We didn’t really need a Pirates of the Caribbean 4. Well, arguably we didn’t need the third film either, amusing though Keith Richards’ cameo may have been. Frankly the franchise would have been best-off stopping at a standalone classic, though I’ve generally enjoyed the series, and the second film remains the fourth highest-grossing of all time (non-inflation adjusted). The sequels were inferior, but still generally fun – the original, on the other hand, was genuinely good.
So what of the fourth film? Not much made me feel very excited. Bloom and Knightley ducked out, which was shrewd. A whole new plot unconnected to the trilogy was suggested. Penelope Cruz – an actress almost synonymous with ‘hit and miss’ – and admirably grizzy-voiced but uncharismatic Ian McShane were announced. On the plus side, the plotline was to be based on the novel On Stranger Tides, which Ron Gilbert freely stated on his blog was the major creative influence on The Secret of Monkey Island – which Disney really should acknowledge as influencing Pirates. And hey, I’m yet to tire of Depp’s inspired performance as Jack Sparrow, or of his foil in now-double-Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush’s Barbossa.
While the connection to On Stranger Tides made me intrigued, though, ultimately the story was only inspired by it, and not exactly stunning – the biggest contribution it seemingly made was in tone, and Pirates of the Caribbean was already on the light and amusing side. Story-wise, it goes like this: the Spanish have been given strong information about the location of the legendary fountain of youth. The King of England wants the waters of the fountain for himself, so captures Jack Sparrow – said to have been there himself – and commands him to guide an expedition there, with Barbossa as captain after his turning privateer. Jack has other ideas, however – someone has been impersonating him, and also happens to be gathering a crew for an expedition to find the fountain. After investigation, narrow escapes and buckling of swash, it turns out that the impostor, believable only in very dim light, was Penelope Cruz’s Angelica character in what is probably a vague nod to Anne Bonny dressing as a man. She is recruiting men for Blackbeard’s ship Queen Anne’s Revenge, the man himself there, firecrackers and all. That is about where historical references end, save a fleeting reference to Juan Ponce de Lyon.
Blackbeard ‘zombifies’ his most trusted men and uses a magical sword to make his entire ship do his bidding. He can use voodoo dolls and shrink whole ships down to fit into bottles. A prophet in his crew has warned him that he will soon die at the hands of a one-legged man, and he believes that his only hope is to get hold of waters from the fountain of youth, which will ensure he lives on. With Barbossa and the Spaniards, there are three factions vying for the prize.
In a daft collection quest, those who wish to use the Fountain must procure two specific chalices and the tear of a mermaid. The rest is an overlong padded adventure to secure these items, followed by a climax whose only surprise is the motivation for the Spanish faction. Ultimately, the action is fun and the simple background romances and intrigues effective enough, but there are two many holes, both major and minor. If Blackbeard’s aim is to drink the water because he knows he’s going to die, why does he end up putting himself in the position where he’s bound to get killed rather than escaping from it? It’s not as though he’s honour-bound. If the Spanish only want to do what they succeeded in doing at the end, why did they take the time to go for the chalices? How did the adorable cabin boy manage to get away from the mermaids?
Not really a film to be over-analysed, it was nonetheless not quite coherent enough to work, or to make its long string of action sequences feel excusable. The Depp and Rush show is a good one, but can only last so long, and a new director only managed to offer more of the same rather than bringing in any new flavours – albeit delivering it with skill.
And bring on the inevitable Shakespeare In Love-related quips about Judi Dench deserving an Oscar for her performance.
