Very glad I made the unexpected trip. Entertaining little film about the elegant prostitutes of pre-war Japan, a more likeable and less generic Memoirs of a Geisha. It’s the story of Higurashi-oiran, the most senior of the girls in a brothel and her life leading there, which very much echoes Memoirs except that instead of everyone being genteel and stilted, they all talk like a bunch of thugs, u’ssai this and damare! that. Some wonderful costumes and vivid imagery, striking electric guitar and dirty jazz with the inimitable tones of Shiina Ringo over the top and pithy writing that may be stylised or utilise a lot of absurdity, as well as being extremely colloquial, but still manages to make itself seem more authentic than the cod-poeticism of Memoirs. Dragged a bit and lacked a strong story or anything to carry the long
film to the end, but ultimately was worthwhile and memorable.
Saturday, 30 April 2011
Sakuran
Very glad I made the unexpected trip. Entertaining little film about the elegant prostitutes of pre-war Japan, a more likeable and less generic Memoirs of a Geisha. It’s the story of Higurashi-oiran, the most senior of the girls in a brothel and her life leading there, which very much echoes Memoirs except that instead of everyone being genteel and stilted, they all talk like a bunch of thugs, u’ssai this and damare! that. Some wonderful costumes and vivid imagery, striking electric guitar and dirty jazz with the inimitable tones of Shiina Ringo over the top and pithy writing that may be stylised or utilise a lot of absurdity, as well as being extremely colloquial, but still manages to make itself seem more authentic than the cod-poeticism of Memoirs. Dragged a bit and lacked a strong story or anything to carry the long
film to the end, but ultimately was worthwhile and memorable.
film to the end, but ultimately was worthwhile and memorable.
Thursday, 28 April 2011
CJ7
Stephen Chow's follow-up to the epic Kung Fu Hustle, which I watched last time we were flying out to the Far East. It's a very odd film, a family movie about a father and son, dirt-poor in the amusingly exaggerated yet still sympathetic vein of a Charlie Bucket, who discover a little alien that looks like the lovechild of Chicken Little and Flubber. While it's nowhere near as amazing as Kung Fu Hustle, it has some truly amazing moments, and the fight between the big bully and the slightly overgrown 'little girl' was absolutely brilliance. There were some amusing references to Chow's other films, and I'm still reeling from learning that the film's main character, an archetypal and goofy little boy, was actually played by a girl!
I Am Legend
Will Smith largely on his own with some bad CG monsters. Smith does well with such an insipid script, and brings some real humanity to his role. Shame the film only prods at deeper questions about isolation and the human condition. Why WAS the dummy moved to where it was, though?
The Bucket List
Actually very low on the laughs, or on memorable moments full-stop. Not even close to as good as the overlooked Queen Latifah film I saw last time I was on a long-haul flight, Last Holiday. Some good moments and fine acting, but overall hollow and dull.
The Other Boleyn Girl
A cheesy romp dressed up as historical fact. Low on accuracy, high on smouldering and intrigue, with more than a little smut and the kind of strong women and weak men that actually detract from the empowerment of women by being so bloody patronising towards them. Again, though, a real feast for the eyes.
10,000 BC
An entertaining little epic that was great fun if you don't expect too much. Comic book dialogue and comic book plotting, with far too much being driven by convenient prophecies and coincidence, but some lovely visuals and costuming, and some sweet peripheral Hollywood cheese, like the friendship between two minor teenaged characters. Definitely don't look here for accuracy or cleverness, though: it didn't even have the sense of a real civilisation, the claustrophobia or the sense of prevailing against the odds Apocalypto managed.
Hancock
Finished watching the movie now, what seems like months after everyone else. Considering that when I first saw the posters I thought this was gonna be a biopic of Herbie Hancock, you can probably tell I didn’t hear very much about this movie, and went in knowing nothing more than that it was about a less-than-heroic superhero. So I was pleasantly surprised by how funny it is.
The unsuitable, antisocial yet awesomely powerful hero is nothing new. From Yojimbo to Wolverine, the idea has enduring popularity, and I feel sure Captain Jack Sparrow may have been influential in this film’s greenlighting too. It makes for a plot that writes itself, and allows for a spotlight on a flawed character, giving opportunities for redemption as well as the fun of a character abusing his power, not playing hero.
It could have been an annoying postmodern irony-fest along the lines of Buffy, but Will Smith makes Hancock so world-weary that his world completely works, and a single line about McDonalds simply makes all of Whedon’s pop culture references seem trite and unfunny (or, perhaps, even more so).
I think I’d’ve liked and respected this film a little more if it had stuck with the focus on the character and his growth, because introducing a key to his past and a nemesis was just far too obvious. They kept the story rolling, though, and allowed for some good setpieces and a satisfying ending. I feel it could have been a little better, but it was still good. Probably the best superhero film of the year…until Batman?
The unsuitable, antisocial yet awesomely powerful hero is nothing new. From Yojimbo to Wolverine, the idea has enduring popularity, and I feel sure Captain Jack Sparrow may have been influential in this film’s greenlighting too. It makes for a plot that writes itself, and allows for a spotlight on a flawed character, giving opportunities for redemption as well as the fun of a character abusing his power, not playing hero.
It could have been an annoying postmodern irony-fest along the lines of Buffy, but Will Smith makes Hancock so world-weary that his world completely works, and a single line about McDonalds simply makes all of Whedon’s pop culture references seem trite and unfunny (or, perhaps, even more so).
I think I’d’ve liked and respected this film a little more if it had stuck with the focus on the character and his growth, because introducing a key to his past and a nemesis was just far too obvious. They kept the story rolling, though, and allowed for some good setpieces and a satisfying ending. I feel it could have been a little better, but it was still good. Probably the best superhero film of the year…until Batman?
Batman: The Dark Knight
Although there’s grounds to criticise this film for being overlong and bloated, it’s worth it. Batman Begins was a good movie dragged down somewhat by a silly kung-fu prelude, but The Dark Knight benefits greatly from that groundwork and can get stuck into the premise: new golden-boy politician Harvey Dent and not-quite-Commissioner Gordon have a plan to clean up the streets of Gotham, cutting the funds of the mobsters by dismantling money-laundering operations. The mob fights back by hiring The Joker, whose bizarreness is legitimised because he mirrors the Batman.
Heath Ledger’s Joker, then, is most definitely at the centre of the story, and his performance would have been what endures from this film, irrespective of the actor’s death. And it’s a very powerful performance.
In a way, I wasn’t too happy with how the piece’s two main villains don’t have the dignity of their comics counterparts. The Joker is supremely confident and a master at planning, while Two-Face is a burly and chillingly emotionless thug whose obsession with duality is complex and developed. Here, The Joker is wild, as the tired pun goes. That said, it’s very interesting, how at first, his drawl and his habit of licking his scarred lips, along with his scrambling about letting himself look submissive and taking beatings, as well as his much darker sense of humour make him seem unthreatening, but then you see just how in control he really is, how he has been masterminding clever plots despite his distaste for people who make plans. Two-Face, on the other hand, is happily realistic and the way he’s tied into the story works well, but I do miss the cool, detached version of his character, and think it’s a shame that he won’t get more development. Thing with Batman, though, is we can go back to the previous franchise to get more straightforward character interpretations, but this new continuity allows for a different set of characterisations, and that’s welcome.
The Joker in particular definitely works as a mad dog with real brilliance, and a Joker who likes grand gestures but within the idiom of guerrilla tactics rather than one who, say, hijacks nuclear weapons or (guh…) becomes the UN ambassador for Iran is much more threatening and much more relevant for a 2008 cinema audience.
I won’t deny that the film meanders; it does. It has at least two too many false climaxes. Even Morgan Freeman can’t make technological plot contrivances cool, and Christian Bale’s growly voice grates a bit, while he doesn’t make nearly so comfortable a playboy as Robert Downey Jr did – not that his performance is bad, but The Batman definitely takes a lesser role here and has most of his scenes stolen by Michael Caine.
The usual blockbuster spectacle is very much in place, buildings blowing up and aerial escapes working thanks to a realistic response and dark presentation. The plot wasn’t staggering and will be easily forgotten, which is the main problem this film has, but it will be remembered for a long time thanks to Heath Ledger and his bravura showcase of his range and talent.
I actually enjoyed Hancock more, though.
Heath Ledger’s Joker, then, is most definitely at the centre of the story, and his performance would have been what endures from this film, irrespective of the actor’s death. And it’s a very powerful performance.
In a way, I wasn’t too happy with how the piece’s two main villains don’t have the dignity of their comics counterparts. The Joker is supremely confident and a master at planning, while Two-Face is a burly and chillingly emotionless thug whose obsession with duality is complex and developed. Here, The Joker is wild, as the tired pun goes. That said, it’s very interesting, how at first, his drawl and his habit of licking his scarred lips, along with his scrambling about letting himself look submissive and taking beatings, as well as his much darker sense of humour make him seem unthreatening, but then you see just how in control he really is, how he has been masterminding clever plots despite his distaste for people who make plans. Two-Face, on the other hand, is happily realistic and the way he’s tied into the story works well, but I do miss the cool, detached version of his character, and think it’s a shame that he won’t get more development. Thing with Batman, though, is we can go back to the previous franchise to get more straightforward character interpretations, but this new continuity allows for a different set of characterisations, and that’s welcome.
The Joker in particular definitely works as a mad dog with real brilliance, and a Joker who likes grand gestures but within the idiom of guerrilla tactics rather than one who, say, hijacks nuclear weapons or (guh…) becomes the UN ambassador for Iran is much more threatening and much more relevant for a 2008 cinema audience.
I won’t deny that the film meanders; it does. It has at least two too many false climaxes. Even Morgan Freeman can’t make technological plot contrivances cool, and Christian Bale’s growly voice grates a bit, while he doesn’t make nearly so comfortable a playboy as Robert Downey Jr did – not that his performance is bad, but The Batman definitely takes a lesser role here and has most of his scenes stolen by Michael Caine.
The usual blockbuster spectacle is very much in place, buildings blowing up and aerial escapes working thanks to a realistic response and dark presentation. The plot wasn’t staggering and will be easily forgotten, which is the main problem this film has, but it will be remembered for a long time thanks to Heath Ledger and his bravura showcase of his range and talent.
I actually enjoyed Hancock more, though.
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
Went to see The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, which was possibly the worst film I’ve ever seen in the cinema. It made The Da Vinci Code look sophisticated and masterful. Its trouble wasn’t its unoriginality, its story or its tongue-in-cheek humour, just its failure to do any of it at all well.
Pineapple Express
Met Aimee and Rikk to see Pineapple Express because Tropic Thunder was too expensive (Aimee wanted to go to Leicester Square despite my warnings about price because of the proximity to her work), and I’m glad we caught it because it was excellent fun. The first half in particular is great, with snappy, improvisational dialogue that perfectly encapsulates goofy stoners, and some of the random childlike silliness is just brilliant, doing for weed what Withnail & I did for booze.
While Withnail & I is a grim and believable British film, though, here we get an overblown American movie where perhaps something more down-to-earth would’ve been better. There’s a reason Clerks is more highly-regarded than Jay & Silent Bob. Realism is important, and while the premise here (stoner witnesses drugland killing and then gets hunted by hitmen) is believable, the way it unfurls gets really overblown while plot strands just get abandonded. If there’s a fault to the movie, it’s how it recourses to action movie clichés, which are amusingly sent up with ineptitude and character quirks, but which don’t really seem part of the same movie as those amusing conversations. It’s only this that keeps the film from being great rather than good. Definitely very funny, though. My only other complaint was that the girlfriend was just too pretty – made me think she was conning the main character somehow…
While Withnail & I is a grim and believable British film, though, here we get an overblown American movie where perhaps something more down-to-earth would’ve been better. There’s a reason Clerks is more highly-regarded than Jay & Silent Bob. Realism is important, and while the premise here (stoner witnesses drugland killing and then gets hunted by hitmen) is believable, the way it unfurls gets really overblown while plot strands just get abandonded. If there’s a fault to the movie, it’s how it recourses to action movie clichés, which are amusingly sent up with ineptitude and character quirks, but which don’t really seem part of the same movie as those amusing conversations. It’s only this that keeps the film from being great rather than good. Definitely very funny, though. My only other complaint was that the girlfriend was just too pretty – made me think she was conning the main character somehow…
Twilight
Twilight…was actually surprisingly good.
I fully expected it to be terrible. Indeed, I was hoping for ‘so bad it’s hilarious’. But I’m genuinely surprised that it was a good film. Not a great one, but certainly not a bad one, and rather better than the Harry Potter films, with which Twilight is often compared simply because of the wild successes of both book series.
I’ve read only excerpts of the novel and they all made me cringe. Terrible prose style, dialogue and characters’ thoughts totally one-dimensional, and some really excessive devotion between the characters. I first heard of the book a while back, when the readers’ community I belong to on LJ brought it up a few months after the first of the series came out, and they totally tore it apart, decrying the shallowness of the characters’ attraction to one another (she just loves him and his affection seems mostly based on ‘scent’), so I steered clear.
The film hasn’t made me want to get the books, but it was a pretty solid film. It was slow, but that allowed for a focus on the characters, making the central relationship quite believable, which was what I was expecting to fail. The peripheral characters were broad archetypes, but we were given just enough development, and the Cullen clan was actually pretty damn cool. The story was very obvious but had an acceptable resolution, while leaving plenty open for sequels. And…biggest surprise of all, Robert Pattinson seems to be a far better actor putting on an American accent. Actually, I should credit the director: she captured dialogue with a naturalistic touch: lots of mumbling, hesitation, stuttering et al, giving a layer of much-needed realism. Couple this with some interesting cross-cuts and short scenes that say just enough, and the direction is nice. The baseball game was stylish. The importance placed on a first kiss was also rather cute.
It’s not all good, though: there were a lot of problems. The main antagonist James is presented as powerful but actually poses almost no threat at all and could have been dealt with very easily. The wire work just doesn’t work: there’s no sense of weight, inertia or impact. The plot is quite lazy, really, with Bella conveniently being put in peril at just the right times and the main action part of the plot being paper-thin. It also plays into its audience’s fantasy of popularity by having everyone, and I do mean everyone, inexplicably loving Bella for very little reason. Boys ALL fall for her, for some reason she’s immune to psychics, any rudeness/rejection is quickly forgotten and generally she becomes the centre of attention and universally adored in a rather annoying way.
That said, I like Kristen Stewart, even though the lil’ tomboy of Panic Room is gone and a pretty young woman is there instead. I doubt I’ll watch this again, but I might give the sequels a go, especially if the cute Native American wolf-boy is given more of a role. Because – yay! – he was played by Shark Boy!
I fully expected it to be terrible. Indeed, I was hoping for ‘so bad it’s hilarious’. But I’m genuinely surprised that it was a good film. Not a great one, but certainly not a bad one, and rather better than the Harry Potter films, with which Twilight is often compared simply because of the wild successes of both book series.
I’ve read only excerpts of the novel and they all made me cringe. Terrible prose style, dialogue and characters’ thoughts totally one-dimensional, and some really excessive devotion between the characters. I first heard of the book a while back, when the readers’ community I belong to on LJ brought it up a few months after the first of the series came out, and they totally tore it apart, decrying the shallowness of the characters’ attraction to one another (she just loves him and his affection seems mostly based on ‘scent’), so I steered clear.
The film hasn’t made me want to get the books, but it was a pretty solid film. It was slow, but that allowed for a focus on the characters, making the central relationship quite believable, which was what I was expecting to fail. The peripheral characters were broad archetypes, but we were given just enough development, and the Cullen clan was actually pretty damn cool. The story was very obvious but had an acceptable resolution, while leaving plenty open for sequels. And…biggest surprise of all, Robert Pattinson seems to be a far better actor putting on an American accent. Actually, I should credit the director: she captured dialogue with a naturalistic touch: lots of mumbling, hesitation, stuttering et al, giving a layer of much-needed realism. Couple this with some interesting cross-cuts and short scenes that say just enough, and the direction is nice. The baseball game was stylish. The importance placed on a first kiss was also rather cute.
It’s not all good, though: there were a lot of problems. The main antagonist James is presented as powerful but actually poses almost no threat at all and could have been dealt with very easily. The wire work just doesn’t work: there’s no sense of weight, inertia or impact. The plot is quite lazy, really, with Bella conveniently being put in peril at just the right times and the main action part of the plot being paper-thin. It also plays into its audience’s fantasy of popularity by having everyone, and I do mean everyone, inexplicably loving Bella for very little reason. Boys ALL fall for her, for some reason she’s immune to psychics, any rudeness/rejection is quickly forgotten and generally she becomes the centre of attention and universally adored in a rather annoying way.
That said, I like Kristen Stewart, even though the lil’ tomboy of Panic Room is gone and a pretty young woman is there instead. I doubt I’ll watch this again, but I might give the sequels a go, especially if the cute Native American wolf-boy is given more of a role. Because – yay! – he was played by Shark Boy!
Watchmen
I was actually very pleased with the Watchmen adaptation.
