Category: Film

The Wolfman

Plot-in-a-nutshell: It’s a werewolf film. What more do you need? Look at the flipping title!

The Wolfman is how you do a remake of a classic horror. Lon Chaney Jr would be proud as the traditional old tale has been given a modern-day budget, but thankfully is still set in Olde Englande.

Benicio del Toro plays a young (ish – he’s starting to get a bit wrinkly) man, summoned back to England from America when his brother’s body is found dead in a ditch. Rumours abound that the killing was done by a wild beast, the third in recent months. Blame falls partly on a group of gypsies (it’s not politically incorrect if it’s the 19th century) and then on the Talbot family.

The film has all you need for a romp of that era: pitchfork wielding locals, a screaming priest, a policeman from London town (Hugo Weaving – superb) who doesn’t fit in with the country folk… I also have to mention Anthony Hopkins just because he’s fantastic.

Oh, and great effects. American Werewolf in London can still hold its head high for the makeup and animatronics they used, but The Wolfman is the modern equivalent. The transformations are seemless and bloody, suitably horrific.

Some of the images that stick in the mind really hark back to the old Universal films, such as the werewolf clad in torn period clothing. A real homage without being a simple remake.

There’s a good mixture of tense, jumpy moments with outright hack and slash horror, too. It’s a fairly simple story, well told and fitting its running length perfectly.

If you like a “proper” horror movie, then this is definitely recommended.

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Four Film Tuesday

Despite being loaded with cold (by which I mean, being male, that I was DYING) I made it to the cinema to catch four films today: A Single Man, Battle for Terra 3D, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief and Valentine’s Day.

A Single Man

Plot-in-a-nutshell: A day in the life of a gay man in the 60’s who’s lover died recently.

Beautifully directed. Artfully shot. Emotionally acted. Utterly boring.

Obvious OSCAR nomination material due to the subject matter and poncy direction, but incredibly dull and boring. To its credit, I can’t believe that this is the same Colin Firth who was in the atrocious St Trinian’s films. OK, this film’s still not exactly great but at least it’s not trash.

Battle for Terra (3D)

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Humanity invades a peace-loving alien world.

I’d not actually heard of this film other than in the cinema listings so I wasn’t expecting much. How wrong I was. This is not the kind of fare one automatically thinks of when you see the words “cartoon” and “computer generated”. Think more The Last Starfighter than Wall-E. I’d go so far as to say it’s not really a kids’ film so much as a young adults’.

First up, there’s no real comedy in it. Neither are their a multitude of background jokes and references. Cute characters or sidekicks? None. OK, so there’s a robot thingy but it’s hardly a comedy character.

It’s hardly original fare. Part of the plot and ideas can be likened to sources such as Avatar, Battlestar Galactica (the way the human ships launch), Planet 51, Independence Day (the ending) and countless others. However, it is so well packaged that it stands very well in its own right.

The story’s fairly run-of-the-mill, but takes the best of many sources and welds things together into a tight little arc that fits snugly into the short running length. The visuals are superb, voice acting top notch (Mark Hamill and James Garner for crying out loud!) and direction pinpoint.

Sure, it’ll never be up there with PIXAR’s finest simply as it’s never going to get the advertising money behind it. This is BandSlam compared to Disney’s High School Musical series. Far superior, but squirrelled away.

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Teenage boy finds out he’s a demi-god, quest ensues.

OK, you want a short review? Harry Potter meets The Clash of the Titans. It is such an easy comparison to make because that’s what it is. We’ll see how it fares against the real Clash remake in a few weeks, but in the meantime this is an enjoyable enough ride.

Let’s look at it and I’ll try to be as spoiler-free as possible.

  • Boy has poor, mildly abusive upbringing
  • No real knowledge of parentage (OK, he knows his mum in this film)
  • Ends up at school for children like him when he discovers his “true self”
  • Rails against authority figure at school despite being their favourite
  • Forms little group containing himself, incredibly talented female and token minority character (Jackson: black kid; Potter: ginger kid)

If you’ve seen Clash or have any knowledge of Greek mythology you’ll know how several of the set pieces will go. Medusa to Hydra – it’s just like it was in Harryhausen’s epic.

