Monday 30 July 2012

Review No.148: The Lorax



Hey guys it's the summer holidays which means that it's animation time at the cinemas thankfully as Dr. Seuss adaptation The Lorax was released in the States earlier in the year I don't have to wade through a bunch of unruly school kids in order to watch it. The film sees Zac Efron give his voice to Ted an average, slightly annoying, pre-teen whose only hobby is mildly stalking attractive neighbour Audrey played by Taylor Swift. Both Ted and Audrey have grown up in Thneed-Ville a town in which everybody has to pay for air and in which no wildlife stays where the richest man in all the town Aloysius O'Hare as he's the man who has his own air empire. Audrey's one wish is to see a real tree, rather than the fake ones that O'Hare has, and as Ted wants to get lucky with her he sets off on a quest to find one so with help from his grandmother voiced by Betty White he finds out the man who can help him is the Once-Ler who lives outside the town. When Ted tracks down Ed Helms' Once-Ler he is told the story of how he was an aspiring inventor who came upon a land watched over by The Lorax, voiced by Danny DeVito who was the guardian of the trees and wildlife who he promised to look after the area in return for using the tufts of the trees to harvest his own creation the Thneed. When the Thneed becomes a popular accessory Once-Ler's family comes into mooch off him and his mother eventually convinces him to start chopping down the trees so production can go faster however in doing this he breaks his promise to The Lorax. Though Once-Ler is briefly wealthy he loses the respect and friendship of The Lorax as well as the brief attention of his family who lose interest when the last tree is cut down meanwhile a young O'Hare gets the idea to bottle the air. The Once-Ler entrusts the last remaining seed to Ted who shows it off to Audrey however O'Hare isn't going to let his empire crumble that easily and the film ends with a massive showdown in Thneed-Ville town centre.

As I'm not an American the Dr. Seuss books aren't as much a part of my childhood as they are for people on the other side of the pond so while I'm aware of The Cat in The Hat and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, mainly from their film incarnations, I'd never heard of The Lorax up to this point. Almost straight away though you're immersed into the Dr. Seuss world of rhyming couplets and colourful characters both of which are over-shadowed by the big important environmental message. Personally I enjoyed the first ten or so minutes of the film, those that occur before Ted goes out to visit the Once-Ler, as I thought the idea of a town in which the air is sold was an interesting one however as soon as we start to hear the central story about The Lorax things become a lot less interesting. I'm aware I'm not the target market for this film and if Iwas a youngster I'd probably enjoy looking at the oddly created Lorax however Pixar managed to make an issue film that children still adored with Wall-E. Though the message of the film wants to be 'big companies should stop destroying wildlife for financial gain' for me it was 'only save the environment if you think you'll get a new girlfriend from it'. As far as the voice cast goes it was Betty White who stole the show as Ted's wild grandmother while Danny DeVito's gruff tones suited the character of The Lorax. One thing that really irked me was the poorly written songs, which again is something that Disney would do a much better job with, as they almost detracted from the action while in addition they seemed to only be there to quicken up the plot in order for the film to be as short as possible. I'm not saying I wasn't entertained by some parts of the film, including the well paced final chase, however the adaptation of the story seems to either have been lost in the additional stories or in the fact that central message is being over-egged.

Verdict: While The Lorax does have some entertaining set piece and some amusing moments it is spoilt by a heavy-handed environmental message and too many overly dull moments so for that reason I will award it 6/10

Review No.147: The Gospel of Us



In my other job, as a TV reviewer, I've recently been covering a certain reality show looking for a new actor to play Jesus in a well-known rock musical so you'd think I'd have my fill of bible stories but then The Gospel of Us rocked up in a LoveFilm envelope so I decided to give it a watch. The film is essentially Dave McKean's video account of a play depicting the Passion which was staged in different areas around Port Talbot and stars Michael Sheen as Jesus substitute 'The Teacher'. We first see 'The Teacher' when is dunked under water by 'The Stranger', an analogy to John's baptising of Jesus, before gaining public approval when he listens to the story of a woman who has a bomb strapped to her and is threatening to blow the town up. As The Teacher's following rises he is challenged by 'The Company' who wish to knock down several homes in the area and replace them with a new motorway something he isn't too happy about so tells his followers to do something about it. 'The Company' plots to do something about 'The Teacher' while he and his new followers have their equivalent of The Last Supper which was sharing dodgy sandwiches at a Working Men's Club while The Manic Street Preachers played their greatest hit sets then Paul Potts crooned through an opera classic. Eventually we learn that there's more to 'The Teacher' than we thought namely that he has a past that he's forgotten about including a young daughter and an estranged wife though he denies these allegations but instead is but to trial by 'The Company.' As is protocol 'The Teacher' is found to be guilty and we then have a version of The Crucifixion only this time the crown is made of barbed wire while it is a bunch of workmen who carry out the task of erecting the cross. In what for me was possibly the most interesting part of the film the last five or so minutes is concerned with filling in the gaps between 'The Teacher's' past life and the start of the film which is filmed differently to the rest of the film to represent memories long gone.

Personally I think I would've enjoyed The Gospel of Us more if I'd actually been present to see the play as the majority of this film was like watching a cheap recording of a school show rather than a powerful religious parable. The only differences between watching the film and the play are mainly that you don't have to wrap up warm, as the conditions looked pretty cold, and you don't have to walk around other than that there is only the aforementioned final scene plus one in which 'The Teacher' tells the cameraman to follow him rather than just watch. What The Gospel of Us does have going for it is the brilliance of Michael Sheen who is utterly captivating from beginning to end and a great choice to play the Christ figure as he can say so much with just one look than a lot of people can after reciting mountains of dialogue. It is through his steady realisation that he isn't as pure as he thinks he is that Sheen really gets to flex his acting muscles and the final scenes in which he is crucified are definitely the most powerful in the film. I did like the modernisation of some of the familiar parts of the story, such as The Working Men's Club and the building site, however at times I felt that McKean's film was just a little too smug for it's own good. The majority of the scenes were a least a little overlong and for me the first half an hour or so was incredibly boring as it took a long time to introduce the central concept before we actually set off with Sheen and company. I have to say as a whole The Gospel of Us really didn't do much for me as a film though I did enjoy some parts of it, especially Sheen, it's a story that we've seen done better a number of times and the beaches of Port Talbot don't do anything to change that.