It’s been a few years now since I read the graphic novel, and since then we’ve had a fair few adaptations of the less sophisticated end of the grown-up segment of the comics spectrum: Sin City, V for Vendetta, 300 et al.
But when I heard that the Watchmen adaptation was going ahead, I was sceptical. Terry Gilliam and Alan Moore agreed that it was ‘Unfilmable’ and all the subtleties of the comic’s mixed media and intensive levels of detail seemed impossible to cram into a couple of hours, especially when it was such a fun graphic novel to pore over.
And let’s face it, Alan Moore adaptations have never quite worked. From Hell was sloppy and little to do with its source. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was a fun romp but again very different from what Moore wrote. V for Vendetta was the best of the three, but forced the grey areas Moore so deftly defined into brutish black and white, and the political edge ground down just a little too much. No wonder Moore has chosen to distance himself from films.
Besides, Watchmen always stood alone. It was that much more clever, complex and complete. Zack Snyder may have made 300 magnificent, but it was very silly, and proud of its dumbness. I must say, I did not expect much.
Which is why the faithful, lengthy and admirably serious adaptation was a real pleasure. The film has suffered criticism for being too reverent, for keeping its camera overly still (nonsense; there are some beautiful shots here: just look at that pull back from the angel over the cemetery gates), for not fully developing its characters (I defy you to find so many well-developed characters in a comparable action film). But personally, reverence was exactly what I wanted, and I’m pleased to hear the mixed-media elements that couldn’t be crammed in will appear on the DVD.
And other than Ozymandias perhaps not quite going to seed enough, the cast was so perfect. Rorschach couldn’t have looked or sounded better, with or without mask. Even if the irony of his slightly rubbish costume couldn’t have translated to the screen without it just looking like the costumers had failed, Nite Owl was just right in terms of being a likeable, timid oaf of a man. Silk Spectre was the right mixture of girlish and irritating, while Dr. Manhattan…well, wow, Dr. Manhattan looked incredible and I’ve loved Billy Crudup’s voice since the Mononoke-Hime dub.
From that amazing opening montage with all the old guard (ahaha Hooded Justice is so awesome), to the trip to Antarctica, I loved it. Even the changes to the ending…well, I’m a bit divided on those. Honestly speaking, I was glad what was in the comic was changed, because it was always a bit rubbish. But…I’d’ve preferred the writers to have come up with something slightly more elegant to pin.
In the end, I think I loved it as a companion piece, rather than a replacement for, the graphic novel, but as adaptations of comics go, well, it really did make everything else pale somewhat.
It’s been a few years now since I read the graphic novel, and since then we’ve had a fair few adaptations of the less sophisticated end of the grown-up segment of the comics spectrum: Sin City, V for Vendetta, 300 et al.
But when I heard that the Watchmen adaptation was going ahead, I was sceptical. Terry Gilliam and Alan Moore agreed that it was ‘Unfilmable’ and all the subtleties of the comic’s mixed media and intensive levels of detail seemed impossible to cram into a couple of hours, especially when it was such a fun graphic novel to pore over.
And let’s face it, Alan Moore adaptations have never quite worked. From Hell was sloppy and little to do with its source. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was a fun romp but again very different from what Moore wrote. V for Vendetta was the best of the three, but forced the grey areas Moore so deftly defined into brutish black and white, and the political edge ground down just a little too much. No wonder Moore has chosen to distance himself from films.
Besides, Watchmen always stood alone. It was that much more clever, complex and complete. Zack Snyder may have made 300 magnificent, but it was very silly, and proud of its dumbness. I must say, I did not expect much.
Which is why the faithful, lengthy and admirably serious adaptation was a real pleasure. The film has suffered criticism for being too reverent, for keeping its camera overly still (nonsense; there are some beautiful shots here: just look at that pull back from the angel over the cemetery gates), for not fully developing its characters (I defy you to find so many well-developed characters in a comparable action film). But personally, reverence was exactly what I wanted, and I’m pleased to hear the mixed-media elements that couldn’t be crammed in will appear on the DVD.
And other than Ozymandias perhaps not quite going to seed enough, the cast was so perfect. Rorschach couldn’t have looked or sounded better, with or without mask. Even if the irony of his slightly rubbish costume couldn’t have translated to the screen without it just looking like the costumers had failed, Nite Owl was just right in terms of being a likeable, timid oaf of a man. Silk Spectre was the right mixture of girlish and irritating, while Dr. Manhattan…well, wow, Dr. Manhattan looked incredible and I’ve loved Billy Crudup’s voice since the Mononoke-Hime dub.
From that amazing opening montage with all the old guard (ahaha Hooded Justice is so awesome), to the trip to Antarctica, I loved it. Even the changes to the ending…well, I’m a bit divided on those. Honestly speaking, I was glad what was in the comic was changed, because it was always a bit rubbish. But…I’d’ve preferred the writers to have come up with something slightly more elegant to pin.
In the end, I think I loved it as a companion piece, rather than a replacement for, the graphic novel, but as adaptations of comics go, well, it really did make everything else pale somewhat.
Wolverine (some spoilers)
While I’m something of a fan of X-Men, I’m not of the school that execrates the movie adaptations. I see them as an alternate world, and am quite content with that. However, I haven’t especially liked the X-Men films so far. They’ve had great moments, but in terms of plot and tone have been somewhat lacking.
Wolverine, however, was a bit different. A little less campy, a little more gritty, and in fact somewhat truer to the comics. Of course changes are to be expected, both to keep in line with previous films (Stryker is antagonist again, remaining the military rather than clergyman, again overtones of Graydon Creed) and for the sake of the story of this film as it stood (Sabretooth and Wolvie’s relationship re-imagined), and honestly I don’t mind that at all. I also enjoyed the film’s various cameos, from cute mini-Cyclops and Emma Frost (and was that Quicksilver?) to Professor Xavier himself in an appearance so neat and pat that only a while after did I wonder why he hadn’t intervened instead of hiding at the sidelines. I liked how they dealt with the Team X members: Maverick got some great moments, the guy from Outkast did a good job as Kestrel, and interestingly enough The Blob fit in very well. The member they’ve cut was a muscle-man anyway, if I recall correctly. The addition of a machine-manipulator made sense in plot terms, although silly Rikk refused to believe me when I told him it was Dominic Monaghan.
The real surprise for me was that Deadpool was in the film. I mean, Deadpool! It just didn’t occur to me that he’d be in the movie, being part of a different Weapon X project from Logan, but it was so obvious when you think about it. Still, his presence was a miniature stroke of genius. Deadpool, smart mouth and all (though not, obviously, pop culture references and bizarre, very annoying awareness that he is a comic character). Although how he ended up was a bit questionable, especially if he’s gonna get his own movie, I did enjoy his presence very much.
By contrast, I really expected Gambit to be used more. He had some cool scenes, but he was pretty superfluous and lacking in character, and only got limited screentime. And despite Rikk’s spasms, he really lacked sex appeal.
A strong film adaptation of the Origins story, with some perfectly acceptable changes and lots for fans, it was that little bit more mature and impressive than the other films. Some poses and action setpieces were very cliche and the CG was really lacking in places, leading to very fake-looking claws and wounds that stayed static while the skin moved underneath them, but a comparatively strong plot, compelling characters and some beautiful shots made me very much enjoy the film. If there’s a sequel in Japan, or indeed if the First Class project reaches fruition, I will be interested to watch them, and the Magneto film too. The franchise is certainly getting stronger.
If only all the X-Men films had been this strong, and their tone this serious.
Wolverine, however, was a bit different. A little less campy, a little more gritty, and in fact somewhat truer to the comics. Of course changes are to be expected, both to keep in line with previous films (Stryker is antagonist again, remaining the military rather than clergyman, again overtones of Graydon Creed) and for the sake of the story of this film as it stood (Sabretooth and Wolvie’s relationship re-imagined), and honestly I don’t mind that at all. I also enjoyed the film’s various cameos, from cute mini-Cyclops and Emma Frost (and was that Quicksilver?) to Professor Xavier himself in an appearance so neat and pat that only a while after did I wonder why he hadn’t intervened instead of hiding at the sidelines. I liked how they dealt with the Team X members: Maverick got some great moments, the guy from Outkast did a good job as Kestrel, and interestingly enough The Blob fit in very well. The member they’ve cut was a muscle-man anyway, if I recall correctly. The addition of a machine-manipulator made sense in plot terms, although silly Rikk refused to believe me when I told him it was Dominic Monaghan.
The real surprise for me was that Deadpool was in the film. I mean, Deadpool! It just didn’t occur to me that he’d be in the movie, being part of a different Weapon X project from Logan, but it was so obvious when you think about it. Still, his presence was a miniature stroke of genius. Deadpool, smart mouth and all (though not, obviously, pop culture references and bizarre, very annoying awareness that he is a comic character). Although how he ended up was a bit questionable, especially if he’s gonna get his own movie, I did enjoy his presence very much.
By contrast, I really expected Gambit to be used more. He had some cool scenes, but he was pretty superfluous and lacking in character, and only got limited screentime. And despite Rikk’s spasms, he really lacked sex appeal.
A strong film adaptation of the Origins story, with some perfectly acceptable changes and lots for fans, it was that little bit more mature and impressive than the other films. Some poses and action setpieces were very cliche and the CG was really lacking in places, leading to very fake-looking claws and wounds that stayed static while the skin moved underneath them, but a comparatively strong plot, compelling characters and some beautiful shots made me very much enjoy the film. If there’s a sequel in Japan, or indeed if the First Class project reaches fruition, I will be interested to watch them, and the Magneto film too. The franchise is certainly getting stronger.
If only all the X-Men films had been this strong, and their tone this serious.
Angels and Demons (spoilers)
Bwahahaa, I’m an evil man plotting to take over the Catholic Church. I’m well-respected at a remarkably young age and might rise up the ranks to the top if I stick with it, but I have a far better plan! What I’ll do, right, now that I’ve secretly killed the Pope (not my father like in the book; much too complicated), is I’ll hire some guy to kidnap and murder four cardinals every hour leading up to midnight in a highly symbolic way suggesting the Illuminati are behind it. I’ll get an antimatter bomb from CERN and hide it. Then I’ll rely on other people to find it, go with them after mutilating myself to avoid suspicion, and heroically take the bomb up in a helicopter, parachuting down as it explodes. Having been convinced they’re at war, the cardinals will then of course instantly make me the new pope, guaranteed, because I’ll be a hero and a strong leader! What could possibly go wrong?
Actually, this didn’t annoy me nearly as much as The Da Vinci Code. The huge list of Brown’s glaring errors I once read ([http://www.dannyscl.net/2005/01/dan-brown-is-fraud-list-of-errors-in.html]) were carefully avoided, and while most of the plot was unnecessary, the real baddie was signposted from his first appearance (though I DID almost think even a double-bluff was beyond Brown) and the acting was horribly wooden, it was pretty to look at and pacey. Utter tripe, but nowhere near as painful as Brown’s novels.
Actually, this didn’t annoy me nearly as much as The Da Vinci Code. The huge list of Brown’s glaring errors I once read ([http://www.dannyscl.net/2005/01/dan-brown-is-fraud-list-of-errors-in.html]) were carefully avoided, and while most of the plot was unnecessary, the real baddie was signposted from his first appearance (though I DID almost think even a double-bluff was beyond Brown) and the acting was horribly wooden, it was pretty to look at and pacey. Utter tripe, but nowhere near as painful as Brown’s novels.
Star Trek
I finally got to see the new Star Trek film, although not in the iMAX. I think I was actually in a really good position to watch this film – I was never a great Star Trek fan as a child, but my brother loved it, so I’m very familiar with the characters. In other words, I’m the kind of fan who smiles as each character appears, knowing who they are immediately, and recognises references to canon like oft-parodied wheelchairs, but doesn’t get annoyed at things like Kirk not serving his time on a different ship, or get distracted by whether the owners of beagles ought to still be alive at this point in continuity. Good thing too, because I think that if I’d been more of a Trekkie, the screenwriter’s babbling in interviews about Quantum Mechanics, which he clearly doesn’t understand (I only know the most basic of basics, but I at least don’t take the Many Worlds Interpretation as somehow a well-supported, tested cornerstone of Quantum Theory as opposed to one of many interpretations) would likely have really rather annoyed me. As it is, I was able to smile at the familiar things from my childhood, made shinier, younger and rebooted with a new continuity, while barely pausing to wonder about how things had changed.
Star Trek tells the story of the first voyage of the USS Enterprise seen in The Original Series, and how its crew was first assembled. It focuses on the relationship between Kirk and Spock, how their chalk-and-cheese personalities can be reconciled in order to battle a Romulan threat to Vulcan, Earth and all Federation planets.
The film has been a remarkable success. The online fandom has increased hugely, with LiveJournal in particular flaring up with women who have become Trekkies because they were turned on by the new, young cast and want to write homoerotic fanfiction. The box office takings outstripped anything the old movies managed to generate, and finally, utterly bizarrely, Star Trek has become, almost paradoxically…quite cool.
With all this going for it, I thought I would love it. And much of it was pure pleasure. Kirk was more likeable when he’s too young and inexperienced to be that smug. Spock, although I did keep thinking of Sylar from Heroes, really couldn’t have been better-cast, and the quirky role was realised excellently. Chekhov was just hilarious, the right sort of believable comedy, and Sulu and Scotty worked fine in their roles. I was a little unsure about Uhura, who I felt needed a bit more of the original’s somewhat stiff dignity, although the scene in the elevator made sense to me: I loved how it seemed she was offering comfort, when really the one she was comforting was herself. Bones was well-cast and obviously studied DeForest Kelly’s mannerisms closely, but that was the trouble: it was obvious.
But I didn’t love it. I liked it. I enjoyed it, and would recommend it. But…I wouldn’t watch it again in the cinema. The problem was that there were just too many coincidences, too many shortcuts and pieces of lazy writing. So the exact person Kirk needs to meet just happens to be hanging out in an icy cave at just the right time? They happen to bump into each other not just on the same country, or even planet, but sector of the universe? And this character not only provides exposition but also compels to action and forces character development by providing a model to live up to? The time travel and sidestepping of totally accurate continuity by doing a reboot, that I don’t mind so much, but making just that become your thin, circular story?
Okay, it’s better than saving whales, but it’s no Wrath of Khan.
Star Trek tells the story of the first voyage of the USS Enterprise seen in The Original Series, and how its crew was first assembled. It focuses on the relationship between Kirk and Spock, how their chalk-and-cheese personalities can be reconciled in order to battle a Romulan threat to Vulcan, Earth and all Federation planets.
The film has been a remarkable success. The online fandom has increased hugely, with LiveJournal in particular flaring up with women who have become Trekkies because they were turned on by the new, young cast and want to write homoerotic fanfiction. The box office takings outstripped anything the old movies managed to generate, and finally, utterly bizarrely, Star Trek has become, almost paradoxically…quite cool.
With all this going for it, I thought I would love it. And much of it was pure pleasure. Kirk was more likeable when he’s too young and inexperienced to be that smug. Spock, although I did keep thinking of Sylar from Heroes, really couldn’t have been better-cast, and the quirky role was realised excellently. Chekhov was just hilarious, the right sort of believable comedy, and Sulu and Scotty worked fine in their roles. I was a little unsure about Uhura, who I felt needed a bit more of the original’s somewhat stiff dignity, although the scene in the elevator made sense to me: I loved how it seemed she was offering comfort, when really the one she was comforting was herself. Bones was well-cast and obviously studied DeForest Kelly’s mannerisms closely, but that was the trouble: it was obvious.
But I didn’t love it. I liked it. I enjoyed it, and would recommend it. But…I wouldn’t watch it again in the cinema. The problem was that there were just too many coincidences, too many shortcuts and pieces of lazy writing. So the exact person Kirk needs to meet just happens to be hanging out in an icy cave at just the right time? They happen to bump into each other not just on the same country, or even planet, but sector of the universe? And this character not only provides exposition but also compels to action and forces character development by providing a model to live up to? The time travel and sidestepping of totally accurate continuity by doing a reboot, that I don’t mind so much, but making just that become your thin, circular story?
Okay, it’s better than saving whales, but it’s no Wrath of Khan.
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
I have to be honest. I liked Twilight more. I find it very unlikely that Twilight is a better book, and certainly won’t believe it’s the better series, but I actually preferred the film to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. HP6 was by no means the worst of the Potter films - I seriously doubt we’ll get a worse film than Chamber of Secrets in the franchise, but book six was amongst the worst, and many of the parts that redeemed it slightly were absent. While the kids playing Tom Riddle were probably the best child actors in the series and outshone the performances of the stars by very, very large margins, sadly Voldemort’s history was reduced to just a couple of scenes, with no insight into how his family life affected him. Gone were all the flashback scenes with Snape and the Marauders that brought shades of grey to backstories, scenes I didn’t realise added so much to the overall plot until they were gone. Those scenes would’ve actually given some weight to the title, here rendered next to meaningless. The end part, where Hogwarts is compromised, which of anything ought to have been the part that was stretched out, giving the film a strong climax, was rushed, so that powerful Death Eaters make it into the heart of the enemy’s stronghold, get in an extremely strong position where they could kidnap and murder whoever they pleased…and then do nothing by watch Snape do what he has to do, perform some petty vandalism and bugger off. There was no sense of them being forced to retreat or any reason not to kidnap Harry, making their presence in Hogwarts somewhat arbitrary. The fact Harry wasn’t petrified also significantly changed the dynamic.
