Category: Film

Monsters / The Tourist

Gill and I popped over for our hopefully-now-regular two-film shift in Glasgow on Friday night. The timings of the performances gave us the following as out best choices for the evening:

Monsters

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Boy meets girl and must travel through alien-infested jungle to get her safely home to dad. Only without many aliens.

Just to clarify something – Monsters is not actually a monster film as such. It’s a film that sets itself around an environment where monsters are present, but is very much a road movie – a film about the two main characters making a journey from A-B. So for those you you disappointed with the lack of disembowellings and big jumpy shocks, don’t say you weren’t warned.

This is cheap film-making at its best. Written and directed by Gareth Edwards, he made the entire thing for around £500,000. This is tiny compared to most Hollywood efforts, despite having a solid (if small) cast and excellent special effects. Every set used is a real building. Every outdoor scene is really outdoors. No special builds were used. The majority of people in the film are just locals who were kicking about. The film crew consisted of two people, as does the central cast.

Best of all, it a) works and b) doesn’t look like it cost so little.

Scoot McNairy and Whitley Able play Andrew and Samantha, thrown together when Andrew’s boss demand that he get his daughter back to the U.S. They’re both in Mexico, and the land between the two countries is classed as an “Infected Zone”, harbouring aliens brought back to earth by a crashed space probe.

On the way they encounter corrupt officials, thieves, friendly locals, guns for hire and – yes – some monsters/aliens. Rather than going for the “big jumpy out” type of creatures, Edwards has instead opted for a sense of “what’s happening next?” which is far better. Most people haven’t seen these aliens except on television, so the characters are torn between fear and curiosity in places.

I would not say this is the best road movie or alien movie ever made. However, I would recommend watching it as it’s fantastic proof that an entertaining and gripping film doesn’t need a budget well into the millions.

The Tourist

“”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: A case of mistaken identity leads an innocent tourist into being mistaken for an international fraudster. But he does get to snog Angelina Jolie, so that’s OK.

I wanted to see this for the humour in the trailer. Gill wanted to see it so she could drool over Johnny Depp. And Angelina Jolie. Strange girl. Anyway.

I saw enough of the trailer to think I wanted to see this, but I have a feeling a lot of the jokes and action are in there. However, it’s still a great ninety minutes or so of pure cinematic candy floss. Don’t take it too seriously and you’ll enjoy it.

Elise (Jolie) is the girlfriend of the accountant of a gangster who’s done a runner with a couple of billion dollars. She receives a note – jump on a train, find someone who kind of looks like me and make the police believe that is me. Said accountant has had $20m worth of plastic surgery so nobody knows what he looks like. The idea is to throw police (including Paul Bettany‘s tenacious Inspector) and gangsters (led by Reginald Shaw, played by Steven Berkoff) off the scent so that the two can meet properly and make their escape into obscurity.

But that would be too easy. Instead, Elise falls for Frank (the tourist) and worries about what could happen to him if the police or gangsters get hold of him. So we have Elise caught between trying to catch up with her man while trying to rescue the other chap she dragged into the situation.

It’s all very silly, but fun. Jolie is quite sexy (I’ll be honest – I’m not normally a huge fan), Depp is airheaded and panicky, Battany is tenacious and Berkoff is a bastard. With the lovely setting of Venice, it makes for an interesting little movie that’s a worthwhile way to spend part of your evening.

Don’t expect a classic, but do expect to enjoy it. The crowd in the cinema (a near sell-out) were laughing out loud at some of the dialogue. It’s not too often that happens these days.

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Harry Potter 7(a) / The Warrior’s Way

A Friday night double-bill in Glasgow with Gillian. First up, the continuing adventures of some kid with a wand, followed by a rather weird kung-fu cowboy film.

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 1

“The Ministry has fallen. The Minister of Magic is dead.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Bad guy rises, bad people take over, bad things happen, good guys run away and hide.

The wizard-y juggernaut crashes towards a near-conclusion with part 1 of the largest novel making its way to the screen. And J.K.Rowling‘s bank balance going stratospherical with her first credit as Producer.

I’ll be honest – I wasn’t that keen on the final book. I thought it was far too slow, and blown out of all proportion which spoiled what had been a good series up until book 5. This film, then, is a good adaptation as it’s pretty much the same.

Now don’t get me wrong. It’s still pretty good. But it’s got a lot more character development and far too much time is spent fleshing out bits of the plot that were touched on earlier in the series. At over two hours, that’s a lot of fleshing. There isn’t any wasted time, though, as far as I could tell. It’s a long book, therefore it’s a long film.

The effects are, as ever, of the highest standard. The cast are magnificent. The script isn’t bad at all and has some good laughs in it. But despite some cracking set pieces, it’s just too damn slow. Also, beware of the rating – this is too scary for some younger kids. We didn’t take Gill’s daughter (aged 9) for this very reason. Friends had taken their kid and warned us that it would be best to wait for the DVD release for E to see it.

