'Love Like Poison' review:

The bombast rituals of Catholicism cause Clara Augarde's fourteen year old Anna to faint twice in 'Love Like Poison'. The first time is at a funeral, with the intense, haunting chants of the bereaved seemingly too much to bear, and the second time is on an alter during the final stages of her own abortive confirmation. Director Katell Quillévéré's debut feature opens in similar fashion, with Anna refusing to receive the "body of Christ" during mass - her mouth firmly closed. Anna is reluctant to give herself up to the church, perhaps in favour of giving herself up to a local boy, though she is hardly a devout non-believer either. She clutches to religious symbols, even placing a crucifix above the bed of her ailing, atheist grandfather (Michel Galabru) to safeguard his immortal soul. It's a film of internal conflict, exacerbated by the throes of puberty as Anna discovers sexual desire.

In spite of its slender 90 minute running time, 'Love Like Poison' manages to express a lot without feeling hurried. Anna has time to confide in the local priest (Stefano Cassetti), row with her neurotic and jealous mother (Lio) and tend to her dying grandfather - a farting mess of bodily functions who makes some troubling, even incestuous, requests of the blossoming teenager. Anna's parents have also recently separated and she is unhappy at boarding school - leading to several tender scenes with her father (Thierry Neuvic). Meanwhile, her mother has a thing for the priest, who in turn has his own crisis of faith - perhaps wishing he's pursued life as a footballer rather than a man of the cloth.



What makes the film such compelling viewing is that it's non-judgemental and made richer by the moral ambiguity of much of the action. When Anna's grandfather gets an erection whilst she is bathing him, it's undoubtedly embarrassing and creepy (Anna herself runs away screaming), but is it inherently immoral? We're certainly not encouraged to think so by this compassionate film which empathises with all of its characters - and none more so than this lecherous, irreligious old man. It's this refusal to accept moral absolutism that is the most telling anti-Catholic facet of 'Love Like Poison', more effective even than a scene in which a craggy-faced old bishop sermonises about sin to a room full of bored teenagers. Though, as with last year's 'Lourdes', the film is ultimately more respectful than it is incendiary - subtly satirical rather than hectoring or confrontational.

With an unfussy, intimate and naturalistic directorial style, punctuated by several elegant single-take tracking shots, which perfectly suit her nuanced characters and eye for detail, Quillévéré establishes her cinematic voice with well-placed confidence. It's no surprise that the director caused such a stir in Cannes when the film premiered at last year's festival, with 'Love Like Poison' not only serving as a fine piece of cinema, but also as a calling card for a potential major talent. It's also another intriguing entry in a recent (if only tangentially related) strand of French cinema exploring crisis of religious faith, joined not only by the aforementioned 'Lourdes', but also by 'Of Gods and Men' and even Jacques Audiard's 'Un Prophete'. These films engage with the concept of "faith" without superficiality, in extreme contrast to Hollywood where the term is smothered by received wisdom and unpalatable smugness. You might not know what you're supposed to think after seeing 'Love Like Poison'. But therein lies its appeal and its greatest strength.

'Love Like Poison' is rated '15' by the BBFC and is on limited release in the UK now.

The Best Video Game Movies Never Made? + More Muppet Craziness!

As with yesterday, I spent this morning channelling my renewed enthusiasm for video games into writing a video game film adaptation article over on Obsessed with Film. Check it out!

And so this wasn't a complete waste of time for loyal blog readers, here is the second trailer released for 'The Muppets'!

'The Hangover: Part II' review:

No film in recent years has made me quite as paranoid as 2009's 'The Hangover'. Everyone said it was hilarious - and I do mean everyone, as it went on to make half a billion dollars at the box office. Yet it just left me wondering whether I had suffered some massive sense of humour failure. "Why don't I get this?" was my bewildered refrain.

'The Hangover' had a few things going for it though: its premise, that a bunch of guys can't remember what they got up to the night before because they were totally wasted, seemed fairly original at the time (even if it was really just an up-market re-hash of 'Dude, Where's My Car?') and the presence of then-obscure funnyman Zach Galifianakis was joyful. Galifianakis is one of those comedians whose every mannerism and utterance is funny irrespective of the material and 'The Hangover' reaped the rewards of his charming naive-innocent act wholesale. However, these two redeeming qualities are largely absent from its sequel, 'The Hangover: Part II', with the film a scene-for-scene remake of the original (the tiger has been replaced by a monkey) and with Galifianakis long since over-exposed.



