Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs is not only one of the most fascinating people of the 20^th and 21^st centuries but also one of the most influential. Co-founder of Apple Inc., his technological innovations have affected the very fabric of society. Just think about how omnipresent iTunes, iPads, iPods and iPhones are in our lives. He was a visionary with ambition to burn and a carefully crafted and distinctive public persona. It would seem only natural that his life would be ripe for cinematic treatment. Shortly after his death in 2011, Ashton Kutcher portrayed the man in a biopic entitled Jobs that performed modestly at the box office and was savaged by critics.

It only took a couple years for Hollywood to try again with Steve Jobs (2015), but this time with considerable pedigree in front of and behind the camera with Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) directing a screenplay written by Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) and starring Michael Fassbender (Shame) and Kate Winslet (Revolutionary Road). The film opened wide and failed to meet its lofty projections despite going up against weaker movies. How could a film with that much artistic power fail to connect with audiences? Post-mortems done after it was pulled from theaters after only two weeks felt that the studio should have released it gradually, letting word-of-mouth build, that Fassbender wasn’t enough of a mainstream draw, that Jobs fatigue had set in, and that the nature of the film was difficult to market.

The film’s structure eschews the traditional biopic formula of a cradle to grave telling by adopting a three-act format with each one taking place right before the launch of a key product. The first act thrusts us immediately into crisis mode as Jobs (Fassbender) and his team are about to launch the Apple Macintosh in 1984. He wants the computer to say, “Hello,” but engineer Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg) tells him that it can’t be fixed in time, much to his boss’ chagrin.

The stakes couldn’t be any higher for the fledgling company as Jobs points out that two days prior they ran an television advertisement during the Super Bowl that more people remembered than who won the actual game. “Look at their faces when they see what it is. They won’t know what they’re looking at or why they like it but they’ll know they want it.” This key line of dialogue spoken in the first act demonstrates one of the man’s key strengths – knowing what people wanted even before they did. He was able to do this because he was a master manipulator, both on a large scale, and on a personal level, like how he browbeats his staff to do the seemingly impossible.

For example, there is a scene where Jobs chastises Hertzfeld for being unable to fix the Mac before launch: “You didn’t have seconds you had three weeks. The universe was created in a third of that time.” His employee responds without missing a beat, “Well, some day you’ll have to tell us how you did it.” Jobs lays into the man and threatens to humiliate him publicly. This scene is indicative of the kind of scintillating dialogue that Sorkin populates Steve Jobs with and the cast delivers it with blistering intensity.

The second act takes place four years later with Jobs launching the NeXT Computer, the crown jewel of his new company NeXT, which he founded after being fired by Apple when the Mac failed to sell. This act is less about the launch then it is about how Jobs was fired from Apple. His ego was out of control and his refusal to compromise was severely damaging the company. Through the rhythm of editing and the increasing tempo of music on the soundtrack, the film gradually builds to a crescendo as the hammer comes down on Jobs.

The third act takes place in 1998 as Jobs has rejoined Apple as CEO and is about to launch the iMac in what becomes a personal and professional triumph for the man. This final segment also attempts to humanize Jobs a bit and shed more light on his personal relationships with co-workers and loved ones.

Michael Fassbender jumps full on into the role as he portrays a brilliant, arrogant man that expects to get his way, like when he tells an assistant that they must turn off the exit signs in the room where the product launch is to take place. When she informs him that the fire marshal will not allow this he replies, “You explained to the fire marshal that we’re in here changing the world,” to which she tells him, “I did. But unless we can also change the property of fire he doesn’t care.” Jobs comes back with a very Sorkian response: “If a fire causes a stampede to the unmarked exits it’ll have been well worth it for those who survived. For those who don’t, less so but still pretty good.” Fassbender’s timing is on fire and this exchange is hilarious.

