Category: Review

Brave

I decided to take the kids to see the new PIXAR offering. I’ve not been disappointed by a PIXAR offering yet. Can they keep the record going with:

Brave

“Sorry, I don’t speak Bear.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Princess doesn’t like how her life is going to engages the services of a friendly witch to try and change things

See it if you like: Beautifully animated fairy tales

Set in historic Scotland, this is a huge departure for PIXAR. I think like everyone I have fair expectations from this particular company and usually it’s for  something bright and colourful with plenty of laughs and several layers. Brave breaks this template.

The voice cast are suitably impressive with Kelly MacDonald as the princess Merida, Emma Thompson as her mother and Billy Connolly as her dad. John Ratzenberger is, of course, present as he is in all the PIXAR films.

It’s the visuals that set this film apart from the rest of those from the same studio. Rather than just being bright, or detailed, or well animated, Brave is simply beautiful. The first obvious example of this is Merida’s hair – ginger curls that move ridiculously naturally in much the way that the showpiece tresses of Aki Ross in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within blew people’s (OK, animation geeks’) minds back in 2001.

Beyond that, the outdoor scenes are simply breathtaking. Rather than just being simple sets, life seems to have been breathed into every blade of grass, clump of moss, shrub and leaf. It all moves, even if nearly imperceptibly in cases, but enough to make it all seem to much richer than – in my opinion – any scenery in a CGI film before. The thing is, unless you’re looking for it it’s something you’d not notice simply because it is so good.

So the visuals set a new standard. How about the story?

Well… here’s where I was less impressed. It is a simple tale, and more of a traditional fairy story than any of the films PIXAR have done before. They’re usually a company to break the mould, not come up with new contents for it. There are no real twists or surprises and it seemed a little over-long to me.

Little Miss seemed to enjoy it, though Little Mister (he is 4 and the film’s rated PG) stated several times “I don’t like this film”, I think mainly as some of the scenes with the bears fighting were quite scary for him. Oh, and the witch (Julie Walters). Having said that, on another day I know he’d have been fine.

It just didn’t grip me with incredible imaginative new-ness the way that Toy Story or Monsters Inc. did which is a shame. It most certainly isn’t a bad film, but other than the staggering work they’ve done with the graphics it’s no modern classic either.

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Batman: The Dark Knight Rises

As if this one needs an introduction. We’d hoped to see it at the IMAX as I saw the first two episodes there. Unfortunately, you have to book at least a day in advance at the Glasgow one due to their steam-powered booking system (assuming you can even find it on their web site). Also, simply due to popularity, the film is booked out for every evening performance until the middle of this week – and with Littler Miss working her way down the birth canal slower than a barge through treacle, we can’t risk blowing the cash on something we may not be able to get to. So, off to Parkhead we went. Oh, and with no concerns about trying to find a 2D showing as there was no crappy, revenue-driven urge to produce a 3D version of the film. Thank you director Christopher Nolan for putting your foot down about that one.

Batman: The Dark Knight Rises

I’ll try to keep this as spoiler-free as possible. The film follows on very closely from the end of The Dark Knight, with prisoners incarcerated as a result of the Harvey Dent Act. Gotham is free of organised crime and, as a result, the mysterious Batman has disappeared. However, this is Gotham. And this is a trilogy. So something has to happen.

Cue villain-of-the-moment Bane, born of darkness and out to destroy Batman – and Gotham City while he’s at it. It’s difficult to go too much further without giving anything much away so I’ll leave it at that and focus on the overall quality of the film. Before you see it, though, this excellent article on ScreenRant is worth a read. It’s pretty much spoiler-free!

There’s no denying the acting pedigree of the cast. Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine return as Fox and Alfred respectively. Two of the most respected actors of their generation, and deservedly so. Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon, takes on a major part of the story. As well as an ensemble cast, it’s a multi-faceted story which ensures these people aren’t just background to Christian Bale‘s hoarse whispering Batman and Tom Hardy‘s muffle-voiced Bane.

Ah, yes. Bane. Huge, scary but often hard to understand. On the whole, I got most of what he said but there were some lines I just didn’t catch. In fairness, Batman was just as unintelligible one a small handful of instances.

The film runs for a long time – 2hrs 45 mins, in fact. Be prepared for a long sit and don’t expect a thrill a minute or a bucket of laughs between the action sequences. Dark Knight Rises is a dark film – very dark. Unrelenting in places. It could be worse. Some of the death scenes are cut away from rather abruptly which is probably what’s earned it the 12A rating in the UK rather than a 15.

The action and effects are, as expected, fantastic. They’re not as “big” as those in, say, Avengers Assemble, but they’re more gritty. Having said that, I found the fight sequences lacking a little something, perhaps because the two main proponents (Bane and Batman) are so heavily padded. Anne Hathaway‘s Selina Kyle (she’s not referred to as Catwoman at all during the film) are actually slightly better to watch and not just because she fills a leather outfit so well.