And for what? This was a very long film, so why was the ending rushed? What was so important to make room for that meant Marvolo, the Ministry and Harry’s special lessons with Snape had to be cut? Well, I’m sorry to say…nothing that strikes me as having been wisely-chosen. A new scene was added where the Weasleys’ house gets randomly attacked, the Death Eaters’ motives highly questionable, wasting their element of surprise and the strong position they have for…well, the sake of posing, apparently. Apart from that, it was all the soap opera crap that made the last two books such tedium and made Nessie gleefully announce she was going to see ‘the rom com of the year’. Hermione acting like a hypocrite and total drama queen (phone guy behind us did make us giggle when he saw her killing conjured-up birds and mumbling, ‘She’s a murderer…!’, Harry being insufferably awkward and wooden, Ron being extraneous and Ginny looking bored to be in the film at all. While it was merciful that protracted parts of the book like the Quidditch story with the luck potion, Slughorn’s little club and the question of who takes who to a party were dealt with briskly, all of them together made for a middle act that sagged horribly, with no driving impetus or actual motivation for Harry’s actions beyond ‘try to get a memory from Slughorn’.
I am a fan of Jim Broadbent and few actors have deserved the Oscar they got more than he did for Iris, but he was just too likeable and sympathetic as Slughorn. Too bad Richard Griffiths had already been cast as Uncle Vernon, because I imagine Slughorn as almost exactly like Monty in Withnail and I. Broadbent is just not repulsive!
One complaint persists from the last film, too, which is really a problem with Rowling’s plotlines. In Goblet of Fire, Voldemort returns to life and glory, killing mercilessly. The Dark Lord has returned, and will bring death and destruction to the Wizarding World. He then proceeds to spend a year…causing so few problems that almost no-one believes he’s back, picking on a few stray randomers and trying to get hold of a prophecy. And what does he do the year after that? Bugger all! Sends his minions to turn the Millennium Bridge into some very bad CG and trashes an alley full of shops. Then at the very end of the year manages to arrange for a powerful wizard to be killed.
He’s a dark lord with an army of powerful and merciless soldiers – why does he piddle about doing almost nothing for two entire years so that Harry can get giggly about girls? Ugh. Well, I suppose I do have to remember that the core audience for the books was teenaged girls and young women, almost exclusively by the time book six came out. It’s not surprising the focus shifted to relationships and school drama. But that doesn’t mean I like it.
So yeah, I was disappointed by the story, by the adaptation, by the acting, by the pacing and even by the effects. That said, there was one rather splendid fire effect towards the end…but unfortunately it was a little marred by how unavoidable it was to think that Gandalf and Gollum were making cameo appearances.
And for what? This was a very long film, so why was the ending rushed? What was so important to make room for that meant Marvolo, the Ministry and Harry’s special lessons with Snape had to be cut? Well, I’m sorry to say…nothing that strikes me as having been wisely-chosen. A new scene was added where the Weasleys’ house gets randomly attacked, the Death Eaters’ motives highly questionable, wasting their element of surprise and the strong position they have for…well, the sake of posing, apparently. Apart from that, it was all the soap opera crap that made the last two books such tedium and made Nessie gleefully announce she was going to see ‘the rom com of the year’. Hermione acting like a hypocrite and total drama queen (phone guy behind us did make us giggle when he saw her killing conjured-up birds and mumbling, ‘She’s a murderer…!’, Harry being insufferably awkward and wooden, Ron being extraneous and Ginny looking bored to be in the film at all. While it was merciful that protracted parts of the book like the Quidditch story with the luck potion, Slughorn’s little club and the question of who takes who to a party were dealt with briskly, all of them together made for a middle act that sagged horribly, with no driving impetus or actual motivation for Harry’s actions beyond ‘try to get a memory from Slughorn’.
I am a fan of Jim Broadbent and few actors have deserved the Oscar they got more than he did for Iris, but he was just too likeable and sympathetic as Slughorn. Too bad Richard Griffiths had already been cast as Uncle Vernon, because I imagine Slughorn as almost exactly like Monty in Withnail and I. Broadbent is just not repulsive!
One complaint persists from the last film, too, which is really a problem with Rowling’s plotlines. In Goblet of Fire, Voldemort returns to life and glory, killing mercilessly. The Dark Lord has returned, and will bring death and destruction to the Wizarding World. He then proceeds to spend a year…causing so few problems that almost no-one believes he’s back, picking on a few stray randomers and trying to get hold of a prophecy. And what does he do the year after that? Bugger all! Sends his minions to turn the Millennium Bridge into some very bad CG and trashes an alley full of shops. Then at the very end of the year manages to arrange for a powerful wizard to be killed.
He’s a dark lord with an army of powerful and merciless soldiers – why does he piddle about doing almost nothing for two entire years so that Harry can get giggly about girls? Ugh. Well, I suppose I do have to remember that the core audience for the books was teenaged girls and young women, almost exclusively by the time book six came out. It’s not surprising the focus shifted to relationships and school drama. But that doesn’t mean I like it.
So yeah, I was disappointed by the story, by the adaptation, by the acting, by the pacing and even by the effects. That said, there was one rather splendid fire effect towards the end…but unfortunately it was a little marred by how unavoidable it was to think that Gandalf and Gollum were making cameo appearances.
Dorian Gray
I have to confess that it has been a decade or so since I read The Picture of Dorian Gray, and that was while unwisely swallowing all of Wilde’s works at once, minus what poems I didn’t read as an antidote to the density and blame-shifting that permeates De Profundis. So while I went on to write a dissertation on his self-presentation and consider myself a great admirer of his works, I found that I didn’t recall every detail of Wilde’s only published novel.
Pleasing, then, that in many ways this adaptation was much more faithful than I had predicted, in the structure and plot if not tone or characterisation. There were major changes, of course, but I had expected an adaptation with very little in common with its source. This relative loyalty did not, however, stop this from being a very poor film, neither so ridiculous that it was hilarious to watch, nor good enough to be enjoyed in its own right.
The Picture of Dorian Gray has never been an easy work to adapt. As a novel, it has never been very good. Essentially, three aspects of Wilde (identified by him as his young and pretty would-be self (Dorian), the way the world saw him (Wotton) and the way he really saw himself (Basil)) stand in a room and in that mannered Wildean way, exchange quips from different moral standpoints. Over this pseudo-naturalistic framework is laid a rather contrived gothic supernatural scenario that, along with the homicidal drama that follows from it, never sits well with the rest. Wilde never managed to mesh the high melodrama of Salomé with the bright wittiness of his other plays, and Dorian Gray was the uneasy result. The high drama never has the build-up or fall-out it requires.
The trailer of this new version made it clear that the gothic elements would be highlighted, Wilde reimagined for the Twilight generation. Not such a bad idea, I thought – if done well. Unfortunately, that meant either caution had to be thrown to the wind and the cleverness of the original ejected, leaving an exuberant mess, or it had to be far subtler than the trailer suggested, with such fresh and snappy one-liners as ‘If I told you, I’d have to kill you.’
Well, there is certainly no subtlety here. Cliché abounds in painful amounts. Want to make a character more sympathetic? Chuck in some child abuse flashbacks! Despite establishing them as being bred for Victorian society and conversation, you want to show them as naïve? Well, put their bow ties on in such an exaggeratedly lopsided way that it looks like mirrors haven’t been invented! Homoerotic tension? Screw that – nothing says debauchery like actual gay kisses. And you know what? Nothing makes a serious film like high-speed trains that can appear out of nowhere, apparently making no noise in the tunnels, and chances to say last words to mangled bodies!
But while these would be gleefully funny in a bad film, obviously working with some very intelligent source material is going to elevate things just a little. Colin Firth’s performance as Henry Wotton, while his character is simplified somewhat, is excellent, reflecting the character’s ingeniously manipulative but cowardly mind, and the kid from Prince Caspian made a good Dorian, attractive and believable both as ingénue and as a monster in an ill-fitting body. Solid acting in supporting roles, impressive aging makeup, beautiful mise-en-scène and some of Wilde’s best witticisms brought the film up just enough for the hopeless parts to disappoint rather than amuse.
Films about the Victorian era after all thrive on subtlety and the importance of appearance. That’s the central point of the novel. To drown a mannered drama in simplified comic book depictions of opium dens, hedonistic parties and brothels destroys all charm and elegance, and saturated in 2009’s trends, this adaptation will date very, very quickly.
Credit where it is due, though – in one respect the film improved on its source drastically. Arguing about having a child, rather than that patronising conceit about an actress losing all her talent because she is in love? Much better.
Pleasing, then, that in many ways this adaptation was much more faithful than I had predicted, in the structure and plot if not tone or characterisation. There were major changes, of course, but I had expected an adaptation with very little in common with its source. This relative loyalty did not, however, stop this from being a very poor film, neither so ridiculous that it was hilarious to watch, nor good enough to be enjoyed in its own right.
The Picture of Dorian Gray has never been an easy work to adapt. As a novel, it has never been very good. Essentially, three aspects of Wilde (identified by him as his young and pretty would-be self (Dorian), the way the world saw him (Wotton) and the way he really saw himself (Basil)) stand in a room and in that mannered Wildean way, exchange quips from different moral standpoints. Over this pseudo-naturalistic framework is laid a rather contrived gothic supernatural scenario that, along with the homicidal drama that follows from it, never sits well with the rest. Wilde never managed to mesh the high melodrama of Salomé with the bright wittiness of his other plays, and Dorian Gray was the uneasy result. The high drama never has the build-up or fall-out it requires.
The trailer of this new version made it clear that the gothic elements would be highlighted, Wilde reimagined for the Twilight generation. Not such a bad idea, I thought – if done well. Unfortunately, that meant either caution had to be thrown to the wind and the cleverness of the original ejected, leaving an exuberant mess, or it had to be far subtler than the trailer suggested, with such fresh and snappy one-liners as ‘If I told you, I’d have to kill you.’
Well, there is certainly no subtlety here. Cliché abounds in painful amounts. Want to make a character more sympathetic? Chuck in some child abuse flashbacks! Despite establishing them as being bred for Victorian society and conversation, you want to show them as naïve? Well, put their bow ties on in such an exaggeratedly lopsided way that it looks like mirrors haven’t been invented! Homoerotic tension? Screw that – nothing says debauchery like actual gay kisses. And you know what? Nothing makes a serious film like high-speed trains that can appear out of nowhere, apparently making no noise in the tunnels, and chances to say last words to mangled bodies!
But while these would be gleefully funny in a bad film, obviously working with some very intelligent source material is going to elevate things just a little. Colin Firth’s performance as Henry Wotton, while his character is simplified somewhat, is excellent, reflecting the character’s ingeniously manipulative but cowardly mind, and the kid from Prince Caspian made a good Dorian, attractive and believable both as ingénue and as a monster in an ill-fitting body. Solid acting in supporting roles, impressive aging makeup, beautiful mise-en-scène and some of Wilde’s best witticisms brought the film up just enough for the hopeless parts to disappoint rather than amuse.
Films about the Victorian era after all thrive on subtlety and the importance of appearance. That’s the central point of the novel. To drown a mannered drama in simplified comic book depictions of opium dens, hedonistic parties and brothels destroys all charm and elegance, and saturated in 2009’s trends, this adaptation will date very, very quickly.
Credit where it is due, though – in one respect the film improved on its source drastically. Arguing about having a child, rather than that patronising conceit about an actress losing all her talent because she is in love? Much better.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
I was excited to see this film. I tend to love Terry Gilliam films, especially those in recent years where visual effects have actually come close to being able to match his mad visions, and while The Brothers Grimm was a disappointment, the trailers and posters for this film gave me hopes for a real return to form. (I have yet to see Tideland.)
The critical reception of the film has been very mixed. A lot of reviews have criticised the sloppy plot and Ledger’s performance, although I suspect that at least some of those reviewers were damning in large part because Ledger’s death made them feel obliged to be charitable, and they railed against that.
Indeed, I rather wish I could have seen the film blind. Without knowing that the original script would not have had Tony transforming every time he goes through the mirror, without knowing that the mysterious outsider character was played by a man who is now dead and venerated, and that those representing his other selves (all three remarkably resembling him when given the right hair and makeup, even Jude Law) were friends and colleagues, that Gilliam was resurrecting a film whose leading star had passed away during filming after a legacy of disasters ruining his works. It was distracting to look at Lily Cole kissing Colin Farrell and to wonder what must be going through her mind, after spending time on a filmset with a man, no doubt becoming his friend, and now months later, knowing he is dead and performing a stage kiss with someone else entirely dressed up in the same clothes, made to resemble him.
All those things I wish weren’t in my mind when watching the film. They weren’t huge distractions, but the politics certainly got in the way of the art in this case, and even if such hooks can introduce a film to a wider audience, I like the New Critical ideal, even if I know it is next to impossible in a personal viewing to see only the art, not the artist.
Anyway, happily, I rather liked the story. I have read complaints about the plot, but I think it works neatly – a man has struck a deal with the Devil for immortality, and played games with him for centuries, but now he is very old and his stories go largely ignored, and the Devil is coming to take that which he was promised for the gift of eternal life: old Doctor Parnassus’ daughter, who will be his once she turns sixteen. The doctor’s stage mirror, leading into a world reflecting the psyches of those who enter, in which they are given a choice between the road of virtue and that of the devil, has lately given him a string of failures, but the man with no memory, met by chance, may just bring change.
If I’m honest, I’m of the opinion that simply seeing the sight of a ninety-foot Russian woman pulling off her mechanical head to reveal that she is being driven by Tom Waits gives anyone their money’s worth. And there are numerous examples of dazzling Gilliam visions here: those wonderful balloons with Christopher Plummer’s face all around them, the exquisite detail on the miniature of the monks’ carved cliff-face temple, even the simple beauty of location, be it a fairground in front of Tower Bridge or an empty building site, captured in strange sharpness with Gilliam’s trademark short-lens, deep-focus style, bucking the current trend of DOF so shallow ears often blur.
Not everything was necessary. We got the idea that the Brit hoi-polloi was an unpleasant lot fairly soon. Making deeply politically incorrect jokes about Verne Troyer got old very fast, and even if he was perhaps the most respectable character, there wasn’t really any need for him and some jokes just weren’t funny. Tony’s past was a little convoluted, with both the loan sharks and the disgrace of child trafficking or whatever it was revealed in the final vision (it slipped by in one line), and yes, Ledger’s accent was all over the place, and although it was better than it was in Brother’s Grimm, I must say that I don’t think Gilliam gets the best out of him: Batman was a finer swansong.
On the other hand, the change into other actors works, almost to the point where it seems integral to the plot, and it’s true that Depp and Ledger, made up right, look remarkably similar (it’s always amusing to think that Gilliam wanted to bring the two together onscreen for Grimm, but Bob Weinstein told him Depp wasn’t famous enough and got Matt Damon in instead – only for Pirates of the Caribbean to make Depp a megastar months later), the old patriarchs are wonderful to watch, Lily Cole (who I failed to spot around Cambridge last year as she did remarkably well in her first year) has a strange beauty to her, and Gilliam gets to put his flights of fancy in believable contexts.
Not Gilliams best, not up there with The Fisher King, Time Bandits, Fear and Loathing et al, but superb nonetheless.
The critical reception of the film has been very mixed. A lot of reviews have criticised the sloppy plot and Ledger’s performance, although I suspect that at least some of those reviewers were damning in large part because Ledger’s death made them feel obliged to be charitable, and they railed against that.
Indeed, I rather wish I could have seen the film blind. Without knowing that the original script would not have had Tony transforming every time he goes through the mirror, without knowing that the mysterious outsider character was played by a man who is now dead and venerated, and that those representing his other selves (all three remarkably resembling him when given the right hair and makeup, even Jude Law) were friends and colleagues, that Gilliam was resurrecting a film whose leading star had passed away during filming after a legacy of disasters ruining his works. It was distracting to look at Lily Cole kissing Colin Farrell and to wonder what must be going through her mind, after spending time on a filmset with a man, no doubt becoming his friend, and now months later, knowing he is dead and performing a stage kiss with someone else entirely dressed up in the same clothes, made to resemble him.
All those things I wish weren’t in my mind when watching the film. They weren’t huge distractions, but the politics certainly got in the way of the art in this case, and even if such hooks can introduce a film to a wider audience, I like the New Critical ideal, even if I know it is next to impossible in a personal viewing to see only the art, not the artist.
Anyway, happily, I rather liked the story. I have read complaints about the plot, but I think it works neatly – a man has struck a deal with the Devil for immortality, and played games with him for centuries, but now he is very old and his stories go largely ignored, and the Devil is coming to take that which he was promised for the gift of eternal life: old Doctor Parnassus’ daughter, who will be his once she turns sixteen. The doctor’s stage mirror, leading into a world reflecting the psyches of those who enter, in which they are given a choice between the road of virtue and that of the devil, has lately given him a string of failures, but the man with no memory, met by chance, may just bring change.