The film doesn’t shy away from Jobs’ less savory aspects, like his ugly confrontation with ex-girlfriend Chrisann Brennan (Katherine Waterston) who claims that he is the father of her daughter Lisa. He is cold and cruel to her and Fassbender is unafraid to go there. Jobs’ solution with his ex is to continually throw money at her until she goes away. While the actor doesn’t look like the real man he finds a way to convey the essence of him in a way that Kutcher didn’t. Of course, he had much better material to work with thanks to Sorkin’s exceptional screenplay.

Kate Winslet as Joanna Hoffman, marketing executive for Apple, and Jobs’ confidant, matches Fassbender beat for beat. She is the voice of reason (“Do you want to try being reasonable, just, you know, see what it feels like?”) that keeps him in check when his ego threatens to take over. She also acts as his therapist and his sounding board. The actress portrays Joanna as extremely patient and strong-willed – she has to be going up against someone like Jobs. Winslet utilizes a nicely understated Polish accent and disappears into the role with her customary passion. Joanna serves as the film’s anchor for she is the constant through-line in all three acts as Jobs’ most loyal ally.

In a rare dramatic turn, Seth Rogen portrays Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple. He pops up briefly in the first act asking Jobs to acknowledge the people responsible for the Apple II, the company’s best-selling product at the time. He gets much more substantial screen-time in the second act when Woz confronts Jobs over his failings at Apple and the problems with the NeXT Computer. He tries to appeal to their long-time friendship and Rogen digs deep, demonstrating some terrific dramatic chops. He also deftly handles Sorkin’s rapid-fire dialogue and the technical computer jargon with ease.

For a film that is very dialogue-heavy, Danny Boyle covers a lot of ground with his restless camera, which conveys Jobs’ agile mind and his demanding nature. Finally, this energetic filmmaker gets to do Sorkin’s trademark walk and talk scenes and nails it. If there was ever a filmmaker born to do them it was Boyle. That being said, he tones down his trademark hyperactive kinetic energy in favor of a more poised approach. It is nice to see him change things up and let the actors and their dialogue have a greater emphasis. That’s not to say Steve Jobs is boring to look at – far from it – but he lets the actors provide the fireworks with their riveting performances.

It is a ballsy choice not to show the actual launches as that would be the traditional thing to do. The launches are well-documented – what happened before is not so widely known and ripe for dramatic interpretation. Steve Jobs is a fascinating portrait of a complex man. In many respects, it would make a good double bill with The Social Network (2010), also penned by Sorkin, as both films are about distant, megalomaniacal geniuses that made hugely influential advances in technology to feed their gigantic egos and in the process changed the world by affecting peoples’ daily lives.

It is easy to see why Steve Jobs wasn’t a commercial success. It doesn’t play by traditional biopic rules and features an unlikable protagonist. It eschews ingratiating itself for taking an unflinching look at a genius. The film sheds light on the man who was cruel to those around him. He was brilliant and didn’t care about what people thought of him and his inability or unwillingness to make personal connections ultimately makes him a tragic figure.

X-Men: Days of Future Past

With X-Men (2000), Bryan Singer helped revitalize the comic book superhero movie after Batman and Robin (1997) turned off mainstream audiences and Hollywood studios alike from the genre. It proved that people would go see this kind of movie if it were well-made. While X-Men, based on the Marvel comic book of the same name about a team of mutated human beings born with their own unique super powers, had its flaws, it showed promise, which Singer capitalized on with its vastly superior sequel X2 (2003). After its impressive commercial and critical success, 20th Century Fox naturally wanted him to direct another one, but he decided to jump ship to the DC Universe and make the ill-fated Superman Returns (2006). The X-Men franchise continued on without him until the prequel First Class (2011) (which he helped produce) convinced him to direct another one (that, and I’m sure the financial flop of Jack the Giant Slayer). Loosely based on the 1981 Uncanny X-Men storyline of the same name by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, Days of Future Past (2014) ambitiously features cast members from all four previous X-Men movies.

In an alternate future, the world has been ravaged by a destructive war between humans and mutants. Giant robots known as Sentinels have driven the mutants underground and to the brink of extinction, forcing them to band together, even Professor X (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellen), who have a wildly disparate worldviews. Singer effectively sets up this bleak futureworld with an exciting action sequence that sees a group of Sentinels kill off several mutants with brutal efficiency.

