Philadelphia Weekly

Mongol
Directed by Sergei Bodrov
C
Reviewed by Matt Prigge
Opens Fri., June 20

Mongol, a Kazakh cofunded account of the escapades and tomfoolery of the young Mr. Genghis Khan, was nominated for a foreign language Oscar this winter. That should tell you all you need to know. But in case it doesn't, be prepared for the following: endless vistas, a gazillion extras, little to no psychology, a lurching episodic pace and generally lots of epic-porn.

The first in a threatened trilogy, Mongol treats the emperor to an old-fashioned origin story. What psyche-rocking events could've transpired to mold him into a historical figure who'd eventually be depicted gorging on Twinkies and swatting at mall police with a rugby bat? (That's Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, natch.)

Historical accounts of the budding Khan are scant and often conflicting. Rather than just reprinting the legend, once-promising director Sergei Bodrov (Prisoner of the Mountains) and co-writer Arif Aliyev piece together what's known, � la 2004's similarly thumb-twiddling King Arthur.

Played as a pup by Odnyam Odsuren and as a strapping adult by the great Tadanobu Asano, Khan is portrayed as a slave boy (ne the far more approachable Temudgen) who escapes multiple imprisonments and perils on his way to conquering half the world, hot wife by his side. And yet Mongol, as befits a story cobbled together from very little, feels less like the rise of one of history's most recognizable figures than a B-movie about some random nobody.

His character reduced to a generic taciturn badass, Asano follows suit, playing Khan/Temudgen as more an introspective intellectual than a frothing man of action. More accurately, Asano plays him as half asleep.

Known as the "Johnny Depp of Japan," Asano typically brings, in his turns in Ichi the Killer, Caf� Lumi�re and Last Life in the Universe, an eccentrically timed deadpan that almost but not quite falls into somnambulance. Here it tumbles hard, with Asano rarely more than a mannequin on a horse.

Likewise, Bodrov goes through the large-scale motions, punctuating the plodding plot with several gallons' worth of arterial spray and the occasional shadow sex scene.

Running only two transparently edited-down hours, Mongol has seemingly been gutted of psychology or anything but 'Scope shots of open spaces, languorous shots of a quiet man's man in deep brood and enough bloody violence to bring in the gorehounds. And when Asano is about to become Genghis Khan, oafish conqueror, it just stops.

See you for the sequel! Or you could just visit Wikipedia.

In theory at least, there are few better ideas than The Animation Show, the touring cartoon cavalcade founded in 2003 by Mike Judge and stick figure genius Don Hertzfeldt (Rejected). A less adolescently stunted, though still strictly for adults, version of the classic Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation--early champions of both founders, as well as South Park--it offers a near yearly insight into what's happening in non-mainstream animation.

Of course shorts collections are inherently mixed bags, and now that Hertzfeldt has retired from co-programming, that bag seems to be taking on a certain consistency--and the trend isn't positive.

Now on his own, Judge sticks to tradition, grabbing from across the spectrum. Stop-motion sits alongside the hand-drawn and the computer animated, juvenilia very occasionally leads into more eggheaded territory, and tossed-off serials are sprinkled among fully realized works.

But while The Animation Show boasts regulars Bill Plympton and Swiss-born Georges Schwizgebel, outing No. 4 suffers from a lack of a galvanizing work or works--something grand and arresting to give the Show some serious girth.

In past installments, that task fell to Hertzfeldt himself, who had been making an intriguing, and no less inventive, segue into serious toons with The Meaning of Life and Everything Will Be OK. There's not a completed Hertzfeldt to show this year, but sadly nothing steps up to fill the gaping hole.

And so The Animation Show Year 4 just putters along, coughing up little but succinct one-joke shorts that encourage a slight grin before heading for the deep recesses of the subconscious. In Operator we witness one side of an unimaginative guy's chat with God. Angry Unpaid Hooker is the unwitting spawn of Home Movies. Prof. Nieto Show offers bugs playing soccer. Just imagine the really forgettable ones.

There are, of course, some treats. Schwizgebel's Jeu is another kinetic, gorgeous work from the hand that created The Man With No Shadow. The stop-motion Western Spaghetti, from AS regulars "PES," shows pasta made of miniature Rubik's Cube pieces and rubber band noodles. Key Lime Pie starts as a noirish ode to one man's apparently fatal obsession with the stuff, before spiraling into an ever more ridiculous rhapsody. And Plympton's Hot Dog begins by looking like he's sold out to family audiences--until said mutt embarks on an epic piss. If only the Show as a whole had followed suit.

Not Reviewed