One of the sequel's main problems is with pacing. It takes an age for director Todd Phillips and his writers to contrive a way for all the conditions to be exactly the same as last time, with Bangkok standing in for Vegas. The guy who was missing in the first film, Doug (Justin Bartha), must again be absent from their escapades - though not before he's convinced soon to be married Stu (Ed Helms) to invite his deranged brother-in-law Alan (Galifianakis) to Thailand for the wedding. Phil (Bradley Cooper), of course, completes the "wolf pack" trio along with Alan and Stu. However, after going out for one beer, the trio wake up the day before the wedding only to find "it's happened again!" This time they have lost Stu's future bother-in-law Teddy (Mason Lee) and must retread their crazy, debauched trail looking for clues to find the kid - all in time for the big day. Every step of the journey is much the same as last time, with Mike Tyson returning and, yes, singing us a song.

As with the original, the funniest moments still belong to Galifianakis, such as when he shouts the unlikely line "when a monkey nibbles on a penis, it's funny in any language." That this is the comic highpoint should probably set alarm bells ringing, but at least he always looks funny, whether he is frowning at his new primate buddy or simply wearing a big hat. But 'The Hangover: Part II' is seriously low on written jokes. Mostly it relies on a heady mixture of institutionalised racism, school-yard homophobia and the popular assumption that anything is funny if it involves drugs and alcohol. For instance, one of the characters (I won't spoil which) comes to realise that he was "fucked in the ass" by a Bangkok ladyboy. You have to find this event funny in itself because there really aren't any jokes around it. The man in question gets upset that he's had a willy inside him and everybody else laughs. "Ha ha", they cry, "he's had a willy inside him!" In this context the issue of the accidental homosexual act quickly overshadows the character's infidelity. He thought it was a lady prostitute!



This lack of any decently written dialogue leads to the criminal waste of Paul Giamatti, who turns up halfway through as an antagonist of sorts. Giamatti gets to shout and chew scenery, but he isn't given anything really funny or memorable to do. I don't care what anyone says: Paul Giamatti has the capacity to be much, much funnier than Mike Tyson and any film which doesn't assign him that comic value is committing a crime against humour. Instead, the film is content for Ken Jeong's grating stereotype to return so he can say "erection" over and over again in side-splittingly hilarious broken English. When Phillips and company really find themselves struggling for laughs they just cut to shots of the little monkey smoking a cigarette. I'm not immune to the inherent comedy charms of that image but, again, it's pretty cheap.

'The Hangover: Part II', like it's forbear, is certainly better shot and lit than a standard American comedy. Lawrence Sher's cinematography breaks from a conventional logic which dictates that everything in comedy must be bright and loud. Instead, it's a seedy, grimy looking film and its use of Bangkok as a setting is diverse and interesting. The soundtrack is also pretty decent, as you'd expect with Wes Anderson regular Randall Poster working as music supervisor. The film's use of Billy Joel is fun, starting with a huge 'Glass Houses' poster in Alan's room and followed by obscure tracks like 'The Downeaster Alexa', which are employed well. A comic highlight is when Ed Helms performs an acoustic cover of Joel's 'Allentown', changing the words to tell the story of the film. Phillips also shoots a car chase sequence with considerable dynamism and no small amount of flair, though the very inclusion of this scene represents an increase in budget which will ensure that this sequel can't hope to repeat the vast profitability of the original. Especially when the ubiquitous marketing campaign is factored in.



If any of the humorous elements I've casually dismissed above sound good to you, then we can just chalk this up as another sense of humour failure on my part. I'm certainly willing to concede that just don't "get" this film. Maybe I just don't find the word "semen" funny enough. As is so often the case, this sequel is the same again done less well. I'd wager even huge fans of the original will find themselves a little disappointed by a follow-up that lacks imagination as much as belly laughs.

'The Hangover: Part II' is rated '15' by the BBFC and is out everywhere from May 26th.

This trailer is freakin' awesome!

I just wanted to post this...



It's apparently due for release on November 23rd. Can't wait.

'Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides' review:

"It's not the destination so much as the journey" Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow assures his weary audience somewhere near the end of this fourth installment of the lucrative 'Pirates' franchise. And he'd be right too, if the journey itself wasn't utterly tedious. I assume this line was written as a tacit meta-apology for the film's unabashed pursuit of 3D spectacle over anything resembling a plot or approaching character development. Although admittedly character development would have been difficult in this series, enamoured as it is with the exaggerated pantomime turn of its once-promising lead.

The story of 'Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides' can be summed up thus: the perpetually feisty Penelope Cruz recruits a reluctant Jack Sparrow into the service of her father Blackbeard (TV's Ian McShane) as they seek the Fountain of Youth. Jack was in possession of a map to the Fountain and knows the way. The map, however, is now in the hands of the British Navy, headed by a reformed Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) who has been charged, by Richard Griffiths' rotund King George II, with claiming the same prize in the name of the crown. Also in pursuit of the treasure are the Spaniards, of whom we see very little - presumably because their crew contains no name actors. It's all apparently inspired by Tim Powers' novel On Stranger Tides, but after a quick read of the Wikipedia plot summary it would seem that the only two base elements of the novel that survive the book's transition to film are Blackbeard and the Fountain of Youth itself.



Gore Verbinski, director of the first three films, wisely opted out of this installment and was quickly replaced with Rob Marshall - whose 'Nine' is notable for being one of a small handful of films actually worse than 'Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End'. A former Broadway director, Marshall was never going to rein in the kitsch and, indeed, everything is big. Every single main character is introduced in shadow, or in a hood, or from behind so we can anticipate the exciting moment when we finally get to see Ian McShane or Geoffrey Rush's hairy face. In one of the film's five-thousand interminable sword fight sequences, Penelope Cruz is introduced as an exact double of Depp, before being revealed - at which point she becomes markedly shorter and somewhat chestier than the beloved wastrel.

In fairness, Cruz is an instantly appealing force in the movie, even if her Angelica fluctuates uneasily between being Jack's piratey equal and a helpless damsel. McShane bucks the franchise trend and bravely underplays Blackbeard, which is admirable but tends to get lost amongst all the mugging. Meanwhile Rush is easily the most engaging actor in the piece and in his performance lie the last vestiges of comedy left to the series. However, these actors are easily counterbalanced by Depp's increasingly charmless mincing and by the presence of Sam Claflin as a bare-chested missionary who has defied the odds to become thirteen times more grating than Orlando Bloom.



More perplexing though is the film's calculated exploitation of the '12A' certificate. Like the 'Transformers' movies before it, 'On Stranger Tides' is essentially a kids film front-loaded with sex. Depp and Cruz speak in naughty little double-entendres ("I support the missionary's position"; "how is it we can never meet without you pointing something at me?"), and Angelica's back story is that Sparrow took advantage of her in a Spanish convent, mistaking it for a brothel. Often they hold erotic conversations in a breathy hush, speaking of "writhing" and such. The film's lustful energy is also shamelessly channelled into its depiction of mermaids - shot with the exact same aesthetic as a Lynx deodorant advert as they tantalise us with their carefully concealed breasts. I'm not offended by this - it's just one small example of the tacky sexualisation of all things everywhere - I'm just confused by it. Didn't young boys and girls used to think kissing was icky? What I'd have made of this aged nine I cannot begin to imagine.

Whilst I'm sermonising, it's also odd that the film's only black "character" is a mindless, brutish zombie. I'm not saying this is a pre-meditated act of racism, but it's at least a bit careless (again, 'Transformers' comes to mind). Furthermore, the message of 'Pirates 4' (if it has one) seems to be that women are deceitful and the ruin of men. The mermaids here, as in folklore, delight in luring sailors to their deaths with their wiles, whilst Angelica (the film's only prominent female) is also a proficient liar: introduced concealing her identity and gender, and manipulating men throughout. Not that these politically dubious elements should necessarily prevent you from seeing this sea-faring adventure yarn - after all, if you took that kind of moralistic stand, how many Hollywood films would you be left with each year? No, in fact what should stop people from seeing 'Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides' is the fact that it's total and utter dross. And not fun dross, but deeply cynical dross. In 3D.