If I’m honest, I’m of the opinion that simply seeing the sight of a ninety-foot Russian woman pulling off her mechanical head to reveal that she is being driven by Tom Waits gives anyone their money’s worth. And there are numerous examples of dazzling Gilliam visions here: those wonderful balloons with Christopher Plummer’s face all around them, the exquisite detail on the miniature of the monks’ carved cliff-face temple, even the simple beauty of location, be it a fairground in front of Tower Bridge or an empty building site, captured in strange sharpness with Gilliam’s trademark short-lens, deep-focus style, bucking the current trend of DOF so shallow ears often blur.
Not everything was necessary. We got the idea that the Brit hoi-polloi was an unpleasant lot fairly soon. Making deeply politically incorrect jokes about Verne Troyer got old very fast, and even if he was perhaps the most respectable character, there wasn’t really any need for him and some jokes just weren’t funny. Tony’s past was a little convoluted, with both the loan sharks and the disgrace of child trafficking or whatever it was revealed in the final vision (it slipped by in one line), and yes, Ledger’s accent was all over the place, and although it was better than it was in Brother’s Grimm, I must say that I don’t think Gilliam gets the best out of him: Batman was a finer swansong.
On the other hand, the change into other actors works, almost to the point where it seems integral to the plot, and it’s true that Depp and Ledger, made up right, look remarkably similar (it’s always amusing to think that Gilliam wanted to bring the two together onscreen for Grimm, but Bob Weinstein told him Depp wasn’t famous enough and got Matt Damon in instead – only for Pirates of the Caribbean to make Depp a megastar months later), the old patriarchs are wonderful to watch, Lily Cole (who I failed to spot around Cambridge last year as she did remarkably well in her first year) has a strange beauty to her, and Gilliam gets to put his flights of fancy in believable contexts.
Not Gilliams best, not up there with The Fisher King, Time Bandits, Fear and Loathing et al, but superb nonetheless.
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
To the cinema today to see Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Apprentice. We knew it would be dismal, but sadly it wasn’t charming enough to be a giggle. We really should’ve gone to see 500 Days of Summer or even Fantastic Mr Fox. The Vampire’s Apprentice made Vampire Knight look like a masterpiece. Hell, it made Twilight look sleek and well-written.
I’m not ignorant of Darren Shan’s books, upon which the film was based. I first heard of him on my online reading communities, where I was somewhat impressed to hear that Shan often churns out two books a year, while still getting inordinately high sales. When I heard that the books were to be adapted to a manga, I was surprised, for that is very unusual for an occidental book, so checked out the first few chapters of the first of them.
My god, was it terrible. In the ugliest prose I have ever seen in print, Shan tried to sound hip and rebelliously creepy with his main character’s love of spiders, and the dialogue was a constant assault on actual speech and decent characterisation. I gave up after the kids watched the freak show, convinced that the book was appalling and should be avoided at all costs. When the manga appeared online, I gave it a chance, and while it was marginally less terrible without all the sins of prose, it still had to struggle with a genuinely awful premise, uninteresting and uneven main characters and I abandoned it after Darren goes back for Crepsley’s help. And then came a Hollywood film.
Well, in spite of how poor the Twilight book seems to be, the film was not that bad. People like to hate it, and sure, there are huge flaws with its plot, depiction of vampires and conception of romance, but it was well-put-together, largely well-acted and had impressive action. This may have been the same. It wasn’t. It made me wish for New Moon.
I hate plots driven by a vague prophecy, here about young leaders of two-dimensional vampire factions. I hate exposition sequences that make the protagonist popular but then never back it up. I hate character traits stuck on only for plot advancement. I hate when we’re supposed to believe two boys who would have fallen out a thousand times thanks to wildly different characters could be best friends. I hate when respected actors like John C. Reilly and Willem Dafoe ham it up too much and only look like cocks (although the guy playing Mr Tiny was fey and disgusting enough to pull it off), and when Salma Hayek does exactly the same performance AGAIN. I hate when a poster airbrushes a good-looking main character to look like plastic. I hate when we’re supposed to believe a character has developed and overcome a prejudice because they get horny. I hate emotional shallowness and stories where we’re led to expect global warfare but see scuffles between kids. Yeah. Didn’t get a good impression here.
Weitz brothers, after screwing Philip Pullman over, and now this, stay well away from Young Adult fantasy books.
I’m not ignorant of Darren Shan’s books, upon which the film was based. I first heard of him on my online reading communities, where I was somewhat impressed to hear that Shan often churns out two books a year, while still getting inordinately high sales. When I heard that the books were to be adapted to a manga, I was surprised, for that is very unusual for an occidental book, so checked out the first few chapters of the first of them.
My god, was it terrible. In the ugliest prose I have ever seen in print, Shan tried to sound hip and rebelliously creepy with his main character’s love of spiders, and the dialogue was a constant assault on actual speech and decent characterisation. I gave up after the kids watched the freak show, convinced that the book was appalling and should be avoided at all costs. When the manga appeared online, I gave it a chance, and while it was marginally less terrible without all the sins of prose, it still had to struggle with a genuinely awful premise, uninteresting and uneven main characters and I abandoned it after Darren goes back for Crepsley’s help. And then came a Hollywood film.
Well, in spite of how poor the Twilight book seems to be, the film was not that bad. People like to hate it, and sure, there are huge flaws with its plot, depiction of vampires and conception of romance, but it was well-put-together, largely well-acted and had impressive action. This may have been the same. It wasn’t. It made me wish for New Moon.
I hate plots driven by a vague prophecy, here about young leaders of two-dimensional vampire factions. I hate exposition sequences that make the protagonist popular but then never back it up. I hate character traits stuck on only for plot advancement. I hate when we’re supposed to believe two boys who would have fallen out a thousand times thanks to wildly different characters could be best friends. I hate when respected actors like John C. Reilly and Willem Dafoe ham it up too much and only look like cocks (although the guy playing Mr Tiny was fey and disgusting enough to pull it off), and when Salma Hayek does exactly the same performance AGAIN. I hate when a poster airbrushes a good-looking main character to look like plastic. I hate when we’re supposed to believe a character has developed and overcome a prejudice because they get horny. I hate emotional shallowness and stories where we’re led to expect global warfare but see scuffles between kids. Yeah. Didn’t get a good impression here.
Weitz brothers, after screwing Philip Pullman over, and now this, stay well away from Young Adult fantasy books.
Twilight: New Moon
Now, I actually quite liked Twilight. It was a deeply mediocre film, but I was expecting a dire one, so was pleasantly surprised that, for me, it just staggered over the line separating good from bad. It was a slow-burning love story about an ordinary girl falling for a rather uninteresting but handsome vampire who I could just about accept was eternally 17 rather than an old man. A contrived, lazily-plotted and open-ended climax in which a very artificial problem was set up followed, which could have been sorted out far more easily than it was, but the pacing carried it through. Besides, I had something of a fondness for the cast, as Bella was played by Kristen Stewart, who was so adorable in Panic Room that I actually put myself through Catch That Kid, although thought it would doom her career (instead it’ll likely come back to haunt it), and tickled by the fact that Shark Boy Taylor Lautner made an appearance.
So I was actually open to New Moon. I know that Stephanie Meyer is a terrible, terrible writer. I know that the first film succeeded on style and had no substance at all. But hey, werewolves are cool, and Lautner’s role had expanded.
However, while New Moon in summary works far better than Twilight, and at its best is far better than anything in its predecessor, this is not a good film. In fact, it’s pretty horrible – badly written, performed and produced.
Bella, loving Edward as Juliet loved Romeo (a comparison driven home with a sledgehammer), wants to become a vampire. Fair enough. They’ve got awesome powers and live forever. Edward won’t let her be one, for horribly flimsy reasons such as her immortal soul. When one of the Cullens almost harms the weak human, the whole clan has a hissy fit, leaving town. Edward unconvincingly dumps his dearest love, it never occurring to him that the other vampires from the last film can easily kill her. Luckily, they are oh-so-coincidentally not the only monsters in town.
The film swings wildly between interesting character development and horrible boredom. For every scene where you think Jacob is a well-written, likeable and interesting character, you get the awful tedium of stupid dreams, hallucinations, depression and graceless directorial decisions that make you roll your eyes, like a cut between thrown pizza slice and caught wrench, or a horrible show-off shot where a camera circles, showing a different month outside a window with every pass. Clever, but this isn’t a film for the director to show off like this, especially sapping pace.
Bella is much, much less likeable here, too. In the first film, there was the irksome suggestion that everyone loves her by default, being gorgeous and sassy yet also still bookish and rude, but overall I didn’t hate her. I do now. She never apologises, even after slapping someone without good reason, or falsely accusing a person of murder. An awful Mary Sue power is given to her for no reason (at least Gakuen Alice is cute enough to carry off an identical conceit and contextualises it better), even though it contradicts an earlier scene were Jasper affects her mood. And the Cullens look stupid in this film, like they fell over face-first in a baker’s and got smacked about with the rolling pins.
There’s more awful lazy plotting with motives given by psychic powers, and it’s unforgivable how an interesting relationship is just totally abandoned, how it turns out that the major antagonist, Victoria, ends up doing nothing in the film but running about and sometimes floating. Edward wants to kill himself, and presumably he can’t just get werewolves to rip him apart because of inexplicable treaties, so goes to the powerful Volturi. If he wanted to die, he could’ve just slapped one of ’em, but no, he has to be a drama queen with a ridiculous plan that would surely make more people think he was an angel than a vampire. Afterwards it seems like the elder vampires would have spared him anyway. I quite like the Volturi, though, pasty and sinister and in one case, rumbly. Impressive imagery here.
But Meyer’s world just seems so poorly-thought-through. As with so many long-lived creatures in badly-conceived novels, it seems nothing interesting happens to any vampires until Bella arrives. Vampires and werewolves would clearly have full-scale wars and there’s never any good reason for either group to hide themselves. The Cullen world view would obviously have asserted itself many centuries before, and vampires would just feed on animals.
In the end, then, the most enjoyable thing about seeing New Moon is getting to read Dan Bergstein’s wonderfully sarcastic, silly blog he wrote as he read it, which also lets me see some of Meyer’s howlers that didn’t make it to the film, like offering an Italian a bribe of a $1,000 bill (Lira? 50p?) or a powerful vampire whose ability is to…see relationships. He had some problems I didn’t, for example, I thought the Volturi were influential enough that if the Cullens tried to do anything to save innocent tourists, a whole lot more people other than Edward and Alice would suffer (that said, the film didn’t have Bella getting all lovey-dovey right outside the door) but the man is hilarious.
Really, though, the major crime of this film is building up a plot with Jacob and then just dropping it for a far, far less interesting, rushed and illogical story about Edward. Why anyone would think that Edward is appealing after all his lying, whining, neglect, smugness and hypocritical recourse to violence I do not get. Jacob, on the other hand, despite hinted-at anger management issues, is a good person. Stuck in an imagined world full of insufferable morons.
So I was actually open to New Moon. I know that Stephanie Meyer is a terrible, terrible writer. I know that the first film succeeded on style and had no substance at all. But hey, werewolves are cool, and Lautner’s role had expanded.
However, while New Moon in summary works far better than Twilight, and at its best is far better than anything in its predecessor, this is not a good film. In fact, it’s pretty horrible – badly written, performed and produced.
Bella, loving Edward as Juliet loved Romeo (a comparison driven home with a sledgehammer), wants to become a vampire. Fair enough. They’ve got awesome powers and live forever. Edward won’t let her be one, for horribly flimsy reasons such as her immortal soul. When one of the Cullens almost harms the weak human, the whole clan has a hissy fit, leaving town. Edward unconvincingly dumps his dearest love, it never occurring to him that the other vampires from the last film can easily kill her. Luckily, they are oh-so-coincidentally not the only monsters in town.
The film swings wildly between interesting character development and horrible boredom. For every scene where you think Jacob is a well-written, likeable and interesting character, you get the awful tedium of stupid dreams, hallucinations, depression and graceless directorial decisions that make you roll your eyes, like a cut between thrown pizza slice and caught wrench, or a horrible show-off shot where a camera circles, showing a different month outside a window with every pass. Clever, but this isn’t a film for the director to show off like this, especially sapping pace.
Bella is much, much less likeable here, too. In the first film, there was the irksome suggestion that everyone loves her by default, being gorgeous and sassy yet also still bookish and rude, but overall I didn’t hate her. I do now. She never apologises, even after slapping someone without good reason, or falsely accusing a person of murder. An awful Mary Sue power is given to her for no reason (at least Gakuen Alice is cute enough to carry off an identical conceit and contextualises it better), even though it contradicts an earlier scene were Jasper affects her mood. And the Cullens look stupid in this film, like they fell over face-first in a baker’s and got smacked about with the rolling pins.
There’s more awful lazy plotting with motives given by psychic powers, and it’s unforgivable how an interesting relationship is just totally abandoned, how it turns out that the major antagonist, Victoria, ends up doing nothing in the film but running about and sometimes floating. Edward wants to kill himself, and presumably he can’t just get werewolves to rip him apart because of inexplicable treaties, so goes to the powerful Volturi. If he wanted to die, he could’ve just slapped one of ’em, but no, he has to be a drama queen with a ridiculous plan that would surely make more people think he was an angel than a vampire. Afterwards it seems like the elder vampires would have spared him anyway. I quite like the Volturi, though, pasty and sinister and in one case, rumbly. Impressive imagery here.
But Meyer’s world just seems so poorly-thought-through. As with so many long-lived creatures in badly-conceived novels, it seems nothing interesting happens to any vampires until Bella arrives. Vampires and werewolves would clearly have full-scale wars and there’s never any good reason for either group to hide themselves. The Cullen world view would obviously have asserted itself many centuries before, and vampires would just feed on animals.
In the end, then, the most enjoyable thing about seeing New Moon is getting to read Dan Bergstein’s wonderfully sarcastic, silly blog he wrote as he read it, which also lets me see some of Meyer’s howlers that didn’t make it to the film, like offering an Italian a bribe of a $1,000 bill (Lira? 50p?) or a powerful vampire whose ability is to…see relationships. He had some problems I didn’t, for example, I thought the Volturi were influential enough that if the Cullens tried to do anything to save innocent tourists, a whole lot more people other than Edward and Alice would suffer (that said, the film didn’t have Bella getting all lovey-dovey right outside the door) but the man is hilarious.
Really, though, the major crime of this film is building up a plot with Jacob and then just dropping it for a far, far less interesting, rushed and illogical story about Edward. Why anyone would think that Edward is appealing after all his lying, whining, neglect, smugness and hypocritical recourse to violence I do not get. Jacob, on the other hand, despite hinted-at anger management issues, is a good person. Stuck in an imagined world full of insufferable morons.
Where the Wild Things Are
I never read the book of Where the Wild Things Are. I didn’t even think I’d heard of the book before, until I saw a picture of the cover tonight and recognised the artwork. But the trailers for this film looked interesting, and there was a very positive online reaction to it when it came out in the States a couple of months ago, so was pleased to see it.
And I enjoyed it quite a lot! The story is simple and the characters engaging and multi-faceted, but what makes it a success is its melancholy mood, the way that every time there is an uplifting part, it is so run-through with the inevitability of collapse, conflict and heartache that its fragility is a beautiful, ephemeral thing.
This was, as is becoming increasingly well-known, not marketed to children, but to a crowd of young adult hipsters. Wise decision, because that’s the audience it needs. Even though, quite brilliantly, Max is a very real little boy, with all the strangeness and selfishness and destructiveness that entails, kids will likely for the most part be bewildered and unimpressed by the glib, sarcastic, blasé dialogue of most of the Wild Things.
I found myself feeling quite affectionate to it all. I liked the grimness of its tone, the arty direction and the total rejection of all the usual boardroom-approved staples of movies based on kids’ books. On the other hand, my cousin seemed to find it dull and disliked the indifferent attitudes of some characters, while affection for seeing a kid grow and mature obviously isn’t something that stays after you raise some yourself, for my mum found nothing to like at all about bratty Max, with no sympathy for his home situation. She, after all, has to deal with patients like that daily…
And I enjoyed it quite a lot! The story is simple and the characters engaging and multi-faceted, but what makes it a success is its melancholy mood, the way that every time there is an uplifting part, it is so run-through with the inevitability of collapse, conflict and heartache that its fragility is a beautiful, ephemeral thing.
This was, as is becoming increasingly well-known, not marketed to children, but to a crowd of young adult hipsters. Wise decision, because that’s the audience it needs. Even though, quite brilliantly, Max is a very real little boy, with all the strangeness and selfishness and destructiveness that entails, kids will likely for the most part be bewildered and unimpressed by the glib, sarcastic, blasé dialogue of most of the Wild Things.
