'ALLINOL' INDEED!

DIRECTED BY JOHN LASSETER

WITH THE VOICES OF OWEN WILSON, LARRY THE CABLE GUY, MICHAEL CAINE, EMILY MORTIMER, BONNIE HUNT, JOHN TURTURRO, EDDIE IZZARD, JASON ISAACS, THOMAS KRETSCHMANN, JOE MANTEGNA, PETER JACOBSON, TONY SHALHOUB, GUIDO QUARONI, PAUL DOOLEY, JOHN RATZENBERGER with JEFF GORDON, LEWIS HAMILTON and VANESSA REDGRAVE

‘Cars 2’ is not a film that can pause to answer if you ask it to explain itself. It’s not futile to ask that; it’s mindless. It’s something the film sidesteps on its race ahead. Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) could have had a hand in the ‘Toy Story’ franchise playing grease-man in Operation Rescue-Woody. Same goes with Mater (Larry the Cable Guy). These are two cars with as much utility as depth in character. Their presence would make an ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ out of ‘Toy Story’ centered on a moral bailout. With them, you could’ve had more effective, much more diversified action that would pacify the Hot-Wheels-Kid as much as the Teddy-hugger; the Action-figure bully as much as the Barbie doll. They’re universal, in short.

And yet we find that John Lasseter, the man behind Pixar Animation Studios in both heart and mind, prefers to write a movie for them than make one out of them. And then a second. We ask why. Chinese food in China is ‘food’ where you can tell good from bad. Doc. Hudson in ‘Toy Story’ could have been the ‘Wise Old Hornet.’ With ‘Cars’, he became a character. He played Mickey to McQueen’s Balboa. Now we hear he’s no more.

It’s been five years since the film that portrayed people in ‘Cars’ in a mix of oil and water as thick as blood. It’s been sixteen since the one that built on the question of “what if your Toys could talk?” With Pixar, it has ever been a magical journey, through tall stories as a consequence of a heightened imagination that nurtures the same. They’ve had the means, they’ve had the method. They’ve got the wildness that gives means to the method. There’s no story untellable, no dream too far.

There’s none like Pixar that understands the concept of an animated feature. It’d only take you a look at the chronology with Pixar contributions to see what I’m saying. The ‘Toy Story’ series. ‘Monsters Inc.’ ‘Finding Nemo.’ ‘Cars.’ ‘the Incredibles.’ ‘Ratatouille.’ ‘WALL-E.’ Startlingly original stories brought to life with the help of computer-generated imaging. The animation is but an accessory to the storytelling, it’s the brain that dazzles. Its complexity is not evident, its joints not seen. All that shows is an organic whole, taking off with astounding precision. With Pixar studios, it’s all about the baby without fuss on the miracle of conception. They’re like a real force of nature that way.

‘Cars 2’ is no different. It’s an espionage routine set on a racing circuit with oil tycoons and an alternate energy bubble. A comprehensive turn of events fit into a framework that actually provides scope for questioning – how many films are we having to take for granted these days? ‘Cars 2’ is an exciting break from that drill. You accept the very basic premise and you get to savour the storyline, its logic intact. This world is nothing but talking cars, talking ships, talking 747s and helicopters. Fuel and water turn delicacies, the Big Ben is called the ‘Big Bentley’ with windows shaped like radiators. Dying is but engine-burst where people are cars. Like Lewis Hamilton. Like Finn McMissile (Michael Caine) who is sort of an Aston Martin, James-Bond-styled. If there was to be a superhero, it’d be the Batmobile. Or Mater.

There’s something very special about ‘Cars’ and its sequel. These are the only films that have had Lasseter involved in the creative process. Films that he’s directed, films he’s conceived. The others, he’s executive-produced. In Lasseter, I draw a Judd Apatow comparison. That he saves only the best for himself. By ‘best’, I mean the ‘closest to heart.’ Films that he simply cannot let pass. Films that, undeniably, are HIS. It’s uncanny, his eye for detail. The setting, the characters, the voice-acting, the little nothings you’d probably not even notice and the consistency in the same. It’s amazing how his cars are both real and yet extremely imaginative at the same time. They’re ‘intricately-detailed-characters’ taken a little too literally. Every single one of them is loveable. They all grow on you. Even the Queen (Vanessa Redgrave) – the ‘Shakespeare in Love’ sort of cameo by an equally exciting actress.

McMissile calls Mater ‘the smartest, most honest chap he’s ever met.’ Holly Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer) adds ‘most Charming’ to the list. ‘Cars 2’ calls for similar praise. It’s pure celebration that never runs dry. The only thing that’s missing would be a dance-routine. And I would watch a third film just for that.