Professor X and Magneto devise a desperate plan to prevent their future by stopping the Sentinels from being created. To do this, they decide to send Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back to 1973 to stop Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from killing Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), designer of the Sentinels, which kickstarts the creation of said robots. It won’t be easy as Professor X (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) are at bitter odds with each other. Mystique, once an ally of the former, now sides with the latter. Wolverine must bring Professor X and Magneto together and convince them to stop Mystique from killing Trask.

Singer manages to successfully wrangle a large and diverse cast of characters without confusing the audience or overwhelming them. Hugh Jackman returns yet again as Wolverine and plays him as a slightly calmer guy who must maintain focus and keep his berserker rage in check in order to stay long enough in the past to complete his mission. James McAvoy is good as a self-pitying burn-out who has lost his direction life. Professor X takes drugs to keep his powers submerged and has to find something to care about again. Michael Fassbender does a nice job of incorporating elements of Ian McKellen’s Magneto yet still make the character his own. The scenes he has with McAvoy are infused with tension as the two men’s opposing worldviews clash. They must find some kind of common ground, some kind of reconciliation if only temporarily.

Jennifer Lawrence plays Mystique as a ruthlessly driven mutant fighting a war that was started by Magneto, but one that she continues in his absence because she is tired of seeing her kind tortured and killed out of fear and intolerance. Peter Dinklage is quite good as Trask, a man who believes that mutants will make humanity extinct and has the conviction of someone who thinks he’s right. Like any formidable villain, he doesn’t see himself as such, believing he is completely justified in what he does. Singer’s presence clearly inspired everyone to bring their A-game and there is nary a bum note among the cast. He wisely knows exactly when to bring certain characters center stage for their chance to shine in a way that feels satisfying. A minor quibble is that with the exception of Jackman, most of the original cast are given glorified cameos with an emphasis on the First Class characters.

This is easily the most ambitious X-Men movie to date as it goes back and forth in time and spans several countries while juggling a sizable cast of characters. It is great to see Singer back at the helm as he brings a stylish pizazz that was missing from The Last Stand (2006) as evident with a slick, amusing sequence where Wolverine, Professor X, the Beast (Nicholas Hoult) and Quicksilver (Evan Peters) break Magneto out of the Pentagon all scored to Jim Croce’s 1973 hit “Time in a Bottle.” It’s a virtuoso sequence that showcases Evan Peters’ scene-stealing turn as a lightning fast mutant and gives the movie a much-needed dose of levity amidst the prevailing serious tone.

In many respects, Days of Future Past thankfully pretends that The Last Stand never happened (touching upon it only briefly) and feels like not only the logical conclusion of First Class, but also X2. Simon Kinberg’s screenplay does a nice job of showing how the mutants’ exploits affect history and in turn how it affects them. It also manages to successfully raise the stakes on an epic scale from any previous X-Men movie while keeping us invested by showing the personal dilemmas that several key characters face, from Professor X learning to control his powers to Mystique learning to be more tolerant of the human race. Singer expertly orchestrates the various story elements, guiding the movie to an impressively staged climax in both future and past timelines that provides the requisite show-stopping CGI workout, but one that feels deserved and never excessive (unlike, say Man of Steel). He has made what is easily the best X-Men movie since X2 and maybe even better than that one.

Prometheus

Early on his career Ridley Scott proclaimed, “The time is ripe for a John Ford of science fiction films to emerge. And I’m determined to be that director.” And he was well on his way with the one-two punch of Alien (1979) and Blade Runner (1982) – cinematic game changers that presented incredibly detailed future worlds. And then he attempted to adapt Frank Herbert’s science fiction epic Dune but the project slipped through his fingers. As if that wasn’t enough, his big budget fantasy film Legend (1985) was a box office flop and received a critical mauling. Understandably frustrated, Scott turned his back on the science fiction and fantasy genres and spent the next few decades tackling a host of other ones, from the cop thriller (Black Rain) to the historical epic (Gladiator) to the war movie (Black Hawk Down) to varying degrees of success. However, fans of his early work had always held out hope that he would return to the genres that established him a cinematic force to be reckoned with.