Monday 23 May 2011
Thursday 12 May 2011
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
People have been saying Prince Caspian isn’t as good as its predecessor, but I enjoyed it thoroughly, perhaps even more consistently than the first, since the pacing is simpler and smoother and the battles are all impressive, as opposed to, say, that one with the kids fleeing wolves at a waterfall. The imagery is much less iconic, but more mature and fitting to the story. As with most fantasy sequels, it has 80% less cuteness and 55% more sweeping epic, and doesn’t suffer for it. It took itself very seriously and that’s the way I like my fantasies – albeit not without comic relief, and Reepicheep provides that well. It’s not much of a story, a problem that needs a big scrap to sort it out being sorted out by a big scrap, chock full of great visuals. Centaurs forming a tunnel with their swords, one little girl stepping out to face an army, Peter donning his armour…these were great moments. Although it takes itself seriously, though, it is aware of the pomposity and the patronising tone of the source material, making light of both (in subtle ways) and is on the right side of the 90s emphasis on irony. I found it a little odd, though, that even though for the first hour or so, I with thinking that you would only see the Christian allegory if you looked for it, sure Aslan is God, and you can’t win without Aslan…but it was really obvious in the last third, from the appearance of the White Witch, which I believe wasn’t even in the book (though it’s admittedly been a while and I remember relatively little compared to the other volumes), to…well, the way Aslan acts.
Only things I didn’t like: actors’ faces being bashed by cameras (silly) and not enough attention paid to the way these are after all adults in kids’ bodies (though after the book I was pleased it was there at all).
Only things I didn’t like: actors’ faces being bashed by cameras (silly) and not enough attention paid to the way these are after all adults in kids’ bodies (though after the book I was pleased it was there at all).
Monday 9 May 2011
13 Assassins
13 Assassins, or Juusannin no Shikaku, is a samurai film from Ichi the Killer director Miike Takashi, and apparently a remake of a 60s film of the same name. In the end, it was in no way original, a pretty formulaic jidaigeki story of a band of rebels and ronin getting together for the greater good – in this case, to assassinate the corrupt and evil brother of the Shougun before he reaches safe territory. This antagonist, Naritsugu, is a little cartoonish in his villainy, but it would seem that Miike is good at harrowing, because some of the most memorable scenes were the brutal episodes of Naritsugu’s murderous and sadistic lifestyle.
After the initial political machinations set the scene, everything falls into the predictable pattern: a stately samurai is hired and gathers the best men for the job. They trek to the one place they can set up their ambush, picking up their last member on the way, and then the big payoff is a huge battle against a much larger retinue.
The film is uncompromising, exciting and extremely nice to look at. The cinematography is superb and the action scenes some of the best I’ve ever seen. What could have been a long and dull climactic fight actually elevated the whole film, which was after all little more than build-up to it. It was a mature and honest homage to a traditional film style.
But there were problems. 13 assassins may just have been a few too many. Seven samurai you can get to know well, but of the thirteen, not all were distinguished well enough. Most are straight out of a tradition older than Kurosawa but cemented by him: there’s the stately and determined leader, the somewhat unworthy younger relative who needs to leave behind his life of women and booze and prove himself, the timorous and inexperienced young one, the awesome grizzly master swordsman who says little but is peerless on the battlefield, the jovial round-faced spearsman and even the wildman with supposed ‘samurai stock’ (no fake certificate, though) who speaks vulgarly, rolling his Rs at all the ‘de gozaimasu’-s and fighting as capably as any.
The others just don’t get developed much. Four are just random elite students. We can’t distinguish much from them just using explosives. They discourse on what makes a samurai, on what life is worth and how honourable it is to give it in service, but most of the lines could come from any of the 12. The end of the film is also quite unsatisfactory: after the final battle, the rest of the fights just happen to have ended at just the right moment. We also have a rather annoying moment where it seems that the man speculated to be a tanuki may well be just that, and at the very least almost certainly has supernatural powers, unless someone was hallucinating. It just didn’t fit the film’s tone.
After the initial political machinations set the scene, everything falls into the predictable pattern: a stately samurai is hired and gathers the best men for the job. They trek to the one place they can set up their ambush, picking up their last member on the way, and then the big payoff is a huge battle against a much larger retinue.
