broomhilda is currently owned by Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), a plantation owner in Mississippi who takes a special interest in Mandingo fighting, in which a couple of strong black men fight to the death for his own entertainment.  Django and Schultz hope to free her by posing as slavers and proposing purchasing one of Candie's fighters.

It's here that Tarantino abandons the usual overplayed silliness and stakes darker territory.  His scenes at Candie's plantation ("Candie-land") contain some of the most brutal and uncompromising violence I've ever seen.  But though Tarantino borrows his style from exploitation films, his movie is not exploitative but honest.  What they witness at Candie-land brings Dr. Schultz to think beyond his personal quest, and to make a decision that leads the film to its technically positive but very sad conclusion.

DiCaprio, as the film's Mississippi equivalent of Waltz's Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds, finds in Candie a perfectly insidious creature: wicked, amoral, buffoonish, frightening.  Washington fails to make much of an impression as Broomhilda; though she's acceptable as a goal for Django, her role is underwritten and it feels like many of her scenes were left on the cutting room floor.

The most heart-wrenching performance comes from Samuel L. Jackson as Stephen, Candie's loyal house-servant.  Stephen is the most genuine character to ever exist in a Tarantino film: a driven, intelligent, devious man who's done what was necessary to survive.  His status as a house slave grants him certain privileges with his owner--he is allowed to speak out of turn and is treated at the very least as a conversational equal by Candie--but he is feared, reviled, and pitied by his fellow slaves.  He is the picture of a man who is disrespected by everyone, who has traded his dignity for security.  Stephen's is in many ways the saddest story in Django Unchained, and this is Jackson's best performance to date.

There has been much talk of Tarantino's liberal use of a certain word that he admittedly shouldn't be allowed to use.  In the making of a movie about slavery, for a white filmmaker to use the N-word is risky; however, for him not to use it is unconscionable.  To make a film in which slaveowners used nothing but nice words is a step closer to (forgive the term) whitewashing history.

Tarantino's main risk in using the N-word, I suppose, is that he is so good at writing memorable dialogue that he might unwittingly reintroduce it into the vernacular.  This risk is exacerbated by the fact that he is white; if one white director can use it, maybe we can all use it.  But Tarantino does everything he can to mitigate this risk; the N-word, uttered more than 100 times throughout the film, is ugly and clunky every time it's said.  He doesn't spin beautiful, quotable dialogue around it; rather, he cements it as the graceless term it is.  Come to think of it, I can't really think of a quotable line from the film at all, aside from Django's silly, forced "The D is silent."

Strongly written and cleverly acted as it is, Django Unchained is the first Tarantino film which struggles severely with tonal shifts.  The film begins comically, and at times Tarantino appears to be channeling Mel Brooks; a set piece involving Don Johnson as a doofus plantation owner and Jonah Hill as an even dimmer Klansman is hilarious.  Then the film starts to explore its more brutal side, which is jarring at first but increasingly genuine and believable.

But then it tries to have it both ways again, and concludes with a couple of spaghetti western-style shootouts, and an overblown Inglourious Basterds finale, in which the revenge fantasy is completed.  This is less compelling after what we've just witnessed; though the hero gets the girl, we're still left with the overwhelming violence and pervasive sadness of the earlier scenes, which just sort of hangs there unresolved.  Tarantino deals openly and honestly with the infection that was slavery, but he leaves it at that, and brings retribution in the form of grisly gunshots rather than a real resolution.  I suppose there was no way the movie could have ended with Stephen redeeming himself and becoming the hero.  I suppose.

*** out of ****

THE RAVEN (2012): Quoth the raven, "Eat my shorts."

In a world where Abraham Lincoln fights vampires and Sherlock Holmes is a mixed martial artist, I suppose casting Edgar Allan Poe as an amateur homicide detective isn't such an egregious rewriting of history.  At least Poe no doubt had the fascination with the macabre to give him a familiar insight into the mind of a killer.  And his stories, helpfully in the public domain, make cheap fodder for Hollywood thrills.

John Cusack might seem like an odd choice to play Poe, but I actually can't think of anyone more perfect.  Who better to capture Poe's romantic frustration, his themes of outright abandonment by the opposite sex?  I'd like to see Cusack play Poe in an actual biopic.

That's not what The Raven is, nor is it a feature-length version of the classic poem.  Nor, in fact, is it expanded to a silly celebration of all of the things that Poe held dear, like Roger Corman's 1963 film of the same name.  In fact, aside from one or two quotes and a couple of wing-flappings, the movie has little to do with its namesake.  Cusack is Poe, broke and long suffering from writer's block.  People in his home town of Baltimore are being murdered in the style of Poe's stories, and the killer contacts him with clues.  The police, led by Detective Fields (Luke Evans), team up with him to solve the case.

The procedural plot of the film is as contrived as they come.  The murders are graphic and not very inventive; they even bear little resemblance to Poe's work.  Given Roger Ebert's Law of Economy of Characters, we know that the unidentified killer must be one of the characters we have met, unless the movie, like Se7en, has something else in mind.  This movie does not, and the surprise reveal comes with little fanfare.  The killer's motive is bland, and the confrontation between him and Poe is a yawn.