Verdict: A well-filmed Passion Play with a great central performance from Sheen however long scenes of dull action plus a sense that I was seeing this second hand means that I can only give it a score of 6/10

Friday 27 July 2012

Review No.146: In Darkness



So a certain Batman film wasn't the only one I saw this week that had the word Dark in the title or indeed one that had many scenes in the sewers. In Darkness is unlikely to make nearly as much money as Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises mainly due to the fact that it's a fairly deep Polish holocaust drama so not exactly one that'll have them packing in to the nearest multiplex. Robert Więckiewicz stars as Leopold Socha a sewer inspector in Nazi-occupied Poland who, when he finds Jews hiding in his workplace, decides to make some money by charging them to stay there. Agnieszka Holland doesn't set out to present a hero in the way that Spielberg did with Oskar Schindler but instead Socha is a former thief as well as a money-grabbing individual who is in two minds whether to shop in the group who are hiding in sewers in order to make twice as much money. As the Nazi officers start snooping around, including one who he once was in prison with, Socha's stress starts to grow and at one point he lets the Jews fend for themselves however he has a change of heart. Meanwhile those in the sewers are having to cope with shortages of food, constant attack from rats and the fact that they could get caught at any time especially with the Nazis getting increasing reports off them hiding in the sewers. Some family members try their luck elsewhere, a pair of sisters is broken up after one decides she'd be better off in a concentration camp, meanwhile one of the women gets pregnant having a baby in the sewer which finally makes Socha's wife sympathetic to his cause. The final third of the film sees Socha's character change as he finally starts to care about his Jews we see that he stops taking money from them and creates diversions so he can hide them elsewhere and Holland builds the tension up so you're willing him to succeed.

It's been a while from watching In Darkness to actually writing about it but some of the images from it have still stuck with me which is surely the mark of any good film. Holland really presents some starkly memorable scenes such as an early one as Socha sees a group of naked women running away from a group of officers while later he is unphased by the sight of several locals strung up after being shot. What she really does well though is create a cold, dark and underground world where these people are deprived of daylight and visibly shrivel in front of your eyes. The camera swerves around every bend as the constantly paranoid Jewish families hear sounds and start running while Socha's knowledge of his sewers means that he has the upper hand on any Jew hunters. Death is presented as a part of everyday life as Socha often comes across dead bodies, some of them are the Jews he was trying to hide, he just goes about his daily life. Robert Więckiewicz delivers a powerful performance as our Polish anti-hero someone who throughout has reservations about his good deeds but his transformation is presented in an organic manner so over time he finally realises that these people don't deserve to die based on their religion. Artistically In Darkness works however I did find it slightly repetitive at times as there's only so many times you can hear the same people talking about how hungry they are even though I do realise that this happened in the story it surely could've been adapted as In Darkness had a better flow to it at all times. I was also slightly disappointed by the preachy subtitle after the final scenes which tells us what ultimately happened to Socha and what was said about him. I feel that Holland had presented such a good film that a blatant political/religious message wasn't needed as we could've made our own minds up based on her film but as it was this was a visually memorable film with a strong central performance but one you have to psych yourself up to watch as it's more traumatic than both Schindler's List and The Pianist.

Verdict: Great visual sequences in the sewers of Poland coupled with  Robert Więckiewicz's great performance means that In Darkness is a great film albeit one that feels the need to hammer home its message in the final frame so for that reason it receives 8.5/10

Thursday 26 July 2012

Review No.145: The Dark Knight Rises (Some Mild Spoilers)


In a recent interview Christopher Nolan revealed that he would like to direct a Bond film at some point and I have to say in his two most recent Batman films there are shades of Bond in the opening sequences. Like with Bond these openers relate to the plot in some way but in the case of the Batman films often star a fairly recognisable actor who only appears in that scene while in The Dark Knight it was William Fitchner as the bank manager desperately trying to fend off The Joker here its Aiden Gillan as a CIA agent who is out to get information on our lead villain 'the masked man' Bane played by Tom Hardy. While Bane slinks around in the sewers our hero has become a recluse since the Batman took the blame for Harvey Dent's death and has been hiding out of sight for the past eight years. He is spurred into action though when Anne Hathaway's Selina Kyle nimble thief makes off with his fingerprints which he later discovers is a plot by a Wayne board member to get himself placed in charge however the greater threat is that he is working with Bane as he has helped him construct a mighty world under the sewers. As well as Kyle the other woman who is after Bruce is environmentalist Miranda Tate who wants him to help her with her plans to create a sustainable energy source. While Bruce tangles with his inner-guilt so does Commissioner Gordon who himself is injured in an early kerfuffle and whose main hope in solving the latest crisis comes from Joseph Gordon-Levitt's rookie cop who is smarter than most of the detectives on the force. To say any more about the plot of The Dark Knight Rises would be to give away too much, some of you may think that I've given some spoilers away already, but then if you don't know want to know what happens don't read the review. What I will say is this final film in Nolan's trilogy, he has categorically said he's not going to make any more, is that it links up all the plots nicely even if the ending is a little too cheesy for some people. Though before that ending there is mountains of doom, pits of despair and a brilliant cavalcade of special effects.

When I came out of seeing The Dark Knight I was blown away by it however I didn't feel that The Dark Knight Rises made me feel that special despite having a lot of good in it. The main problem with the film is the first hour in which the Nolan brothers establish what has happened since the last film before introducing the new characters and their relationship to the ones we have met already. I felt this section was particularly flabby despite some decent interaction between Selina Kyle and Bruce Wayne as well as some brilliantly shadowy shots of Bane's underground layer. For me the film really kicked into gear when Bane and Batman had their initial showdown which is the catalyst for what happens throughout the rest of The Dark Knight Rises. From there Nolan lays on the effects fast, including the scene at the football stadium which has been doing the rounds for months now, but unlike some other high budget films there is more than just spectacle. The Dark Knight Rises explores the themes of right and wrong but mainly in regards to the class system as well as the corrupt nature of a lot of city officials which is obviously a very topical subject at the moment what with all the implications linked to the phone-hacking scandal. One of the issues I had with the film was that there was no humour in place to counter-balance this bleakness because even in The Dark Knight The Joker was able to provide some jet-black comedy. Here the most amusing sequences happen between Wayne and Kyle, especially when they're in full Batman and Catwoman roles, and their interplay does create some warmth on screen. It's just a shame though that their separated for most of the film as this almost screwball comedy aspect would lend itself well to a film that at some points is just too depressing for its own good. The cast do a good job across the board with Bale putting in another exemplary performance especially in the scenes in which Wayne has to display more despair than normal. Of the other regulars Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman all get to do their small pieces and do them well. I was surprised how good Hathaway was as Catwoman and she seemed to revel playing this villainous woman and she lit up the screen more than Marion Cotilard did but then she was more a plot device than anything else. I think it's unfair to compare Tom Hardy's Bane to Heath Ledger's Joker as the former is much more of a dark creature but unlike the latter he does have a clear motive for his destruction. However for me the best performance came from Joseph Gordon-Levitt as rookie cop John Blake a former orphan who really believes in the power of the Batman even when others don't. Blake is really the heart of the film and Gordon-Levitt delivers an honest performance which, if the ending is anything to go by, will maybe develop into something more solid if the franchise continues.