I found myself feeling quite affectionate to it all. I liked the grimness of its tone, the arty direction and the total rejection of all the usual boardroom-approved staples of movies based on kids’ books. On the other hand, my cousin seemed to find it dull and disliked the indifferent attitudes of some characters, while affection for seeing a kid grow and mature obviously isn’t something that stays after you raise some yourself, for my mum found nothing to like at all about bratty Max, with no sympathy for his home situation. She, after all, has to deal with patients like that daily…
Avatar
Well, I’m pleased to report that I liked this film far more than I expected to. I didn’t rave about it afterwards like the people I went with, or the group of friends we bumped into coming out of the previous screening, but I was entertained for the full, lengthy running time, and though I don’t think I’d watch it again soon, I would in a year or so.
Certainly, it exceeded my expectations. Was it utterly plotless? Well, no. Was it extremely formulaic and, as South Park suggested, totally derivative of Dances with Wolves? Yes, and Fern Gulley already ripped it off in a fantasy setting, but I have to say that the angle of existing in two bodies at once, two different, conflicting worlds, gave it an extra angle interesting enough to carry the unoriginality. Was the CGI really not the great leap forward claimed, ending up looking, unfortunately for what may be the world’s most expensive film to date, like a very long game cutscene? Well, yes and no. There’s no way this will still look good in twenty years. It’s very much of its time, and while CGI gets better and better, it’s still a long way from perfect. On the other hand, it’s good enough that after a little while immersed in the world, it’s believable to the point of not being noticeable, and many of the fantastical locations are extremely beautiful. It’s at the very least a visual treat, and the 3D worked well, adding just enough to be helpful, while being non-essential. That said, the technology still isn’t perfect, glasses darkening the screen a lot and catching bright lights, refracting them too much and causing glare.
So yes, this is a very beautiful film, with a tried-and-tested plot, and also safe, functional characters and great action scenes. I had very few problems with the plot, and the main issue I had, the fact that with the element of surprise the main character could clearly have just flown onto the main ships and used his grenades in the engines first, was a problem only with the realization of the scene, as the script itself covered the point with a line about ‘unching a hole’ that just didn’t seem necessary on-screen. I could forgive the fact that most of it hinged on little jellyfish-seeds being in the right place at the right time, because we had to believe in mysterious powers for the narrative to cohere. It had enough action, pace and sympathetic characters to sustain itself for its running time, and worked just fine as a blockbuster.
What did make me uncomfortable with it, on the other hand, was the spectre of racial tensions and issues that hung over it all. In many ways, it was White Liberal Guilt: the Movie. Oh, we feel terrible about conquering and destroying other cultures. Oh, we feel bad about our society’s loss of spirituality. Oh, we must condemn the greed of Western consumerism. And so here we will put in a ‘Mighty Whitey’ character that ticks all the TV Tropes boxes, rely on hokey power-of-the-planet contrivances and generally let everything turn out nicely for a great leader who would more likely be killed by many, many angry people blaming him for the loss of loved ones.
Apparently sequels are in the works. It will be interesting to see how the story develops, because all I can really see happening is the greedy super-rich who want the MacGuffin nuking the whole place.
Certainly, it exceeded my expectations. Was it utterly plotless? Well, no. Was it extremely formulaic and, as South Park suggested, totally derivative of Dances with Wolves? Yes, and Fern Gulley already ripped it off in a fantasy setting, but I have to say that the angle of existing in two bodies at once, two different, conflicting worlds, gave it an extra angle interesting enough to carry the unoriginality. Was the CGI really not the great leap forward claimed, ending up looking, unfortunately for what may be the world’s most expensive film to date, like a very long game cutscene? Well, yes and no. There’s no way this will still look good in twenty years. It’s very much of its time, and while CGI gets better and better, it’s still a long way from perfect. On the other hand, it’s good enough that after a little while immersed in the world, it’s believable to the point of not being noticeable, and many of the fantastical locations are extremely beautiful. It’s at the very least a visual treat, and the 3D worked well, adding just enough to be helpful, while being non-essential. That said, the technology still isn’t perfect, glasses darkening the screen a lot and catching bright lights, refracting them too much and causing glare.
So yes, this is a very beautiful film, with a tried-and-tested plot, and also safe, functional characters and great action scenes. I had very few problems with the plot, and the main issue I had, the fact that with the element of surprise the main character could clearly have just flown onto the main ships and used his grenades in the engines first, was a problem only with the realization of the scene, as the script itself covered the point with a line about ‘unching a hole’ that just didn’t seem necessary on-screen. I could forgive the fact that most of it hinged on little jellyfish-seeds being in the right place at the right time, because we had to believe in mysterious powers for the narrative to cohere. It had enough action, pace and sympathetic characters to sustain itself for its running time, and worked just fine as a blockbuster.
What did make me uncomfortable with it, on the other hand, was the spectre of racial tensions and issues that hung over it all. In many ways, it was White Liberal Guilt: the Movie. Oh, we feel terrible about conquering and destroying other cultures. Oh, we feel bad about our society’s loss of spirituality. Oh, we must condemn the greed of Western consumerism. And so here we will put in a ‘Mighty Whitey’ character that ticks all the TV Tropes boxes, rely on hokey power-of-the-planet contrivances and generally let everything turn out nicely for a great leader who would more likely be killed by many, many angry people blaming him for the loss of loved ones.
Apparently sequels are in the works. It will be interesting to see how the story develops, because all I can really see happening is the greedy super-rich who want the MacGuffin nuking the whole place.
Guy Richie's Sherlock Holmes
he latest film adaptation of Conan Doyle’s classic characters has, unsurprisingly for a Guy Richie film, dispensed with deerstalkers and magnifying glasses, cool, aloof logic and ‘cat-like’ cleanliness in favour of a Holmes who is an extremely capable and vicious fighter, a decadent, dandy sort of eccentric who lets the organised chaos of his room extend to his life and hygiene, and almost makes it seem that Holmes is in imitation of House, rather than the other way around. Still, the re-imagining was a good one for the current cinema-going audience, the visuals were sublime, with lovely recreations of familiar streets as they were a century ago, and the characters are likeable. The plot was slightly too ropey and reliant on coincidence, but overall, it was well worth seeing.
Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland
I didn’t quite know what to expect from this film. I am a fan of Burton’s films, he being one of four quirky directors who work in (and around) the mainstream and put fantastical imagery I adore up on the screen and whose names bring me promptly to the cinema – the others being Terry Gilliam, Guillermo Del Toro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Promotional images from the film showed a very strange aesthetic – heads too big for bodies, neck-less round bodies and mad-looking makeup. Burton and his main box-office pull Johnny Depp went on Jonathan Ross to talk about how Pirates of the Caribbean opened a lot of doors, and came across as likeable, personable and somewhat mad. I held off going to see it for a few weeks so that I could go with the family, and still I went to the cinema without knowing much of what I was to see.
While there was much to like about the film, it wasn’t what I would call great. I did not dislike it, but it was certainly not a visionary piece of genius, and nor could it move me. There was no depth to it, and while there was spectacle, comedy and some excellent casting – I particularly liked Stephen Fry embracing his creepy side as the Cheshire Cat, and the way Anne Hathaway (who’s come a long way since her days of dubbing Ghibli films!) played the white queen as graceful and floaty only until she got distracted – but the whole thing was lazily plotted, surprisingly unoriginal and had none of the charm of even the Disney animation, let alone the book.
And it was the Disney version this built upon, this being after all billed with the old ‘Walt Disney presents’ prefix: Tweedledum and Tweedledee appearing without Alice ever having gone Through the Looking Glass, no Mock Turtle or Duchess to be found etc. The story is something of a ‘Return to Wonderland’ (if Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There were not already filling that position), with an older, adult Alice going back to the world she visited in her childhood (‘You’d think she’d remember all this’), soon to discover that she has to fulfil that staple of lazy plotting, a prophecy.
Like the other aforementioned directors, Burton is at his best when his flights of fancy are anchored by some realism. It can be quirky realism, but there needs to be convincing normality to contrast the insanity with. The father’s tall stories are coupled with the young son’s cynicism, the mischievous poltergeist comes into the lives of an ordinary family and the man with scissors for hands attempts to fit into ordinary, if somewhat distorted, suburbia. Here, the framing of Alice’s life as a misfit in Victorian society just didn’t cut it. The writers just couldn’t do convincing Victorian dialogue and peppered the lines with grammar so anachronistic it seemed almost to be making a statement, and I’m not just talking about not getting subjunctives right. It was all so exaggerated and impossible that it didn’t provide a believable base for the rest to build upon. Beyond that, I didn’t quite get how Alice resisting following the prophecy, but eventually realizing she must comply and bowing to the inevitability of her fate somehow translates to her in the real world coming to understand she did not have to do what she’s supposedly fated to.
And I think this film will be remembered as very much of its time, aimed at a generation that needs everything on screen to be an epic fight. Disliking the idea of a whimsical journey through Wonderland, Burton, like Gilliam before him, brings in the Jabberwocky poem to try and make an epic of swords and dragons. And like Gilliam, who at least had the excuse of inexperience and low budget, he makes a bit of a mess. Is there really a need to have well-loved children’s characters brawling with swords and hat-pins? What’s next, Winnie the Pooh leading the charge against frumious war-heffalumps? Sure, Alice looks great in a suit of fitted armour, but is it really necessary to have a big battle scene to bring a film to a climax?
I still liked this film more than I disliked it. It was lovely to look at, and the combination of live-action and animation was impressive, especially on Helena Bonham-Carter, whose Red Queen, despite my reservations, was actually marvellous – the character design just doesn’t translate too well to a poster. Matt Lucas as Tweedledum and Tweedledee was a joy, and I never though Barbara Windsor would sound so cute. Johnny Depp was fine as a supporting character, but wasn’t anything too remarkable, and Alan Rickman really needs to come up with a slight variation to his drawl for different characters. The 3D was slightly underwhelming but undeniably the whole thing was a feast for the eyes.
In short, it was worth seeing as a little juvenile variation on the Alice mythos. It contained strong performances and impressive action sequences, and at least one visual innovation, the consistent distortion of actors’ bodies. But this Wonderland was curiously lacking in wonderment, emotional impact or compelling story.
While there was much to like about the film, it wasn’t what I would call great. I did not dislike it, but it was certainly not a visionary piece of genius, and nor could it move me. There was no depth to it, and while there was spectacle, comedy and some excellent casting – I particularly liked Stephen Fry embracing his creepy side as the Cheshire Cat, and the way Anne Hathaway (who’s come a long way since her days of dubbing Ghibli films!) played the white queen as graceful and floaty only until she got distracted – but the whole thing was lazily plotted, surprisingly unoriginal and had none of the charm of even the Disney animation, let alone the book.
And it was the Disney version this built upon, this being after all billed with the old ‘Walt Disney presents’ prefix: Tweedledum and Tweedledee appearing without Alice ever having gone Through the Looking Glass, no Mock Turtle or Duchess to be found etc. The story is something of a ‘Return to Wonderland’ (if Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There were not already filling that position), with an older, adult Alice going back to the world she visited in her childhood (‘You’d think she’d remember all this’), soon to discover that she has to fulfil that staple of lazy plotting, a prophecy.
Like the other aforementioned directors, Burton is at his best when his flights of fancy are anchored by some realism. It can be quirky realism, but there needs to be convincing normality to contrast the insanity with. The father’s tall stories are coupled with the young son’s cynicism, the mischievous poltergeist comes into the lives of an ordinary family and the man with scissors for hands attempts to fit into ordinary, if somewhat distorted, suburbia. Here, the framing of Alice’s life as a misfit in Victorian society just didn’t cut it. The writers just couldn’t do convincing Victorian dialogue and peppered the lines with grammar so anachronistic it seemed almost to be making a statement, and I’m not just talking about not getting subjunctives right. It was all so exaggerated and impossible that it didn’t provide a believable base for the rest to build upon. Beyond that, I didn’t quite get how Alice resisting following the prophecy, but eventually realizing she must comply and bowing to the inevitability of her fate somehow translates to her in the real world coming to understand she did not have to do what she’s supposedly fated to.
And I think this film will be remembered as very much of its time, aimed at a generation that needs everything on screen to be an epic fight. Disliking the idea of a whimsical journey through Wonderland, Burton, like Gilliam before him, brings in the Jabberwocky poem to try and make an epic of swords and dragons. And like Gilliam, who at least had the excuse of inexperience and low budget, he makes a bit of a mess. Is there really a need to have well-loved children’s characters brawling with swords and hat-pins? What’s next, Winnie the Pooh leading the charge against frumious war-heffalumps? Sure, Alice looks great in a suit of fitted armour, but is it really necessary to have a big battle scene to bring a film to a climax?
I still liked this film more than I disliked it. It was lovely to look at, and the combination of live-action and animation was impressive, especially on Helena Bonham-Carter, whose Red Queen, despite my reservations, was actually marvellous – the character design just doesn’t translate too well to a poster. Matt Lucas as Tweedledum and Tweedledee was a joy, and I never though Barbara Windsor would sound so cute. Johnny Depp was fine as a supporting character, but wasn’t anything too remarkable, and Alan Rickman really needs to come up with a slight variation to his drawl for different characters. The 3D was slightly underwhelming but undeniably the whole thing was a feast for the eyes.
In short, it was worth seeing as a little juvenile variation on the Alice mythos. It contained strong performances and impressive action sequences, and at least one visual innovation, the consistent distortion of actors’ bodies. But this Wonderland was curiously lacking in wonderment, emotional impact or compelling story.
Cemetery Junction
Went to see Cemetery Junction, purely because my schoolfriend Bee is in it, playing a character very much like herself, sweet and childlike and somewhat awkward. Really pleased she’s getting that sort of success, and hope she’ll get bigger and bigger roles! The film itself was surprisingly good, my favourite thing that Ricky Gervais has done. Centred on three friends in a very grim version of 1970s Reading, it opposed different ideas: solid factory work and soulless big business, freedom and responsibility, violence and self-sacrifice. And I was impressed that it didn’t just conclude that running away and being a rebel was the way to be happy: sometimes you have to stop and take responsibility for your situation, and support those who love you. Just not if they’re really horrible.
Twilight: Eclipse
Honestly, despite all the hatred for them online, I don’t particularly mind seeing a Twilight film. The reason I couldn’t tolerate reading one of the books is that the prose and dialogue is so unfathomably terrible – but the films are expensively-made and nicely-shot, so the style of the writing doesn’t affect it. The screenplay goes through several drafts from professionals and, likely, committees, so the more laughable and badly-paced parts of the novels get excised or streamlined. There are usually inadvertently funny parts, and perhaps even some advertently funny ones. And whatever criticism and hatred they get from the cruel and spiteful internet, I like the main actors. I think I say this every time I see a film, but I’ve been interested in Kristen Stewart since she was in Panic Room (and even watched her in the dire Catch That Kid when I thought she’d be forever obscure), I loved Taylor Lautner in the surreal Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3D, and having read him expressive harsh disapproval for his character and for Stephanie Meyer in interviews, I’ve even started to like Robert Pattinson.
And it’s become really fun to read Dan Bergstein’s silly blogs on Spark Notes, picking apart each book chapter-by-chapter. His opinions are usually so close to mine that he really makes me laugh, and his quotes always remind me why I don’t want to actually put myself through reading these books. Through his detailed dissections, too, I can see the most ludicrous parts of the novels that don’t make it to the screen, like when some background werewolf character decides he’s fallen in love (only in a deeper, werewolfy-soulmatey way) with a two-year-old. Uh…huh.
Anyway, Eclipse begins soon after the end of New Moon. Bella has unceremoniously dropped the likeable if short-tempered werewolf Jacob to be with melodramatic, posturing and manipulative vampire Edward. This love triangle continues in this film, while the uninteresting evil vampire from the first film sets up a big scrap to provide some action, but let’s face it, what’s central to these films is always the soap opera. The first film was a long love story, with a pointless scrap tacked on. The second was another love story completely undermined by a very artificial crisis. This one was no different: it was a love triangle, smoulderinig away, with a very low-stakes battle added at the end for the sake of a semblance of a plot, all strung together yet again by some lame plot contrivances: psychic predictions, total lies about newborns being strong (actually fodder who can’t kill a single enemy) and a weak and pointless enemy with a masterplan that must have been written in crayon, and who was dispatched with great ease.
You watch Twilight for the relationships, and I actually found myself quite interested in this one. Until Eclipse, I was convinced Meyer was a bit bizarre and thought Edward was perfect, flawless and acting in a wonderful manner that would make her swoon. But with Eclipse, I became convinced she was setting Bella up for a revelation and a new maturity.
Competition for Edward means his flaws are exposed, and she really pushes them to the fore, and it seems to me she is using the aspects of vampires that are repulsive – obsession, stalking, belonging to another world and another time – and using them to create a character Bella will finally see is being abusive. He actually disables her truck to stop her seeing the guy he’s jealous of. He forbids her seeing werewolves because they’re dangerous, but doesn’t keep her away from Jasper, who actively tried to kill her. He gets possessive to the point of locking her up against her will, but doesn’t mention how he knowingly dumped her and left her exposed to the vampires hunting her in the last film, just as a huge overreaction to Jasper’s attack. I honestly thought that the whole film was showing Bella how terrible this relationship was. I thought her scene with Jacob after the really random night in the tent (which could easily have been in some house) was not only showing Bella her blind love was clearly falling apart, but showing old-fashioned Edward that his idealized romance was forever tainted.
