'The Watchers': Moody but that's it

 

Steeped in mysterious folklore and dodging in and out of the shadows of an Irish forest, The Watchers marks the feature debut of Ishana Night Shyamalan, the daughter of M. Night Shyamalan. (M. Night served as one of the movie’s producers.) The set-up goes something like this: The owner of a Galway pet shop asks one of his employees (Dakota Fanning) to deliver a parrot to a customer in Belfast. Fanning's Mina drives through the countryside with the parrot, possibly the film's most interesting character, but loses her way upon entering a forbidding forest. Mina soon finds herself trapped in a bunker-like cabin with three strangers (Georgina Campbell, Olwen Fouere, and Oliver Finnegan), none of whom have been able to escape the forest. Each night, creatures dubbed The Watchers gather to observe those who are trapped in The Coop, which is what this forest redoubt is called. The Watchers view these unlucky characters through a two-way mirror that serves as one of the walls of this strange one-room outpost. Shyamalan's screenplay, an adaptation of a novel by A.M. Shine,  gives Mina a backstory, but for much of its one-hour and 42-minute running time, the movie tries to build suspense with sound design and by offering quick glimpses of The Watchers. The approach is too familiar to create much excitement, and the movie's drawn-out conclusion offers a far-fetched serving of mythology, as well as the introduction of a new character (John Lynch). The Watchers has some atmospheric richness but the characters aren’t intriguing and the movie’s mixture of fairy-tale and horror tropes proves difficult to swallow.

Eroll Flynn's last affair

A strong cast can't quite overcome the emotionally undernourished quality of The Last of Robin Hood, a look at the scandalous final days of iconic Hollywood hero Errol Flynn. A notorious womanizer and drinker, Flynn's final fling involved a 15-year-old girl.

Kevin Kline, an actor we don't seem to see enough of, makes a convincing Flynn, a fading star who readily concedes that he suffers from an irredeemably inflated ego. This Flynn seems to think that his powerful attraction to a teen-ager somehow justifies his behavior. How could he do other than be himself?

Dakota Fanning, who's now 20, plays Beverly Aadland, a teen-age show business wannabe who's seduced by Flynn, who still knows how work his roguish charm.

Writer/directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland also make room for Beverly's mother Florence, portrayed by a fine Susan Sarandon.

Although inconsistently used, the directors employ a device in which Florence -- who was pilloried in the tabloids after Flynn's death in 1959 at the age of 50 -- tells a sympathetic reporter (Jason Davis) the "real" story behind her daughter's affair with a big-screen legend.

Florence's own show-business aspirations as a dancer were thwarted after she lost a leg in an automobile accident.

Hardly an irresistible Lolita, Fanning's greatest achievement is to convince us that her character neither can act nor sing, not an easy achievement for the palpably talented Fanning.

For those unfamiliar with Flynn's story, this by-the-numbers tale should prove interesting enough, but an overly modest approach keeps The Last of Robin Hood from really getting under our skins.

There aren't many movies to which the following statement applies, but The Last of Robin Hood could have used a dash or two of tabloid fury.

A suspensful drama about eco-terrorism

To appreciate Night Moves -- the story of three Oregon-based eco-terrorists intent on blowing up a dam -- you have to be willing to accept a bucket full of unsettling and sometimes unsatisfying ambiguities. Director Kelly Reichardt casts Jessie Eisenberg as an uneasy environmentalist who's committed enough to pursue a destructive form of protest, but doesn't come off as an ideologue. Eisenberg's Josh joins forces with two others: a former marine (Peter Sarsgaard), who has planned the operation and a disaffected young woman (Dakota Fanning). Fanning's Dena may have been recruited because she's considered a good bet for convincing an agricultural supplier to sell enough ammonia-drenched fertilizer to make a bomb. The cause makes sense: The dam provides water for unbridled development, but the characters and their actions don't always add up. Sarsgaard's Harmon lives in a trailer; Eisenberg's character works on a cooperative farm; and Dena has found employment at an upscale health spa. Reichardt (Wendy and Lucy) may want to define the characters by showing how they react to the evolving situation. That means we don't get much background. Reichardt generates a fair amount of tension when it comes to blowing up the dam, but minimizes anything by way of cogent explanation. Josh -- in particular -- remains mysterious, a loner whose motivations may stem as much from confusion as conviction. It's not easy to tell what he wants, probably because he doesn't know himself.

