Category: Film

Drag Me To Hell

ShowEast Trade Show 2008 :: Movie Poster for D...
Drag Me To Hell (ish)

It’s been a while since I’ve watched a horror. I went off them some time ago. Don’t know why, I just did. In fact, I think the last was Saw… something. They all seem the same after the second one. Well, this weekend I ran out of stuff to watch at the cinema (except Hannah bloody Montana and I’m not going to see that), leaving just Sam Raimi‘s Drag Me To Hell on the listings.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) is a bank worker pushing for promotion. In a bid to make herself seem the tough-nut required, she turns down an old gypsy woman’s begging for a mortgage extension. And gets cursed. She has three day to break the curse or she’s off to become St Nick’s footstool.

Now, I love Raimi. I think the second and third Evil Dead films are awesome. He’s done wonderful things with Spiderman. And his second-unit direction work on The Hudsucker Proxy stood out a mile if you’d seen the earlier adventures of Ash vs the Deadites. To be honest, if this film hadn’t been by him (and incidentally featured pretty much his entire family) I’d not have bothered.

Aside from the streaks in my underpants (thankfully black so you can’t tell), I’m glad I did.

Raimi’s lost none of the flair for the ridiculous, shocking, silly and gross. The only major difference between this and his earlier works is budget, and the technology he can buy with it. Drag isn’t quite as silly as Evil Dead II simply as it doesn’t have a character like Ash in it. However, it’s still tense and jumpy while still making the audience laugh as much as scream. I bet you’ll hear chuckles in the house when you hear the line “Here, kitty-kitty”.

Actually, if you don’t jump out of your seat within the first 2-3 minutes of the film then check that your autonomous nervous system isn’t knackered.

Once the plot gets going you can almost predict the ending. It’s a schlock horror at heart and it’s not out to twist your brain as you try to battle the IQ of the writer. This is purely a film to make you go rigid, jump then laugh. It’s entertainment. And it does it well.

It’s not often I go to the cinema today and hear the audience reacting. In fairness, it’s almost always horrors that do it. Hell, the last time I recall hearing an audience roaring with laughter at a comedy was at Mrs Doubtfire. Eek. But Drag achieved that.

That alone should be a recommendation. It’s no classic, but it is a good bit of cinema.

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12 Rounds

Cover of "Die Hard Collection (Die Hard /...
Couldn't find a 12 Rounds pic. This is close enough.

Imagine a cross between Die Hard 3 and 16 Blocks only without Bruce Willis. Or any other actors you may have heard of before. Add a dash of The Game and a random ex-fake wrestler (the WWE even produced the film), stir in Renny Harlin directing someone other than his ex-wife. Leave to simmer and you have 12 Rounds.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Cop arrests bad guy, but bad buy’s girlfriend dies in freak accident. Bad guy escapes jail and comes back for revenge. Or does he…?

Ok, the plot doesn’t matter crap here. 12 Rounds is about action sequences. Try to justify anything in here with logic and you might as well not bother watching the film. You know, a bit like Die Hard 4.0 only not quite as awful.

John Cena does a decent job of not quite acting, and an excellent job of the stunts. He’s huge, and thankfully there’s not a lot in the way of fistfights because it would take someone the size of an in-shape Arnie to provide any semblance of a fair competition. Don’t expect him to be taking any oscars soon, but he’s definitely got the edge on Hulk Hogan as far as action is concerned.

There’s not a lot else to say about the film, to be honest. Virtually plotless until someone remembered after 90 minutes that they need to tie everything together. It’s all a string of seemingly random stunts and explosions and, you know, that’s fine what what it is.

I can’t figure out whether some of the scenes and lines were subconsciously stolen or are a tribute to the films that 12 Rounds is ripping off. Keep an ear out for the resident bad guy chatting over the phone while on a street car when he “twigs” that the FBI are involved. The whole way he says “F… B… I…” he may as well adopt a Hans Kruber German accent.

Don’t go in expecting the best film ever and you won’t be disappointed. You’ve seen it all before – the basic story, some of the sequences – but they hang together well and it’s not a bad way to spend an hour and a half in a dark room.

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Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay

Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay
Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay

While I enjoyed Get The Munchies (or Go To White Castle in the US), I can’t say the same for Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay. Most of the (very few) laughs are bundled into the opening 15 minutes, the supporting characters are either superfluous or annoying and the editing of this Unrated Edition is dire in places.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Fresh from the first film, Harold and Kumar get on a jet bound for Amsterdam. And then get promptly arrested and thrown into Guantánamo Bay as they’re mistaken for terrorists. Escape and an attempt to clear their name ensues as they try to get to Texas and the one person who can help them.

The film has moments, but  that’s it – moments. The whole thing is disjointed, particularly in one party scene where it’s painfully obvious that dialogue is being dubbed from a scene that should be on the screen in front of you. Instead, I assume to make the most of the “unrated” label, the camera pans around a load of semi-naked women instead. I mean, naked chicks are all fine and good but that could have been done as well as the acting taking place off-camera.

Overall, though, the entire film plays as a lot of little scenes just cobbled together with no real fluidity.