The film is uncompromising, exciting and extremely nice to look at. The cinematography is superb and the action scenes some of the best I’ve ever seen. What could have been a long and dull climactic fight actually elevated the whole film, which was after all little more than build-up to it. It was a mature and honest homage to a traditional film style.
But there were problems. 13 assassins may just have been a few too many. Seven samurai you can get to know well, but of the thirteen, not all were distinguished well enough. Most are straight out of a tradition older than Kurosawa but cemented by him: there’s the stately and determined leader, the somewhat unworthy younger relative who needs to leave behind his life of women and booze and prove himself, the timorous and inexperienced young one, the awesome grizzly master swordsman who says little but is peerless on the battlefield, the jovial round-faced spearsman and even the wildman with supposed ‘samurai stock’ (no fake certificate, though) who speaks vulgarly, rolling his Rs at all the ‘de gozaimasu’-s and fighting as capably as any.
The others just don’t get developed much. Four are just random elite students. We can’t distinguish much from them just using explosives. They discourse on what makes a samurai, on what life is worth and how honourable it is to give it in service, but most of the lines could come from any of the 12. The end of the film is also quite unsatisfactory: after the final battle, the rest of the fights just happen to have ended at just the right moment. We also have a rather annoying moment where it seems that the man speculated to be a tanuki may well be just that, and at the very least almost certainly has supernatural powers, unless someone was hallucinating. It just didn’t fit the film’s tone.
Tuesday 3 May 2011
The Spirit
The Spirit was pretty awful. Miller cashes in on his own fashionable status and churns out a hollow, tedious and self-indulgent bit of dreck. Nice eye candy and some amusing moments, but mostly it was actors and director slapping each other on the back and making a vanity project that had no real characters, very little plot and lacked the gritty, swaggering cool of Sin City. Disappointing.
The Triumph of the Will
watched The Triumph of the Will, the famous Nazi propaganda film by Leni Reifenstahl, and then a documentary about her life. Really quite fascinating, watching the spectacle of the Third Reich, the power of the speeches and iconography. Hitler was adored in 1935, even when The Night of the Long Knives was public knowledge. Who else, let alone in a generation still in living memory for many, had such a strong cult of personality, where symbols, exclamations, titles, even a movement of the body meant one man and his party. Bizarre, seeing all those smiling faces as this most hideous of monsters passed by, but a very real reflection of a time.
Debate waged after about whether Reifenstahl was as naive as she made herself out to be, whether she can be held accountable for glorifying Nazism. On one side people were condemning her, saying she could have refused, she had to think what her art was doing to people and on the other people were keen to point out that Hitler was immensely popular at the time, that she did the best she could filming a public event and that it is hard to imagine what kind of film she could have made of an event meant to instil wonder without seeming like a glorification.
Striking film that provokes a lot of thought, but not something I’m that interested in.
Debate waged after about whether Reifenstahl was as naive as she made herself out to be, whether she can be held accountable for glorifying Nazism. On one side people were condemning her, saying she could have refused, she had to think what her art was doing to people and on the other people were keen to point out that Hitler was immensely popular at the time, that she did the best she could filming a public event and that it is hard to imagine what kind of film she could have made of an event meant to instil wonder without seeming like a glorification.
Striking film that provokes a lot of thought, but not something I’m that interested in.
Flags of Our Fathers / Letters From Iwo Jima
Watched a DVD of Clint Eastwood’s Flags of our Fathers, and found it gripping enough to today rewatch Letters from Iwo Jima, two ambitious films that were released almost at the same time, covering both sides of a vicious and pivotal WWII conflict between the US and Japan.
Remembered most of Letters from Iwo Jima, but not much about its ending, so was happy to rewatch it when Mum said she wanted to, and it was nice to try to understand more of the dialogue. It was just as moving as the first time, although the criticism that all the sympathetic commanders are the ones who have been to America and learned about the enemy first-hand stuck out to me more this time. Also, I don’t know if it was because of the nice TV, but it seemed like both films had a strange quality to the filming, too smooth, too crisp, perhaps too many FPS, which make it oddly enough seem more amateurish, like it was all filmed on high-quality student cameras. Odd.
