'The Tempest' offers lavish special effects that diminish dialogue
Critics noms due Friday
Nominees for the annual Chicago Film Critics awards are scheduled to be announced Friday, Dec. 17. Go to dailyherald.com or to chicagofilmcritics.org for updates. Winners will be announced Monday afternoon, Dec. 20
Reel Life review:
‘The Tempest'
Sometimes, Shakespeare doesn't need a “Harry Potter” treatment to remain relevant. In Julie Taymor's second re-imagining of a Bard classic (she directed the chillingly brutal “Titus” based on “Titus Andronicus”), Shakespeare's last work “The Tempest” receives a lavish special effects treatment that doesn't complement the powerful dialogue so much as diminish it.
Taymor gives the original sorcerer Prospero a sex-change operation. Now she's the sorceress Prospera, played by Helen Mirren in a respectful but dispassionate performance that duly dissipates once the curiosity factor wears off.
Prospera lives on an enchanted island with her sheltered daughter Miranda (a nondescript Felicity Jones). When Prospera's enemies become shipwrecked on the island, the sorceress goes to work messing them up with help from her magical spirit slave Ariel (a naked Ben Wishaw equipped with comical Ken doll anatomy).
Chris Cooper superb in the upcoming “Company Men” is the weak link in the cast here. He plays the duplicitous Antonio (Miranda's brother), yet he cannot slip into the character's skin; he's simply too modern and American.
Djimon Hounsou plays the monster Caliban as a magnificently sculpted but dramatically underwhelming creature cursing his forced servitude to the aristocratic and quite white British-accented Prospera.
The genius bit of casting here goes to Russell Brand (yes, the randy rock star of “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”) who takes the comical excesses of the dippy Trin-culo to outrageous proportions.
Meanwhile, David Strathairn, Alan Cumming, Tom Conti and Cooper traipse about the island sucking up screen time in what amounts to a fairly blank emotional experience captured in verse.
Bard lovers may wistfully recall how Kenneth Branagh microscopically edited Shakespeare's lines to produce lean dialogue that packed his pictures with the punchiest iambic pentameter phrasings.
In “The Tempest,” Taymor's ambitious vision threatens to give way to Prospera's “little life rounded with a sleep.” Literally.
“The Tempest” opens at the ICON Theater, 150 W. Roosevelt Road, Chicago. Rated PG-13 for nudity and scary images. 109 minutes. 2½ stars.
ZuZu Bailey in person!
Actress Karolyn Grimes, who played Jimmy Stewart's cute little daughter ZuZu in “It's a Wonderful Life,” comes to the suburbs this weekend to host several showings of the 1946 holiday classic. It will be shown today (Dec. 17) at the Hollywood Palms in Naperville at 4, 7 and 9:30 p.m. and again on Sunday, Dec. 19, at 2:30, 3:30 and 6:30 p.m.
Grimes will also appear at Hollywood Boulevard in Woodridge at noon, 3, 6:30 and 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 18. Tickets cost $8, $6 for kids. Go to atriptothemovies.com for details.
More ‘Wonderful Life'
Hard to believe that the Music Box Theatre's annual movie singalong is 27 years old. So get your warbling voice warmed up and head over to the Music Box, 3733 N. Southport Ave., Chicago, starting today through Friday, Dec. 24, to sing along with your fellow viewers between screenings of “It's a Wonderful Life” and “White Christmas.” Go to musicboxtheatre.com or call (773) 871-6607 from 4 to 9 p.m. weekdays. Single feature costs $12. Double features cost $17.
Dan Aykroyd bears up
“SNL” alum and celebrated Ghostbuster Dan Aykroyd will be at Hollywood Boulevard today and Hollywood Palms on Saturday to host showings of his new 3-D animated comedy “Yogi Bear.” 3-D tickets cost $11 ($9 for kids), 2-D tickets cost $8 ($6 for kids). Go to atriptothemovies.com for details.