Not only does Prometheus (2012) mark Scott’s triumphant return to science fiction but it also sees him revisiting a franchise he helped start – Alien. Touted as a prequel of sorts, the veteran filmmaker has been rather coy in admitting this new film’s link to the original, stating that it contains “strands of Alien’s DNA.” However, the impetus to make this film came from Scott’s curiosity as to the origins of the extraterrestrial being, nicknamed the “space jockey” by fans, that piloted the derelict spaceship discovered by the crew of the original film and which contained the series’ alien antagonists. Prometheus has come along at a good time to breath new life into the Alien franchise, which had hit an all-time low with Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007). While the film was financially successful many felt it was creatively bankrupt and there was a desire to return the franchise to its roots and who better to do that than the director of the first one?

It is 2089 and in Scotland, Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) uncovers ancient hieroglyphs that are actually a star map, which may provide the location to an alien home world whose residents may have visited Earth several thousands of years ago. She believes that these aliens will have the key to the origins of humanity. Four years later and Shaw heads up an expedition into outer space with a crew of 17 including an android named David (Michael Fassbender) and Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron), an executive from Weyland Corporation, the company that funded the mission.

Shaw and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green), her lover and fellow archaeologist, believe that the planet their spacecraft, the Prometheus, arrives at, deep in space, may have inhabitants that created humanity. Vickers is not too crazy about Shaw’s mission, a pet passion project of her father’s, Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce), and quickly exerts control, which sets up an intriguing antagonistic relationship between the idealistic scientist Shaw and the hard-nosed pragmatist Vickers.

Shaw and an away team make landfall and investigate a massive structure, one of several, in a canyon, which reinforces Ridley Scott’s mastery of establishing a specific mood and atmosphere through incredibly detailed set design and gorgeous cinematography. This results in evocative settings like the pristine sterility of the sleek futuristic Prometheus ship to the dark, dank cavernous interior of the alien structure, which takes what we glimpsed briefly in Alien and elevates it to another level. As with all of his films, the production design is of the highest quality and rich in detail, creating a fully realized and believable world. He also knows how to create a mood of foreboding mystery as our protagonists explore the alien landscape and we wait for something bad that we know is going to happen to these unfortunate people.

As with previous films in the Alien franchise, the Weyland Company doesn’t care about the crew, aside from David, just on how they can make money off whatever Shaw and co. discover. Not surprisingly, David, much like Ash in Alien, has its own agenda and is not entirely trustworthy. If you’ve seen any of the Alien films then you pretty much know how things are going to go down – the humans mess around with something they don’t understand and run afoul of a xenomorph that is hostile.

The seemingly ubiquitous Michael Fassbender is a real standout in Prometheus as the logic-based android with a hidden agenda. The actor is quite believable as an artificial person complete with slightly stiff expressions and gestures that look real enough and yet only have the illusion of humanity. It is a tightly controlled performance complete with precise speech patterns that is fascinating to watch. Noomi Rapace is excellent as the inquisitive scientist whose ambition proves to be her undoing. Over the course of the film she conveys a wide range of emotions as her character is put through the wringer and this is evident in a scene where Shaw is forced to deal with an alien that has invaded her body. It’s an intensely harrowing sequence that comes the closest to recapturing its famous equivalent in Alien. Shaw struggles with notions of faith versus science and is the heart and soul of the film.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Charlize Theron plays an icy corporate executive at odds with Rapace’s Shaw and yet she is given a scene or two to show, perhaps not a softer side, but that there is more to her than being strictly a business type. With the exception of the always excellent Idris Elba, the rest of the cast is just fine but largely unremarkable but only because they play disposable characters. Like any skilled character actor, Elba makes the most of his limited screen-time, playing the grizzled captain of the ship.