While The Dark Knight Rises is far from a perfect film there is still much to like about it as it a clever summer blockbuster filled with some really great set pieces as well as a lot of a thought going into the central themes. Nolan is a proper film-maker who both entertains and challenges his audiences simultaneously making visual spectacles with images that stay with you long after the film has finished. Once again the director has assembled a fine ensemble cast, with standout turns from Gordon-Levitt and Hathaway, though nobody is quite able to match Heath Ledger's turn in the previous Batman film. There are a couple of gaping plot-holes, not enough humour to counter-balance the darkness and I did feel that Nolan did reveal the ending early while in addition I still thought the first 45 minutes or so were a little flabby. I think the amount of enjoyment you'll get from The Dark Knight Rises depends on how high your expectations were prior to watching the film for me I went in with an open mind and on the whole was thoroughly entertained. Overall the good more than outweighs the bad and I suffice to say if Nolan does direct the next Bond film after Skyfall then I'll certainly be watching.

Verdict: A flabby opening third is quickly forgotten as Nolan brings on the despair and gets great performances from his cast though maybe this is a little generous I will still award The Dark Knight Rises 8/10

Monday 23 July 2012

Review No.144: Battleship



It seems now that films can be based on anything video games have been a great source of inspiration for film-makers, especially with dirge such as Street Fighter and Doom, while one of the most popular franchises of all time was based on a fairground ride that of course being Pirates of the Caribbean. Board games though on the whole have been left out of the loop with the possible exception of Clue, based on our British Cluedo, but then that has defined characters plus an easy to adapt murder mystery plot. Hancock director Peter Berg has taken up the challenge of directing a film based on a popular board game that has no characters but simply a board full of holes and five plastic vessels yes I'm talking of Battleship. The film stars Berg's old Friday Night Light's colleague Taylor Kitsch, who with this and John Carter isn't having a good year career wise, who stars as Alex Hopper a stereotypical slacker who is in his mid-twenties but has no life to speak of and whose navy Admiral brother Stone wants to do something with his life. After being arrested for an incident involving a chicken burrito Stone finally convinces Alex to sign up to the Navy and seven years later we find him working as a lieutenant but still has a temper on him. Alex is also now dating the daughter of his commander, played by a very gruff Liam Nesson who pops up only occasionally throughout the film and whom I'm betting received a hefty paycheck for his appearance, however after almost getting kicked out of the navy he feels it's not the best time to approach it. At the same time as all this is going on NASA makes contact with five alien ships who come to the Earth with the intention to finish us off and a big shooty battle starts up between the ships operated by the Hopper brothers and company and the alien fleet. During this time Alex has to step up and take responsibility as he finds himself as the most senior officer on the ship and is tasked with finding the aliens' weakness. Meanwhile Alex's girlfriend Samantha is stuck with one of her ex-military clients Mick, she's a very unconvincing physical therapist, who randomly meet up with Hamish Linklater's geeky scientist with the three trying to aid the Navy fleet in their war with the aliens. Eventually the crew have to board  a battleship, that's the name of the film after all, but will hitting G3, H3, I3 sink the aliens? Well unfortunately it's not that sort of film.

On the end credits of Battleship in big writing we are told that the film is 'Based on the Hasbro Game' however I didn't see any evidence of it here. Instead what I saw was a film that had its basis in the Transformer sequels as well as elements of a shoddy War of the Worlds rip-off and a bit of homoerotic Top Gun fun thrown in for good measure. I have to say it did have a semi-promising start with the bar scene between the Hopper brothers however once everybody is aboard their respective ships things start to go downhill fast and there's a lot more shooting than dialogue. Peter Berg is an interesting director because he has made some interesting films in the past, including Friday Night Lights and The Kingdom which was patchy but still had its moments, however when he's handed a massive budget he seems to fudge things up you just have to watch Hancock to see what I mean. Taylor Kitsch is once again playing the handsome male lead however it is Alexander Sarsgaard as his brother who I think lends the most gravitas to the film while as I mentioned Neeson's brief cameos are also worthwhile if few and far between. The one casting choice I have to disagree is R&B superstar Rihanna who is playing Raikes a weapons expert who spends most of the time strutting round looking like a bit of a tomboy but she doesn't do enough to convince you that it's not just the girl who sung Umbrella prancing around in camouflage. In fact when Rihanna is paired up with some of the naval veterans on the battleship they look more likely to be able to successfully operate heavy artillery than she does and at the end of the day she plays the most unconvicing member of the military on screen since Meg Ryan was a fighter pilot. The only briefly entertaining segments of the film were between Brooklyn Decker's Samantha, Hamish Linklater's scientist and Gregory D Gadson's wounded military hero with the three forming an unlikely trio trying to bring down the alien attack in their own way. It is these scenes that provide both humour and heart however as most of the money has been spent elsewhere they don't get as much screentime as the ship bound boys and girls. Personally I think it was a mistake to try and turn Battleship into a film in the first place but I would've made it into a more old school Naval epic rather than a sub-part Transformers rip-off with Rihanna getting more screen time than Liam Neeson. If you enjoy things blowing up with no real plot behind them, so in other words if you're Michael Bay, then you'll enjoy this but if like me you'd rather watch something with substance I'd wait for the Guess Who film to come out as we all know that would be class.

