Category: Film

Season of the Witch / The King’s Speech

The King's Speech
The King's Speech

Two films on a Friday – back to a semi-regular way to round off the week with Gillian. We opted for a nicely opposing pairing this weekend. One silly action film and another deemed somewhat of a classic from the previews.

Season of the Witch

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Absconding knights offer to take an alleged witch across country for trial so they don’t get executed. Like a road movie with armour.

Behmen and Felson (Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman) get a little sick of being told to kill innocents in the name of God, so decide to turn their backs on the Crusades. Popping through a small town, they are discovered as deserters and sentenced to death. As luck would have it, the town is suffering a plague brought on by a witch and in exchange for offering to transport her to a monastery to undergo trial, they’re given their freedom.

That pretty much covers the plot. Other than that it’s moderately average action / medieval fare. Cage and Perlman get all the good lines and there is some decent banter. The effects are passable (until the end when there’s some CGI that makes Doctor Who look big-budget) and the acting’s tolerable.

It’s not a classic, but even by Cage’s standards is just not up to par. Certainly, it’s not a complete heap of arse like Ghost Rider (seriously – they’re making a sequel?), but there’s just not a lot to it. By the end, there’s a feel that you’ve watched an over-long TV drama rather than a decent motion picture.

The King’s Speech

“I have a voice!”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: true story of a king-to-be who has a speech impediment, and the work done by a therapist to get him through it.

Short review: See this film. See it now.

Longer review: This is a heartwarming tale of royalty meets common-folk set in the 1930s as Britain gears up for war and the royal family goes through some upsets. King George V doesn’t have long to live and his son (the soon-to-be King Edward) is filandering with a twice-divorced American. Marrying her would mean he can’t be king, and his younger brother Bertie would take the reins.

Bertie (better known historically as King George VI, and played magnificently by Colin Firth) has a problem. His job is to be head of state, he need to give speeches… and he has a very pronounced stammer. At the insistence of his wife, Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter) he does the rounds of speech therapists, eventually ending up with the rather unusual Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush).

Thus begins a story that takes us from Bertie’s small speeches as Duke of York through to his first – and famous – speech as King just as Britain announced that it was to go to war with Germany for a second time.

The film very much focusses on the relationship between  Lionel and Bertie. The Australian voice doctor much preferring to be informal with his patients initially sits very badly with the occasionally bad-tempered King-in-waiting, but the two do gel as time goes on.

The dialogue between the two fizzes, even when Firth is stammering away. One of the therapy sessions includes the funniest swearing sequence I think I’ve seen since Steve Martin’s car hire rant in Planes, Trains and Automobiles – a segment which initially earned the film a 15 rating due to the number of “****”s. It was downgraded to a 12A with the warning that it was “language in the setting of speech therapy”. So remember, kids – it’s acceptable to swear at your doctor.

There isn’t a single bad member of cast in the entire movie. A small surprise for me was seeing Timothy Spall as Winston Churchill. A far cry from the labourer he played all those years ago in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. Derek Jacobi is superb as the pompous Archbishop of Canterbury, a man obviously used to getting his own way.

Firth plays the Prince/King very well and the script portrays him as a troubled man who underwent a harsh childhood being by far the second most important behind his elder brother. Despite this, he’s a good father to his two daughters and by all accounts was a popular king before being succeeded by our current monarch.

I’m no royalist, but this is an incredible story and certainly one that deserves two hours of anyone’s time. With some excellent dialogue, funny moments and a story that doesn’t stop with a ton of history and trivia thrown in it’s great value for money.

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Love & Other Drugs / The Next Three Days / The Way Back

Ah, been a while since I did three films in a day. In a bid to avoid take a break from working hard, I headed over to the Cineworld in Edinburgh for one romcom, a thriller and a historical drama. I like a nice mix.

Love and Other Drugs

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Boy meets girl. Shags her. Meets another girl. Shags her. Meets another girl. Shags her. Meets another girl. Shags her, but likes her. Sells some pills along the way (legally).

LaOD is definitely more “romantic” than “comedy”. There are some genuinely funny moments in it, but it focusses far more on the story than it does on laughs. That’s not to say it isn’t enjoyable. It is. Hugely so.