It’s still not a bad film, though. And it’s great to see Sean Bean as Zeus. Ruler of the gods and he has a Yorkshire accent. I’m assuming this will develop into a series following the books, so it could improve. Harry Potter, in my opinion, did. A decent start, but it really needs some more originality so I hope the later tomes are better.

Valentine’s Day

This will likely be the only mention of this “holiday” on my blog this year as I, personally, hate it. Utterly commercial and not even a proper holiday. Anyway…

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Various people are single or in couples, then they meet up or split up and then it all ends.

This is a US take on the films of Richard Curtis et al who really know how to put one of these together. Plenty of swearing usually helps (Four Weddings, I’m looking at you), and I believe there was one “****” in the entire of Valentine’s Day. Poor showing.

It is not a bad film. There are more plot threads than anything Tarantino’s put together, with the characters interwoven very tightly. A little too much, to be honest, and it pushes coincidence just a little too far. However, the plot doesn’t revolve around this coincidence except for one little piece, so this is forgiveable.

The cast is stellar, though CineWorld’s reason to see the film amounts to the fact that it’s the first one in which Julia Roberts and her niece both star. Erm. Big whoop.

If you know your multi-threaded rom-coms this is nothing new. It’s one full valentine’s day of some indeterminate year (not this year as it’s on a Monday in the film) and… things happen. As a general rule, people who are together split up. Those who aren’t, get together.

There are a couple of little surprise moment, especially towards the end.

Now, I’m a jaded old fart. But there were two moments in particular that had me – and the entire audience – going “aaaaah” and/or reaching tissue-wards. I won’t spoil them other than to say they both involved the young boy.

This isn’t the laugh-fest promised by the trailer. In fact most of the biggest giggles are in the trailer itself. There’s a fair bit going for it, though, and it’s worth seeing. It could have stood beig maybe 15 minutes shorter, but other than that it’s not bad.

An easy pigeon hole to put it in, but it’d be a good date movie.

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Film Feast

"Invictus" sneak preview in Hsinchu,...
Invictus (honestly!)

Four Film Friday this time – Invictus, Youth in Revolt, Astro Boy and Edge of Darkness. I’ll try to get through them quickly…

Invictus

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) becomes President of South Africa and decides to use the upcoming Rugby World Cup as a means of unifying the country.

I don’t like rugby, on the whole. This worked in my favour going into this film as it’s based on real events and I didn’t know what the outcome would be as I had no idea who won the 1995 Rugby World Cup. Clint Eastwood directs, Freeman is – as ever – simply superb and Matt Damon captains the Springboks.

How close is it to what really happened? Who knows. I’m sure there are certain key scenes and events which mirror history but there’s always room for dramatisation (Wikipedia has a small list). Thankfully it’s not overly-sentimental or symbolic, though it does push this from time to time.

Both Freeman and Damon pull off decent accents although some of the other actors appear somewhat stilted, especially towards the beginning of the movie.

This is a good film. Not overstated, not grandstanding, and a very good story. The obvious link between a battered country finding its feet and being led by someone who’s overcoming the odds is very much mirrored by their rugby team’s efforts. If I have a complaint, it’s the huge over-use of slow-motion to enhance “dramatic effect” near the end.

Youth in Revolt

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Boy meets girl, boy has to become bad boy to get girl, boy goes a little too far…

Michael Cera plays two parts in this film – Nick and the alter-ego Francois that he creates to get the girl, Sheeni (Portia Doubleday). The only other film I’ve seen Cera in was Superbad and that lived up to its title. Youth in Revolt is marginally better but still lacks greatness.

If there’s one thing that stands out, it’s the amusing animated segments interspersed throughout the live action. They don’t really add to the story, but they’re amusing and the one at the start got one of the loudest laughs in the theatre. It’s worth watching the one over the end credits as well.

Amusing in places, messy in others. Next!

Astro Boy

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Scientist creates uber-bad killer robot, and also a robotic replica of his dead son. Cue obvious battle.

