Winter’s Tale Review
Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a crappy script.
In case you aren’t the type to be endlessly fascinated by the weirdos and degenerates that inhabit the internet there is a sub culture known as Bronies. These are grown men who are avid fans of My Little Pony. You know, the cartoon designed for little girls ages 2 to 11. Some of them are just guys who for some whatever developmental failure still enjoy the cartoon (or so they claim) but a large percentage of them are known as Cloppers and are the reason Rule 34 was created: If it exists there IS porn for it. Yes, they pleasure themselves to My Little Pony porn.
(Incidentally my knowledge of this sub culture comes from the Howard Stern Show. If you ever want to feel your skin crawl try to listen to the interviews with these guys. Now let me get back to Googling metal bikini Leia pictures).
Anyway, the point is Winter’s Tale has a similar feel to the Bronies. It is a story written for pre-teen girls that for some inexplicable reason they opted to make into a grown up movie. It’s like a little girl dressing up in her mothers clothes without the cuteness. I’ve heard the book by Mark Helprin is pretty much a fairy tale and why they opted to shoot in on film instead of making it into a cartoon is beyond me.
It’s probably the height of churlishness to bitch about deus ex machina in a movie that is supposed to be about miracles but the point is deus ex machine is dead boring. Drama is the result of seeing protagonists that we have connected to triumph against the odds through might, cunning, and strength of will. Seeing the protagonist and his supporting character escape from the top of a skyscraper by climbing onto a flying horse pretty much says that this film is on auto pilot and is going to roll into Grand Central Boring Happy Ending Station without any input from any of the people on the screen or any interest from the audience.
The good news is any debate as to which of Russell Crowe’s movies are his worst can now be put to rest. The bar has been set and unless he opts to play Babs Johnson in a scene-for-scene remake of Pink Flamingos it can’t go any lower. The same cannot be said of Colin Farrell, unfortunately. I feel bad as I actually like him. I think he is appealing and talented, but the man cannot catch a box office break. He needs to hire whoever reads George Clooneys scripts for him. All his recent films have tanked. Dead Man Down, Seven Psychopaths, Total Recall, and Fright Night. Ironically I found something to like in each of those films, which is why I feel a slight pang of guilt (very slight) for dumping on this one.
In addition to being pretty much a film for little girls who believe in fairies this film is a confusing mess. So the basic premise is that each human has exactly one miracle to perform in their life and can only do it for one person. Each person who performs their miracle goes to Heaven and becomes a star or something. Russell Crowe plays a demon who’s job is to prevent miracles from happening. His plan to prevent Colin Farrell’s miracle is to…kill him? 
I thought minions of the devil were supposed to use corruption and temptation to damn people. If all you need to do is feed a guy bullets why not go on a murderous rampage and kill everyone who has not yet performed their miracle? Go to a church and finish off hundreds of miracles every Sunday. The whole thing might have made more sense if the demon characters had been sending prostitutes and drugs his way. (image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category)
For that matter the whole good/bad thing is suspiciously vague. Colin plays a thief who spends a lot of the movie stealing from people. Last time I checked that was considered a bad thing but somehow he is in this state of indeterminate grace. He is being aided by an angel (or something. Not as clear as it was for the demons) in the form of a white horse that can fly. At one point Colin is being confronted by about 20 of Russell’s minions and the horse flies down and…murders them all? Not exactly divine behavior (Haw! If you got that joke you are cool). I mean, sure they might be bad men but I thought the whole idea behind Christianity was the chance at redemption, something very difficult to accomplish from the bottom of a frozen lake. Again, a little explanation of what the hell the angels and demons could do and what their agenda was would have gone a long way.
And then there’s the whole deus ex machina issue, of which that last scene is a prime example. Colin’s character more or less bumbles around and whenever the plot calls for him to do something and/or he is in a dangerous situation God miracles his ass up there (thank you Gunnery Sergeant Hartman). You can get away with that once in a film. Maybe twice. Miracles should not be the plot points that connect each and every scene together.
So the film starts off with the parents of Peter Lake sticking him as a baby in a toy boat off the coast of New York (I guess it was sea worthy? I have build a few model ships and they are rarely ballasted enough to hold a baby) in order to get him to America after they were rejected for being unhealthy. Somehow they knew the boat wouldn’t capsize or he wouldn’t die of exposure before someone found him. Skip forward and adult Peter Lake (Colin Ferrall-Phone Booth, In Bruges, Total Recall) is on the run from a gang of thugs lead by Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe-Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, L.A. Confidential). Peter kills a couple thugs (more evidence of his good soul) but gets trapped. Pearly wants to torture him to death for some reason but a horse magically appears that jumps over a massive fence and Peter escapes.