This is largely due to Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway. And this is partly due to the amount of flesh they show. One thing that’s always annoyed me about films is the way a couple can be all over each other, then the scene cuts and they insist on keeping themselves covered with sheets. Not so in this film! That’s not to say it’s remotely pornographic – unless you’re from the Bible Belt, in which case curved table legs are fairly hard core.

The performances are fantastic, especially Hathaway who plays a character with onsetting Parkinsons Disease. The writers have managed to make this a major point (as it should be) without turning things schmaltzy.

Jamie (Gyllenhaal) grows up as the film progresses, and he portrays this with some strength. Moving from the easy-going playboy to a dedicated partner in stages as the film progresses, he matures over the course of the two hours or so.

Josh Gad is also excellent as the comedy relief, Jamie’s brother. He pops up in just the right places to give some laughs and does manage to steal some of the scenes he’s in. Basically, he’s there for the guys who are taking their partners to see this film on a date.

A great story with passionate performances from the leads.

The Next Three Days

Plot-in-a-nutshell: A woman is jailed for a crime she didn’t commit (or did she?) and her husband starts to plot a way of getting her out. Only he’s not that great at it.

This isn’t the first “damsel in distress and amateur husband/partner comes to the rescue” film by any stretch. It is, however, ever so slightly more realistically portrayed than most others. Hubby (John – played by Russell Crowe) is a school teacher. He isn’t ex-military and doesn’t have a keen interest in survivalism.

His wife, Lara (Elizabeth Banks), is jailed for murdering her boss which she denies. However, there’s a lot of doubt as to the truth of this. This simple fact does make the film a bit more interesting. Will the actually get away with John’s plan? Should they? After all, there’s every chance she did it.

Indeed, John keeps screwing up. As ever, I’ll avoid spoilers, but his methods don’t always work out too well. Of course, where’s the fun in a film where everything is easy? You’ll end up with something like Law Abiding Citizen which has been done.

Despite a 2-hour running time, The Next Three Days doesn’t overstay its welcome and maintains interest right the way through. It does use some classic cinema tricks to maintain tension which are woefully predictable, but they only detract slightly from the film.

The Way Back

Plot-in-a-nutshell: A small group escape from a Russian gulag in Siberia then travel 4000 miles – on foot – to freedom.

There’s some debate as to the truthfulness of the book on which this film is based, but there’s enough fact in there to make it a wonderfully emotional work. Starting in the work camps of frozen Sibera (all 5 million square miles of it), the group head south in search of freedom. This takes a lot longer than they expect.

The group is made up of Russians, Poles, an American… quite a mix and indicative of the fact that Communism didn’t care who it trampled as long as it got its own way.

Not all the actors are from Eastern Europe, despite paying characters from there. Ed Harris does play the lone American, but Colin Farrell puts on a pretty acceptable accent as the mad knife-wielding lowlife who forces his way into the escape party.

The majority of the film depicts the group’s journey through harsh snow, mountains, plains, lakes, and desert as they make their way south to India and freedom from the reaches of Communism.

It does seem to rush a little as the time goes by. The early stages of the trek take up the most time, and each lengthier stage takes less and less screen time as the story progresses. Still, I suppose there’s only so much you can show of people walking with the sun beating down on them, or snow blinding them.

There’s a great story here with some compelling performances. I enjoyed it, but I don’t think it’s quite classic material. Far better than some of the brain-numbing crap being thrust on us these days, though.

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Megamind

Our mission – to take a 2 year 9 month old to his first ever film at the cinema. Stage 1 was to ensure we left on time. We failed, due to “the floors needing cleaned”.

Women. *tut*

After a hasty reschedule, we changed cinema and ended up at the Showcase in Paisley to see Megamind with Austin (2 years 9 months), Ellissa (9 years 9 months) and Louise (9 years 6 months). Oh, and two old fogies.

Megamind

“Good is the path of honour, friends and family. Evil… well, it’s just cooler.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Two aliens arrive on earth as babies. One goes on to be a superhero, the other has less luck and becomes his arch enemy. This… is their story.

The first films that come to mind when looking at the plot of Megamind are The Incredibles and Despicable Me. This new offering, though, is different enough from the two of them to be worth seeing in its own right.

Lookswise, it’s very much along the lines we’re used to from DreamWorks. All curvy and shiny and very cartoony. Nothing wrong with this, but it would be nice if they tried something new the way Pixar do with each film.

