Joe

JOE (David Gordon Green, 2013)

David Gordon Green’s JOE is the flip side of his previous film PRINCE AVALANCHE. Both Texas-set films are concerned with what defines a man. Where the latter pokes fun at the comic duo who venture into the wilderness to work and live off the land to connect with their masculinity, JOE sees it as a refuge that helps to keep the darker and destructive impulses in the male animal at bay.

Each morning Joe (Nicolas Cage) goes to the local grocery to pick up a crew to do a day’s hot, hard work. Equipped with hatchets that inject poison, Joe and his men are killing useless trees so the owner’s property can be cleared for stronger pines to be planted in their place. One day 15-year-old Gary (Tye Sheridan) appears in the field seeking a job for him and his dad. Noting the boy’s eagerness and background of manual labor, Joe takes him on not knowing that he’ll become more than an employee.

Gary’s family has drifted into town and taken up residence in a condemned house. His father Wade (Gary Poulter) is an abusive drunk who would rather steal the money his son earns than make an honest living himself. When Wade costs him and Gary their jobs, the boy turns to Joe for a second chance. Joe has sympathy for Gary, who he sees is desperate to escape the man who beats him. While he’s had his own run-ins with the law and troublemakers around town, Joe determines that it’s worth assisting Gary even if it may lead to a confrontation with Wade down the line.

Joe mentions that restraint is what is keeping him alive and out of jail. Cage lets the intensity seep out of his eyes as his character with a fuzzy past strives not to react as he’s inclined when feeling provoked. Cage plays Joe as if he’s engaged in a constant state of mental calculation to regulate the anger and violence he’s liable to lash out with. Although he doesn’t want to stand out, his thick beard functions as a signifier that he’s not to be messed with. He drives a battered, old GMC pick-up that he has no desire to trade in, probably because a new truck would attract more attention. Joe’s workers wear packs that make them resemble Ghostbusters, but he has no such equipment to help him fend off the demons that torment him daily.

Joe bemoans that there’s no longer any frontier, suggesting that he believes at one time a man like him could pick up and go to the untamed places where he might not be a danger to himself and others. For as much as he fears what he is capable of doing, others are drawn to him like strays to a welcoming home. Joe doesn’t intend to be a father figure, yet as he does in his work, he clears what is weak and expendable so that Gary may grow stronger where he is. While there’s a fatalistic sense about Joe’s actions, finding a purpose is where he seems most satisfied.

Green is more interested in mood than plot, so JOE isn’t as effective as a thriller as a more conventionally directed film might be. He maintains the tension through Cage’s performance and a soundtrack that responds according to his temperament. Green likes to soak up the atmosphere, prioritizing listening to guys shooting the breeze. It’s in these moments that he captures the spirits of the men better than direct depiction. Although the film meanders, everything is carefully in its place. The opening and closing scenes rhyme to emphasize the journey Gary has taken through knowing Joe. Because of his lack of discrimination in roles and penchant for playing unhinged characters, Cage can be viewed as something as a joke these days, but in JOE he shows that he can be more than a collection of tics and oddities if given the proper showcase.

Grade: B-

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE (Jon Turteltaub, 2010)

In THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE Balthazar (Nicolas Cage) has searched for hundreds of years to find the rightful successor to his master Merlin. Balthazar was one of three apprentices to his legendary mentor. When one of them, his friend Horvath (Alfred Molina), joins forces with an evil sorceress and kills Merlin, Balthazar is entrusted with the responsibility of identifying the Prime Merlinian, who will be the proper inheritor of the Arthurian wizard’s powers.

In the year 2000 Balthazar finally stumbles upon him in the form of ten-year-old Dave, but the kid’s training is stalled when he accidentally releases Horvath from the Grimhold, a Russian nesting doll that imprisons evil sorcerers. Due to circumstances too convoluted to go into, flash forward ten years when Dave (Jay Baruchel) is now a physics major at NYU. Balthazar returns and begins training his protege to keep evil magicians at bay.