The one thing that anchors it is Cusack's performance, which is inspired.  If the script doesn't quite allow him to really get under Poe's skin, he at least gives us a genuine hero: a man who has loved and lost one too many times, and is fighting for his own last grasp on humanity, especially when his own girlfriend (Alice Eve) gets caught up in the mix.

Director James McTeigue, who made the very good V for Vendetta, manages to salvage a couple of good suspense sequences.  The first is borrowed from "The Premature Burial," in which a character awakens inside a coffin somewhere--McTeigue doesn't show us any outside point of view--and must find a way out.  The other comes toward the end, in which a character has been poisoned and must use what little life he has left to save someone else.  It's in these scenes that the real Poe seems to make a cameo appearance.

** out of ****

NOTE: One of the movie's screenwriters is named Hannah Shakespeare, which has given me an idea for the next movie of this type: William Shakespeare, Zombie Killer.

FREAK DANCE (2010): UCBeat Street

Made in 2010 but just hitting DVD now, Freak Dance may be a little bit late to the game with its skewering of the battle-dancing genre, especially since there's already been one goofy parody (the Wayans family's surprisingly decent Dance Flick).  But this film, written and directed by Upright Citizens Brigade co-founder Matt Besser and starring many staple actors of that theater in Los Angeles, still manages to find something fresh to savage.  Rather than take the anything-for-a-joke route of the Wayanses, Besser and crew apply a more subtle, straightfaced approach that embraces the outright silliness of the genre.  With the goofy factor toned down just a little, Freak Dance could have passed for an actual dance flick.

It has the obligatory plot line of any dance movie, borrowed from Footloose, Dirty Dancing, The Forbidden Dance, and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo equally.  When their community center is threatened with closing due to health violations, the dance crew Fantaseez and their leader Asteroid (Hal Rudnick) are left with no choice but to battle-dance in a local underground competition and use the prize money to pay their fees.  Their crew consists of the talented but cocky Funkybunch (Michael Daniel Cassady), the functioning illiterate Sassy (Angela Trimbur), the dorky Egghead (Benjamin Simeon), the aptly named Silent Girl (Peipei Yuan), and their newest recruit, the rich-girl-with-street-cred Cocolonia (Megan Heyn).

Though the many jabs at dance movie conventions grow tired pretty quickly, the movie works largely because the dancing is, well, not bad.  Rather than just goof on the genre, Besser and his co-director Neil Mahoney take the choreography seriously enough that the musical numbers are clever and often hilarious.  Though the cast is mostly made up of improv actors, they prove themselves (or in some cases, their doubles) to be pretty adept at movement.  An early scene in which the Fantaseez crew invades a hospital and infects the entire staff with dancing is laugh-out-loud funny, and the big battle climax against a rival crew led by a strip club owner (Drew Droege) is uproariously vulgar.  The song score, written by Cassady and Brian Fountain, is not tightly composed but is consistently clever and serves a series of charming numbers. (My favorite: the code violation list-song "The Bathroom's Too Dark to Pee.")

The four original Upright Citizens (Besser, Amy Poehler, Matt Walsh, and Ian Roberts) are very funny in small roles, and there are guest appearances by several UCB Theater regulars, including Horatio Sanz, Casey Wilson, Tim Meadows, and Andrew Daly (who has the film's funniest one-liner).

Humor-wise, Freak Dance comes with few surprises; those familiar with Besser's work and with the Del Close-style improv of the UCB Theater (including the terrific sketch show from the late '90s) will know what to expect.  What I was not expecting was for the dancing to be this good.  Freak Dance is funny because it was made by funny people, but what elevates it is that the dance numbers are cleverly conceived and professionally choreographed.

*** out of ****

BREAKING DAWN PART 2 (2012): One disbeliever's honest appraisal of a movie that doesn't need his approval

Let it be known, in case I haven't yet made it clear, that I profoundly dislike the Twilight series.  What little I have read of Stephenie Meyer's books has left me agape at how such simple and juvenile writing manages to be a bestseller among relatively smart teenagers.  Never mind that its socially conservative message and disturbing cipher of a female lead sets a damaging example for young girls: remember, sex before marriage is EVIL, but defining yourself completely by the men in your life is OKAY.

But whatever.  Most teenagers are hip enough to see through the conservatism in the books; that's not what draws them to it.  Meyer has fashioned an empire with an undeniably savvy hook: two hunky guys fighting over a decidedly average girl.  What teen or tweener could resist?

The movies have been fairly bearable, mainly because they've assembled top-notch actors and directors behind them.  But with few exceptions, most of the talent behind the series has fallen prey to the terrible writing.  Casualties in the director's chair include Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen), Chris Weitz (About a Boy), and David Slade (Hard Candy), and even otherwise blameless actors like Bryce Dallas Howard and Graham Greene have faltered under Meyer's clunky plotting and dialogue.