Turned out I was wrong, and love, even deeply unhealthy love, transcends all barriers. It isn’t a meditation on the idiocies of immature teen love, but as its detractors say, pushes forward a warped idea of what love should be.
Yet…even fans of Twilight who can somehow ignore the most ridiculous parts and the awful, awful writing clearly aren’t all buying that this relationship is perfect. The existence of a ‘Team Jacob’ suggests a sizeable portion of readers at least were hoping for Edward to get dumped. On the other hand, I don’t really understand loving the books but hating Bella. The only real possibilities for the guys to be happy is for her to be happy.
I think the next book is the last one, or there may be some side-story thing. I have heard some pretty screwed-up things will happen, and I’m assuming the Volturi will be the ultimate antagonists, despite in this film being rather lame, looking good but sounding like their intelligence network is pathetic and being laughably inconsistent by proving their oh-so-evilness by prefixing a kill with ‘The Volturi do not give second chances!’…before giving Edward another chance to turn Bella…after having given them both second chances in the last film…oh well.
And it’s become really fun to read Dan Bergstein’s silly blogs on Spark Notes, picking apart each book chapter-by-chapter. His opinions are usually so close to mine that he really makes me laugh, and his quotes always remind me why I don’t want to actually put myself through reading these books. Through his detailed dissections, too, I can see the most ludicrous parts of the novels that don’t make it to the screen, like when some background werewolf character decides he’s fallen in love (only in a deeper, werewolfy-soulmatey way) with a two-year-old. Uh…huh.
Anyway, Eclipse begins soon after the end of New Moon. Bella has unceremoniously dropped the likeable if short-tempered werewolf Jacob to be with melodramatic, posturing and manipulative vampire Edward. This love triangle continues in this film, while the uninteresting evil vampire from the first film sets up a big scrap to provide some action, but let’s face it, what’s central to these films is always the soap opera. The first film was a long love story, with a pointless scrap tacked on. The second was another love story completely undermined by a very artificial crisis. This one was no different: it was a love triangle, smoulderinig away, with a very low-stakes battle added at the end for the sake of a semblance of a plot, all strung together yet again by some lame plot contrivances: psychic predictions, total lies about newborns being strong (actually fodder who can’t kill a single enemy) and a weak and pointless enemy with a masterplan that must have been written in crayon, and who was dispatched with great ease.
You watch Twilight for the relationships, and I actually found myself quite interested in this one. Until Eclipse, I was convinced Meyer was a bit bizarre and thought Edward was perfect, flawless and acting in a wonderful manner that would make her swoon. But with Eclipse, I became convinced she was setting Bella up for a revelation and a new maturity.
Competition for Edward means his flaws are exposed, and she really pushes them to the fore, and it seems to me she is using the aspects of vampires that are repulsive – obsession, stalking, belonging to another world and another time – and using them to create a character Bella will finally see is being abusive. He actually disables her truck to stop her seeing the guy he’s jealous of. He forbids her seeing werewolves because they’re dangerous, but doesn’t keep her away from Jasper, who actively tried to kill her. He gets possessive to the point of locking her up against her will, but doesn’t mention how he knowingly dumped her and left her exposed to the vampires hunting her in the last film, just as a huge overreaction to Jasper’s attack. I honestly thought that the whole film was showing Bella how terrible this relationship was. I thought her scene with Jacob after the really random night in the tent (which could easily have been in some house) was not only showing Bella her blind love was clearly falling apart, but showing old-fashioned Edward that his idealized romance was forever tainted.
Turned out I was wrong, and love, even deeply unhealthy love, transcends all barriers. It isn’t a meditation on the idiocies of immature teen love, but as its detractors say, pushes forward a warped idea of what love should be.
Yet…even fans of Twilight who can somehow ignore the most ridiculous parts and the awful, awful writing clearly aren’t all buying that this relationship is perfect. The existence of a ‘Team Jacob’ suggests a sizeable portion of readers at least were hoping for Edward to get dumped. On the other hand, I don’t really understand loving the books but hating Bella. The only real possibilities for the guys to be happy is for her to be happy.
I think the next book is the last one, or there may be some side-story thing. I have heard some pretty screwed-up things will happen, and I’m assuming the Volturi will be the ultimate antagonists, despite in this film being rather lame, looking good but sounding like their intelligence network is pathetic and being laughably inconsistent by proving their oh-so-evilness by prefixing a kill with ‘The Volturi do not give second chances!’…before giving Edward another chance to turn Bella…after having given them both second chances in the last film…oh well.
Karate Kid 'Remake'
In the end, we didn’t have much choice. The Scott Pilgrim premiere actually blocked us from the only cinema in the entire West End actually showing The Last Airbender, so we went to see the new The Karate Kid, which I’ve been wanting to go to for a while. Good decision, most likely, for I’m already almost sure it was the much better film.
Yes, the film should have been called The Kung-Fu Kid, as it was during production, but I do understand the decision, as it will undoubtedly make more money with the erroneous title than it would with the accurate one – pandering to the lowest common denominators while that may be, is that not what Hollywood does?
The story was very typical, but it after all needed to retain its 80s heart. The humour was good, thankfully not relying for more than a few moments on references to the original. What made the film very enjoyable was its characters, and it was carried by a superb performance from the utterly adorable Riley Freeman...no, Chibi Will Smith...no, Jaden Smith, who looks even more like Dad than in The Pursuit of Happyness and as expected from that early promise, has become an extremely capable young actor – as well as impressively accomplished in showing his martial arts. He’s incredibly cute and also not afraid to make a fool out of himself onscreen. I hope he has great success.
(And looking like Riley for the film and Huey in the credits didn’t hurt at all, either).
I have to say, though, it is a sweet companion piece to the original, rather than a remake, and nothing like as sincere or powerful. It’s lighter, and cuter, but not nearly so moving. And there are three major changes made that really bring problems with them. Firstly, Shao Dre is so much younger than Daniel-san: unlike some critics I have no problem with his hormones or his desire to compete, both of which are strong at 12, but it does make the tournament unbelievable. Someone would get up there and go ‘This is a tournament for 12-year-olds. They are trying to break limbs. This has to stop.’ Then there’s the fact it’s set in China. Two corollaries here: first, this makes Han’s anonymity bizarre. Sure, a Japanese immigrant can be a hidden karate master, but Han trained and must have made a name for himself, yet nobody knows him. It also, despite a non-white lead, makes for a typical Mighty Whitey story, where the outsider goes into a foreign country and within a short while is better at things they have done their whole lives.
Despite that, though, strong performances, neatly-sketched characters and sheer cuteness made this a winner.
Chicken, home, and proved I’m a nutter by starting work on my X-blade already! This mostly involved sawing…ick!
Yes, the film should have been called The Kung-Fu Kid, as it was during production, but I do understand the decision, as it will undoubtedly make more money with the erroneous title than it would with the accurate one – pandering to the lowest common denominators while that may be, is that not what Hollywood does?
The story was very typical, but it after all needed to retain its 80s heart. The humour was good, thankfully not relying for more than a few moments on references to the original. What made the film very enjoyable was its characters, and it was carried by a superb performance from the utterly adorable Riley Freeman...no, Chibi Will Smith...no, Jaden Smith, who looks even more like Dad than in The Pursuit of Happyness and as expected from that early promise, has become an extremely capable young actor – as well as impressively accomplished in showing his martial arts. He’s incredibly cute and also not afraid to make a fool out of himself onscreen. I hope he has great success.
(And looking like Riley for the film and Huey in the credits didn’t hurt at all, either).
I have to say, though, it is a sweet companion piece to the original, rather than a remake, and nothing like as sincere or powerful. It’s lighter, and cuter, but not nearly so moving. And there are three major changes made that really bring problems with them. Firstly, Shao Dre is so much younger than Daniel-san: unlike some critics I have no problem with his hormones or his desire to compete, both of which are strong at 12, but it does make the tournament unbelievable. Someone would get up there and go ‘This is a tournament for 12-year-olds. They are trying to break limbs. This has to stop.’ Then there’s the fact it’s set in China. Two corollaries here: first, this makes Han’s anonymity bizarre. Sure, a Japanese immigrant can be a hidden karate master, but Han trained and must have made a name for himself, yet nobody knows him. It also, despite a non-white lead, makes for a typical Mighty Whitey story, where the outsider goes into a foreign country and within a short while is better at things they have done their whole lives.
Despite that, though, strong performances, neatly-sketched characters and sheer cuteness made this a winner.
Chicken, home, and proved I’m a nutter by starting work on my X-blade already! This mostly involved sawing…ick!
(500) Days of Summer
My little excursion to my uni, which I only in fact go to a handful of times a year, being a part-time distance learner, finished with the first of the film society's screenings, for which they chose (500) Days of Summer, a sleeper indie hit from last year. It cost only a £1 suggested donation to RAG, and was adorable Joseph Gordon-Levett's return to the public eye, so I thought, 'Why not?' A quirky but dark-edged romantic comedy sounded good.
But the film was at best a little above average. Worth seeing, but I find myself with a sour taste in my mouth, and not just because of one of the cheesiest pieces of closing dialogue of any film ever. It was just overall quite irritating.
The trouble was that it didn't seem to have an original idea in it. It was one of an increasingly irritating batch of pseudo-arthouse films, I think deriving from Amelie (where it was just about pulled off) in which the exposition is very quirky: multiple layers of reality, pastiche, words appearing in the air and jumpy chronology. These films then settle into being utterly conventional, throwing in token bits of oddness later as if abruptly remembered, to masquerade as something artsy. This film at least throws in surreal pastiches, but all its flourishes have been done better elsewhere. There have been better sequences of a guy getting some and the next day breaking into a big choreographed dance number to express happiness. There have been better send-ups of French noir films and Bergman. We've seen little kids as inappropriate sources of wisdom and vulgarity. We've seen films that have non-linear narratives juxtapose opposite lines from the same character. It all felt so tired. The one thing I'll probably remember from this is the characters playing about in an Ikea, pretending it was their real home...but I will remember it as intensely irritating.
And the fact that the whole film is about an obviously one-sided, doomed relationship gives it an inevitability that soon becomes ponderous. Summer is very obviously not right for Tom, because she doesn't see him in anything like the same way he sees her. This should be obvious to any of the friends he confides in, especially when he's in a mess, and he just needs a good talking to on why it was never what he thought it was, and never would be. She turns out to be grossly insensitive and poor Tom only gets closure when forced into it. Of course when you break up with someone, reason never works very well, and it's easy to identify with Tom, but I kept wondering where his friends were. The result of him getting closure rather unwillingly is that the final scene comes too abruptly and rings rather hollow.
This is not a terrible film, and even though he's given such weird scenes and dialogue at the start that I thought his character was autistic, Gordon-Levitt puts in a solid performance and remains likeable and engaging even when acting like a brat. Minor characters like the friends and the boss are natural and fit the film well. Summer is awful but that's only testament to how well-acted it was. No complaints there, only with the writing, direction and limited scope.
But the film was at best a little above average. Worth seeing, but I find myself with a sour taste in my mouth, and not just because of one of the cheesiest pieces of closing dialogue of any film ever. It was just overall quite irritating.
The trouble was that it didn't seem to have an original idea in it. It was one of an increasingly irritating batch of pseudo-arthouse films, I think deriving from Amelie (where it was just about pulled off) in which the exposition is very quirky: multiple layers of reality, pastiche, words appearing in the air and jumpy chronology. These films then settle into being utterly conventional, throwing in token bits of oddness later as if abruptly remembered, to masquerade as something artsy. This film at least throws in surreal pastiches, but all its flourishes have been done better elsewhere. There have been better sequences of a guy getting some and the next day breaking into a big choreographed dance number to express happiness. There have been better send-ups of French noir films and Bergman. We've seen little kids as inappropriate sources of wisdom and vulgarity. We've seen films that have non-linear narratives juxtapose opposite lines from the same character. It all felt so tired. The one thing I'll probably remember from this is the characters playing about in an Ikea, pretending it was their real home...but I will remember it as intensely irritating.
And the fact that the whole film is about an obviously one-sided, doomed relationship gives it an inevitability that soon becomes ponderous. Summer is very obviously not right for Tom, because she doesn't see him in anything like the same way he sees her. This should be obvious to any of the friends he confides in, especially when he's in a mess, and he just needs a good talking to on why it was never what he thought it was, and never would be. She turns out to be grossly insensitive and poor Tom only gets closure when forced into it. Of course when you break up with someone, reason never works very well, and it's easy to identify with Tom, but I kept wondering where his friends were. The result of him getting closure rather unwillingly is that the final scene comes too abruptly and rings rather hollow.
This is not a terrible film, and even though he's given such weird scenes and dialogue at the start that I thought his character was autistic, Gordon-Levitt puts in a solid performance and remains likeable and engaging even when acting like a brat. Minor characters like the friends and the boss are natural and fit the film well. Summer is awful but that's only testament to how well-acted it was. No complaints there, only with the writing, direction and limited scope.
Tron (1982)
Perhaps oddly, even though it’s become a cult classic, referenced everywhere from South Park to…well, the whole world it’s given in Kingdom Hearts II, until today I had never seen Tron. It came out before I was born, and when I was growing up, it wasn’t really considered much of a classic, and…well, was more of a joke, really, as the computer graphics industry rapidly improved what it could accomplish and left behind the old pioneers. So my experience of the film was really limited to clips and occasional bits and pieces I saw when someone had it on their TV when I went around – and I never did see it broadcast on television.
It’s perhaps difficult to contextualise how advanced those computer graphics were. It’s easy to think of it as era of Space Invaders and PacMan and think that the simple polygons here are phenomenal for their time. Conversely, it’s easy to think of Star Wars and Blade Runner and think that really, this isn’t up to the visual standard set by contemporary sci-fi films. But of course, this is about computer graphics, and what they were capable of in 1982, so the best comparison is really a game like Elite, which is what the machines and the aesthetic of Tron most reminded me of – those early polygonal games with huge ambition, fitting whole galaxies on a single floppy disk. It may be dated and look a little silly now, but remembering how advanced it was for its time and how great the scale once seemed, certainly inclines one to be kinder to it – and Tron is in many ways remarkable on its own terms.
The story seems a bit over-familiar now, but that is mostly because it was rehashed by the likes of ReBoot and others since. A gifted programmer called Flynn is trying to unearth records that prove a corporate chief has cheated him, ending up within the world of the machines. There, programs are little sapient humanoids, who think of ‘users’ as something like deities, and can lose their lives in game worlds. Meanwhile, the system’s Master Control Program is growing be beyond anyone’s control, unless Flynn can stop him, with a little help from watchdog program Tron.
The first thing I thought when I started to watch the film was, ‘Bloody hell – is that Jeff Bridges?’ Which is to say, Oscar Winner Jeff Bridges, the Dude himself. I hadn’t recognised him in the Tron: Legacy trailer, where he is alternately made up to look very old and remarkably young, but there he was, as Flynn, long before I knew who he was, and apparently channelling the spirit of Harrison Ford. Still, he was a strong 80s protagonist, rebellious but likeable, and he even somewhat inexplicably got the girl-program in the end, out of absolutely nowhere. The story is a little ropey, the English guy I recognise from Time Bandits playing all the principle bad guys was really a little too campy as anything but the MCP, and the terrible little puns to replace idioms really could have gone, but otherwise there was much to enjoy. The iconic biking scene remains quite fascinating, amongst some of the weirder shots are some superbly inventive ones, and the design of the world, while dated and campy, has a certain striking, powerful quality, really not an incredible distance from German expressionist films: some close-ups and that old program who sits in a strange dome-garment seem like direct homages.
And there is a strange part of me that thrills to see a little Disney animation pretending to be computer-generated imagery of basic polygonal crab-things. I don’t know why – I just find that fun!
It’s perhaps difficult to contextualise how advanced those computer graphics were. It’s easy to think of it as era of Space Invaders and PacMan and think that the simple polygons here are phenomenal for their time. Conversely, it’s easy to think of Star Wars and Blade Runner and think that really, this isn’t up to the visual standard set by contemporary sci-fi films. But of course, this is about computer graphics, and what they were capable of in 1982, so the best comparison is really a game like Elite, which is what the machines and the aesthetic of Tron most reminded me of – those early polygonal games with huge ambition, fitting whole galaxies on a single floppy disk. It may be dated and look a little silly now, but remembering how advanced it was for its time and how great the scale once seemed, certainly inclines one to be kinder to it – and Tron is in many ways remarkable on its own terms.
The story seems a bit over-familiar now, but that is mostly because it was rehashed by the likes of ReBoot and others since. A gifted programmer called Flynn is trying to unearth records that prove a corporate chief has cheated him, ending up within the world of the machines. There, programs are little sapient humanoids, who think of ‘users’ as something like deities, and can lose their lives in game worlds. Meanwhile, the system’s Master Control Program is growing be beyond anyone’s control, unless Flynn can stop him, with a little help from watchdog program Tron.