As 'Pirates' films go, it's not worse than the third one. But that will have to remain the highest praise the film can expect to receive from any but the most ardent 'Pirates' apologists. What started as a happy surprise and a breath of fresh air in 2003, has long since worn out its welcome. Nevertheless, prepare yourself for films 5, 6 and 7. Depp and co will always be willing to appear, as long as the "material" stays this good.

'Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides' is showing now and has been rated '12A' by the BBFC.

'Win Win' review:

"Well, it's no trick to make a lot of money... if what you want to do is make a lot of money" says Everett Sloane in 'Citizen Kane'. It's a point of view shared by Paul Giamatti's character, lawyer Mike Flaherty, in Tom McCarthy's indie comedy 'Win Win'. Unlike his best friend Terry (Bobby Cannavale), Paul hasn't pursued the almighty dollar with any fervor and, as a result, he finds himself struggling to support his wife (Amy Ryan) and daughter and keep his legal practice open. Like a figure straight out of a Robert Riskin screenplay, Paul has chosen to dedicate his life to the less than lucrative cause of helping the poor and vulnerable.

All around him expensive problems are mounting, each of them ticking time bombs ever present in his thoughts (a fact which is giving him regular anxiety attacks). A tree threatens to fall down on his house and the boiler under his office could explode at any moment, but he is unable to afford the solutions to these problems and can't bring himself to tell his wife. To make matters worse, the high school wrestling team he coaches (along with Jeffrey Tambor) can't win a single game. In an effort to solve his financial problems, Paul soon takes the desperate and deeply immoral step of becoming the legal guardian of an elderly client (Burt Young) suffering from dementia - checking him into a care home and pocketing the money intended for his upkeep. By the standards of American movies Paul is something worse than a "loser" - though this most certainly isn't the view of McCarthy's compassionate humanist film.



The scheme is complicated when the old man's estranged teenage grandson arrives on the scene. Kyle (Alex Shaffer) has run away from his unstable mother (the terrific Melanie Lynskey) and is looking to live with his grandpa, only to find him at the old folk's home apparently under the care of Paul. Unwilling to return home, Kyle moves into Paul's house where it is soon discovered that he is something of a wrestling prodigy. This accounts for the other half of the titular win-win situation, though this being a movie, things don't go smoothly for very long.

Compared alongside other Fox Searchlight indies, 'Win Win' is not all that wacky or, in reality, infused with jokes. Cannavale's man-child character is certainly written as broadly comic, and 'Arrested Development' actor Tambor can't help but be at least a little funny, but overall the film is content to provide occasional wry titters as opposed to hearty guffaws. Even the usually explosive Giamatti is oddly subdued, though he gives a compelling and watchable performance. Much like his recent turn in 'Barney's Version', Giamatti can't help but elicit sympathy and brings his unorthodox brand of charm to the role.



Meanwhile, Amy Ryan (Beadie Russell in 'The Wire') is good value as Paul's forthright and disarmingly sweet wife Jackie. Moments of tenderness and sentiment in 'Win Win' are never allowed to be cloying and are usually quickly diffused - though they last just long enough to ensure that the film has a heart. First-time screen actor Shaffer, hired because of his real-life wrestling prowess rather than his stage chops, is the only weak link amongst the cast. His delivery is wooden and his character reads as emotionless, though it's hard to be sure how much of this is down to bad acting and how much is down to his character's written emotional distance.

'Win Win' is in some ways boldly unconventional for a mainstream American film, not only in its refusal to moralise about its characters, but also in its depiction of the relationship between a sports coach and his wunderkind. The usual Hollywood narrative of their relationship would involve both parties bonding, before coming away having learned some home truths - the triumph is that they grow as people and win the big game. Here things are less clear cut and ultimate sporting victory is less than assured. But as promising as all this sounds, any recommendation of the film must come with a huge caveat.



All too often the film indulges in cringing, heavy-handed metaphor. For instance, as a half-hearted Giamatti jogs before the titles, we see him overtaken by two other joggers - at which point he stops, turns almost to camera and sighs. "Oh dear", we think, "things are not looking up for this guy". Cut to: his wife lying in bed with her daughter. "Where's daddy?" asks the little girl. "He's out running" comes the reply, before the child's all-too-cute response: "from what?" And what is a falling tree or a volatile boiler if not a sort of sword of Damocles metaphor, for forces which could quite literally crash down on his life or explode under the build-up of pressure at any moment? And being wrestled into the dirt by his pupil at the start of the film's third act is nothing if not a symbol that he has reached his lowest point. A skillful use of imagery is to be admired and enjoyed, but McCarthy's movie suffers under the weight of all too on the nose symbolism.