Later Peter spends the night like all good Christians do; robbing houses for loot. He breaks into a house and meets Beverly Penn (Jessica Brown Findlay-Downton Abbey, Black Mirror, Albatross) in it alone. She is dying of consumption and needs to stay cold or her fever will kill her. They spend a few minutes together and fall in love. He bugs out but is obsessed with her and heads back to her house on the horse, only to find Pearly about to kill her (Pearly had some kind of vision and drew her in the blood of some poor kid he just murdered. If that kid had not yet done his miracle wouldn’t that put Pearly in the black regardless of the whole Peter question?). Peter rescues her and escapes on Miracle Horse, who grows wings in order to fly down a huge cliff.
Pearly needs permission from Lucifer (no joke. It takes real balls to have the Prince of Darkness as a named, speaking character in your movie. Oh, yeah. Will Smith-I am Legend, Men In Black, After Earth) in order to cross the river. Lucifer denies him permission, determining that Pearly is too close to the issue. Peter and Beverly arrive at her family estate where Peter is welcomed by her father Isaac (William Hurt-Dark City, Into the Wild, A History of Violence) after a fairly perfunctory “What are your intentions” conversation. They continue to fall in love.
Pearly hires an angel to kill Beverly (huh?), assuming that Peters miracle was to save her life. Peter and Beverly go dancing and the angel poisons her. That night the two hook up and then she dies. Skip forward about 100 years and Peter is still alive with no memory until he meets Virginia (Jennifer Connelly-Blood Diamond, A Beautiful Mind, Requiem for a Dream) and her daughter Abby (Ripley Sobo-just some TV work). Abby is dying of cancer but Virginia feels the need to probe Peters mysterious past.
The story chugs along from there. Pearly is still around and still wants Peter. The super horse is still around and rescues all of them. Guys get killed, things twist (sort of), and yet more miracles happen.
The stars.
I have to say my favorite part was Will Smith as Lucifer. In each scene with him in it the movie ceased to be a confused miracle love story written for grade school children and turned into a hilarious laugh out loud comedy. I think of all the actors in this film he best smelled what the director was brewing and took it with the appropriate seriousness. One star. Visually decent. Some good camera work IMO. One star. I don’t know if I really need to crush this film but I am having a hard time coming up with anything else. Two stars total.
The black holes.
A fairy tale for adults that failed to entertain. One black hole. The whole question of what everyone’s agenda, powers, and deal was. One black hole. I don’t know if Russell Crowe was secretly laughing at the director or his dentures were slipping but his accent was ridiculous. One black hole. The whole Beverly dying part made the first 2/3rds of the movie a bummer for no reason. One black hole. Deus ex machina as a substitute for actual writing. Two black holes. This film had a serious agenda and that agenda was to make you feel uplifted by the most obvious means possible. They even had dead Beverly do a voice over at the end in case you were asleep through most of the film and missed the point (not an unreasonable assumption). One black hole. 118 minutes that felt like 118,000,000. Pacing from hell. I was just begging for something to actually happen. One black hole. If movies having a point is something you enjoy prepare to be disappointed. One black hole. Total: nine stars.
A grand total of seven black holes. Pretty bad. I honestly think they could have done something better with this. I often wonder if as the production of a crappy movie progresses if there is a sudden moment of clarity for the actors when they realize they are pushing out a turd or if they have to wait for the premier. Worth seeing at all? Maybe. Like I said Will Smith was funny and after After Earth that man owes me some entertainment. I think I would consider taking my mom to see this one. Otherwise no, not at all. Date movie? Maybe. Depends on the girl. If she is really dumb or likes to smoke pot and/or drop acid before a film she might enjoy it a lot (also if she is any of the above find out if she has a sister and send her my way. I think I am done with smart, responsible chicks). Otherwise meh. Bathroom break? Honestly all the scenes without Will Smith are equally worthless. Even if you miss an important connecting scene you can just assume some miracle saved them again and move on with your life.
Thanks for reading. I have seen 3 Days to Kill and will bury that one tomorrow morning (suck it, McG). I think I’ll go see something tonight as well and try to crank out two tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu and email your off topic questions or suggestions to [email protected]. Post any comments on this film or my review here. Talk to you soon. Have a great weekend.
Dave
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