The first thing I thought when I started to watch the film was, ‘Bloody hell – is that Jeff Bridges?’ Which is to say, Oscar Winner Jeff Bridges, the Dude himself. I hadn’t recognised him in the Tron: Legacy trailer, where he is alternately made up to look very old and remarkably young, but there he was, as Flynn, long before I knew who he was, and apparently channelling the spirit of Harrison Ford. Still, he was a strong 80s protagonist, rebellious but likeable, and he even somewhat inexplicably got the girl-program in the end, out of absolutely nowhere. The story is a little ropey, the English guy I recognise from Time Bandits playing all the principle bad guys was really a little too campy as anything but the MCP, and the terrible little puns to replace idioms really could have gone, but otherwise there was much to enjoy. The iconic biking scene remains quite fascinating, amongst some of the weirder shots are some superbly inventive ones, and the design of the world, while dated and campy, has a certain striking, powerful quality, really not an incredible distance from German expressionist films: some close-ups and that old program who sits in a strange dome-garment seem like direct homages.
And there is a strange part of me that thrills to see a little Disney animation pretending to be computer-generated imagery of basic polygonal crab-things. I don’t know why – I just find that fun!
The Social Network
I was actually surprised how compelling it was, although I could perhaps have done without David Fincher’s attempts to artificially spice up some crucial but rather uninteresting scenes with thumping basslines (supplied, apparently, by Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor) that almost drowned out the dialogue – although I must say this was an interesting project for the thriller director, who seems to be getting increasingly experimental…at least until Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
Telling the story of Facebook founding members Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin, there’s no question that the story is dolled up for a Hollywood audience – the screenplay was after all based on a book written by a writer who openly admits he doesn’t let the facts get in the way of a good yarn - but I’m sure that the prominence given to this story will ensure plenty of dry documentaries to come. Framed by the two major lawsuits brought against Zuckerberg – once by his erstwhile best friend Saverin, whose share in the company was lowered to 0.03% from an original 30% under the ridiculous guise of shares being devalued for him only, and once by the Winklevoss twins, who I first heard of when they were on this year’s losing Isis team at the Oxford-Cambridge boat race, portrayed in the blurbs in a very different light from how they came over here – the story covers the growth of Facebook from dormroom joke to multi-billion-dollar corporation. It quite cleverly gives time to each of its major players – Zuckerberg, Saverin, the Winklevosses and Napster founder Sean Parker, played as a party-boy by a capable Justin Timberlake in one of the more obvious flights of fancy from the writers – and shows them in both a positive and negative light. Zuckerberg in particular is enigmatic, at first a likeable, rather stereotypical nerd, played by Jesse Eisenberg like a much less obnoxious, far-better acted version of Michael Cera’s signature character, but slowly unravels into the rather detached, merciless and selfish figure of the leaked ‘Fuck them in the *ear’ leaked chatlogs.
I was an early adopter of Facebook. I can more or less guarantee that nobody, or next to nobody, who reads this got Facebook before I did. I first heard of it in 2005, when only prestigious US colleges (I was told only the Ivy League, but I think that was a simplification), Oxford, Cambridge and apparently LSE had access. I resisted it at first, thinking it was some Myspace clone, but gave in sometime before October, when photos were introduced. Indeed, if people decide to look though my photos, they’ll see the first ones of me are from that month. When it became accessible to anyone in 2006, I left for a while, not wanting to end up having to add people I didn’t like from secondary school, but of course was eventually tempted back. Until perhaps a year ago, I held the impression that the programmers behind it were faceless Silicon Valley suits, not worth investigating or finding out about. So this film came as a bit of a surprise to me.
Nevertheless, there is a great shift just now in what is trendy, who is desirable and what defines ‘cool’ – albeit thankfully already a backlash against hipster posers. This fits in neatly, and it will be interesting to see how this sort of film is considered in fifty, a hundred years’ time.
Telling the story of Facebook founding members Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin, there’s no question that the story is dolled up for a Hollywood audience – the screenplay was after all based on a book written by a writer who openly admits he doesn’t let the facts get in the way of a good yarn - but I’m sure that the prominence given to this story will ensure plenty of dry documentaries to come. Framed by the two major lawsuits brought against Zuckerberg – once by his erstwhile best friend Saverin, whose share in the company was lowered to 0.03% from an original 30% under the ridiculous guise of shares being devalued for him only, and once by the Winklevoss twins, who I first heard of when they were on this year’s losing Isis team at the Oxford-Cambridge boat race, portrayed in the blurbs in a very different light from how they came over here – the story covers the growth of Facebook from dormroom joke to multi-billion-dollar corporation. It quite cleverly gives time to each of its major players – Zuckerberg, Saverin, the Winklevosses and Napster founder Sean Parker, played as a party-boy by a capable Justin Timberlake in one of the more obvious flights of fancy from the writers – and shows them in both a positive and negative light. Zuckerberg in particular is enigmatic, at first a likeable, rather stereotypical nerd, played by Jesse Eisenberg like a much less obnoxious, far-better acted version of Michael Cera’s signature character, but slowly unravels into the rather detached, merciless and selfish figure of the leaked ‘Fuck them in the *ear’ leaked chatlogs.
I was an early adopter of Facebook. I can more or less guarantee that nobody, or next to nobody, who reads this got Facebook before I did. I first heard of it in 2005, when only prestigious US colleges (I was told only the Ivy League, but I think that was a simplification), Oxford, Cambridge and apparently LSE had access. I resisted it at first, thinking it was some Myspace clone, but gave in sometime before October, when photos were introduced. Indeed, if people decide to look though my photos, they’ll see the first ones of me are from that month. When it became accessible to anyone in 2006, I left for a while, not wanting to end up having to add people I didn’t like from secondary school, but of course was eventually tempted back. Until perhaps a year ago, I held the impression that the programmers behind it were faceless Silicon Valley suits, not worth investigating or finding out about. So this film came as a bit of a surprise to me.
Nevertheless, there is a great shift just now in what is trendy, who is desirable and what defines ‘cool’ – albeit thankfully already a backlash against hipster posers. This fits in neatly, and it will be interesting to see how this sort of film is considered in fifty, a hundred years’ time.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt 1
I just realised I completely neglected to write my impressions of the new Harry Potter film – to give it its full title, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. What it shares with many of its predecessors is stunning filmmaking married to poor storytelling. When the best parts of a film are when your actors have been replaced by three arbitrary people lipsynching to their voices, and a random piece of shadow puppet-influenced CGI, you know you ought to have better source material. Painfully slowly, Harry, Ron and Hermione search for horcruxes, the horribly artificial collection quest that really shouldn’t exist outside a videogame. This means that the film revolves mostly around them being bored, hopeless and lost. Was that ever going to make a good film? Fortunately there’s some action when they break into the Ministry of Magic, but as I said, that part barely even features the performances of the main trio of actors. There are some plot elements that really make very little sense, especially when it comes to Godric’s Hollow. First, there’s a line from Hermione that is something like ‘We’ll have to go there. It’s the place that Voldemort almost died and the home of Godric Griffindor, so of course the Ministry won’t think of going there’. Wait, why not? And was leaving one snake that can’t survive falling in a hole really the best Voldemort could do as a magical trap?
The trouble is that I don’t care about getting random relics. I don’t care about Harry bickering with his friends or not particularly caring that they left everyone they love behind getting attacked by murderers. I don’t even care about the extremely tacky vision shown to Ron of Harry and Hermione getting naked and snogging. So little happened in this film that it really could have been half as long – which would have worked neatly for getting HP7 into one film.
The trouble is that I don’t care about getting random relics. I don’t care about Harry bickering with his friends or not particularly caring that they left everyone they love behind getting attacked by murderers. I don’t even care about the extremely tacky vision shown to Ron of Harry and Hermione getting naked and snogging. So little happened in this film that it really could have been half as long – which would have worked neatly for getting HP7 into one film.
Tron Legacy
The Tron sequel was almost exactly as expected: a stylish visual feast with a few treats for fans of the original and a few slaps for the more militant ones, with a ropey plot, unlikeable characters and little of the original’s charm.
Let us analyse. Visually, the film was 87% less German Expressionist while an astonishing 722% more music video, but really that was the only direction it could realistically have taken. A film released in 2010 cannot look as quirky as Tron did and expect to do well. It had to look like a super-slick sci-fi blockbuster, and they hired a man known for his video game adverts for that very purpose. No longer is the Grid full of grey faces and strange washed-out colours, but is now all sleek black superhero costumes and glowing lines of power. What were pioneering 80s polygon blocks are now highly realistic flying machines and what were slightly limp but compelling sports games are now extravaganzas of acrobatics flips and lightcycle jumps. I wouldn’t have had it any other way, but the MTV aesthetic brings with it two problems: firstly, this is likely to look as dated in 2028 as Tron does now, being so very rooted in 2010’s idea of cool and elegance, and secondly, making everyone a beautiful model, while justified in the story, takes away much of what made the Game Grid work in the first game: programs could be fat, thin, ugly, pretty, dopey, smart…and most of all, funny. The idea of programs as people seems much more inventive when they don’t act like robots. And there weren’t even silly little flourishes like Bit to help things getting too pretentious.
Jeff Bridges, while the best thing about the cast, was 88% less Harrison Ford in this, and 67% more The Dude. This works fine, as of course Flynn has been through a lot since the first film, becoming a father and a powerful company head rather than a rebellious young programmer, and perhaps the film’s greatest visual triumph is making him looks so very young in the flashbacks and as CLU. And hey, a little bit of The Dude in a blockbuster is nothing to complain of!
The music, from Daft Punk, was 66% awesome, which was 100% disappointing. Perhaps the soundtrack that was rejected was more inventive, but I was actually quite saddened by how dull and vapid the music the duo provided was, especially when they even make an appearance. It had some nice beats, but also some annoying elements, and never had the pounding electronic brilliance I was hoping for. It was all just too obvious, too bland, too pedestrian. But perhaps I was hoping for Infected Mushroom or Fat of the Land-era Prodigy rather than chart dance music.
While the music video world was a good 76% more multi-cultural (although with 0% of the non-white cast members given a significant role), it was also 32% less British, with only Michael Sheen once again showing up to put on silly makeup, camp things up while looking faintly embarrassed, and still steal all of his scenes. He’s carved out a nice niche for himself when he’s one of those old but awesome British actors who show up for a few minutes in films.
Like 2010’s top-grossing film, Avatar, this is a triumph of style over substance. The real plot is jammed into the last act, and relies on us accepting various really rather difficult-to-swallow sci-fi elements: that sapient life can spontaneously develop in a digital world, that computer creations can be given flesh in the real world (yes, more of a leap than that humans can be digitised the other way) and that computer geniuses would design programs so complex they have minds of their own but do not have any failsafes. It’s also quite sad that Tron the character is pretty much a non-entity here, masked and brainwashed until the very end, where a change in colour hints at a sequel. It feels like all the good ideas were thrown into the first half-hour, after which there’s an overlong, plodding shoestring plot with characters on various modes of transportation, which was a wasted chance to make Flynn Jr actually appealing (which he never was, and it was baffling how they cast a cute kid as his younger self who looked nothing at all like him), and then a ham-fisted climax and resolution tacked on the end.
But the plot is secondary to the eye-candy, and that it did well. Stylish, chic and great in motion, I’m glad we went to the Empire, where the 3D glasses were a cut above the average and worked well for me.
Don’t go expecting cleverness. Don’t go expecting a worthy sequel. Go to switch off and gawp, and you’ll enjoy!
Let us analyse. Visually, the film was 87% less German Expressionist while an astonishing 722% more music video, but really that was the only direction it could realistically have taken. A film released in 2010 cannot look as quirky as Tron did and expect to do well. It had to look like a super-slick sci-fi blockbuster, and they hired a man known for his video game adverts for that very purpose. No longer is the Grid full of grey faces and strange washed-out colours, but is now all sleek black superhero costumes and glowing lines of power. What were pioneering 80s polygon blocks are now highly realistic flying machines and what were slightly limp but compelling sports games are now extravaganzas of acrobatics flips and lightcycle jumps. I wouldn’t have had it any other way, but the MTV aesthetic brings with it two problems: firstly, this is likely to look as dated in 2028 as Tron does now, being so very rooted in 2010’s idea of cool and elegance, and secondly, making everyone a beautiful model, while justified in the story, takes away much of what made the Game Grid work in the first game: programs could be fat, thin, ugly, pretty, dopey, smart…and most of all, funny. The idea of programs as people seems much more inventive when they don’t act like robots. And there weren’t even silly little flourishes like Bit to help things getting too pretentious.
Jeff Bridges, while the best thing about the cast, was 88% less Harrison Ford in this, and 67% more The Dude. This works fine, as of course Flynn has been through a lot since the first film, becoming a father and a powerful company head rather than a rebellious young programmer, and perhaps the film’s greatest visual triumph is making him looks so very young in the flashbacks and as CLU. And hey, a little bit of The Dude in a blockbuster is nothing to complain of!
The music, from Daft Punk, was 66% awesome, which was 100% disappointing. Perhaps the soundtrack that was rejected was more inventive, but I was actually quite saddened by how dull and vapid the music the duo provided was, especially when they even make an appearance. It had some nice beats, but also some annoying elements, and never had the pounding electronic brilliance I was hoping for. It was all just too obvious, too bland, too pedestrian. But perhaps I was hoping for Infected Mushroom or Fat of the Land-era Prodigy rather than chart dance music.
While the music video world was a good 76% more multi-cultural (although with 0% of the non-white cast members given a significant role), it was also 32% less British, with only Michael Sheen once again showing up to put on silly makeup, camp things up while looking faintly embarrassed, and still steal all of his scenes. He’s carved out a nice niche for himself when he’s one of those old but awesome British actors who show up for a few minutes in films.
Like 2010’s top-grossing film, Avatar, this is a triumph of style over substance. The real plot is jammed into the last act, and relies on us accepting various really rather difficult-to-swallow sci-fi elements: that sapient life can spontaneously develop in a digital world, that computer creations can be given flesh in the real world (yes, more of a leap than that humans can be digitised the other way) and that computer geniuses would design programs so complex they have minds of their own but do not have any failsafes. It’s also quite sad that Tron the character is pretty much a non-entity here, masked and brainwashed until the very end, where a change in colour hints at a sequel. It feels like all the good ideas were thrown into the first half-hour, after which there’s an overlong, plodding shoestring plot with characters on various modes of transportation, which was a wasted chance to make Flynn Jr actually appealing (which he never was, and it was baffling how they cast a cute kid as his younger self who looked nothing at all like him), and then a ham-fisted climax and resolution tacked on the end.
But the plot is secondary to the eye-candy, and that it did well. Stylish, chic and great in motion, I’m glad we went to the Empire, where the 3D glasses were a cut above the average and worked well for me.
Don’t go expecting cleverness. Don’t go expecting a worthy sequel. Go to switch off and gawp, and you’ll enjoy!
Black Swan
Black Swan was quite a stunning film. It was perhaps neither as dark nor as intelligent as I had hoped, but it was as intense as any film I have seen, and unfolded perfectly. A perfect, rather sheltered ballerina is given her big chance as a prima, debuting in the role of the Swan Queen in Swan Lake. She can perfectly capture the sweetness of the white swan, but the darker, madder side, the Black Swan – that is far more difficult for her to grasp, and she might just unravel if she tries to find a darker side to herself. Soon it is becoming difficult to tell reality and fantasy apart, and it seems like there’s another person altogether inside her. It’s a pretty classic story, the mental breakdown of the virtuous maiden, but the details are what make this one of the best films in many years. The gruesome viscera of hangnails and scissors. The brutality of what Winona Ryder’s character does. The unflinching way it represents ballet for what it is: oversexualised, objectifying and brutal to its dancers. The amazing soundtrack, perhaps the first time since Fantasia 2000 I’ve grinned with the pure pleasure of being in a cinema and hearing its speakers fully utilised, both in the incredibly powerful rendition of Tchaikovsky and in the pounding nightclub bass, genuinely turned up loud.
Some things didn’t quite work. The laughing pictures would have worked much better glimpsed even more briefly. I wanted more clarification about whether or not Nina actually went to the hospital the final time, and what happened if she did. And perhaps Natalie Portman, beautiful though she is, was a little too old for the part – although nobody could possibly have acted it better, as she hit every note perfectly, and was believable in all her aspects.
Certainly deserving of all its praise, I hope it becomes a classic, but if it doesn’t manage it, it won’t be so surprising.
Some things didn’t quite work. The laughing pictures would have worked much better glimpsed even more briefly. I wanted more clarification about whether or not Nina actually went to the hospital the final time, and what happened if she did. And perhaps Natalie Portman, beautiful though she is, was a little too old for the part – although nobody could possibly have acted it better, as she hit every note perfectly, and was believable in all her aspects.
Certainly deserving of all its praise, I hope it becomes a classic, but if it doesn’t manage it, it won’t be so surprising.