The film is also host to one of my pet hates, as almost every argument results in someone running out of the room hysterically - though I concede that a stroppy sixteen year-old kid, with a history of anger management issues, might behave this way (it's just irritating to watch). It must also be said that 'Win Win' contains some of the most contrived, cynical and obvious product placement seen in recent memory, with frequent mentions (and depictions) of the Nintendo Wii. These moments also break the film's believability. After all, nobody has actually played with their Wii since some time in 2010. There are also some unfortunate cack-handed comedic references to 'Star Wars' which are ironically less funny than Jar Jar Binks. All told though, 'Win Win' is as admirable as it is imperfect, mostly for its refusal to buy into the American Dream and thanks to a decent cast.

'Win Win' is out now in the UK and is rated '15' by the BBFC.

'Attack the Block' review:

The success of 'Attack the Block', a comedy-horror movie written and directed by Joe Cornish (of 'Adam & Joe' fame), was always going to hinge on how the director portrayed his protagonists: a gang of so-called "hoodies". The film is set on a South London council estate which is invaded by ravenous extra-terrestrial monsters and follows a group of youths as they attempt to defend their housing block with samurai swords, fireworks and whatever else they have to hand. It's sort of like 'The Goonies' meets 'Aliens' via 'Shaun of the Dead'. But since the earliest trailer, (for me at least) question marks have hung over whether the comedy was going to be derived mainly from cynically picking on the country's inner city poor - with nothing more than a string of cheap, tired and obvious jokes at the expense of a feckless group of stereotyped "chavs".

Yet whilst the film opens with our would-be "heroes" mugging a young woman at knife point, Cornish manages to strike a delicate balance between humanising his gang of hoodlums, moralising about their actions and poking fun at them, and in the end the film is pretty perfectly pitched. Yes, there are gags at the expense of the kids' social class: for instance the film revels in the absurdity of their "urban", youth culture patois. But the film also riffs on the speech patterns of white, middle class, West London stoners. Almost everything that isn't scary, or at least jumpy, is played for good natured laughs, and the film most definitely has its heart in the right place.



The young actors feel authentic and bring a measure of understated comic brilliance to their delivery. Especially Alex Esmail as Pest, who looks something like "Dappy" from N-Dubz (only he's funny on purpose). It's also great to see a British film which revels in locally specific detail and which focusses on a number of black characters. At a first glance it would seem that Cornish has made his debut film very much in the mould of friends Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg. Nick Frost has a supporting role and Cornish plays with Hollywood genre conventions - especially those of sci-fi and horror - throughout. The screenplay is peppered with pop culture references and, as with the likes of 'Hot Fuzz', humour is mostly drawn from contrasting everyday British banality with an improbable hi-octane situation, with the alien invasion prompting lines like "I've got one text left. This is too much madness to explain in one text."

Yet compared to the Pegg/Wright oeuvre, Cornish's film is less obviously a sustained pop culture geek-off, in spite of frequent references to video games such as Gears of War. Instead it works quite capably on a surface level - as a comedy with scary bits, even for those without an encyclopedic knowledge of the work of Steven Spielberg. The in-jokes lie under the surface - satisfying for those in the know, but not intruding on the film's tight structure and engaging forward momentum.



It's terrifically well realised too, especially in the early shots which frame the housing block as some sort of futuristic, science fiction obelisk, and trace the hallway strip lighting as if it were on the inside of a spaceship. As a setting the block is versatile and filled with several distinctive environments which cleverly break up the film's predominantly black and grey colour palette. The alien creatures themselves are really well designed and fairly frightening, and Cornish has admirably shunned a more commercial '12A' certificate by filling the film with some pretty visceral, over the top gore.

Far from being the sustained, middle class wink that I'd feared, 'Attack the Block' is the smart, funny and slickly produced feature that I'd hoped for. As a first time director, Joe Cornish has displayed a level of assuredness that is encouraging and - if he can resist the inevitable overtures of Hollywood (he has already co-written the upcoming 'Tintin' film) - his brand of eye-catching, socially conscious and unpretentious comedy could be a sizable boon for British cinema for years to come.