Edit: Original impressions of Iwo Jima from 2007
Letters from Iwo Jima
I didn’t see the counterpart movie presenting the American point of view, but typically of my family, the East-Asian point of view is much more appealing, since Mum is fond of her Oriental heritage and Dad is averse to war films from the Western point of view, having grown up with agonisingly jingoistic ‘How our boys socked one to Mr. Hitler’-type movies in theatres where one was obliged to stand for the National Anthem. I am equally pleased to see war films from any point of view, though, and was impressed by Letters from Iwo Jima, the story of America’s invasion of the small, strategically vital island of Iwo Jima in WWII told from the point of view of the Japanese.
Clint Eastwood has reinvented himself as a serious filmmaker well, and some of the best directors are the invisible ones – the ones that just make great films without drawing attention to themselves. Direction is simple and never surprises, but the battle scenes are believable and hit home and the cinematography is excellent – some of the simple shots of faces are quite simply perfect. The script is a good, solid one, with a layer of unromantic realism (a character is caught emptying the slops bucket when naval bombardment commences), some well-fleshed-out characters and an eagerness to show that both sides were human, with charity and cruelty on either end. It’s not exactly subtle, but it’s subtle and believable enough never to seem cheesy, and thus it works.
Focusing on two characters in very different situations, the lowly drafted footsoldier Saigo and the commanding officer Kurabayashi, the line of command is what really makes the movie interesting, and the way that the famous Japanese feudal ideals of self-sacrifice, dying with honour and gaining glory through suicide war with self-preservation and good strategy – though the Hollywood romanticism of brave acceptance of death remains, and moves. A simple and straightforward movie, like Apocalypto made to seem more ‘artistic’ than it really is simply because it’s in another language (I understood at least 50% of the Japanese, and kept noting how loose the subtitles were (for natural flow; understandable), and thought Watanabe Ken’s pronunciation early in the film a little strange, almost slurred), but it is thoroughly enjoyable and comes highly recommended.
Remembered most of Letters from Iwo Jima, but not much about its ending, so was happy to rewatch it when Mum said she wanted to, and it was nice to try to understand more of the dialogue. It was just as moving as the first time, although the criticism that all the sympathetic commanders are the ones who have been to America and learned about the enemy first-hand stuck out to me more this time. Also, I don’t know if it was because of the nice TV, but it seemed like both films had a strange quality to the filming, too smooth, too crisp, perhaps too many FPS, which make it oddly enough seem more amateurish, like it was all filmed on high-quality student cameras. Odd.
Edit: Original impressions of Iwo Jima from 2007
Letters from Iwo Jima
I didn’t see the counterpart movie presenting the American point of view, but typically of my family, the East-Asian point of view is much more appealing, since Mum is fond of her Oriental heritage and Dad is averse to war films from the Western point of view, having grown up with agonisingly jingoistic ‘How our boys socked one to Mr. Hitler’-type movies in theatres where one was obliged to stand for the National Anthem. I am equally pleased to see war films from any point of view, though, and was impressed by Letters from Iwo Jima, the story of America’s invasion of the small, strategically vital island of Iwo Jima in WWII told from the point of view of the Japanese.
Clint Eastwood has reinvented himself as a serious filmmaker well, and some of the best directors are the invisible ones – the ones that just make great films without drawing attention to themselves. Direction is simple and never surprises, but the battle scenes are believable and hit home and the cinematography is excellent – some of the simple shots of faces are quite simply perfect. The script is a good, solid one, with a layer of unromantic realism (a character is caught emptying the slops bucket when naval bombardment commences), some well-fleshed-out characters and an eagerness to show that both sides were human, with charity and cruelty on either end. It’s not exactly subtle, but it’s subtle and believable enough never to seem cheesy, and thus it works.
