Review No.126: Babycall

So from Paris we travel to Norway for our second thriller of the day only Babycall also has some elements of horror nestled within its plot. The film stars Noomi Rapace, best known for the original Girl With The Dragon Tattoo but more recently seen in Prometheus, as single mother Anna who is seemingly over-protective to her eight year old son Anders. As the film goes on we are given the impression that Anna and Anders have been moved out of their old home after her ex-husband abused both her and their son with them being re-located by the social workers to a new apartment. The social workers try to help Anna get things back to normal by having her put Anders into school as well as giving him his own room which means that she can't have him sleep next to her anymore. As Anna wants peace of mind she heads to the local electrics store to purchase a Babycall, more commonly referred to over here as a monitor, and sets it up in Anders' room so she can hear if anything untoward happens. The only problem is that she hears what she believes is another child being abused in a neighbouring apartment block so starts to write down what she hears to try and stop another family suffering in the way she and Anders did. As the film goes on Anna strikes up a friendship with Helge, who works at the store where she purchased the Babycall, the two bond as both have trouble forging new relationships which in his case is to do with his past relationship with his severely ill mother. Anna and Helge's time together looks to being growing into something more however there are too many other things going on in her life such as Anders' behaviour becoming more erratic as well as the male social worker threatening to take her son away unless she performs sexual acts on him. Obviously as this has already been set out as a thriller there has to be a twist at the end of the film and for me at least I felt the final revelation, while not as out there as the one in Switch, spoilt the film as a whole.

Babycall's first half hour promises so much and after Anna purchased her monitor then started to hear other conversations I got ready to watch a Scandinavian take on Rear Window, Downstairs Monitor perhaps? Soon though there were too many plot elements to keep track off Anna's struggle to remember events, Helge's relationship with his mother, the slightly pervy social worker and Anders' mystery bruises all spoilt what I believed was a decent set-up. Babycall also suffers from a confusion of tone at times I feel I was watching a family drama at others a conspiracy thriller and sometimes a supernatural movie. Director Pål Sletaune does at least make everything a little bit moody and atmospheric in order to present our heroine as someone who doesn't always realise what's going on which in terms means that we can't always trust her. For her part Noomi Rapace is predictably brilliant really excelling at playing this fragile, abused single mother trying to do the best for her son but having increasing problems doing so thanks to all the men in her life. It's disappointing then that Babycall ends on such a sour note with Sletaune almost feeling forced to give us a finale that almost doesn't make sense in a way if you think about what came before it. After having watched both Switch and Babycall it has become obvious to me that these thrillers feel obliged to have some sort of twisty outcome but both suffered due to the ludicrous nature of these denouements. Switch though did have my interest throughout but I struggled to care about the finish of Babycall despite Rapace's best efforts ultimately this is a film that won't stick in the mind as long as the one I watched before it will.

Verdict: A good build-up is squandered with too many plot threads and an underwhelming final revelation however this film's saving grace is the wonderful Noomi Rapace so for that reason alone I can't give it a lower mark than 5.5/10

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