The story is good, though, and the trailer doesn’t give much away. This is something that virtually every film studio could learn from. Only a couple of early scenes are covered, so the rest of the plot and jokes are fresh and enjoyable when you see them in the full feature.

It’s fun. It’s got quite a few nods to established superhero history as well – good luck spotting them! There’s not a huge amount of background stuff compared to its peers, but the dialogue and voice acting is top notch with comic timing as good as it gets.

Gill and I both agreed that it was better than we expected. The two girls were enraptured for the whole length.

And Austin? He got a little restless about half way through and chucked two Toy Story dolls and a shoe into the next row in front (thankfully empty). However, he spent most of the time watching the film, although a fair amount of that was stood up with his head pushed between the chairs in front.

I’m taking that as a “recommended”.

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Chatroom

There wasn’t a huge choice of far at the cinema – I don’t think there are too many new releases this time of year. We basically had a toss-up between Chatroom and The Way Back. Forget the third Fockers film (the first two were painful enough) and Jack Black stopped being funny after… erm… actually, he’s never been that funny. So that ruled out Gulliver’s Travels, even if the incessant irritation of those sodding Orange commercials hadn’t blacklisted it anyway.

We opted for the one that started an hour earlier.

Chatroom

Plot-in-a-nutshell: a group of teens meet in a chatroom online, one isn’t exactly what he seems, then online and offline lives collide. With hilarious consequences if you’re one of the f*ckwits sat near us who thought this was a new addition to the Final Destination franchise.

Chatroom is directed by Hideo Nakata who directed the original Ringu and its sequel (as well as the western version of The Ring 2). As such, he has a bit of a pedigree as a psychological horror director so something good should be expected of Chatroom. Sadly, it’s lacking.

The visualisation is excellent, though I gather not unique, in that the cyber world is portrayed as a real one. Chat rooms are doors in a dodgy looking flat, labelled with the group’s name. Password security is a door buzzer, and so forth. Even the token paedo who makes his way into one of the rooms is well “presented” in this format.

However, the story just isn’t up to much. It’s very apparent what will happen from far too early on in the film. The moment where it could all change for the better, but doesn’t is over far too quickly. The ending is a bit weak and too sudden.

There are some disturbing moments (mildly) as well as one or two genuinely funny ones (such as the sex room visits), but overall it’s a 30-minute TV show dragged out to ninety minutes and it feels it.

Gill reckons it would be better suited to a stage play and I can see where she’s coming from. The imagery used and the techniques to present it would work very well. It’s also a nice small cast so would make a decent theatre event.

For the silver screen, though, it’s just not got enough depth.

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Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Dragged against my will to see a kids’ film (with two nine year old girls), the only minor victory in my favour was managing to schedule a 2D viewing…

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

“This place just gets weirder and weirder!”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: precocious children return to mystical land where they’re apparently royalty, kick some monster butt and meet Jesus a lion.

It’s not usual for me to jump into a trilogy without seeing the first two, but I was effectively bullied by two little girls. And you don’t argue with women no matter how small they are. I’m familiar with the first tale in the series (of which there are seven books by C.S.Lewis – whether they’ll all make it to the screen is to be seen), but only from TV adaptations many years ago.

It’s still an easy story to get into if you have the very basic background – some children find a magical land via a wardrobe in part one, something else happens in part two and in part three they go back again via a painting on a wall. They also drag a very annoying relative with them. The scene is quickly set at this point, and I wasn’t left wondering too many things about the back-story as the plot kicked off.

The characters are easy to get to grips with, the story starts well and the action sequences are fantastical and exciting. This really is a children’s film, but is perfectly enjoyable by adults. Sure, the younger cast are a little gushy and the plot fairly thin (find seven swords and pop them on a table) but the settings are fantastic. It’s a real work of imagination and today’s special effects really do it justice.

There genuinely isn’t a dull moment. When the plot isn’t moving forward, there are some nice sequences about the characters. The annoying relative, of course, proves his worth and becomes a part of the team. Evil men give way to strange creatures which progress onto huge monsters as the challenges faced get bigger and more perilous.

I honestly can’t see the film being improved by 3D – very few films at all can be – so save your cash and catch this version. But do catch it, especially if you’ve seen the first two. I enjoyed it far more than I expected despite spending half the film on the lookout for the well known Christian allegory. Which, incidentally, is not very hard to spot towards the end of the movie.

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