epat

I have no patience with stories where some individual (or group) is tasked with saving the world - galaxy, universe, multiverse, whatever - from some unspeakable metaphysical doom. Nevertheless, at a friend's insistence amidst the pre-Oscars mania, I sat thru the entire 2 hour & 19 minute kaleidoscope of frenzied special effects, chop-socky fights, silly costumes & deep mystical dialog like "You're capable of anything because you're so bad at everything."

Giving credit where it's due, Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan & also Jamie Lee Curtis absolutely earned their Oscars. Their skilled performances furnished what little enjoyment I was able to derive from this piece of dreck. Best picture?? I'm astonished this pointless piece of supernatural fluff was even in the running! One quote from the film itself sums it up for me: "It's all just a swirling pointless bucket of BS."

Watching the trailer left me already dubious, but anything Chandler-related... how could I not give it a try?

The definitive Philip Marlowe was & always will be Robert Mitchum - who sadly starred in only two Chandler films. Had the franchise mentality that pervades Hollywood today been in vogue then, they'd have filmed all Chandler's books while Mitchum was still around to portray Marlowe.

Much as I like Liam Neeson, who admirably portrayed both Oskar Schindler & Alfred Kinsey, he's lately been typecast as the archetypical righteous juggernaut in so many pointless vengeance films that he's devolved into little more than a two-dimensional action figure. You can't fault him; the man has to make a living, nowadays that's what sells & he's good at it. I just hated to see that tired formula applied to Marlowe.

Mitchum's Marlowe was straight out of Chandler: rumpled, weary, with a wry self-deprecating humor, a tolerance for human weakness & a dogged determination to do the right thing. Hollywood's Marlowe is none of these things. Witty & sardonic, icily unflappable, he strolls nonchalantly out of burning buildings, uses finely honed fighting skills to pulverize sundry attackers without disheveling his impeccably tailored suit. As believable as a Marvel comic superhero. Evidently, "Philip Marlowe" was only there to add a certain name-recognition cachet.