The highlight of the film, for me, was the explanation of what the Deathly Hallows are. A wonderful five minute animation as Hermione reads a fairy tale from a book. Beautifully done and it doesn’t intrude on the film at all.

I’ll still go and see the next one, but mainly just because I’ve watched the first seven. The film review on Radio 5 had a message in calling this one “Harry On Camping”. That’s about right. Most of the movie is like Tolkien‘s The Two Towers – it’s all just people moving around. It’s the calm before the storm.

Right now I’m waiting for the lightning to hit.

The Warrior’s Way

“Ninjas. Damn.” (NOTE: Not from the film, even though it’s in the trailer)

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Bad guy turns good guy and runs away from other bad guy, meets more good guys who are hounded by another bad guy and then all the bad guys meet up. With kung-fu and cowboys.

This is a very weird film. Possibly the weirdest western you’ll encounter until Cowboys and Aliens hits the screens. Actually, probably weirder because of how it’s filmed.

First of all, it’s definitely not to everyone’s taste. I thought it was wonderful. Not perfect, but definitely worth seeing. Gillian was impressed with the visual style and so forth, but found it otherwise rather vapid, preferring the Asian films it takes its style from to this offshoot.

The story is explained well in the trailer – a swordsman spends his life being trained to be the best in the world. His commander orders that he destroy every living member of their opposing clan, which he does… until he encounters the last one: a baby. He can’t bring himself to kill the child, so grabs it and scarpers to the Wild West. Of course, doing so marks him as a dead man as far as his old clan are concerned so they follow behind to deal out justice (i.e. kill him).

Yang (Dong-gun Jang) finds himself in the are end of nowhere, in a small town where a friend of his used to run a laundry. So no stereotypes there, then. The population are predominantly discarded circus folk, lending a rather stilted edge to the atmosphere as bearded ladies, clowns and midgets walk the streets.

There he encounters Lynne (Kate Bosworth), a dead ringer for Toy Story‘s Jessie, who had started knife training with the previous “yellow man”. She has her own unsettling history relating to a local bad guy known only as “Colonel” (Danny Huston).

What I liked about the film was the slow build. It starts with some nice action, but keeps the blood and gore down to some spurts and CGI clouds. As the film progresses, the violence becomes grander and more graphic. This is the opposite of Ninja Assassin which had the single best gory moment (head sliced in half) right in the opening sequence.

The plot-related scenes are simply gorgeous. I just loved the feel of the whole film. For an idea of how it looks and how the story is rolled along, refer yourself to the TV series Pushing Daisies with it’s strong colours and rather off-kilter feel. You could probably delve deeper and start spotting metaphors (like the flower garden), but I simply didn’t feel the need and just wallowed in the sheer loveliness of it.

It won’t appeal to everyone. However, it did really appeal to me. Gillian said she was glad to have seen it, but wouldn’t recommend it. I guess that would be one thumb up and one thumb down.

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The American (and a second dose of trains)

Courtesy of being a numpty and checking the times for Cineworld Glasgow instead of Edinburgh, I made my way to the cinema for 10:30 to find that the showing of Machete I wanted to see didn’t exist.

Arse.

I’d seen everything else due to start before half twelve (except Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest and I’ve not seen, or want to see, the one before it) so I opted to watch Unstoppable again. I missed the first 10 minutes when I caught it last week, so at least some of it would be new. It was still enjoyable the second time around, though not as good as the first screening.

Next up:

The American

“You cannot deny the existence of hell. You live in it. It is a place without love.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Mysterious American hitman/spy/something ends up in a peaceful Italian town with some dodgy Swedish people on his tail.

Based on Martin Booth‘s novel A Very Private Gentleman, the film finds “Jack” (George Clooney) fleeing to Italy to escape Swedish assassins, while preparing one final job. It’s never 100% clear what he does, though this final work seems to involve supplying a gun to another assassin rather than doing the deed himself.

It’s definitely a rather arty film, not the action spectacle you might expect. There are many scenes that just seem to be crammed together and often you’re left thinking “what’s going on? Why did he just do that?” – but at least it’s a film that makes you think rather than spoon-feeding the audience.

What I can say about the movie is that it is absolutely beautifully shot (director Anton Corbijn should take a bow), most of it in a small Italian town called Castel del Monte. If the Italian government were looking for a 105 minute tourism advert showing how gorgeous and historic parts of their country are, then they’d not go far wrong using this.

The rest of the cast are as good as can be expected, though I have to simply say: Violante Placido… *drool*. If I was allowed a “five famous people” list she’d be on it. Wow.

As I said, don’t expect huge explosions, spectacular car crashes and Bay-esque set pieces. This is a film about Clooney’s character rather than the events around him. The thing is, he’s such a private gentleman that it doesn’t make for a very interesting tale. Everything coasts along well enough, and there are little moments as the film builds to a decent near-ending… and a fairly weak final scene.