Verdict: Though there are moments of clarity in there overall Battleship has some really bad performances and uses tons of explosions instead of a coherent plot so for that reason I will award it 2.5/10

Saturday 21 July 2012

Review No.143: Streetdance 2



I know in the past I've talked about how much seeing previous films in a franchise matters in order to view the latest sequel however in the case of Streetdance 2 I don't think there's any need to watch the original. I personally watched, and quite enjoyed, the first Streetdance film when it came out in 2010 however this sequel doesn't have much in common with the original other than George Sampson who appears once again as Eddie. Sampson will be familiar to most as the winner of Britain's Got Talent 2007 but anybody who watches Waterloo Road on a regular basis knows that his acting leaves a lot to be desired so I'm a little surprised that he was the character that the directors decided to bring back despite him only featuring sporadically in the first film. Here though the focus is on Flack Hentschel's Ash who in the opening scene challenges dance crew Invincible to a battle when he is working selling popcorn at one of their events. After losing his job as a vendor he is approached  by Eddie to be his manager as they travel round Europe to put a crew together to ultimately compete in the Paris breakdance contest and beat Invincible at their own game. After the newly formed crew are safely embedded in a Paris hostel Ash and Eddie go out to a bar where they see the gorgeous Latin beauty Eva dancing salsa in a boxing ring at her uncle's bar. As in the first film, where ballet was used alongside Streetdance, here Ash and Eddie decide to combine their style of dance with Eva's Latin beats in order to deliver a unique act at the competition. Inevitably Eva and Ash's saucy dancing leads to a hot and heavy romance even though her uncle, played with vigour by Tom Conti, isn't sure about his intentions. As the film goes on the bonds between Ash and the crew as well as his romance with Eva are tested but ultimately will the gang band together and take down Invincible. Well what do you think?

The reason I enjoyed the first Streetdance film so much was that the central plot, involving the odd combination of streetdance with ballet, was intriguing as was the edition of veteran actress Charlotte Rampling as the head of a dance academy. Unfortunately a lot of the charm of the first film has been taken away due to the lack of a decent cast and the decision to bring back the fairly woeful actor Sampson in more of a leading capacity. In fact the opening scenes, in which Ash and Eddie bring their crew together, was reminiscent of the montage from the recent Muppets movie in which the gang travel by map. Even though both Hentschel and Sofia Boutella  as Eva are likeable actors there really wasn't enough chemistry there for them to create a believable partnership while the rest of the crew members are given very little to do other than turn up and dance. Thankfully the majority of the dance numbers are well-choreographed and a joy to watch additionally I'm guessing most of the audience are there for the streetdance atmosphere rather than the plot. Personally though I think I'm suffering from a little bit of streetdance fatigue after having sat through countless examples of it over years of Britain's Got Talent I find it a little dull now but that's just me and it's not at all a fault of the film. Also I quite enjoyed Tom Conti as Eva's uncle Manu even though it was hard to decide which European country he actually came from and I almost had a theory that he was playing the aging version of his character from Shirley Valentine. Streetdance 2 does have some impressive dance sequences and some game performances but suffers from a lousy plot and a central romantic storyline between two actors who have little chemistry together.

Verdict: Nowhere nearly as enjoyable as the first Streetdance film this sequel still has some impressive dance sequences and a game performance from Conti but I can't overlook the dodgy script so therefore it gets 5.5/10

Review No.142: Wild Bill



Since the days growing up watching Press Gang I've always had a soft spot for Dexter Fletcher who arguably had his biggest success with Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels but now Fletcher is stepping behind the camera to helm a film about a notorious East End thug coming out of prison. Thankfully Wild Bill doesn't owe a lot to Ritchie's film-making, especially some of his gangster films where he almost lapsed into self-parody, but instead is a rather sweet tale of a father trying to reconnect with the sons who have all but forgotten him. Charlie Creed-Miles takes the lead role of Bill Hayward, formerly known as Wild Bill, who returns to his old manor to try and make amends with the family who he left behind when he went to prison eight years ago. He discovers that the boys' mother has disappeared to Spain leaving 15 year old Dean, played by Son of Rambow's now very mature Will Poulter, to care for his younger brother Jimmy played by Attack the Block's Sammy Williams. Dean has dropped out of school and is now an apprentice builder, working on the completion of one of the Olympic buildings, while Jimmy often bunks off school and eventually is tempted into a drug gang by Pill a white man who thinks he is black played by Misfits star Iwan Rheon. When Bill reveals to his probation officer that the two underage boys live alone she immediately informs child services so Dean blackmails his father to stay a little longer until he convinces the social workers that they have a stable living environment. While Bill finds it easier to connect with Sammy, Dean is less keen on him however after he sorts out the business with his younger son and Pill he gains the respect of his older son who himself is having romantic difficulties with single mother Zoe. However Bill's old criminal associates are less than thrilled that he is staying in the area so inevitably events come to a head in an old East End pub with interesting results.

Through the plot description and DVD cover of Wild Bill it seemed that Fletcher was trying to emulate Ritchie by creating an all-star gangster epic however Wild Bill owes more to the heart-filled bleak work of Shane Meadows. Creed-Miles is utterly believable as the former villain who has a reputation in the area but now simply wants to lie low and who initially has aspirations of travelling North to work on the oil rigs but has to stay to fulfil his responsibilities to his children. The actor walks around with a hand-dog expression and creates sympathy for Bill as someone who can no longer get through to his older son despite his best efforts however you can also tell through his eyes that there is a violent past in there somewhere. There are also some great performances from Liz White as tart-with-a-heart Roxy and Iwan Rheon who is brilliant as the comic henchman even if his accent can get a tad annoying at times. The most impressive members of the cast though are the two sons namely Poulter who has grown into a very mature actor and here plays someone who is trying to act old beyond his years but at the same time is still an awkward 16 year old boy. Williams too is good as a younger lad who is lost without any parental guidance but who is glad to have his father back in his life. I enjoyed too the fact that Fletcher has made a point of transposing both the old school East End of London with its dank pubs and greasy spoons alongside the new London of the Olympics which is seen in great detail due to Dean's work on the stadium. Fletcher and co-writer Danny King have also created a script which combines genuine characters with plenty of witty one-liners as well as some menacing violence in the film's final act. Where I felt it fell down to an extent was with the Guy Ritchie-esque gangster characters all of whom seem fairly generic and whose drug dealing empire doesn't really seem that impressive even Andy Serkis' cameo as a gangland boss can't save this element of the plot. Overall though Fletcher's film has a lot of heart and plenty of wit so via this film I can see him having as much success as a writer/director as he previously had as an actor.