The Illusionist
It’s hard to put illusions on the big screen. Orson Welles warned against it, aware that his audience knew camera tricks could fool them, and that was before the dawn of CG, which made it far easier to show the high fantastic onscreen, yet far harder to convince an audience an illusion might be real. And part of the problem with The Illusionist is that the uninitiated might think the magic is too slick and fantastical to be real, while those of us who recognise Robert-Houdin’s orange tree, tricks with electromagnets and Pepper’s Ghosts also see how writer/director Neil Burger took everything too far, making every illusion that bit too real in a poor attempt to make even conjuring enthusiasts think there’s more than conventional magic at play here, to the extent that the things I was most impressed by were really the trifling parts – rolling of balls over hands, handkerchief legerdemain. But the magic tricks are only what colour this film. What really matters is the plot.
And let’s face it, this is very formulaic stuff. Sweet childhood lovers are torn apart because while she is aristocracy, he is a carpenter’s son. But years later, he resurfaces as Eisenheim the master illusionist, and returns to Vienna, where he discovered his childhood sweetheart Sophie is to be married to the ambitious but unstable heir to the Austrian Empire, Crown Prince Leopold. When sparks begin to fly in the wake of this reunion, Chief Police Inspector Uhl is ordered to keep a close eye on Eisenheim, suspecting the reunited lovers may elope.
Then follows a battle of wits between the three men. Period detail is rich and Leopold is quite clearly based on the historical Crown Prince Rudolf, but the audience is asked to swallow a lot here – we are to believe that a low-born Jewish showman could not only be invited to perform a private performance for a Crown Prince but to address him as an equal without severe punishment. We are to believe that royal stables never get mucked out. We are to look at a beautifully-shot fin-de-siècle Vienna and believe it would be so clean. We are to accept that a police officer would follow clues so incredibly obvious that anyone would instantly realise they were planted, but also that he can be manipulated into making crucial connections he really might well have missed. And then there’s the twist ending, that I actually predicted but then dismissed, thinking it would be TOO obvious and keeping in mind that if it unfolded that way, the whole purpose of the revenge drama portion of the script would be meaningless, so was actually surprised when the twist came. Surprised but disappointed. I hate tacked-on, unworkable twists.
However, there is enough in the film to make it highly enjoyable. The story is ropey but works dramatically, leading us on with drama, suspense and likeable characters. Performances are excellent, Giamatti in particular outstanding as Uhl, finally getting a role with some meat. His affable but sharp police inspector is very human and multi-faceted, an excellent foil for the understated intensity of the detached Edward Norton as Eisenheim and the preening excesses of Rufus Sewell’s performance as Leopold. Even Jessica Biel, evidently trying to break away from her cheesy blockbuster image, acquits herself well, given that repressed emotion suits Sophie well. Philip Glass puts in another forgettable but appropriate and surprisingly rich score, and cinematography is really excellent. The whole film has a sepia, soft-focus look that makes it more compellingly fairy-tale-esque, removing it from reality the right amount to make the melodrama work.
It has its faults, but I’m a fan of magic, especially magic ultimately shown to be trickery, and while I wish we’d seen tricks done totally without CG, as authentic as those they were based upon, this was a satisfying and rather fun little period piece, with some great performances and an excellent premise, but sadly some major flaws.
Monday, 18 April 2011
Gran Tourino
Gran Tourino made me smile almost throughout its running time. It is a timely and brilliant character study, cheesy and exaggerated when examined from a distance, but, when it has the time to contextualise itself and draw you in, quite capable of gripping you, moving you and making you fully believe in its melodrama.
The protagonist, Walt, is a relic of old America in a run-down neighbourhood. He sits drinking on his porch, keeping the Stars and Stripes flying and his garden in good order. He fought in Korea and will never forget the experience of war. He keeps his guns readily to hand and regards anyone who wouldn’t belong in the suburbs in the 50s with suspicion. He’s a racist, a judgemental old man whose grossly bourgeois family only antagonises him. And a great, great character. The forthright, outspoken old man with the grizzled voice, foul mouth and utter indifference to what everyone else thinks demands respect and admiration and finally, through more and more glimpses into his ideas of justice and encroaching weakness, becomes increasingly sympathetic, and by the end of the film, undoubtedly heroic.
His interactions with a family that at first it seems he will never accept, his lessons in what it is to be a man in America, and especially his defiance in the face of a world that has changed beyond anything he recognises, is just a great joy to watch. He doesn’t back down for gang members, rapists or threats of murder. This is a film that belongs only in America, only at a time when an older generation and their ideas of masculinity are dwindling, and yet characters like Greg House and the tough guys of recent noir-esque comics adaptations remain as iconic anti-heroes. The scale is small and yet the concepts are far-reaching. And for Clint Eastwood, this performance, this choice of script, this directorial swansong punctuate the end of a remarkable career far more adequately and maturely than a rehash of an old classic, an overblown epic or a descent into banality ever could have done. An excellent film.
The protagonist, Walt, is a relic of old America in a run-down neighbourhood. He sits drinking on his porch, keeping the Stars and Stripes flying and his garden in good order. He fought in Korea and will never forget the experience of war. He keeps his guns readily to hand and regards anyone who wouldn’t belong in the suburbs in the 50s with suspicion. He’s a racist, a judgemental old man whose grossly bourgeois family only antagonises him. And a great, great character. The forthright, outspoken old man with the grizzled voice, foul mouth and utter indifference to what everyone else thinks demands respect and admiration and finally, through more and more glimpses into his ideas of justice and encroaching weakness, becomes increasingly sympathetic, and by the end of the film, undoubtedly heroic.
His interactions with a family that at first it seems he will never accept, his lessons in what it is to be a man in America, and especially his defiance in the face of a world that has changed beyond anything he recognises, is just a great joy to watch. He doesn’t back down for gang members, rapists or threats of murder. This is a film that belongs only in America, only at a time when an older generation and their ideas of masculinity are dwindling, and yet characters like Greg House and the tough guys of recent noir-esque comics adaptations remain as iconic anti-heroes. The scale is small and yet the concepts are far-reaching. And for Clint Eastwood, this performance, this choice of script, this directorial swansong punctuate the end of a remarkable career far more adequately and maturely than a rehash of an old classic, an overblown epic or a descent into banality ever could have done. An excellent film.
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
Sucker Punch
I genuinely thought Sucker Punch would be the kind of film I loved. For all the complaints from comic purists about Watchmen (which I treated as a companion piece to the comic, not a replacement) and left-leaning types about 300 (I felt it too absurdly exaggerated to be racist, though his reasoning for the line implying Spartans were anti-homosexual was unconvincing, there being no context to indicate hypocrisy), I enjoyed all Snyder’s other films, in all their dumbness, excess and music video aesthetics. I also loved Legend of the Guardians. So I fully expected to have a blast here. I was disappointed.
The story is simpler than it tries to pretend it is. An innocent young girl is institutionalised by her wicked stepfather, who bribes a worker to put the girl in for a lobotomy. She then imagines a fantasy world where she can dance herself into trances where she not only hypnotises onlookers but fantasises action-packed worlds that just happen to let Snyder show off different comic-based film styles. At the very end, these triple levels of reality are blurred: we return to the main reality, but are told much of what was fantasised really happened: Blue has his stab wound, we are told Babydoll helped another inmate to escape. Whether the final scene of happy escape for an unexpected character is real or imagined we never know. Not a bad twist.
But the let-down was the dance-fantasy portions. They were oddly repetitive: despite obviously being designed to show Snyder’s versatility, they were all just the girls kicking the butts of different comic book baddies, often in Matrix-derived slow-mo. These dream sequences could have shown wildly different worlds and story ideas, but instead the girls have minor costume changes and do kung-fu/stab things/shoot guns. There really isn’t too much difference between fighting steam-zombie soldiers, fighting orcs and fighting robots. And only the first one has a satisfying set of parallels with the middle level of fantasy. And the trouble is that this should have been a visual tour-de-force. It should at least have looked as good as 300 or Watchmen. But it didn’t. It looked dated already, and tacky. There’s no way anybody is going to be impressed by more than a few visual effects shots in ten years, and the times when actors are replaced by full-body digital models are going to look painfully fake before long at all. Plus the wire work just isn’t well-integrated, making everything look clumsily weightless rather than suggesting awesome superhuman powers of momentum.
The peripheral characters aren’t well-developed enough; the two sisters we get to know and like, the dance instructor is great for a background role and Blue ends up truly detestable, but Babydoll never gets any notable characteristics and the other two girls of the five-member gang have woefully little screen-time outside the fantasies.
I quite liked the overall concept. I liked that there were ambiguities and that the story didn’t wrap up neatly and that however you interpret the ending, what happens to Babydoll is what happens. But the disappointing visuals, the way that the layering really removes all sense of actual risk from the most exciting action scenes, the repetitive concepts and the indifferent characters prevent it from being a good film. As for the idea that it is empowering…well, that’s just rubbish.
The story is simpler than it tries to pretend it is. An innocent young girl is institutionalised by her wicked stepfather, who bribes a worker to put the girl in for a lobotomy. She then imagines a fantasy world where she can dance herself into trances where she not only hypnotises onlookers but fantasises action-packed worlds that just happen to let Snyder show off different comic-based film styles. At the very end, these triple levels of reality are blurred: we return to the main reality, but are told much of what was fantasised really happened: Blue has his stab wound, we are told Babydoll helped another inmate to escape. Whether the final scene of happy escape for an unexpected character is real or imagined we never know. Not a bad twist.
But the let-down was the dance-fantasy portions. They were oddly repetitive: despite obviously being designed to show Snyder’s versatility, they were all just the girls kicking the butts of different comic book baddies, often in Matrix-derived slow-mo. These dream sequences could have shown wildly different worlds and story ideas, but instead the girls have minor costume changes and do kung-fu/stab things/shoot guns. There really isn’t too much difference between fighting steam-zombie soldiers, fighting orcs and fighting robots. And only the first one has a satisfying set of parallels with the middle level of fantasy. And the trouble is that this should have been a visual tour-de-force. It should at least have looked as good as 300 or Watchmen. But it didn’t. It looked dated already, and tacky. There’s no way anybody is going to be impressed by more than a few visual effects shots in ten years, and the times when actors are replaced by full-body digital models are going to look painfully fake before long at all. Plus the wire work just isn’t well-integrated, making everything look clumsily weightless rather than suggesting awesome superhuman powers of momentum.
The peripheral characters aren’t well-developed enough; the two sisters we get to know and like, the dance instructor is great for a background role and Blue ends up truly detestable, but Babydoll never gets any notable characteristics and the other two girls of the five-member gang have woefully little screen-time outside the fantasies.
I quite liked the overall concept. I liked that there were ambiguities and that the story didn’t wrap up neatly and that however you interpret the ending, what happens to Babydoll is what happens. But the disappointing visuals, the way that the layering really removes all sense of actual risk from the most exciting action scenes, the repetitive concepts and the indifferent characters prevent it from being a good film. As for the idea that it is empowering…well, that’s just rubbish.
Saturday, 9 April 2011
Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was one of my least favourite Narnia books. It involves the two youngest Pevensie children and their annoying cousin Eustace transported to King Caspian’s ship. He is on a meaningless quest to find some lords, a shoestring of a plot that is eventually jettisoned when Lewis gets bored and has all the rest show up at once, and they meander about in a vague echo of The Odyssey until they reach the end of the world, a privileged few are chosen to go on and have to sacrifice one of their number, while the rest of the brave sailors have to sit in the boat and wait, which they actually argue about. It struck me as very unfair – as did the story of poor dwarfs cruelly punished by a supposed good guy to be monopods. They were so ashamed they turned themselves invisible, until Lucy revealed them, presumably much to their shame. Even the presence of Reepicheep hardly made the vague, uninteresting story palatable, and he was about the only character I truly liked.
So I was surprised and rather delighted that all the things I disliked were changed, the insipid fantasy elements looked phenomenal in a high-budget feature production, and capable actors made the characters far more likeable than I could have hoped for. Starting with a gorgeous twisting shot of one of my three favourite sights from Cambridge, the porters’ lodge of King’s (followed soon after by a brief shot of another, Trinity Great Court), the familiar faces of Edmund and Lucy were joined by brattish, stuck-up Eustace. Will Poulter is absolutely perfectly cast; I never saw Son of Rambo, but I remember remarking upon how impressive he was as an actor in School of Comedy, where his natural delivery and wide range set him out – for me – as a brilliant character actor in the making. This will be another great step in his career, and I hope he’s given a chance to fully develop. He pitches Eustace perfectly, and despite the fact that much of the crucial character development is done in CG, the slow transition from hideous prig to likeable, warm young man that forms the heart of the film couldn’t have been done better. I look forward to seeing him interacting with Puddleglum in the next film. He’ll be a major character in two more films yet.
Much of the story has been reworked or expanded to make the story flow better and develop properly, as well as converting Lewis’ somewhat distant and aloof portrayals of his characters into accessible, modern, sleek Hollywood character arcs. Lucy is given an insecurity issue, while Edmund rankles at being second in command. Caspian, who has lost his funny accent, is now a strong leader but has a hot temper. And Edmund isn’t simply punished into changing by his suffering: he starts to open up to Reepicheep first, and learns bravery and self-sacrifice.
The films are tied neatly to their predecessors. Edmund even gets given back his torch. Numerous actors who may not have expected to appear are given cameo roles, as fantasies or hallucinations allow for the appearances of Peter and Susan, The White Witch and Miraz. One slightly incongruous change is that Eddie Izzard did not reprise his voice acting role as Reepicheep, it falling instead to Simon Pegg, who may have been trying to sound like his predecessor, but who honestly I much preferred.
There are odd moments. The story has been improved by an evil force that must be overcome by the daft collection quest of the original, which while workable and better than the alternative, is still somewhat awkward. Some of the CG sequences are the best I have ever seen – Reepicheep and Aslan in the final scenes look incredibly real – but at other times it falls short, such as when there are water spirits halfway between naiads and mermaids but mostly looking like jerky computer games graphics. And I am convinced the film has been cut to hint at romantic tension between Caspian and Edmund, with strange reaction shots to proclamations of brotherhood and such. Odd!
But for its faults, Dawn Treader redeems so much more than it gets wrong, and is helped along by what have become excellent characters and very beautiful eye-candy. The Narnia books have many problems left yet, ultimately including trying to make horrific death sound glorious, and the well-known ‘problem of Susan’. But I would much rather watch Dawn Treader five times back-to-back than watch the latest Harry Potter again. Genuinely impressed!
So I was surprised and rather delighted that all the things I disliked were changed, the insipid fantasy elements looked phenomenal in a high-budget feature production, and capable actors made the characters far more likeable than I could have hoped for. Starting with a gorgeous twisting shot of one of my three favourite sights from Cambridge, the porters’ lodge of King’s (followed soon after by a brief shot of another, Trinity Great Court), the familiar faces of Edmund and Lucy were joined by brattish, stuck-up Eustace. Will Poulter is absolutely perfectly cast; I never saw Son of Rambo, but I remember remarking upon how impressive he was as an actor in School of Comedy, where his natural delivery and wide range set him out – for me – as a brilliant character actor in the making. This will be another great step in his career, and I hope he’s given a chance to fully develop. He pitches Eustace perfectly, and despite the fact that much of the crucial character development is done in CG, the slow transition from hideous prig to likeable, warm young man that forms the heart of the film couldn’t have been done better. I look forward to seeing him interacting with Puddleglum in the next film. He’ll be a major character in two more films yet.
Much of the story has been reworked or expanded to make the story flow better and develop properly, as well as converting Lewis’ somewhat distant and aloof portrayals of his characters into accessible, modern, sleek Hollywood character arcs. Lucy is given an insecurity issue, while Edmund rankles at being second in command. Caspian, who has lost his funny accent, is now a strong leader but has a hot temper. And Edmund isn’t simply punished into changing by his suffering: he starts to open up to Reepicheep first, and learns bravery and self-sacrifice.
The films are tied neatly to their predecessors. Edmund even gets given back his torch. Numerous actors who may not have expected to appear are given cameo roles, as fantasies or hallucinations allow for the appearances of Peter and Susan, The White Witch and Miraz. One slightly incongruous change is that Eddie Izzard did not reprise his voice acting role as Reepicheep, it falling instead to Simon Pegg, who may have been trying to sound like his predecessor, but who honestly I much preferred.
There are odd moments. The story has been improved by an evil force that must be overcome by the daft collection quest of the original, which while workable and better than the alternative, is still somewhat awkward. Some of the CG sequences are the best I have ever seen – Reepicheep and Aslan in the final scenes look incredibly real – but at other times it falls short, such as when there are water spirits halfway between naiads and mermaids but mostly looking like jerky computer games graphics. And I am convinced the film has been cut to hint at romantic tension between Caspian and Edmund, with strange reaction shots to proclamations of brotherhood and such. Odd!
But for its faults, Dawn Treader redeems so much more than it gets wrong, and is helped along by what have become excellent characters and very beautiful eye-candy. The Narnia books have many problems left yet, ultimately including trying to make horrific death sound glorious, and the well-known ‘problem of Susan’. But I would much rather watch Dawn Treader five times back-to-back than watch the latest Harry Potter again. Genuinely impressed!
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