Review No.95: Prometheus

So one of the biggest releases of the year deserves a cinema where I won't be bothered by people munching on nachos or updating Facebook every five seconds luckily the great Lighthouse in Wolverhampton offered that possibility screening Ridley Scott's Prometheus on the week of release. As most people are aware Prometheus was in some ways a prequel to Scott's original Alien film and in particular answer the space jockey question that a lot of people had. The film is mostly set on-board the Prometheus, a scientific vessel which has been funded by the Weyland Corporation in order for two archaeologists to follow a star map they found in a cave ten years previous. As well as archeaologist couple Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway on board Prometheus are among others the android David, gung-ho captain Janek and Meredith Vickers a representative of the Weyland Corporation who seemingly has another agenda in visiting the planet. Once reaching the moon LV-223 the crew hope to find the aliens known as 'engineers' in order to get answers about the map and indeed to find some evidence. Obviously anybody who has seen the trailer knows that things don't really work out for everybody on board Prometheus, this is a Ridley Scott sci-fi film after all, though I do realise that most have yet to see this film so I'm not going to go into any more plot detail than that.

Among those also seeing Prometheus with me were a group of friends that I know from the film quiz that is held at the Light House once a month with one of them having already seen the earlier screening. After the film she asked me for my verdict and I personally was still in a state of shock she told me to give it about fifteen minutes before I made my mind up about it and after a discussion we thought that the first two thirds of the film were sufficiently well-paced however everything went barmy in Prometheus' final section. My feeling was what made the first Alien film work so well was that feeling of despair and isolation which was coupled with the paranoia that built up as the crew-members started to die off. This is certainly present when we first see Prometheus as David wanders around the ship on his own waiting to release the crew members from their state of statis as he watches their dreams and learns to speak different languages in order to converse with the engineers. Scott does build up the intensity when the crew first make it onto LV-223 and as the origins of the species become better known there are some interesting questions to be asked as well as fantastically jumpy scene involving an autopsy. My feeling is though that people expect more from their sci-fi films now than they did in 1979 so there has to be some shoot-outs and some space ship crashing to satisfy action fans and indeed the trailer that debuted a while back is full of footage from the final stages of Prometheus. I think I would've been happier to see a film that relied more on horror built on paranoia than loud gun battles later on. Another problem I had was that sometimes I felt the film was fairly clinical and scientific while I'm aware that this is sometimes necessary in a film about scientists this meant from time I felt removed from some of the conversations that the characters were having.

There are also far too many characters to get to know that well however there's no faulting the performances from the main players each of whom has something to offer. Among those who discussed the film afterwards we all agreed that Michael Fassbender is excellent in everything and as David here you really believe that he isn't of this world. He is able to make David seem both pleasant and later creepy he claims to be there to help the crew but we never know the mission he has been programmed for so that makes him certainly the most interesting character. Noomi Rapace is also predictably excellent her Dr Shaw does really look like a scientist and with her tomboy like looks combined with her scruffy hair she does at times conjour up memories of Sigourney Weaver's Ripley. Rapace's stature also counter-acts that of Charlize Theron who as Vickers is practically Amazonian when compared to her she here gives off her best Ice Maiden impression as the character motivated by money at times being so cold that Janek questions if she is also a robot. As Janek, Idris Elba is responsible for the humour of the film more of an army than everything else he keeps his crew going with quips but also makes sure that he is responsible for all on board his ship. Guy Pearce also impresses as Weyland although the prosthetics given to him to make him look like a very old man seemed to be to be not that impressive especially given that this is a big budget movie.

Unlike a lot of other science fiction films Scott is keen to explore various themes most notably being that of faith represented mostly by Shaw, the most religious character in the film, who carries a crucifix pendant around her neck her constant belief questioned by her partner Holloway especially seeing as she can't have children. Her pendant is a symbol of her belief so the moment it is taken away from her she experiences some of the most traumatic events of the film as a whole. The other theme which is most prominent is that of big business and the fact that money can buy you anything you want even if you have to manipulate other people to get that. This is seen in the character of Vickers who believes her money sees her as superior than everyone else on Prometheus while Weyland's motives also demonstrate the power that money can buy you. Scott's film isn't perfect by any means, especially when he decides to crank everything up to eleven, however there are underlying themes behind the action which is something that I rarely see in science fiction films these days. While not a great film Prometheus is certainly one of the better big budget films of recent years and I would recommend everybody go to see it at the cinema so they can make their own minds up about it.

Verdict: Two thirds of a brilliant film are spoilt by a completely bonkers final chapter but despite this Prometheus boasts great performances from its ensemble cast and underlying themes to the action so overall I will give it a very deserving 7.5/10

Review No.60: Haywire

Basing a film around somebody who has never acted before is a tricky business even when that person, in this Gina Carano, has been surrounded by lights and camera before. Carano is best known as a fighter in the mixed martial arts field but was also a former American Gladiator and in Steven Soderbergh's Haywire she makes her debut as government contractor Mallory Kane. Haywire's story is a simple one as Mallory is sent to Barcelona to rescue an Asian journalist before being convinced by her boss/former lover Kenneth, played by Ewan McGregor, to take up another assignment posing as Michael Fassbender's wife. It is only when on this assignment that she realises she has been set-up and Fassbender is out to kill her thankfully she realises this in the nick of time and is able to over-power him. Returning to the States she is confronted by another old colleague, played by Chaning Tatum, before commandeering the car of a customer at the diner she was in. After telling him her story she ends up at her father's house where she demands the truth from Kenneth which is a conspiracy that also involves Michael Douglas' government agent and his contact played by Antonio Banderas.