'The Runaways' serves up 'jailbait rock'

Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart as hard rockers.

There's something disturbing and even a little unseemly about The Runaways, a hard-eyed look at the teen-girl band that launched Joan Jett's career in the mid-1970s. Watching Kristen Stewart (as guitarist Jett) and Dakota Fanning (as lead singer Cherie Currie) makes you wonder whether the movie's main characters aren't awfully young to be on a collision course with fame and ruin.

Members of The Runaways fell into the usual traps during the band's two-year existence. Sex and drugs became synonymous with rock 'n' roll. Currie inspired jealousy among her band mates when she began to grab too much of the limelight. As depicted in the movie, the group's manager seemed to be part genius and part pig. I'm not sure why, but watching these kids go through their triumphs and catastrophes put me in mind of the title of Nicholas Von Hoffman's seminal book about the '60s, We Are the People Our Parents Our Parents Warned Us Against. Currie seemed to be the most self-destructive of the bunch.

Directed by first-timer Floria Sigismondi, the movie presents The Runways as the first all-girl entry into the testosterone-fueled madness of hard rock. The Runaways specialized in what Currie, in a recent interview, called “teen-age jailbait rock.” And although those unfamiliar with the real story may have difficulty buying into the movie's downward teen spiral, I've read that some of the toughest episodes – a rape and an abortion, for example – have been excised.

Sigismondi -- who hails from the world of music videos – does a capable job of telling an old story with new faces. You know the drill: Rebellious girls form a band. Things begin to click. The girls – particularly Currie – hit the skids. We're made to understand that the environment surrounding The Runaways – who toured in both the United States and Japan -- was totally chaotic.

Best known for her work in the Twilight movies, Stewart captures the sullen seriousness of Jett, a teen-ager who opens the movie by buying a leather jacket that might as well have "Don't mess with me" printed across the back. Put another way, Jett wasn't the kind of musical kid likely to have shown up at band camp. If Fanning in any way shrank from the more difficult parts of her role, I didn't notice -- although you sense she may be working a little too hard. But here's the deal on the movie's seamy side: If there's something distasteful about watching Fanning play an overtly sexualized teen-ager, maybe that's how it was supposed to be. Currie was 15 when she joined The Runaways. Her breakthrough song was entitled “Cherry Bomb.” She was asked to flaunt a defiant brand of teen sexuality.

Fanning, who's now 16, has some quieter scenes with Currie's twin sister, nicely played by Riley Keough. But the spotlight falls on Currie and Jett, one wild, the other more disciplined – at least as far as music is concerned. At one point, the two young women share a kiss that goes beyond friendship. Just part of the scene, the movie seems to say.

The girls are helped in their rise by Kim Fowley, the promoter who teaches the band to regard rock 'n' roll as a “blood sport.” As played by the mesmerizing Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road), Fowley is a wild-eyed creep who understands how to push The Runaways toward fame. He gives them outlandish advice, and encourages them to commercializes their adolescence.

Jett, for whom rock 'n' roll became a kind of religion, went on to have a career with a band called The Blackhearts. At the end of the picture, we're told via title cards that Currie, now clean and sober, has become a chainsaw artist. Make your own jokes if you feel the need. The movie's script – also by Sigismondi – is based on Currie's book, Neon Angel: The Cherie Currie Story.

Stewart and Fanning do their own singing, and their on-stage presence proves convincing. This may have had something to do with the fact that Jett was one of the movie's producers. Rock 'n' roll stagecraft isn't the only thing that seems authentic. From the grubby trailer in which the girls rehearse to the trashed-out hotel rooms of their various tours, the movie feels as if it has been steeped in genuine grunge.

The Runaways isn't one of the great rock 'n' roll movies, but it offers plenty of grit, providing you don't mind watching a group of 15 and 17-year-olds wallow in the kind of dissolution that at least should await the arrival one one's 21st birthday. Or maybe I'm just being old fashioned.