Hollywood Bites Reviews: "Stone"

Edward Norton is an undeniably brilliant actor. So when he decided to go gangsta, sporting cornrows, saying "axe" instead of "ask" and throwing out lines like, "I don't want no beef, I just wanna be vegetarian," for his latest film, "Stone," his "choices" were applauded. Rightly so, Norton's performance as Gerald "Stone" Creeson, an imprisoned arsonist who enlists his wife Lucetta (Milla Jovovich) to help him manipulate his Parole Officer, Jack Mabrey (Robert De Niro) into helping him win his freedom, is, as always riveting.

That's not the problem. The problem is the movie in which the performance can be found.

Overwrought and ham-fisted, "Stone" is a film less about performance than it is sound design. Director John Curran, who previously worked with Norton in 2006 on "The Painted Veil," thuds away on the film's religious and moral overtures with the subtlety and elegance of a five-year-old trying to hammer out Mozart on a Wurlitzer. Running a constant stream of Christian talk radio and the deafening buzz of insects, Curran explores the "sound of God" but all you hear is the director's mind working overtime at creating atmosphere and forgetting plot.

That's not to say the acting isn't atmospheric and exemplary. But what else would you expect from this cast?

Norton and De Niro previously starred in 2001 on "The Score," a film which features Marlon Brando's last big screen appearance. Watching them work together for a second time, in a volatile cat-and-mouse game, is the film's greatest strength, though you can't help but yearn for better circumstances for such fine actors.

Meanwhile, Milla Jovovich as human catnip, the consummate femme fatale, is enrapturing and tragic, but squandered on a script that goes nowhere, and Frances Conroy as Madylyn, Jack's long suffering, heavily sauced wife, is a portrait of silent pain.

But great acting can't save "Stone" from Angus MacLachlan's script, adopted from his own play though still stuck on a proscenium, or Curran's direction.

Norton began his career with exacting precision. From his brilliant Oscar-nominated debut in 1996's "Primal Fear" until 2003’s "Italian Job," Norton’s sole career misstep was "Death to Smoochy," which gave him the chance to go mano y mano with Robin Williams and, in retrospect, is rather enjoyable. Who knows if it was the studio breaking his spirit by forcing him to appear in an action movie he didn't want to do ("Italian Job") or just film fatigue but, since 2005, with the exception of "The Illusionist" and "The Incredible Hulk," Norton has made a string of shabby choices.

"Stone" sadly continues that trend.

Behind the Scenes of Step Up 3D

Back in the 1980s, during the days of moon-walking Michael, “Remember my name” Fame, Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, and Flashdance’s sweatshirt slashing Maniac, dance captured this nation’s imagination. Now, thanks to shows like So You Think You Can Dance, America’s Best Dance Crew and Dancing with the Stars, and films like the Step Up franchise currently on its third installment which arrives in theaters August 6th, dance is once again permeating American culture, making krumping, popping, locking and b-boying an integral part of everyday entertainment.

But making it look easy is the hard part. Just ask the cast of Step Up 3D.

Leaving behind Step Up’s previous setting, Baltimore’s elite Maryland School of the Arts, or MSA, returning director Jon M. Chu relocated the third film to New York City’s underground dance scene, a world Moose (Adam Savani from Step Up 2: The Streets) stumbles into when he arrives in Manhattan for orientation at NYU.

Knowing they needed to go bigger and badder for a third film in the surprisingly successful franchise, Chu knew he’d have to surpass his previous efforts. Choosing to shoot the film in 3D was the first set but the really challenge was choreography.

“Most people don’t understand what it takes,” Savani says, explaining the cast of Step Up 2 had one month to learn one routine, while the cast of Step Up 3D had one month to learn nine numbers. “But magic happens when you don’t know what’s [coming next],” he grins. “You just go, ‘I’ve got nothing prepared so let’s see what happens.”

Filling in Channing Tatum and Robert Hoffman’s studly shoes is former model Rick Malambri, who plays a videographer who chronicles the best Manhattan dancers and takes Moose under his wing. “We went through a month and a half, ten hours a day, six days a week, learning anything from parkour to capoeira to the tango,” Malambri says.

Despite battle wounds that ranged from the “multi-colored, rainbow-style bruises” Alyson Stoner (Step Up) sustained while shooting a Gene Kelly-esque dance number that had to be performed over twenty times to get a single perfect take, to the five foot drop SYTYCD alum tWitch took off the side of a stage, “I didn’t hear any complaints,” Chu laughs proudly.

Sharni Vinson, the female lead who follows in Jenna Dewan and Briana Evigan’s footsteps, admits the cast was warned by producer Adam Shankman before filming began that they’d be entering something on par with boot camp, but she says that was a vast understatement. “Our [personal] trainer told us that athletes training for the Olympics don’t train this hard!” she says ardently. “It was insane! A typical day would involve getting up at quarter past six in the morning, being in either parkour or in a capoeira studio for two to three hours, from there we’d go to dance rehearsals at 9:30am to 6pm. Then we’d leave and go meet our personal trainers and work out from 7:30pm to 9:30pm…”

“And then I would take them after that to rehearse,” Chu interjects.

“Yeah!” Vinson laughs. “At 11pm. And we’d be exhausted. But when you’re running on adrenaline and excitement, which is how we got by, you don’t really notice the fatigue until the last day and they say ‘That’s a wrap.’ Your body hears those words and just shuts down.”
All that work was to ensure that audiences would be able to experience a 3D dance movie that was unlike anything they’d ever seen before. Asked how he feels the technology enhances his film, Chu replies, “Dance and technology has always been a great pair, from Bye Bye Birdie when they do picture-in-picture to Fred Astaire [in Royal Wedding] walking on walls and the camera staying in place, technology has always been a great partner with dance. [But using 3D] puts pressure on filmmakers to actually make it worth that $5 more. We talked about that a lot on set. Our audience has to go work an extra hour to see our movie so we wanted to make it well worth that extra hour of work.”

At the end of the day, the cast and crew feel this film is part of a larger legacy, one that’s all about making the impossible appear effortless.

“What Michael Jackson started 20 years ago, telling stories thru dance as sort of the new musical; we want to continue that tradition and find where that next step may be,” Chu says. “Everyone’s pushing forward, whether it’s us, So You Think You Can Dance, Dancing with the Stars or stuff on the web, we’re all pushing dance forward.”

Step Up 3D opens August 6.