Category: Review

Film Thursday

9-movie-official-poster-fullsize 400x592
9

My last “Film Thursday” for 6 weeks as I’m on placement from Monday. Argh. It wasn’t as busy as I was hoping, with only three films making the “can be arsed going to see” category.

Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant

The trailers for this looked good and it didn’t disappoint, despite almost being an overlong trailer for an upcoming series in its own right.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Two best friends end up becoming vampires by different mean; one a “good” vampire, the other a “bad” Vampaneze. Begin Blade-style “them against us” plotline.

Having had a quick scan through the related Wikipedia articles, there are definitely some differences between the film and the two source novels by Darren Shan. In fact, the two books which give up most of their content to form the plot for the film are Cirqu du Freak and The Vampire’s Assistant. They in turn are the first two books in a trilogy, itself the first of four such trilogies. So you can see that Hollywood would be begging for the rights with so much pre-written story to adapt.

As I’ve not read the books I can’t comment on how “good” an adaptation it is, but as a film in its own right it’s certainly enjoyable. There is enough revealed about the background world in which its set to certainly get the imagination going and I do hope they start work on a sequel or three. Mainly as I don’t have the time to read another twelve novels.

It is a little violent and there’s a smattering of bad language, but it’s suitable for the young teens and up in my opinion. The humour is quite dark (as it should be) with some good slapstick and gruesome effects.

Oh, and Salma Hayek is still hot, even with a beard.

9

Coincidentally, the second film of the day shares an actor with the first. Mr Crepsley from Vampire’s Assistant and “Number 5” from 9 are both played by John C. Reilly. However, in this wonderfully designed animated feature only his vocal talents are used.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: The world has been destroyed and all that’s left are some little sentient dolls and a very scary mechanical dog. But what happened? And why?

I was really, really looking forward to 9 and I have to admit to being a little disappointed. Mainly in the story which just doesn’t seem to be deep enough. Visually, however, it is a complete and utter treat. It’s not been so much sketched out and drawn, but mechanically designed. This very much appeals to my inner geek.

It is still a very moving film with some wonderful characters and a lovely ending. The journey to that ending is superbly crafted, but it just seemed to be missing a little something for me. I couldn’t tell you what, annoyingly enough.

There is no denying the Tim Burton influence in the freaky designs, though there are even shades of the scary hybrid toys from the first Toy Story movie. Only with engines and snippy bits and laser eyes and stuff.

For the pure visual wonderfulness, I would recommend 9.

Fantastic Mr Fox

I am so going to get it in the neck for this one, but I have my issues with this film… like 9 it is beautifully made, though the animation is far more simplistic. The voice acting if pretty good, though I think 9‘s was better (and yes, that’s even taking into account George Clooney). It’s the story, of all things.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: A fox family move into a shiny new tree, but soon find themselves the centre of a pest-control war waged by three mean farmers.

So what’s my problem with the story? Bear in mind that I love Roald Dahl and everything he stood for, but for a kids’ story the morals on this are all messed up. The foxes start off fine. Mr Fox decides he wants to steal loads of stuff, which he then does. The farmers get a bit peeved at this and decide they don’t want him living next to them – who would?

But guess who wins?

Yes, kids. Steal stuff, annoy people… and you’ll get away with it if you have a cool (read “annoying”) trademark whistle and a way with words. Actually, in fairness it worked for our politicians for long enough.

I have to confess I’ve never read the book. It was one of the ones I just didn’t get round to as a kid. I couldn’t tell you how many times I read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. I absolutely adored them, but now I feel almost glad that I didn’t read Mr Fox as it actually seems a bit weak.

Please tell me that the book didn’t have the “whistle-click” trademark in it? That’s just awful. As is some of the dialogue. I’m really hoping it’s just been destroyed in adaptation as I can’t believe Dahl would have been so trite in places.

But as I said: it looks fantastic. However overall it’s more kind of “Passable Mister Fox”

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In Bruges

Film poster for In Bruges - Copyright 2007, Fo...
In Bruges

Just to warm you up for Film Thursday tomorrow (or whenever I post the related blog article), here’s a quickie about In Bruges. This is a dark comedy. Think inky black. With quite a bit of bloodshed. And some weird bits. Including a dwarf in school uniform.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Two Irish hitmen hide in the Belgian city of Bruges after an assassination goes a bit wrong.

Don’t watch if you’re offended by bad language, brutal shootings or people critical of beautiful Belgian cities. This is a very dark film as well as being very funny. Strangely, the last time I saw a film remotely like this, it was the Belgian movie Man Bites Dog – itself about a murderer.

The cast are superb. Colin Farrell deservedly won a Golden Globe for his part as the guilt-racked younger gunsmith. He’s also remarkably funny in his rants about how much he hates Bruges. For the record, I’ve been there – though I was about 12 – and I seem to recall it being pretty nice. Mind you, I didn’t have a psychotic Ralph Fiennes looming over my shoulder.

It’s unusual for a film to encompass to many emotions. Giggling till your sides hurt, revulsion at a gruesome scene, sadness at a poignant event. In Bruges manages it wonderfully.

Most definitely worth 107 minutes of your time.

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Ong Bak: The Beginning

Ong-Bak 2
Ong Bak 2

Tony Jaa is back, and this time you can watch him on the big screen in the UK! Ong Bak: The Beginning is the prequel to the original Ong Bak but aside from the fact that it centres around martial combat it vastly different.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: a young boy sees his parents killed and is spirited away to safety, being raised by a band of renegades. He develops impressive weaponry and fighting skills, then goes to seek revenge for his parents’ deaths.