Verdict: Though it falls down a bit in the clichéd gangster scenes overall Fletcher's Wild Bill is a funny and warm film about what it means to be a family unit so for those reasons I will give it 7/10

Review No.141: Trishna



I think you're always going to struggle with literary snobbishness if you try to update a classic text into a modern day setting for you film but it's been done a lot from Emma being turned into Clueless to recently From the Madding Crowd turned into Tamara Drewe. We have another Hardy adaptation next with prolific director Michael Winterbottom, who most recently directed the controversial The Killer Inside Me, adapting Tess of the D'Urbervilles and setting in modern-day India with Trishna. Freida Pinto plays the title character and Tess substitute who is a young girl growing up in a small village whose father works transporting various goods in his Jeep however when it gets into an accident Trishna is forced to take work elsewhere. Help comes in the form of Jay whose English family run a chain of hotels and he organises Trishna a job in one of these as the two slowly form a romantic bond however when it becomes too much for her she runs away. To make more money for her family she works for her uncle and aunt on their farm however eventually Jay tracks her down before convincing her to join him in Mumbai where he is now working as a financier of Bollywood movies. The next part of the story sees Trishna learn to be a Bollywood dancer and demonstrates the difference between the traditional India of her family and the modern-day India in the city where she and Jay eventually share a very swish apartment. However anyone who knows the text knows that the central female character can't stay happy for too long and when Jay's father suffers a stroke she travels back to the hotel with him only to find out that their relationship is very different there than it was in Mumbai.

Michael Winterbottom is an interesting director and you just have to look at his last two works, the aforementioned Killer Inside Me and the Steve Coogan/Rob Brydon sitcom The Trip, to know that he doesn't have once specific style. Trishna's comparisons to Tess are mainly in it's central character the poor innocent farm girl who is tempted by the promise of great things by the man in her life but ultimately things fall flat. The interesting thing with Trishna is that the two male protagonists of the Hardy text, Angel Clare and Alec D'Urberville, are combined into one here with Jay representing both the kindly saviour and the wicked rich boy in equal measure which is a bold move and is one that is likely to upset literary purists. What I enjoyed most of Trishna was that Winterbottom covered all aspects of India from the poor village life to the hotels which house the affluent westerners to the bustling streets of Mumbai and the sweaty pulsating sets of the Bollywood film industry. I real felt that Marcel Zyskind's cinematography transported you to each of these places and made you part of the action as best he could. I also thought that this was Freida Pinto's best performance since Slumdog Millionaire, though she wasn't give much to do in either Black Gold or Rise of the Planet of the Apes, here playing a delicate innocent flower who is overwhelmed by the various pleasures that Jay can offer but ultimately comes to the realisation that she can't trust everybody. Riz Ahmed tries his best with the multi-dimensional character of Jay easily conveying the charming man but struggling with playing the more despicable elements of the script in the latter third of the film. My main problem with Trishna was the episodic nature with some of the parts of her tale not being as interesting as others plus I didn't buy the transition of Jay's character so maybe it was  a mistake to combine Angel and Alec into one. Overall there is much to enjoy in Trishna however I didn't really get into it as much as I could've though this isn't the fault of the wonderful camera-work or Pinto's brilliant central performance. I think maybe my lack of enjoyment came from knowing what was coming next, having studied Tess at A-Level, so maybe Winterbottom should've messed around with the text a little more than just combining the two central male characters into one confusing amalgamation.

Verdict: Wonderful shots of India and an assured central performance from Pinto are spoilt by the film's somewhat confusing episodic nature so for that reason I will give Trishna 6/10

Friday 20 July 2012

Review No.140: African Cats



Anyone who reads my TV writings knows that my Achilles' Heel is the nature documentary as on the whole I find them rather tiresome though I do have a soft spot for Sir David Attenborough. As I've had to gear myself up to watch various films that I wouldn't otherwise bother with throughout this blog I thought it was a better time than ever to watch Disney's Kenya-set documentary African Cats. From the start of the film you get the idea that Disney are trying to emulate March of the Penguins from the close-up photography down to the choice of  a wise black actor to narrate the affair with Samuel L Jackson taking Morgan Freeman's chair in the announcing booth. As the title would suggest the film looks at African cats in particular a pack of lionesses on one side of the river and a cheetah who unusually has to look after five cubs. The two separate plot strands deal with how mothers care for their children in the wild with the lionesses looking after their young, in particular we see the relationship between mother and daughter Layla and Mara, as well as how they are watched over by the kindly but threatening Fang. However the pride from the North arrive chasing Fang away and extraditing his cub Mara, who had been living with her aunt since her mother's death, with the lionesses eventually accepting these new men into their pride. On the other side we see Sita the Cheetah teach her cubs how to survive on their own by both running away from predators and hunting for their own food. As time goes on we see the cheetah cubs grow up and attempt to fend for themselves while Mara tries to cope on her own away from the pride.

It's clear when watching African Cats that it's geared towards a family friendly audience though there are scenes in which I feel young children would get quite upset, like how I did when Simba's father died in The Lion King. I do think my ten year old self may have got more out of it but at the same time I felt that the film had a repetitive nature that kids may find quite dull. What I can't argue with is that directors Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey really had an eye for detail and the camera team did wonders with their sometimes almost too close for comfort shots, I'm thinking in particular of the scenes in which Fang tries to scare off some crocodiles. As I said before I feel that Disney really wanted this to be as successful as March of the Penguins however it's not turned out that way at all and I possibly wouldn't have heard about it unless I was watching all the films released this year. When it comes to vocal resonance I'm afraid that Samuel L Jackson isn't quite up there with Morgan Freeman however he does still add some authority to the film almost seeming like he wants to challenge the two lions for the King of the Jungle title. What I wasn't a fan of was the script which in away was almost disconnected from what was happening on screen it was almost as if the production team got together and realised they had some great footage but nothing realy to say about it so then went something that was overly poetic and at times utterly propesterous. At the end of the day African Cats does what it says on the tin, it's a documentary about lions and cheetahs in Kenya, and while it may appeal to children I didn't find much to sink my teeth into other than the wonderful wildlife photography.