There are better films out at the moment, but if you want to see Italy at its most jaw-dropping then there’s nothing else to rival this one.

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Unstoppable London Boulevard

Two more films to make up for last week’s drought, courtesy of some kids’ film taking up all the new screens.

Unstoppable

“In training they just give you an F. Out here you get killed.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Runaway train!

“Based on real events” apparently, but who cares. Unstoppable is ninety minutes of being sat on the edge of your seat despite knowing perfectly well how it’s going to end. Denzel Washington and Chris Pine play two train drivers (yes, I know there are technical terms – I don’t care) who get caught up in a potential disaster. A huge train laden with dangerous chemicals is belting along the tracks towards a township, and *dramatic drum roll* only they can stop it.

The film has all the stereotypes. There’s a guy with marital problems. Another pushing retirement. A tough female who’s belittled by the powers that be. A **** of a company director.

Tony Scott‘s done a great job with what’s a very simple story. We don’t spend too much time messing around with character development when all we’re really interested in is the BIG SODDING TRAIN. There’s actually very little destruction in the film (it’s Scott, not Michael Bay after all), so it’s more in the thriller camp than an action film.

If you’ve had a tough week at work, then this is an ideal movie to go and see. Switch your brain into neutral and shovel the popcorn into your gob while Unstoppable washes over you.

London Boulevard

“Fahk awf. Cahnt.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Don’t make me angry. You’d not like me when I’m angry. I turn into a gangster.

A hell of a cast, this one, led by Colin Farrell as a released convict who’s expected by his peers to get back “on the game”. However, he really doesn’t want to. The local kingpin, however, has other ideas and it rather insistent.

Farrell manages to almost drop his Irish accent for this one, whereas Keira Knightley hams up her posh one playing a strung-out ex-actress. Who really needs to eat more. And wear a padded bra. Just saying, sorry. Ray Winstone is cast as the big, bad gangland lord which means he gets to swear a lot and be violent. So no typecasting so far.

My choice for best performance of the film goes to David Thewlis, who plays a wonderfully scatty friend to Knightley’s recluse. His character ranges from stoner to thug without ever seeming as if he’s acting unnaturally. Genuinely wonderful to watch.

London Boulevard flips from violence to humour to emotional and touching from scene to scene, often meaning that it seems a little jumpy. However, the story is good enough that it really doesn’t matter.

At risk of giving a spoiler (do stop reading if it worries you, just in case), the film’s similarity to Layer Cake is emphasised by the ending which is just too samey.

I enjoyed it, though. A very good story (even if it’s unoriginal), great performances and some genuine laugh out loud moments.

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Skyline

You know sometimes you see a trailer and you think “Wow, that looks good”? And you know sometimes that the trailer just doesn’t match up?

Skyline

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Aliens appear, start snatching people for no reason and stuff blows up. Erm… yeah. That’s it.

Skyline is kind of like seeing a gorgeous pizza covered with all your favourite toppings, taking a huge bite and finding it’s made out of polystyrene. It’s all air, fluff and appearances with no actual nutritional value. It has its use as eye candy but it’s ultimately completely unsatisfying.

It starts very promisingly, with the aliens arriving pretty much in frame one. This lasts five minutes then we’re taken back to “15 hours earlier” for some pointless character development of our small group of “heroes”. We than catch back up and get to enjoy the same footage we just saw repeated.

The film hinges on the effects which are very well done. Sadly, even an effect-driven movie needs a decent story and that’s where Skyline falls down very badly. Even Independence Day has a plot of some kind and some fairly witty dialogue. Skyline even lacks witty one-liners. One of the biggest jumps in the film is in the trailer, so that’s been spoiled.

Despite the incredible effects, they’re unoriginal. The floaty aliens look like squids from the Matrix movies. Until they land when they become more like the bugs from Starship Troopers. Then there’s the huge, towering monsters which bear more than a passing resemblance to something I remember from the first Quake game.

As far as highlights go, the helicopter scene is pretty cool. And the aerial battles with what’s left of the air force. That’s about it, frankly.

Oh, and the ending. Good grief, how awful. While I’m fine with there being no explanation for the technology, or the reason for the invasion (it’s missed only as ever other films ends up going down this road, but it’s realistic – would we ever find that out?) what I couldn’t stand was the rushed and incredibly cheesy naffness of the closing five minutes. It’s almost as if it was tagged on as an afterthought. Alternatively, someone looked at their watch during production and decided the film had gone on too long and they only had 10 minutes including end credits left so they just had to shoehorn in the first piece of crap that came to mind.

And despite all  this, Empire magazine gave it film of the week on their weekly email with 3/5 stars. Which makes even less sense given that another film on the same mail was awarded 4/5. I’ve never understood magazines that do that.

Worse, though – Skyline 2 is already in production. I’m fairly sure that’ll be joining Avatars 2 and 3 on my “don’t bother” pile.

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