While an easy target for helping engineer the prolonged tease that was the popular television show Lost, screenwriter Damon Lindelof and Ridley Scott should be commended for creating and then getting a major Hollywood studio to release a serious-minded science fiction film during the summer blockbuster season – a time when multiplexes are populated by dumb action films loaded up with car chases and loud explosions or mindless comedies rife with dick and fart jokes. Prometheus wrestles with weighty themes and the big picture (i.e. who created us and why are we here?) while fulfilling one of the oldest tropes of the genre by presenting a story that acts as a warning – don’t meddle with things you don’t understand.

Whether the filmmakers were successful or not in conveying these important themes in a thoughtful and engaging way is certainly open to debate but at least they tried. The film’s third act is certainly problematic as it basically loses its mind and devolves into a pretty conventional action film with a weak climactic battle. This is too bad because the first two-third of Prometheus is so strong and thought provoking. A well-intentioned film loaded with ambition like this one should be championed despite its flaws (weak characterization, plot holes, etc.). The end result is easily the best Alien film in the franchise since James Cameron took over the reigns with Aliens (1986).

Check out The Film Connoisseur's fantastic take on this film and also the Sci-Fanatic's in-depth post, comparing it to Alien.

Haywire

“I need to break down my process and start over again if I’m going to come back. Because I’m not gonna come back unless I’ve figured out a new way to do this, by my definition. I don’t know if that’s gonna happen or not.” – Steven Soderbergh.

I have this theory that the grueling process of making the unconventional epic biopic Che (2008), coupled with its subsequent commercial failure, broke director Steven Soderbergh’s creative spirit. It didn’t help when was fired from Moneyball (2011) over creative differences. By his own admission, Soderbergh’s interest in making “serious” films had been replaced by a desire to make “fun” ones that included the satirical docudrama The Informant! (2009), the disaster movie Contagion (2011) and the action film Haywire (2012). Built around MMA star Gina Carano, it came out of Soderbergh’s desire to make a 1960s style spy thriller (originally the now-abandoned The Man from U.N.C.L.E. film) but mutated into a photo negative of a typical James Bond film in the sense that Haywire surrounds a ruthless female protagonist with attractive men trying to kill her. While critics generally gave it the thumbs up, audiences were not interested in Soderbergh’s genre experiment and the film disappeared quickly from theaters. Has he lost the plot or were audiences simply tired of seeing ass-kicking female action stars after Salt (2010), Hanna (2011) and Columbiana (2011)?

The first thing one notices in Haywire are how the action sequences differ from most other action films. In the prologue, top-secret operative Mallory Kane (Gina Carano) is confronted by another, her ex-partner Aaron (Channing Tatum) in an upper New York state diner. It quickly erupts into a brutal fight. Instead of the usual Hollywood sound effects and frenetic editing, Soderbergh utilizes actual sounds of flesh hitting flesh in relatively long takes at a distance so that you can see exactly what is happening and where with none of the trendy, disorienting hand-held camerawork and editing that is the norm. He also refuses to accompany this fight with any kind of musical score that would manipulate one’s emotions, which makes the sickening sounds of breaking bone and grunts of exertion and pain all the more jarring.

Mallory is a private contractor hired by the United States government to do dirty jobs for them via her handler and firm director Kenneth (Ewan McGregor). Through a series of flashbacks, we find out that she and Aaron were hired to do a job in Barcelona (scored to a snazzy retro Lalo Schifrin-esque score by David Holmes) and soon afterwards she left the company. But of course it is never that easy and Kenneth ropes her into another assignment, this time in Dublin, Ireland. She’s part of a power couple along with Paul (Michael Fassbender), a freelance operative that Kenneth is trying to woo over to the company. However, Paul tries to kill Mallory (in a brutally efficient fight sequence) and she finds herself on the run.