I’m not a Manga geek so I don’t know how this hold up to the original, however it’s kind of “OK” as a CGI Hollywood version. There’s no denying the quality of the voice cast: Nicolas Cage, Donald Sutherland, Samuel L. Jackson, Bill Nighy, Charlize Theron… However, the script needs more work. Or more jokes.

Visually it’s nice, but CGI films are all starting to look a little samey now. There’s no real imagination in Astro Boy. If you want a mechanical visual feast, check out Robots from a few years back.

The kids will like its simplicity, but adults will miss the added depths, double meanings and references present in films such as Toy Story or Planet 51.

Edge of Darkness

Plot-in-a-nutshell – a cop’s daughter is gunned down in front of him on his doorstep, so he sets out to find out who did it

This film is based on a BBC drama from some years ago which I vaguely recall watching. Obviously, it’s been shifted to the US but well re-written to make it fit both geographically and in a modern timeline.

However, while the drama had several hour-long episodes to fit everything in, the film version has only 117 minutes. As a result, Mel Gibson‘s efforts to locate his daughter’s killer and work his way through the conspiracy tree is often a little messy.

Ray Winstone’s role is rather hard to pin down. We know he’s there but who the hell actually is he? Other than an English guy who swears a lot (i.e. he’s playing himself again).

The film begins well enough, but the thrills and spills promised by the trailer really don’t occur. There’s a lot of soul-searching and threats by Gibson’s character mixed with very occasional bursts of fast driving. It is a drama, not an action thriller – but the trailer is misleading.

It’s a good story, too. But as I said it’s compressed into too short a time. Some questions are left unanswered while other bits of evidence are thrown in and the viewer is left wondering where they came from.

Well-acted, good story but just not suited for film form without better scripting.

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44 Inch Chest

It’s not very often I leave the cinema thinking “I could have been doing anything else, but watching that”. 44 Inch Chest made me feel that way.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Man (Ray Winstone) finds out wife is being unfaithful, kidnaps the guy who she was with, threatens him a bit along with his mates and then goes mad. Or something. I’m not sure.

I had some time to kill on the way home today (by flipping bus, but that’s another story) and this was the only film on at a convenient time. Given that it’s by the same writers as Sexy Beast I was looking forward to it. However, the only things it has in common with that masterpiece are Ray Winstone and a ton of swearing.

The premise is very simple. The settings are simple. The acting is fantastic (John Hurt is wonderful, and Ian McShane as the dodgy poof is perfect). Overall, though, it’s ultimately empty. Around halfway through it just goes a little over the edge and the ending is simply awful. I sat for about two minutes of the credits convinced it was a “false” ending and that there had to be more coming up.

Wrong.

I left the cinema feeling bewildered and somewhat cheated. There is nothing in this chest worth seeing.

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Common sense prevails

The Hurt Locker
The Hurt Locker

I don’t normally pay much attention to awards ceremonies as those nominated often aren’t the ones who deserve to be so, and the winners are usually selected for commercial reasons. Like Forrest Gump winning all those Oscars when The Shawshank Redemption came out the same year.

However, I was really pleased to see that Kathryn Bigelow has just won the Directors Guild of America‘s award for feature film this year for the superb The Hurt Locker.

It was up against some real competition (worthwhile, such as Jason Reitman‘s Up In the Air and commercial, such as Avatar – Inglorious Basterds and Precious made up the numbers) but it was without a doubt the best film on the shortlist.

With the exception of Precious, it’s also the cheapest with a budget of around $11m, and a small gross (as of November 2009) of around $16m. Compare that to Avatar with a budget in excess of $230m (maybe as high as $480m including marketting) and a gross pushing $2b!

It just goes to show that you don’t need a stupid budget, a script ripped from Pocahantas and a bunch of stretched Smurfs to win an award. I seriously hope she goes on to get the related Oscar when those awards come up – or at least someone else as deserving.

[UPDATE: I just spotted that a week earlier, The Hurt Locker also won the equivalent award from the Producers Guild of America. Superb.]

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