The grandest folly of all on the grandest scale of all. Ever a fresh, innovative filmmaker, Ang Lee has here wedded himself to a technical undertaking of such magnitude it seems to overwhelm even him. Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk composites dazzling aesthetics over derisory dialogue, a bizarre jumble of perspectives both narrative and visual, a film in which each performer seems to have read a different script, each shot serving a different purpose, each scene adopting a different character. If Lee can't but indulge himself, it's to his credit - only through the remarkable panache with which he wields his limitless arsenal of tools as director can Billy Lynn's essential thematic tenor be expressed. For every element that hits, there's another that misses, though when each concurrent element is in perfect alignment, this is a glorious work of bravura ambition. In its wayward attempts at forging a narrative scope on par with its visionary technical design, Billy Lynn dulls its impact with an array of substandard subplots; their influence is of little cumulative value, as it's only under Lee's guidance that its poignancy begins to take effect. He steers a mildly militaristic script in a few wrong directions of its own, but in pursuing a commentary upon the commodification of war and the identity-related damage it causes to the individual, he's eloquent and persuasive. As enlivened by its startling technical construction as it is hampered by corniness and a problematic approach to gender representation - epitomized in appalling scenes with the title character's love interest - Billy Lynn comes off like a crazed cartoon, a case of too many cooks with too many ideas spoiling the comic book, and it's the closest thing Lee has made to his own, underrated comic book movie, Hulk. Maybe it's a too-big, brave step into new frontiers, or maybe it's just a fascinating folly. Just ignore the public's own ignorance, and trust me: this is, for good or bad, a must-see movie.
I'm going to have to trust Ang Lee on this one. Having liked-to-loved most (not all) of his films to date, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk neither sounds nor, having now seen the trailer, looks like it might rank among his finest, in my estimations. Certainly communicates at least a little of the visual extravagance that we've been promised from John Toll's high frame-rate cinematography, and I recall not feeling Lee's last film, Life of Pi, until I saw it. So I'll let this trailer keep my hopes down a bit, because I really do trust Ang Lee. Out in both UK and US on the 11th of November.
Cast aside expectations - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny may bear the title of Ang Lee's 2000 classic, but the two films are alike only in immaterial matters. Yuen Woo Ping's new film is no classic, but it succeeds at what it sets out for itself, never bringing shame upon the Crouching Tiger brand, nor upon its own achievements. Set somewhere between the artsy poeticism of its predecessor and the blusterous bombast of Yuen's other work as director, Sword of Destiny's purpose becomes defined less by its place in the history of martial arts movies, more by the place of martial arts within this movie. Yuen the director leaves the film to flounder, full of cumbersome dialogue delivered by non-native tongues; Yuen the choreographer is on typically fine form, crafting sequences of true ingenuity, executed with skill, performed with a thrilling combination of grace and fury. It's in these sequences, for which the remainder of Sword of Destiny essentially functions as pretty preparation, that one observes a master at work - cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel is at a loss to capture the beauty of Yuen's artistry, but much as the film may not pay adequate tribute to it, it's there nonetheless, and detectable if one wishes to detect it. An epic story told in the minute movements of man-to-man combat, set against awesome backdrops, both in location and in history: now does that not sound like a Crouching Tiger movie to you?