But with Bill Condon, the series seems to have met its match.  The director of such sexually frank films as Gods and Monsters and Kinsey, Condon finally lends the series the authenticity it has been so sorely missing all along.  A chief complaint about the series has been that its female lead, Bella (Kristen Stewart), is a complete blank screen, and that her male counterpart, the vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson), is a parody of a brooding rock star.  Condon's solution is to start from scratch and make the two main characters flesh and blood, so to speak.  His adaptation of the series's last novel, Breaking Dawn, brings a much needed humanity to the characters that other filmmakers have failed to apply.  By the end, well, I actually cared.  That Breaking Dawn Part 2 is the best in the series is without question.  That it is--deep breath, here we go--an actual good movie is the real surprise.

The splitting of Breaking Dawn into two parts is beneficial.  It limits each film to one plot apiece; while earlier films in the series felt like prefaces with lots of exposition, no beginning and no end, Condon's two Breaking Dawn films are more conventionally constructed, and easier to take.  For those playing at home, in Part 1 Bella Swan and Edward Cullen--he the dashing 100-year-old vampire who only looks 20, she the 18-year-old plain Jane--got married, Bella got pregnant with a half-vampire-baby, she died in childbirth, but Edward bit her, so she became, well, you know.

The child, Renesmee (Mackenzie Foy), grows at a highly advanced rate and has the supernatural strengths of her vampire father.  Word of the child reaches the Volturi, an ancient folk who are sort of a Vampire Senate, led by the slithery Aro (Michael Sheen).  The Volturi are not happy, and assemble an army to dispatch with Bella, Edward, Renesmee, and their entire family.  The Cullens call on their vampire friends, an assemblage of oddballs from around the world, to defend them.  At their side is the werewolf Jacob (Taylor Lautner), who has vowed to defend Renesmee.

Meyer's storyline has its faults.  The way it deals with Bella's newfound sexual hunger is downright sketchy, especially for a movie geared toward kids, but the movie thankfully doesn't spend much time on it.  I still haven't figured out how Bella's dad (Billy Burke) is meant to figure into the whole deal, or why he doesn't seem to notice that Renesmee is growing, well, way too fast.  The whole story with the Volturi is pretty filmsy too, and depends a whole lot on basic things being conveniently misinterpreted; for a race who appear to be psychic, vampires seem to misunderstand a lot.

It's not that the writing has substantially improved with this entry; it's merely that there is less of it.  The plot is ridiculous, but it at least has a clear through-line.  With a more well-defined story arc, the characters seem less like automatons and more like real people inhabiting a real story.  There is more action in this entry than in all of the previous ones combined.

The very large cast is exceptionally good; few of the film's talented actors are wasted.  The ensemble of vampire henchmen from various countries is made up of surprisingly well-defined characters.  I particularly liked Lee Pace (of the magnificent The Fall) as the Revolutionary War soldier who takes a special joy in sinking his fangs into Brits.  Dakota Fanning is chilling as a young telepath.

As the head of the Volturi, Sheen completely hams it up, and why shouldn't he?  He's now played the heavy in not one but two vampire/werewolf crossover series.  He's played an evil vampire more often than he's played Tony Blair.  His performance here is not up to his usual standard, but, well, let's just say he has fun with it.

Though Lautner remains one of the weaker actors of the bunch, even he seems looser and more human than before; this is the best performance he's given yet.  The movie even allows him to kid himself, and his serial shirtlessness gives way to one hilarious scene he shares with Bella's father.  Even Kellan Lutz, who hasn't been particularly noteworthy in the series thus far as the hulking Emmett Cullen, is pretty good here.  Alas, the series has failed to make a case for the existence of Jackson Rathbone, but I suppose it can't do everything.

The climactic battle sequence between the Volturi and the Cullens is really something.  It works, because Condon invests much of the film in making us care about the characters involved.  As has not been the case with much of the series, there is something at stake here.  Condon also takes a good deal more joy in the various grotesqueries of the vampire genre: I'm happy to report that, for anyone fed up with the inert kissy-kissy sparkliness of early entries in the series, there is a greater number of beheadings in this one.  I also liked the concept of the Immortal Child: apparently it is a crime to bite a child, since a vampire child becomes nothing more than a remorseless killing machine.  I'm imagining an army of bloodthirsty tots attacking the town.  But that's another movie.

It was no small feat to bring a respectable close to this usually mediocre, sometimes heinous series.  Perhaps it was a little easier to tackle the series after Bella and Edward's marriage; with the two of them finally doing the dirty deed, the off-putting abstinence allegory of the series's earlier films is no longer necessary.  Because Condon downplays the bigger picture and gives Stewart and Pattinson room to breathe, they become more believable.  The movie closes with an admittedly indulgent final moment between Bella and Edward, which is--for the first time in the series--completely earned.

Okay, so it could be that I'm suffering from a slight case of Stockholm Syndrome, having sat through ten hours of this series now, but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.  Actual fans ought to eat this movie up.  As a non-fan, let me offer this olive branch: I enjoyed it.

*** out of ****

NOTE: The movie doesn't do itself any favors by closing with a screenshot of the final page of Meyer's novel.  One sentence is enough to remind us of how poorly conceived her prose is.  "Our forever"?  Give me a break.