Verdict: I think this is definitely one for the kids as I personally found African Cats rather dull at times although you still have to give it up for some wonderful footage of the African plains so for that reason it gets a 5.5/10

Wednesday 18 July 2012

Review No.139: Hara-Kiri - Death of a Samurai



After a couple of almost complete stinkers it was time to try one of my LoveFilm DVDs which had been gathering dust on my shelf for a few weeks now Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai. The film is the latest from Japanese director Takashi Miike who last year helmed one of my favourite movies the bloody kung-fu epic 13 Assassins however Harai-Kiri has much more of a sedate pace though it still has a fairly violent story. The film is set in 17th century Japan and as the title would suggest it revolves around the process of Hara-Kiri the ritual suicide that samurai warriors practice and in particular it sees a poor ronin Hanshiro travel to seek the approval from the house of the feudal Lord Li which is currently run by the clinical Kageyu. Kageyu tells Hanshiro the story of how a young samurai warrior by the name of Motome came with the same request however he planned not to commit suicide but instead he hoped to get some money from his visit however the staff of the house were wise to his plan so made him finish himself off with a poorly made bamboo sword. After hearing this story Hanshiro still wants to go through with the procedure so he is taken to the sacrificial area and surrounded by guards however when Kageyu discovers that some of his guards are missing he realises something isn't right. The second chapter then starts with Hanshiro seemingly tells us his entire life-story from being a single father to a lovely daughter to struggling so much that he has to marry his daughter off. Though it was obvious from the start there is also a connection between Hanshiro and Motome although I feel that Hara-Kiri is a little bit more deep than a story of vengeance. The film instead deals with the themes of honour, power and money which are as relevant today as they were back in the 17th century.

Though nowhere near as violent nor as entertaining as 13 Assassins, Miike's latest work has a lot going for it namely the fantastic exterior shots captured by cinematographer Nobuyasu Kita. The first half hour or so in which the attempted suicide of Motome is covered in detail is fairly engaging as we learn the time of rituals involved in Hara-Kiri including specific dress and the types of swords you need for the process this segment is also fairly gruesome as it comes to the conclusion. I felt the middle section of the film, dealing with Hanshiro's life story, was rather flabby and almost lapsing into soap opera when telling the story of a father struggling to pay his debts. Thankfully there are again a lot of brilliantly shot scenes of ancient Japan as we see Motome's former career as a teacher as well as the many umbrellas that Hanshiro tries to make. The film picks itself back-up in the last twenty minutes as an epic encounter ensues between Hanshiro and all of Kageyu's men with him trying to fend them all off with a sword made only of bamboo while snow pours down all oer them. Personally I could've done with a little bit more of this type of scene, though it may well have felt like overkill, instead of the endless scenes of misery between Hanshiro and his daughter. The film's three central actors all play their parts well with Ichikawa Ebizō XI really impressing as the down-on-his-luck Hanshiro while Eita adds an innocence to Motome and Kōji Yakusho is excellent playing the dastardly Kageyu. All in all a very stylish and well-acted film with a great beginning and end it's just a shame the middle section dragged a little much for my liking but nonetheless another great entry into the Takashi Miike back catalogue.

Verdict: I was slightly disappointed with Hara Kiri - Death of a Samurai as it has a fairly baggy middle section however it is still beautifully photographed and well-acted so it gets a very high 7.5/10

Review No.138: Act of Valor



In my last review, of Strippers Vs. Werewolves, I mentioned that none of the cast realised they were in a comedy and I think that goes double for my next film Act of Valor in that it wasn't intended to be a comedy in the first place. Act of Valor's unique selling point is that the actors portraying the Navy SEALs in this film aren't actually actors at all but real members of the navy whose identities have been protected as the cast list only reveals the names of the other players in the film. Act of Valor has some interesting statistics such as that it had the biggest budget for a film that doesn't have any star names attached to it while the first promo for it was put at the start of the Battlefield 3 video game which doesn't surprise me as directors Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh almost treat this like a video game most of the time. The plot, if you can call it that, involves a group of SEALs tasked with retrieving a rather attractive Latina CIA agent from the hands of an evil Russian drug kingpin who also has plans to blow up parts of the world with suicide vests which are specially-made due to the ball-bearings system that they operate, I'm seriously not making this up. Obviously all the SEALs have their own stereotypical identities one is about to become a father, another used to be a fighter while the narrator of the piece Lt. Rourke is seemingly a bit of a loner. The SEALs rescue CIA agent Morales with ease however they then set about on their next mission involving more terrorists this time in Somalia however they are warned by their commander not to strike straight away as he doesn't want another Black Hawk Down on his hands.

Of course the commander needn't have worried as Act of Valor is never going to trouble Black Hawk Down in terms of Somalia-set war movies and indeed I found almost insulting that that got a mention in this joke of a war film. I use joke in the very sense of the word as at times I felt I was watching a spoof of the recent 'war on terror' movies the best way to describe it was as a live action Team America as the seven SEALs make their way through various countries, blowing parts of them up as they go along I'm just surprised that none of them uttered a 'you're welcome!' before they hopped onto their submarine. The unintentional hilarity reached its peak in a scene in which one of the marines dies after leaping onto a grenade to stop it exploding which is shot in a slow motion with sad music playing over the top of the entire scene. Sometimes using non-actors in films does work however that isn't true of Act of Valor whose cast mainly just shout things at each other such as 'SECURE THE BRIDGE' and even in the more sensitive scenes in which they're meant to allow their characters to develop they instead just spout out a lot of expositional lines which I suppose is also the fault of screenwriter Kurt Johnstad. Even the actual actors, who mainly portray the bad guys or the CIA agents, are rubbish and are mainly tasked with playing clichéd foreigners such as the evil Arab or the cunning Soviet. I think I enjoyed Act of Valor more than I should've done mainly due to the fact that I was entertained by just how bad it was from the acting to the script to the scene upon scene of random shooting the only thing I took out of it was that navy SEALs are on the whole generally quite stupid. I personally believe there's room to do a spoof movie based on Act of Valor, sort of a Hot Shots! for the new millennium, it's just a shame that Leslie Nielsen has already left us as he would've made an excellent commander.