Whether intentional or not, THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE plays like Disney’s stalled attempt to launch a stripped down Harry Potter-like franchise. While the special effects are suitably impressive and Cage brings the occasional flourish of oddball humor to the affair, the film as a whole lacks a strong idea of what it should be. In trying to be everything to everybody, it amounts to a fitfully entertaining nothing.

In the best sequence, THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE calls back to the FANTASIA cartoon with Mickey Mouse that the film draws its name from. Dave uses magic to set the mops into action in the workshop with disastrous results. It’s one of the rare spots when effects, humor, and action work in concert. As for other highlights, a Chinese dragon puppet made flesh and blood and a Chrysler Building eagle turned into an unconventional mode of transportation are a couple of the visual effects technicians’ more inspired creations.

Nevertheless, a little bit of CGI sizzle isn’t enough to hinge a film on these days, especially when it’s so commonplace in big studio movies. As the 20-year-old brainiac Dave, Baruchel can be a nice foil for Cage, but he’s never given enough to work with to allow his twitchy nature from solely defining the character. That awkwardness served Baruchel well in the comedy SHE’S OUT OF MY LEAGUE, but here the trait is too prominent. In theory Dave’s training would be front and center, but it often takes a back seat, especially to a halfhearted romantic subplot about a reunion he has with a grade school crush played by Teresa Palmer.

If magic relies on misdirection, then THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE knows well enough to be distracting enough to divert attention for awhile. If only there were a satisfying payoff to the feature-long trick.

Grade: C

National Treasure: Book of Secrets

NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS (Jon Turteltaub, 2007)

When Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris) reveals a long-missing page from John Wilkes Booth's diary to the public, treasure hunter extraordinaire Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) couldn't be more dismayed. His great-grandfather Thomas Gates is potentially implicated in the plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.

In NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS Ben must again find and decipher the clues that will absolve his ancestor and possibly lead to a fabled city of gold that the Confederates sought. He reteams with technology whiz Riley Poole (Justin Bartha), adventure-seeking father Patrick (Jon Voight), and archivist and former squeeze Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger). New to the crew is his mother Emily Appleton (Helen Mirren), a Native American language expert whose acrimonious split from Patrick is as bitter as ever despite the intervening years.

Their search includes visits to Paris, Buckingham Palace, Mount Vernon, and Mount Rushmore and a most unlikely abduction of the President of the United States (Bruce Greenwood). The President is the only one with access to a secret book that is rumored to be passed from the nation's outgoing chief executive to the incoming. The book is a conspiracy theorist's wet dream, but getting one's hands on it is next to impossible. Since a key piece of information is probably in that book, Ben has to steal the President away for a short while and hope he's a good sport about it.

Like its predecessor, NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS plunders national monuments and documents for elaborately coded messages that will help the heroes on their mission. Any complaints about realism or the utility of these century-old (and older) methods of concealing information are beside the point. NATIONAL TREASURE and its sequel are intended to be rollicking, old-time adventures. They're about the thrill of the chase accompanied by rosy views of patriotism and history.

Director Jon Turteltaub and the cast march through the paces with enthusiasm, but there's one crucial problem amid the onslaught of riddles and historical mysteries. No, it's not that the characters know the answers to the secrets faster than Ken Jennings would buzz in at a sports bar's electronic trivia game. The audience's inability to participate in cracking the codes sucks a lot of the fun out of the process.

There's no way to outguess Ben and company because viewers aren't given the means to play along. Instead, it would be as though everything underneath a car's hood was disassembled and set on the garage floor. A mechanic would return everything to its proper place in record time and then turn around to ask, "Got that?" One can see how he attained the result but not have any real understanding of what was done. The film does the same thing. The process is broken down, but there's no way to arrive at those conclusions independently.

Unlike the Indiana Jones films, rough models for these movies, the characters don't capture our imaginations because there is little romance in their pursuits. They're shoved from location to location like stops on an assembly line. Practically a duplicate of the breezy (and bloated) original, NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS is not without charm, but it lacks the thrill seeker's joy of discovery.

Grade: C+