WHAT THE... HECK?

DIRECTED BY JOHN ERICK DOWDLE

STARRING: CHRIS MESSINA, LOGAN MARSHALL-GREEN, JENNY O’HARA, BOJANA NOVAKOVIC, BOKEEM WOODBINE, JACOB VARGAS, JOSHUA PEACE with GEOFFREY AREND and MATT CRAVEN

‘Devil’ is conceptualized by Manoj Night Shyamalan (‘the Sixth Sense’, ‘the Happening’) and directed by John Erick Dowdle (‘Quarantine’), two people with contrasting histories in this type of movie. Shyamalan can’t break crust without drama, Dowdle could have made ‘Paranormal Activity’ had it occurred to him. It’s two schools of thought in a destructive mismatch. Kind of like Nicolas Winding Refn meets a John Woo treatment in a horror-drama equivalent. The story could have worked with a little lesser, the film needed a whole lot more. The balance was never achieved.

Remember Joel Schumacher’s ‘Phonebooth’? ‘Devil’ has an elevator-replacement of that claustrophobic space, with the ‘voice on the other side’ taken a little too literally. And no Forest Whitaker to save the day either. You’re in for confusion. What is it that’s going on? There’s a difference between ‘suspense’ and a lack of clarity. The ball could have gone both ways on multiple occasions. Immaturity, we find, has been confused with prowess. We’re having to marvel at baby-talk. It’s cute in a puff-pout sort of way. It amounts to little else.

Ramirez (Jacob Vargas) narrates the story of how ‘he’ (personifying the ‘adversary’; the ‘alpha and the omega’ in small letters) comes to surface with a mission, how he moves in on his prey, and how there’s nothing anyone can do to put a stop. Five people are trapped in an elevator. We learn their names in a scramble and hence assume unimportance. There’s a mattress salesman (Geoffrey Arend), a temp on guard-duty (Bokeem Woodbine), a wizened old woman (Jenny O’Hara), a smartly-dressed young woman (Bojana Novakovic) and a young man (Logan Marshall-Green) who wears his jeans like overalls so you know exactly what he is. Glad we didn’t have an axle-grease giveaway as well.

The film opens with a man falling to his death like one of those crazies in Shyamalan’s ‘the Happening’. He holds a Rosary in his hand. Detective Bowden (Chris Messina) at the scene of crime tells his partner (Joshua Peace) the most obvious thing – that someone who’s grabbed his Rosary beads cannot have been pushed. Ramirez would disagree. So would the face in the elevator; the parlor trick. It’s freaky, it’s funny. But everyone is serious about it. That’s horror for you. Innocent people die, people are killed in front of their loved ones just to show the cynics. Come on. That’s not the Devil. That’s a truck-driver on an alcohol high running headfirst into a school-road-crossing. That’s an Adolf Hitler parody. We’re talking about the ‘only one’, the fallen angel. Isn’t it time we gave him some class?

Slowly we find that the five inside didn’t chance to be, but were meant to be. As was the Detective. That was a head-turning bit of detail, nevertheless completely anticipated. There’s no marks to guessing it’s a supernatural thriller and not a ‘whodunit’. It’s more like a ‘howdunit’. Safety cables, glassware, mirrors, electric mains all come from the ‘Final Destination’ franchise. The Devil has his contacts. He’s pretty sure-shot about that. People fall like pins and you’re not to ask if they deserved it. What saddened me was that you could have, but in a different movie. I wanted that movie. ‘Devil’, at one point, was so engaging, so brimming with potential that I desperately wished it wouldn’t disappoint me. It did. With the very ruthlessness of the one in question.

I can’t tell you more without giving it all away. Trust me, it wouldn’t matter. You could watch it instead, but you’d only be watching what you wish you wouldn’t. “How will it all end?” Detective Bowden asks Ramirez. “They all die”, he responds. “That’s all?” comes the question. It would be yours as well. It was mine. There has to be a remedy. Ramirez, a curious choice for the all-knowing, tells there’s hope only when people stop pretending and see what’s right in front of their eyes. Something that this movie never did, nor intended to. It could’ve been what it could’ve been. It never considered the option.

‘Devil’ is a bad Satan-flick. As a disaster-movie, it’s terribly underfed. It’s shot in a low-fi camera and it’s set in real-time, tying an ‘I want to fly’ sort of story to the ground. It’s neither Shyamalan, nor Dowdle. It hovers in between, lost. Talk about misshapen demons.