Verdict: Really bad to the point of being unintentionally hilarious there's no escaping the fact that Act of Valor is a poorly-acted piece of pro-Marines propaganda which should never have gone anywhere near a cinema screen however I can't say I wasn't entertained by the awfulness of the whole endeavour so I will award it a generous 2.5/10

Tuesday 17 July 2012

Review No.137: Strippers Vs. Werewolves



What's the best way to follow an amazing blockbuster and a great Turkish film? How about with a low budget film which has a cast full of soap stars and a cameo from Freddy Krueger, well even if that isn't the right answer I did end up watching Strippers Vs. Werewolves. Jonathan Glendening's film does really exactly what is says on the tin as a bunch of exotic dancers from a club called Vixens have to wage war with some werewolves after one of the head werewolves played by Martin Kemp is stabbed in the eye by a silver pen wielded by former Emmerdale starlet Adele Silva. As the strippers come to the realisation that their landlady has been fighting off the werewolves for years there's more heartache for Silva's Justice as we find out that her boyfriend Scott is one of the werewolves. The strippers' one shining light is that one of them is dating nerdy vampire hunter Sinclair who gives them ideas of how they can finish off the werewolves including one amusing scene in which they wield a sunbed in order to replicate sunlight. Glendening tries to create some sort of backstory involving the alpha werewolves and Vixens' senior staff members however the film is definitely at it's best when Becca from Hollyoaks is trying to shoot Billy Murray of The Bill and Real Lawyers 4U fame with silver bullets.

What can you say about film called Strippers Vs. Werewolves? Well it's definitely rubbish but I'm still struggling to work out if its purposely rubbish or it's part of the joke. Phillip Barron and Pat Higgins' script is definitely written as a comedy it's a shame then that the majority of the cast members don't realise they're meant to be making the audience laugh it seems to me that they believe that they're in a low budget British version of True Blood. As you can imagine the make-up for both the werewolves and vampires is rubbish while the scenes in Vixens are aptly seedy while both Kemp and Englund are game in their brief cameos. However the only member of the main cast who impressed me was Simon Phillips as Sinclair making his character a sort of  nerdy Van Helsing who is batting above his weight in his relationship with the exotic stripper. In terms of low-budget Brit comedies it's a step above Kill Keith Chegwin which should've been a lot funnier than it was and it's true that the majority of the supporting cast are brilliant here however there wasn't enough in Strippers Vs. Werewolves to convince me that it was anything more than a naff attempt at camp humour.

Verdict: A couple of laughs and game cameos save this from lapsing into a completely awful film but instead it's a naff low-budget mess that should really have gone straight to DVD thus a grade of 2.5/10

Review No.136: The Amazing Spider-Man



From arthouse to blockbuster now as we turn our intention to possibly the third most important superhero movie of the year that being the franchise rebooting The Amazing Spider-Man. Yes though it's only been a mere five years since the downright dismal Spiderman 3 we've been taken right back to before Peter Parker was bitten by the spider and was still a rather ordinary high school student. Sam Raimi's place at the director's chair has been taken over by 500 Days of Summer's Marc Webb while 28 year old Andrew Garfield goes back to school and, to be honest, is totally believable as a teenager. Garfield's Peter Parker isn't nearly as geeky as Tobey Maguire's was instead he is more of a cool outsider with his skateboard and his camera he isn't the one that gets beaten up at lunchtime although he does get punched a fair few times when he tries to stick up for the geek. There is also a new love interest in the form of Gwen Stacey, played by Garfield's now real-life girlfriend Emma Stone, a smarter and more interesting girl who he doesn't follow round like a lovesick puppy as much as Parker did with MJ in the last set of films. The Amazing Spider-Man is also much more interested with Peter's parents and why he was left with Uncle Ben and Aunt May in the first place it is a mystery that he starts to uncover when he finds his father's old briefcase. He discovers that his father's old partner the scientist Dr Curt Conners is behind a project to try and genetically repair the dying Norman Osborn, who we all know as the Green Goblin but who doesn't feature here, and after tracking Connors down Peter is bit by one of the spiders which are part of his research. We all sort of know much of the rest of the story as Peter struggles with his new-found abilities however he does help Conners to solve his problems but this comes at a cost as the Doctor decides to inject himself with his new formula and in the process becomes the film's villain The Lizard. At the same time Peter's experiments have meant that he neglects his uncle and aunt with the former being shot after trying to stop a robber so to avenge Ben's death Peter dons the mask and apprehends any of the villains who bare a resemblance to the man who bumped off his beloved uncle. Obviously things come to a head between Spiderman and the Lizard which inevitably involve both Gwen and her police chief father however the ending has some ambiguity to it plus giving us some ammunition for a sequel which I'm sure we'll see in the near future.

When The Amazing Spider-Man was first announced I personally believed it to be a bit of redundant endeavour as the Raimi/Maguire Spiderman films were still fresh in everyone's minds there didn't seem to be any reason to reboot the franchise. While this to an extent may be true Marc Webb has done a good job of making this film as different as possible as we have a new love interest, a new way in which Peter becomes Spiderman and a new villain in The Lizzard. What makes The Amazing Spider-man work so well is that the majority of it is set while Peter and Gwen are still at school, something that was skipped over fairly quickly in the Raimi original, this gives the film its own identity with Peter using his new skills to fend off those who pick on the weak. The relationship between Gwen and Peter is also a lot more equal as he didn't follow her about as much Maguire did Mary Jane Watson instead the two have an easier chemistry which may be due to the fact that the two struck up a real romantic relationship during filming. To me Andrew Garfield played the everyman well and as I previously mentioned was totally believable as a 17 year old schoolboy while his metamorphosis into Spiderman was very well dealt with indeed. Stone is also great in her role, although I love her in everything, making Gwen a funny and intelligent love interest who doesn't define herself through her relationship. There is great support from Martin Sheen and Sally Field as Ben and May the former in particular has some great warmth in his scenes with Garfield which makes his death scene even more poignant. Whereas I felt The Avengers film over-egged the pudding in terms of its set pieces The Amazing Spider-Man makes you wait with only two really big moments one involving an accident on a bridge and the other was the climax at Oscorp. It's fair to say that the film drags at times and that some of the high school scenes are fairly generic but for me this was better than Raimi's first Spiderman film if not quite on the level of 2004's Spiderman 2. Overall this is one of the best blockbusters of the year so far due to its mixture of visual splendour, emotionally balanced script and great performance across the board.