Some criticism was leveled at the casting of non-actor Gina Carano and her inability to emote or her flat line readings. While she certainly isn’t going to win any acting awards for her work in Haywire, she isn’t any worse than “master thespians” like Jean-Claude Van Damme or Steven Seagal back when they first started out, and they were wildly successful. So, why not Carano? Is it because she’s a woman? Female action stars have historically had a tough time acquiring any kind of mainstream success. Just ask Geena Davis. With the one-two punch of Cutthroat Island (1995) and The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996), she effectively destroyed her A-list status. Angelina Jolie is a notable exception and easily the most successful female action star in the world with megahits like the Tomb Raider films, Wanted (2008) and Salt. Carano may not have the acting chops of fellow female actions stars Jolie and Kate Beckinsale but unlike their impossibly thin physiques, she’s built like a believable woman of action with her finely toned body. She has the imposing physical presence that Jolie and Beckinsale lack but without losing her feminity.

Carano does just fine in Haywire, exuding a certain amount of warmth in scenes that warrant it and adopting a determined no-nonsense attitude when called for. Naturally, she’s at her best during the numerous action sequences when she’s bashing heads or leaping from rooftop to rooftop and let’s face it, that’s why we’re watching her in this film. It is pretty obvious why Soderbergh cast her – she’s gorgeous, has a real screen presence and is tough as nails. There’s something quite impressive about the fact that she does all of her own stunts, including the extremely physical fight scenes. I like that her character isn’t some superhuman killing machine. Opponents get the drop on Mallory and she makes mistakes that get her injured. As a result, she is more relatable.

Soderbergh wisely surrounds Carano with an impressive cast of veteran actors that include Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas and Antonio Banderas as well as up and comers like Michael Fassbender. Their presence elevates what could have easily been a direct-to-video time waster into something a little classier. This is also achieved through Soderbergh’s top-notch direction and super slick camerawork. He’s in fine form with a fast and loose style befitting a stylish spy thriller. He also adopts the same kind of hazy filters he utilized in The Informant! and a variety of them so that each location stands out, much like he did in Traffic (2000).

Haywire saw Soderbergh reunited with screenwriter Lem Dobbs who has worked previously with the director on Kafka (1991) and more infamously on The Limey (1999) (his dissatisfaction over the final product is well documented) and their latest collaboration is a solid genre workout. His screenplay is lean and trimmed of any unnecessary narrative fat. He doesn’t give Carano huge chunks of dialogue, which is wise considering her lack of acting experience. Instead, he leaves that up to the rest of the experienced cast who do all of the heavy lifting in terms of exposition dialogue. Interestingly, Haywire features a father-daughter relationship and a climactic confrontation on an oceanfront beach much like The Limey.

One night, Steven Soderbergh caught a MMA fight on television that involved one of its most well-known female fighters, Gina Carano. He had been thinking about making a ‘60s spy movie but it wasn’t going anywhere. Her fight and subsequent interview afterwards, which impressed him by how charming and sincere she came across, inspired him to build an action film around a woman. In June 2009, Soderbergh was fired from the production of Moneyball due to “creative differences.” Suddenly free to do another film, he tracked Carano down at a time when she had just lost a fight. “It seemed like a good time for the two of us to get into a room, me having been fired and her having been beaten.” Their first meeting consisted of a four-hour lunch in which they talked about her family and upbringing. He wanted to get a sense of who she was and if could he work with her. In addition, he explained how he liked to work and what would be involved. Soderbergh also needed her permission to pitch the premise to a studio, which was her starring in an action film surrounded by A-list actors.

Soderbergh approached two studios, both were interested, and he went with Relativity because they felt that Carano had a big enough of a following that a film could work. The director wasn’t worried about her lack of acting ability: “I just thought if we can get her relaxed and she can stay herself, then we’ll be okay.” He approached Lem Dobbs with the basic idea for the film – a female version of The Limey – and he agreed to write the script. The first draft was written in five weeks. For research, Soderbergh studied films by directors he felt were good at staging action sequences, including Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, John McTiernan, and David Fincher.