As well as starring in this film, Jaa also wrote, directed and produced it as well as choreographing all the stunt scenes. This shows in the attention to detail and brutality. However, there the similarity ends between the earlier Ong Bak movie and the last film he did, Tom Yum Goong.

While they were both given a contemporary setting, this third outing for Jaa is set back in the early days of Thailand when most people lived in jungles and territory was fought over by several self-styled “kings”. As such it’s all straw huts, mud and rain rather than skyscrapers and motorways.

The comedy element present in both previous films has also all but vanished. The fight scenes are far more brutal and hard-hitting (in more ways than one) with CGI blood splashes emphasising knife strokes and the like. We’re verging more into Bruce Lee territory than Police Story era Jackie Chan that we’re used to from Jaa.

This has its good sides and down sides. The film isn’t what some people would be expecting, but on the other hand it might surprise a few people who’ve not bothered with the likes of Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger due to its more folk-tale storyline.

With the way the story flows – or rather doesn’t as it jumps back and forth in time – it can be a little hard to follow at times. However, once the backstory kicks in, you do get more of a feel for the character. The “twist” ending has been done a million times before in Hollywood, but the action sequences are simply superb. And very brutal.

Lots of bass-heavy thuds as torsos are pummelled and crunching sounds when arms are twisted. It’s not “gross” in its depiction of violence – certainly not compared to the likes of The Punisher – but you can almost feel each punch landing when the speakers in the cinema sound with the report.

There are a couple of fantasy elements with some very bizarre female (I think) combatants who seem to be half-animal. This really steps the film apart from its forebear which was definitely more real-world. If you can class two dozen tuk-tuks falling off a half-completed highway as “real-world”.

Overall, I enjoyed it. I did prefer the first film, mainly due to the humour, but there’s no denying that this is a great piece of martial arts movie-making. Apparently there’s a third Ong Bak due out which will somehow tie the first two together. I think I can see where they’re going after the speech at the end of this one, but I guess we’ll see.

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Film Friday

Spreading the films around this week… today’s serving consisted of horror/thriller Triangle and comedy Couples Retreat.

Triangle

First off, it’s hard to review this one without giving too much away. Suffice to say that the film doesn’t so much have a twist at the end so much as it is, in its entirety, one big twist.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Six friends go boating and get stranded. A huge ship rescues them, but it seems unpopulated. Bad things then happen. Again and again and again…

It’s a nice short film at around 90 minutes, so it’s punchy. No drawn-out nonsense. Also, once the twist starts to make an appearance the director drops the whole “things jumping out at you” horror schtick to make way for the more interesting story.

To say much more would be to risk spoiling the film. It’s definitely worth watching, even for those not really into “pure” horrors. There aren’t many true horror moments, it definitely is more of a Twilight Zone-esque movie and it’s very well made.

Couples Retreat

Am I alone in thinking this movie’s title really needs an apostrophe? As far as I can tell they’ve inadvertently changed the “Retreat” into verb and the title overall into an order instead of a description of where couples would go to – that being a “Couples’ Retreat”.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: a youngish couple have problems conceiving, their marriage is struggling so they opt to go to a paradise island with some of their friends to try and get over it. Of course, their friends are all couples in various states of relationship issues.

I expected to pretty much hate this film, or at the very least sleep through it as I was knackered. To its credit it actually held my interest for the near 2-hour running time and did actually offer a few decent laughs. It’s no classic, and Vince Vaughn plays the same character he always plays (a nice guy with some issues who, at the end, turns out to be… a nice guy). No surprise given he also co-wrote the film.

There are some moments which, in a less classy film, could end up being squirmy and unwatchable in a Börat or Mr Bean kind of way. However, in this case they’re given just the right amount of screen time and then passed on. The “couple counselling” sessions are just right and none of the characters is too over-the-top, except perhaps Trudy – the 20 year-old girlfriend of a recent divorcée.

In case you’re wondering where it was filmed, you want to hop on a plane to Bora-Bora. Be prepared to fork out around $1300 per night for one of the nicer shacks, though. Urgh.

Worth a watch if there’s nothing else on. Especially The Invention of Lying which this will doubtless be better than as it doesn’t feature Ricky “for crying out loud, just give up – you’re not funny” Gervais. Despite having a cinema pass I’ve still not bothered with that one.

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Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs

I finally caught Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs today, three weeks after it came out and just – I think – before it vanished from the screens. I paid extra for the 3D performance as it was the only one that fitted in with the times I was free.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: a young inventor reaches desperation point trying to make himself popular and creates a “water to food” converter which promises to change the fortunes of his remote town. Of course, it doesn’t all go to plan.

CwacoM is a very well put-together film with a ludicrous plot. What really made it for me was the comic timing. From slapstick moments to montage events and dialogue, the directors seem to have post-graduate degrees in the study of when to drop a joke onto an audience.

As with any animated film, the characters are of great importance and here we have a wild and varied collection to hold the interest. From Flint Lockwood and his father Tim (with his amazing facial hair), to the corrupt mayor (Bruce Campbell), through police officer Earl (Mr T) to the surprisingly talented cameraman Manny. Oh, and Steve – the monkey.

There are a lot of plot devices. Almost everything that appears early in the movie makes at least a comedic re-appearance later on. Keep an eye out for the remote control television… Basically, nothing is wasted.

Well, nothing except the 3D. Really, nothing stood out for me for my extra £1.50 in this film. If you have the chance, save the cash and plump for the regular 2D version.

Definitely one worth seeing for adults and children alike. I’m definitely glad I managed to catch it before it vanished from the theatres.

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