As I said, the supporting characters are just annoying. Hell, even Kumar’s annoying in this one. Why anyone would stay friends with a complete ****** like this is beyond me. I know this is a comedy, and a stoner one at that, but the viewer still have to have some amount of belief in the characters and situation, surely.

Ron Fox (Robert Corddry) tips the believability scale far too far as an insane Homeland Security representative, surrounded by people who know he’s a dick. The scene where his “translator” can’t understand Harold’s parents because they speak English is simply painful. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not Corddry’s fault. It’s the character that’s awful to watch, not the actor. And the guy who plays George W. Bush couldn’t look any less like the “real” one – hell, my dad would do a better job and he’s got a beard.

Neil Patrick Harris, however, makes a welcome return as himself, and does a great turn in making himself out to be a complete drug-addled tool. Sadly, he’s the only standout in the entire cast.

John Cho has gone on to pilot the Enterprise in the new Star Trek film. Kal Penn has just been offered a job as an Assistant Director in the White House. Hopefully this will keep them away from making a third film.

Having a film all about drugs is one thing, but having to ensure your audience is ****** up to the eyeballs on weed to find any of it funny isn’t really good marketing.

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Angels & Demons

Angels and Demons (C)
Angels & Demons

Another (well, the second) Dan Brown adaptation and already things are wearing thin. I will confess that Angels & Demons is a better film than The Da Vinci Code, partly because of the beautiful scenery in Rome. However, the stilted dialogue still glares and a couple of the plot points from the novel are missing for no readily apparent reason.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: A new Pope is being elected, but the four main contenders have been kidnapped with a threat to kill them publicly released by the culprit. So of course, The Vatican calls in a symbologist. As you do.

The film is fairly close to the novel aside from the aforementioned slight discrepancies. Unfortunately, this means there’s a lot of scientific inaccuracy and a plot which is – to a large extent – fairly predictable. Oh, and awful dialogue. Don’t get me wrong, Dan Brown, or at least his publisher,  is owed a thank you for bringing his type of novel into the popular mainstream. However, there are many authors who’ve done a better job of it than he has. His stories are good, but his writing’s dreadful. By keeping the film so close to the book, these weaknesses also transfer over.

Obvious differences are references to the events of the first film. Obvious as the original Angels & Demons novel was actually published and took place before The Da Vinci Code. If there’s anything more forced it’s that the film studio have offered Brown a fortune to write a third novel just so they can film that as well. Please, no.

Now don’t get me wrong. It’s not a bad film, as such. It’s just – like the novels – it could have been so much better. The story’s pretty good, the history (apocryphal or otherwise) is a good basis, the set pieces are well done but it’s just hand-holding story-telling. It’s A to B to C to climax with laborious explanations at each turn. In a novel, it’s easy to make this an aside but more of a challenge in a film. As the whole story revolves around historical events, there’s no end of explanation. Interesting, but very stop/start.

The cast are OK but like the film just nothing special – all by-the-numbers. Tom Hanks can do so much better and Ewan McGregor needs to pick one accent and stick to it. His Irish/Scots/English mash-up is just painful.

So as an adaptation, it’s not one of the worst being quite faithful to the original material. As a film, though, it’s a bit of a let-down.

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Night at the Museum 2

night at the museum battle of the smithsonian ...
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

Or Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, to give it its full title, is an example of why Ben Stiller should stick to playing “ordinary” people and ditch all the over-the-top characters he insists on resorting to. One Larry Daley is worth fifty bloody Derek Zoolanders.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Larry, from NatM1, has gone on to bigger things. Sadly, he’s too late to find that his friends from the museum are being shipped to the Smithsonian to go into long-term storage. He sets off to rescue them and stop a mad pharaoh from taking over the world. As you do.

NatM2 is a prime example of how to do a sequel. Take the best elements of the first film, forget about wasting time setting up the premise (most of the audience saw the last film anyway) and roll with it. This manages to be one sequel that’s at least as good as the film it follows on from.

There are some genuinely witty moments and Stiller shows some great comic timing. The new characters are, in honesty, better than the ones they replace or add to from the original. Hank Azaria, in particular, is superb as the lead bad guy Kahmunrah (and The Thinker and Abe Lincoln). You may recognise him from such roles in the Simpsons as Chief Wiggum. And Comic Shop Guy. And Professor Frink. And Apu. And about 150 other roles. Vocal talent, he has it.

A quick thumbs-up for Steve Coogan in one of his best rôles, as well. Oh, and for Amy Adams (no, I’d not heard of her either) who sparkles as Amelia Earhart. It’s good to see a sidekick in a film who’s not annoying.

The effects are also superb, and lend themselves well to the film. The original made do mostly with miniaturisation of a few of the cast and a bit of CGI, mainly on Rex. The scriptwriters and effects team have let their imaginations run a little wilder on this one with some excellent visuals. I particularly liked the paintings that came to life and the black and white gangsters.

If there’s a downside, it’s that Hollywood keep throwing money at Ricky Gervais. He’s not funny – stop it. The film could have managed fine without him – as could the first one. Please, please, just stop feeding his ego and let him quietly slide into obscurity where he belongs.

Oh, and sit into the credits briefly. There’s a cracking little joke a minute or so in.

Great all-ages fun. The kids will love the big effects and whacky bad guys. Adults will appreciate a lot of the humour and historical nuances. Recommended.

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