Verdict: One of this year's strongest blockbusters The Amazing Spider-Man is overlong but kept me interested throughout due to great performances, a brilliant script and wonderful set pieces so for those reasons it gets 8/10

Review No.135: Once Upon a Time in Anatolia



After a couple of films that haven't really floated my boated it's time for a bit of culture now with the film that co-won the Grand Prix at last year's Cannes Festival, along with the previously reviewed The Kid with A Bike, as I look at the Turkish film Once Upon a Time in Anatolia. Based on the experiences of one of the writers, a former doctor, it explores the search for a dead body as a convoy of three cars journey around at night time in the small Anatolian town of Keskin. The majority of the film is seen from the perspective of Doctor Cemal, who has been bought along in the police car in order to help with the crime scene investigation report, he is for most of the film a casual observer of the more vocal characters namely the warring police chiefs. As well as carrying a numerous amount of policemen there is also Prosecutor Nesret the most important figure in terms of hierarchy he is the person who most of the characters are out to impress however it is his relationship with the Doctor that is the most interesting. I felt that in Once Upon a Time in Anatolia the characters took precedent over the crime itself which was the murder of a man while the suspects of the crime are two brothers the rather dashing Kenan and his mentally-challenged brother Ramazan. Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan focuses as much on the inconsequential conversations between the men in the cars as much as he does on the plot itself as the characters constantly find themselves in the wrong area because Kenan, who was drunk at the time of the murder, can't remember exactly where he buried the body. Eventually the men have to eat and sleep so they go to a nearby village where Kenan reveals something about the crime while later on the Prosecutor and the Doctor argue about an issue that is more important to the former's life than he lets on.

As I previously mentioned Ceylon's film works because of its realistic nature I find completely plausible that a drunk man would forget exactly where he buried about and would only be able to identify by a few distinguishing features such as the type of tree or a nearby bridge. He also likes to work with the confined space of the car which for the majority of the film is where we find Kenan, the Doctor, the Prosecutor, Police Commissioner Naci and his local chauffeur. Gökhan Tiryaki's cinematography also lends itself beautifully to the style of film as very often we see long shots of the cars on the road and hear the conversations rather than seeing them first hand. The camera will also quite often drift off to shoot an unrelated incident such as an apple falling off a tree before floating down a stream or when the group stay at the village we see the Doctor watching a jug rolling over in the wind. Similarly there are the conversations which feel like just things that normal people would talk about such as disgusting-flavoured yoghurt or tasty lamb chops however not all of the conversations are flippant as Naci is obsessed with the hierarchy of the police system while other coppers feel that they are treating the two convicts too well. All the actors work very well together especially the very down-to-Earth Muhammet Uzuner as the Doctor and the imposing screen presence of Taner Birsel as the Prosecutor.The title Once Upon a Time in Anatolia is mentioned by the Prosecutor as a way to open the story he may once tell his children about the incident however for me it harks back to Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West down to both have three central characters in the case of Ceylon's film these are Naci, Nesret and Cemal however there is no shoot-out between the trio. As the film is two and half hours long I did feel it lagging very occasionally but overall the use of light and shade, the brilliant performances, the well-written script and every single shot means that Once Upon a Time in Anatolia is definitely up there on my favourite films of the year so far.

Verdict: Nuri Bilge Ceylan really understands the importance of proper film-making and he has crafted a near masterpiece in Once Upon a Time in Anatolia which gets a very deserving 9/10

Monday 16 July 2012

Review No.134: Silent House



Personally I still have an issue with remakes of foreign films, especially foreign films that have been released in the last few years, as I find the sole reason to do this is so people don't have to bother with those pesky subtitles after all who wants to go to watch a film and have to read? A brilliant example of this is Silent House a remake of a Uruguayan horror film, only released in the UK last year, which basically sees a young woman trapped in a house as mysterious killers finish off members of her family. In case of the US remake the girl in question is Sarah, played by the wonderful Elizabeth Olsen, who is helping her father and uncle clear up an old childhood home in order for them to sell it on. Early on it seems that there are some issues between the brothers namely that Sarah's father tries to stop her uncle Peter from drinking and driving at the same time she also meets an old friend from childhood who she has no recollection of. Sarah then starts to hear noises in the house and when she sends her father to investigate he ends up being thrown down the stairs and she comes to the realisation that there is someone else living there. There is then a lengthy section where the lights are turned off and Sarah has to navigate herself around the house but at every turn finds out that every exit has been blocked while at the same time finds out that someone else has been living in the house. Using an old Polaroid camera to help her see she finally finds her way out of the house before her uncle stupidly drives her back so that they can hopefully find her father's body. As always with horror movies there is a twist however as I had already seen the original foreign language version of this film.

The unique selling point of the original version of Silent House was that events occurred in real time and the film was made with one continuous shot which I think the Americans thought was such a good idea that they were annoyed they hadn't come up with it themselves. As is always the case when they haven't got an original idea they just copy the film that had it in the first place and that's what they've done with Silent House however here director Chris Kentis and Laura Lau have moulded together several different segments of the film in order to make it look like one continuous shot. As I've been down on several horror films so far this year for just employing the very quiet and suddenly loud technique I have to add the same judgment to this film however I feel that on the whole Silent House manages it better. This might be down to Elizabeth Olsen who is by far the film's saving grace as personally I think she did a better job with the character than original actress Florencia Colucci did. Apart from Olsen though this was a very patchy film with lots of shaky handheld camera movements plus I don't think Lau and Kentis utilised the Polaroid camera as much as they could've done. Most people will see the conclusion coming a mile off even if they haven't seen the original version from Uruguay which I didn't much care for in the first place. As I said in my introduction foreign remakes on the whole are a waste of time, especially in the case of Silent House which wasn't a great movie in its original language, and I personally believe that people should learn to embrace subtitles a lot more as it would open their eyes to a new world of cinematic possibilities.

Verdict: A needless remake of an average horror film is bolstered by a performance from Elizabeth Olsen so I will award this one a very generous 4.5/10