Focusing on two characters in very different situations, the lowly drafted footsoldier Saigo and the commanding officer Kurabayashi, the line of command is what really makes the movie interesting, and the way that the famous Japanese feudal ideals of self-sacrifice, dying with honour and gaining glory through suicide war with self-preservation and good strategy – though the Hollywood romanticism of brave acceptance of death remains, and moves. A simple and straightforward movie, like Apocalypto made to seem more ‘artistic’ than it really is simply because it’s in another language (I understood at least 50% of the Japanese, and kept noting how loose the subtitles were (for natural flow; understandable), and thought Watanabe Ken’s pronunciation early in the film a little strange, almost slurred), but it is thoroughly enjoyable and comes highly recommended.
Prince of Persia
Prince of Persia was pretty terrible. I first heard of it, or at least, paid any attention to it, when the girl who used to go to capoeira who also worked in a CG studio told us about it, and how it was about the worst film she’d ever seen. I have no way of knowing how much she saw or what parts she worked on, but while she was being too harsh, really, it still was very poor overall. For the first time in a long while, I was actually struggling to stay awake.
While I used to like the old 80s game, and often played it on my hard-drive-less PC because it was one of the only games I had that would run from a single floppy, obviously the franchise has moved on significantly. The film told the story of a young streetrat from the Persian empire (where we learn, possibly with some surprise, that just about everyone is good-looking, white and speaks with an English accent, which is strange, because 300 led us to believe your average Persian was monstrous, black and effete) who is adopted by a king, helps his brothers to fight their wars and gets tangled up in a plot that doesn’t make much sense (Ben Kingsley’s character could have moved with great slyness to reach his goal, the assassinations essentially being pointless), as well as discovering the strange magic of a dagger containing the Sands of Time.
The big problem is that everyone is so unlikeable. Despite Gyllanhall’s usual likeability, newfound heroic figure and suddenly dashing looks, his character is an annoying knob who likes to flip about while murdering people, spout witticisms and flout his orders just to act smug. His accent often has too much of the chimney sweep, too. The princess is supposed to be charmingly prickly, but is just tiresome and wooden. Ben Kingsley is so much better than this, and even the ostrich-loving comic relief character is underwritten and superfluous. With engaging characters, the clichéd plot and lazy magical contrivances could have worked, but this? Nah.
While I used to like the old 80s game, and often played it on my hard-drive-less PC because it was one of the only games I had that would run from a single floppy, obviously the franchise has moved on significantly. The film told the story of a young streetrat from the Persian empire (where we learn, possibly with some surprise, that just about everyone is good-looking, white and speaks with an English accent, which is strange, because 300 led us to believe your average Persian was monstrous, black and effete) who is adopted by a king, helps his brothers to fight their wars and gets tangled up in a plot that doesn’t make much sense (Ben Kingsley’s character could have moved with great slyness to reach his goal, the assassinations essentially being pointless), as well as discovering the strange magic of a dagger containing the Sands of Time.
The big problem is that everyone is so unlikeable. Despite Gyllanhall’s usual likeability, newfound heroic figure and suddenly dashing looks, his character is an annoying knob who likes to flip about while murdering people, spout witticisms and flout his orders just to act smug. His accent often has too much of the chimney sweep, too. The princess is supposed to be charmingly prickly, but is just tiresome and wooden. Ben Kingsley is so much better than this, and even the ostrich-loving comic relief character is underwritten and superfluous. With engaging characters, the clichéd plot and lazy magical contrivances could have worked, but this? Nah.
Coco Before Chanel
The film was charming and pretty, but rather inconsequential. Tautou seemed to have been cast almost entirely as a box-office draw, and because she after all is the first actress most will think of when imagining French chic, but ultimately she was never believably as young as she ought to have been. A pretty film, with a central character who I found likeable despite her spikiness, and some beautiful setpieces and uniquely French characters. Just a shame that, as suggested by the title, it ends just before it gets really interesting, and we're left wondering how Coco finally gets the international success and reknown we know she must ultimately achieve.
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