Film Forum: Unsettled, The Fall, Surfwise, Speed Racer, What Happens in Vegas, The Babysitters

This is collection of reviews that I found interesting and helpful. The collection will be revised as I find more notable assessments online. Feel free to submit more reviews, or even your own, in the comments below.

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UNSETTLED

Chattaway:

Unsettled does not offer a complete picture of the Israeli-Palestinian situation, nor does it pretend to. What it does do is open a window into an aspect of that situation that might not have occurred to many of us. And while it offers no easy answers, it raises all sorts of messy but important questions—and it does so by immersing the viewer in the personal experiences of others in a most compassionate way.

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THE FALL

Morehead:

Throughout the film, I felt like Tarsem was trying to get my attention, to get me to notice this really alluring costume, or the angle at which he shot this stunning castle wall, or how he was able to seamlessly transition from the shot of a pinned butterfly to a deserted butterfly-shaped island. Simply put, The Fall ends up drowning in its own excesses, constantly trying way too hard to wow the viewer and sweep them off into an imaginative, whimsical tale of heroes, bandits, and princesses in such an obvious manner that it ends up feeling rather ingratiating.

McCracken:

… as cinematic a film as you will ever see. And this is fitting, because The Fall is essentially a love letter to the form—an outpouring of expressive sound, image, space, movement, and color, strewn together in delicately messy bursts and flourishes of filmic passion. … A descendent of films like The Wizard of Oz, Big Fish, and even Pan’s Labyrinth, The Fall reminds us of the power of the moving image to provide both an escape from the harsh realities of life but also a means whereby humans can better understand themselves, and each other.

Ulich:

Each and every of Tarsem’s visuals scratch onerously at the mind, heart, and cornea. The overall effect is close to synaptic overload and, indeed, the film eventually keels over and dies from the mere effort to constantly top itself.

Dollar:

For all his epic pretense, rock-video veteran Singh (“Losing My Religion”) devotes far more energy to settings and costumes than his putative subject (storytelling). It’s a draggy pastiche of Alejandro Jodoworsky’s Holy Mountain and One Thousand and One Nights.

Fibbs:

The Fall is wholly beguiling, an utterly transportive piece of filmmaking as dazzling in its visual audacity as it is in its spartan simplicity. … And it’s the best thing I’ve seen all year.

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SURFWISE

McCracken:

Surfwise … does what a documentary should do: it investigates a specific curiosity of existence (in this case, a very curious family) and attempts to understand it. When so many documentaries today seem concerned only with arguing a point, it’s nice to see something like this which seeks only to reveal.

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SPEED RACER

Davis:

But it’s hard to fill two hours when your best ideas only last a few seconds apiece, and the shortfall of ingenuity causes the worst possible result: boredom. Cranking the volume up to 11 works until its merely numbing, and even the few quiet moments—like a scene in the snowy mountains—seem loaded and cocked and ready to whoosh. … At 20 minutes, Speed Racer might have been a retro-futuristic hoot, but at 129 it requires five times too much hooting. It’s a sugar cereal served for six meals straight. Enough, Speed Racer, enough.

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Ebert:

[The Wachowski brothers] … have captured (almost) all the chintziness, inexpressiveness and incoherence of the TV show in two hours and nine minutes, or about two hours too long, give or take. Yet some of us would just rather re-rent “Tron” (1982), which was not only a more immersive, dimensional and original take on the Commodore 64 video-graphics aesthetic, but also funnier and more exciting.
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“Speed Racer” is a manufactured widget, a packaged commodity that capitalizes on an anthropomorphized cartoon of Capitalist Evil in order to sell itself and its ancillary products. Corporate partners in the venture include General Mills, McDonald’s, Mattel, Topps, LEGO and Target, who have furnished no promotional consideration for mention in this review.

Suderman:

It’s loud, it’s gaudy, it’s obnoxious — the film seems to demand that the audience watch rather than entice it to do so. The arcade sensibility evokes Daytona by way of Fremont Street in Las Vegas, or perhaps Hot Wheels as overhauled by Willy Wonka. Every frame is so juiced, so aggressively charged with unnecessary zip and zoom, that I felt more assaulted than entertained. … Most who attend this film are likely to come out poorer for the experience.

Fibbs:

When Speed Racer works, it is like nothing you have ever seen. And when it careens off the track, cartwheels end over end through the air and disintegrates upon impact with the hard, unforgiving earth, it is still like nothing you have ever seen. I’m not saying I liked the film, but I have to revere its outlandish audacity.

Breimeier:

.. a flashy mess that proves some things are better left to nostalgia than adaptation.

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WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS

Fibbs:

… a clever concept lamely executed. This could have been an enjoyable, smart story in the hands of far better filmmakers. One can imagine a classier version with the likes of Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. Instead, what we get is a clumsy, frustratingly predictable film full of recycled sidekicks and clearly overcooked jokes.

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THE BABYSITTERS:

Petrusich:

The Babysitters glosses over the trauma and emotional manipulation inherent to what is, essentially, a child-prostitution ring—which would be unforgivable enough if the film didn’t also falter so badly on plot. … [It's] a dangerously glib and simplistic take on sexual exploitation, which, unfortunately, is never as mutual as Ross would like us to believe.