It's fair to say the best parts of Haywire are when Carano is kicking ass or plotting her next move however Soderbergh seems set to make her act as much as possible. The two best scenes in Haywire, in my opinion, are when Mallory is tussling with Fassbender in an Irish hotel or when he is wrestling with McGregor on a Mexican beach. For me the problem here is that Soderbergh has over-complicated the plot meaning that we must learn of half of a dozen characters in the first fifteen minutes of the film and I really struggled to work out who was on who's side. It seemed that a variety of reliable actors such as McGregor, Fassbender, Banderas and Douglas had been drafted in to act alongside the amateur however I feel the majority of them are wasted in underwritten role. Carano herself isn't an awful actress just a little cold so while I understood her need for revenge she never really made me care if she lived or died. What should've happened with Haywire is a lot more set piece, such a when Mallory is trying to evade the Irish police, and a lot less of her hanging around waiting for stuff to happen. This being a Soderbergh film at least everything is styled to perfection there's some great cinematography, the score suits the mood perfectly and each new location is welcomed in so at least we know where we are even if we're not quite sure what's going on. I think Carano was often utilised in the right way but I have to say I'd expected more from the film seeing as who was involved and at the end of the day Haywire seemed to me to be a film that should've been simple but a lot more complicated by an over-abundance of character and too many cooks spoiling the broth.

Verdict: Slick and stylish in places with some great set-pieces it's a shame that Soderbergh peppered his film with far too many different characters so for that reason I can only award this 6/10

Review No.22: Shame

So last week I reviewed A Dangerous Method a film in which Michael Fassbender goes through a lot of moral dilemmas having rough sex along the way. The film I saw last night, again at the brilliant Light House in Wolverhampton, was Shame a film in which Michael Fassbender goes through a lot of moral dilemmas having a multitude of sex along the way. Fassbender plays Brandon who is a sex addict although that word is never uttered we can see it from the very start due to his frequent use of internet porn and his hiring of hookers. Into his life comes his sister Sissy an equally troubled character who we are led to believe tried to harm herself several times and who gets into unfulfilling relationships with inappropriate men. The majority of the film looks at Brandon's compulsive disorder, his disjointed relationship with his sister and his brief fling with co-worker Marianne through these encounters we see Brandon learn how others see him and also why he needs to act in the way he does.

I have to say I loved almost everything about Shame and a lot of that has to do with the teaming of Fassbender and director Steve McQueen who worked together before on Hunger. As McQueen is a former artist he has a different eye for things than a standard director and the way Brandon's apartment looks is as important as what the characters say. In fact there aren't many words uttered in the first ten minutes just far too many shots of Fassbender's penis, but ladies might disagree, as he wanders through the streets of New York looking for his next lay. Fassbender is a powerful screen presence and for me this is his best performance since Hunger here his brooding eyes and quiet confidence reminded me a lot of Christian Bale in American Psycho. He is able to convey Brandon's personality without saying anything with his eyes doing most of the talking but I'm not discounting the script by McQueen and Abi Morgan the latter making up for The Iron Lady. Also worth a mention is Carey Mulligan who with this and Drive is turning into a very interesting actress and her and Fassbender make for a good duo as they make you believe the siblings may have had some sort of other relationship in the past. Mulligan also reveals her brilliant singing voice in a rendition of New York New York which is just heart-breaking and Fassbender's reaction is equally as powerful. Though not a perfect film, Shame isn't far off with every scene perfectly crafted and every shot thought about in the right way with two top notch performances this is going to take a lot of beating to knock it off my current Film of the Year perch.

Verdict: My favourite film of the year so far and it proves that McQueen and Fassbender are the perfect actor/director duo 9/10

Review No.11: A Dangerous Method

It seems to have taken me a while to get to my eleventh film but finally I've managed to watch the next on the list which is David Cronenberg's film about the relationship between Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud which is also the director's third film with Viggo Mortensen. The film starts with Jung taking on a new patient in the Russian Sabin Spielrien someone who is initially afraid of Jung but he starts to encourage her own love of psychoanalysis and predictably the two begin a relationship after Jung is egged on by a barmy psychoanalyst played by the brilliant Vincent Cassell. Jung's feelings for Sabin threaten to affect his own marriage so he decides to knock things on the head and move away from the hospital. At the start of the film Jung views Freud as a mentor but as things go on he wonders how much he can trust him and the two fall out later on. Meanwhile Sabin herself starts to excel as an analyst in her own right and at the end of the film things start to come full circle.

It really doesn't surprise me that Cronenberg is the one to direct an adaptation of Christopher Hampton's stage play The Talking Cure as it seems mainly to deal with crazy people and rough sex. That's a little unfair however in a film that has two great central performances from its lead actors with Michael Fassbender brilliantly encapsulating the morally torn Jung and Mortensen becoming a pipe-smoking, advice spouting Freud steals every scene that he is in. Like in X-Men: First Class it seems that Fassbender works better when exploring relationships by two male counterparts who have different views on the same subjects. The weak link in the chain is Keira Knightley who seems to be struggling with a Russian accent, she just about pulls it off, rather than giving us a compelling character. When Sabin has to act crazy in the opening scenes Knightley's performance is almost laughable rather than compelling and overall she is acted off the screen by her male companions. A Dangerous Method looks great every shot is filmed beautifully, the period detail is spot on and Cronenberg's sister has done a fine job with the costumes. My problem with the film was that I never really empathised with any of the characters and for the most part found A Dangerous Method cold and clinical rather than engaging. It was hard to feel sorry for Jung who was thwarted by having to have sex with Keira Knightley on a regular basis nor so for Freud who just came off as a hypocrite. The film is definitely interesting and I learnt some things about these famous figures that I didn't previously know but this is a drama rather a documentary and I never felt myself truly feel for any of the central protagonists.

Verdict: An interesting film that looks fantastic and boasts two great performances is let down by its clinical nature and its lead actress 6.5/10