While making the film, Soderbergh told the stunt coordinators that he didn’t want to have any large explosions and nobody flying around on wires. It had to be “something a human can do,” he said in an interview. To this end, Channing Tatum, Michael Fassbender and Ewan McGregor did all their own fight scenes, rehearsing extensively with Carano. Soderbergh decided not to put any music over the fight scenes because he felt it would “take away from the realism. It would take you out of it.” The hotel room fight was inspired by a brutal brawl in a hotel room in Darker than Amber (1970) starring Rod Taylor that Dobbs had recommended Soderbergh watch. Haywire’s hotel room fight sequence took two days to film with Carano and Fassbender actually hitting each other – he threw her into a T.V. at one point and she smashed a vase over his head.

For the film’s score, Soderbergh talked to frequent collaborator David Holmes about the soundtrack work of Lalo Schifrin and, in particular, the jazz horn sound he used on Bullitt (1968). According to Soderbergh, the scored needed to “sound more like the character than the genre.” He wanted it to reflect what she felt rather than what the film felt like generally. Holmes’ groovy soundtrack is somewhat reminiscent of the work he did on the Ocean’s films, which had a definite funky retro vibe.

Haywire received mostly positive reviews from critics. For example, Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars and wrote, “A film like Haywire has no lasting significance, but it's a pleasure to see an A-list director taking the care to make a first-rate genre thriller.” USA Today also gave the film three out of four stars and Claudia Puig felt that, “Carano's charisma, physicality and daring keep the adrenaline high and the clashes captivating.” The Los Angeles Times’ Betsy Sharkey wrote, “The deficits are somewhat offset by the filmmaker's sheer technical wizardry. Even Soderbergh's worst work (and Haywire isn't that) cleans up nicely with such serious attention paid to lighting, framing, casting, costumes, colors, sets; and, per usual, with the director handling the cinematography too.” The Washington Post gave the film three out of four stars and Ann Hornaday wrote, “One of the reasons Haywire is such a pleasure to watch is that its director, Steven Soderbergh, doesn't overplay the film's hear-me-roar subversions. Temperamentally, he's an understater, and he approaches his first foray into pure action with the same evenhanded cool he lends to every genre he has ever tackled.”

However, Entertainment Weekly gave it a “B-" rating and Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote, “Haywire is zippy and visually sophisticated, with tonal palettes color-coded (as in Traffic) to help make sense of time and place. But it zips to nowhere, fun only for those who agree to enjoy watching a woman inflict pain like a man, for the dumb pleasure of watching her fight.” In his review for The New York Times, A.O. Scott said of Carano: “Once the talking stops and the action begins, her professionalism is very much in evidence and exciting to watch. And yet, somehow, it cannot quite relieve the tedium of a movie that is too cool even to pretend that there is anything worth fighting about.” Time magazine’s Richard Corliss wrote, “Carano is her own best stuntwoman, but in the dialogue scenes she’s all kick and no charisma. The MMA battler lacks the conviction she so forcefully displayed in the ring. She is not Haywire‘s heroine but its hostage.

I’m not sure if audiences were expecting Soderbergh to redefine the action film but he’s clearly filtering it through his aesthetic, which is to make it as realistic as possible while still plugging in tried and true genre conventions (fight scenes, chase sequence, shoot-outs, etc.). He may be tired of the filmmaking process (he’s threatened to retire in 2013) but Haywire does not appear to be the product of someone burnt out from the biz. There is an almost playful quality to how he approaches the material as he takes an equally game Carano along for the ride. While the film isn’t groundbreaking in any way this doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of watching a well-made action film. It may not be saying anything profound but so what? It does exactly what it sets out to do: deliver an entertaining and engaging thrill-ride.

SOURCES

Kenigsberg, Ben. “Steven Soderbergh on Haywire.” Time Out Chicago. January 18, 2012.

Osenlund, R. Kurt. “Interview: Steven Soderbergh.” Slant. January 18, 2012

Smith, Nigel M. “Steven Soderbergh on Haywire, Magic Mike and Why He’s Given Up On Serious Movies.” IndieWire. January 16, 2012

Tobias, Scott. “Steven Soderbergh.” A.V. Club. January 18, 2012