Expectations are bound to be high for this film and mainly as the last film was, simply put, absolutely outstanding. However, you’re never going to get that chemistry again. In fairness, all three films in the trilogy have aimed to be different as well and bearing that in mind, Dark Knight Rises is successful. It’s not like the other two, it is an intellectual level apart from other superhero films and it’s very much a wonderful piece of work.

However, it’s also not as good as I was hoping. Some of the dialogue just clunked for me and I think I was expecting more of the action scenes. I do think I’d have enjoyed it more visually if we’d caught it at the IMAX, but that’s only the visuals. The pace would still have been slow and Dark Knight would still be kicking it for overall quality.

It’s good. In fact, it’s very good. But it’s not the utterly amazing classic it’s been built up to be. It’s really only let down by its own hype and the expectations put upon it by the second episode in the series.

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Review: Doctor Who And The Daleks

Doctor Who And The Daleks
Doctor Who And The Daleks by David Whitaker
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The second Doctor Who book I’ve ever read – the first was Genesis of the Daleks when I was about 10 years old. It’s based on TV episodes from 1963 and originally published in 1964, though there was a film version starring Peter Cushing and Roy Castle which I vaguely remember as well!

It’s not a bad book, though it lacks the flippant comments and off-the-cuff humour that The Doctor has taken on over the years. It’s quite a simple story and for someone who really jumped onto Doctor Who at a late age, raises more questions than it answers. I won’t mention them here for fear of spoilers.

Still, a nice small book that I could blast through quickly and which will find itself being donated to the school library at the start of term.

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Review: Extreme Risk: A Life Fighting the Bombmakers

Extreme Risk: A Life Fighting the Bombmakers
Extreme Risk: A Life Fighting the Bombmakers by Chris Hunter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Not so much a follow-up to “Eight Lives Down” as a companion tome, and a far superior one. Whereas the first book covered predominantly Hunter’s involvement in one conflict, Extreme Risk spans several.

It’s also a far more emotional and hard-hitting read with greater variety in subject matter. Training, different countries, and a variety of positions both within and out with the Army are all covered as part of Hunter’s incredibly interesting life story.

If you like either factual or fictional military books, this is without a doubt a must-read. The background to events that have occurred in recent memory – the 7th July bombings in London to name but one – are detailed and help make sense of what happened on those awful dates, as well as justifying some of the government actions which came afterwards.

Check my progress on this book (if you can). I think it’s the quickest I have ploughed through a reasonably-sized book in the last couple of years… and with good reason. Gripping, well-paced, oozing with information, yet easy to read.

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The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!

What a long name for a film. And it’s even got a different one in the US (Pirates! Band of Misfits) just to confuse matters. Anyway, the local Cineworld had a showing for £1 this Saturday morning (although you have to take a child with you to get in) thus demonstrating one definite advantage in having a couple of nippers in the house. I took Little Mister while his big sis, and gestating little sis, were at a guitar lesson.

The Pirates! In an Adventure With Scientists!

“I HATE PIRATES!”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Crap pirate tries to win Pirate of the Year prize by being less crap, but still while made of Plasticene

See it if you like: the other Aardman films, and very impressive animation

Just a quick review as I’m rushed for time. On the whole, not a bad film. The animation is probably the best I’ve ever seen from Aardman, with some astoundingly details scenery and characters. I gather there is a touch of CGI, mainly for things like water and the sky, but everything else is hand-crafted and absolutely beautiful to behold.

Little Mister didn’t seem to be enjoying the film as it progressed and I can kind of understand why. Kids need a simple, obvious good character in a film to root for and there simply isn’t one in Pirates! Pirate Captain (Hugh Grant) is the one who comes good at the end, but he’s not really good. He’s just crap at being a pirate along with the rest of his crew. Throw in the nasty competitors for Pirate of the Year, a backstabbing Charles Darwin (David Tennant) and an insane, scary Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton) and I can see why he said on a few occasions that it was “too scary”.

Having said that, by the time the titles were rolling I had to encourage him out of his seat and he was chattering about how much he wanted to tell mummy about it. So like Pirate Captain, I guess it came good for him in the end!

There is a good run of humour through the film from chortlesome slapstick to the typical wonderful visual humour that Aardman seem to just throw around as if anyone can do it. A chief example is Bobo the monkey who “talks” using pre-printed cards. There’s no explanation as to where these cards come from, or how they happen to have the right words on. They’re just there. And they allow a degree of comic timing that any stand-up comedian would kill for.

The story is good and it doesn’t run for too long. There is a wealth of background gags, so it would probably stand up to repeat viewing by adults – and if you get it on DVD for the kids, you just know you’ll be subjected to it multiple times. If I had a problem with it, it was that the volume of the voices seemed a little low at times which made it difficult to pick up some of the quick one-liners. However, there’s always the possibility this was an issue particular to the cinema.

Not bad, and enjoyed by a 4 and a 38 year old today.

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