'Attack the Block' is out now across the UK and has been rated '15' by the BBFC.

'Midnight in Paris' review:

The 64th Cannes Film Festival opened last week with an out of competition screening of Woody Allen's latest, 'Midnight in Paris'. I wasn't in Cannes but managed to see a showing of the film (appropriately enough) in the French capital, where it went on general release later that same day. Maybe it had something to do with the film's local setting - and certainly the ubiquitous posters for it on the city's streets won't have done any harm - but the showing I attended was a sell out, as a diverse crowd flooded in to the main screen of a Pathé multiplex in Montmartre. Of course, it's become a truism that Allen's films are much better appreciated on the continent than in the US/UK (a fact acknowledged by the director himself in 'Hollywood Ending'), but I was still surprised to have to queue up to see a Woody Allen film - and in a mainstream cinema.

'Midnight in Paris' follows Gil Pender (Owen Wilson), a surrogate Woody Allen figure - a Hollywood screenwriter who is in love with a romantic view of the French capital and with an idealised view of the past. He loves the city and its cultural legacy so much in fact, that he wants to get away from his home in California permanently and have a shot at being a "serious writer" - an ambition not supported by his high-maintenance fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams). Gil wants to take long walks in the rain and sit in left bank cafés working on his novel, but his peace is disturbed by Inez's cynical, right-wing parents and the intrusions of her pretentious, know it all friend Paul (Michael Sheen).



Like Miniver Cheevy before him, Gil feels like a man out of time and wishes he were born in a more intellectual, artistically vital era - for him, the Paris of the 1920s. And it is to that period of time that he finds himself magically transported every night at the strike of midnight, where he mingles with his heroes, among them F. Scott Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston), Salvador Dali (Adrien Brody), Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll) and Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates). This bizarre twist in the tale - not hinted at in the trailer - that harkens back to Allen's work as a short story writer or his 'Deconstructing Harry' and 'The Purple Rose of Cairo'. Over the course of these late night visits to the romanticised past Gil meets and falls in love with Adriana (Marion Cotillard) and has to decide between the past and the present.

Owen Wilson is fantastic as the central character, with his easy charm and impeccable comic timing working perfectly with this - his best role outside of a Wes Anderson film. Wilson's unpretentious likeability has seen him too often wasted in disposable rom-coms, but he was really made for intelligent roles such as this. He is supported by a brilliant ensemble cast too, with everyone from McAdams to French-Moroccan comic Gad Elmaleh (who brought the house down with his wordless appearance as a private detective) superbly cast. Especially Cotillard (I shouldn't need to tell you how appealing she is a screen actress). But alongside the laid back naturalism of most the performances, it was actually the showiest and most exaggerated turns that thrilled me the most.



Adrian Brody's appearance as Dali caused me to shed tears of laughter. Genius casting making for an inspired cameo. Whilst Corey Stoll as Hemingway was absolutely perfect, with a level of earnestness and intensity that was, for me, hilarious. Praise must also go to Michael Sheen for his slimy portrayal of Paul, a role reminiscent of all the New York pseudo-intellectual archetypes seen in all of Allen's best loved 1970s work. He manages to make the character just the right level of obnoxious and pedantic without seeming over the top and it's a pity he isn't in more than a couple of scenes.

It's the performances rather than the writing that is funniest and 'Midnight in Paris' is perhaps lacking in the sort of deft one-liners that were once the hallmark of Woody Allen's style. And unlike the adored 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona' this won't be up for any Oscars, if only because it's so relaxed and deceptively simple. But 'Midnight in Paris' is every bit as beautiful as anything Allen ever shot with Gordon Willis, and it's a screenplay full of interesting ideas even if they're not all explored with any depth. As the calamitous 'Cassandra's Dream' testifies, Allen can't write "British". But he does the American abroad very well and with this he has given every reason to anticipate his next film, the Rome-set 'The Wrong Picture', with some degree of optimism.



You might say that I was pre-disposed to enjoy 'Midnight in Paris', what with being in Paris and watching the film with an enthusiastic crowd. And you may have a point. And, after a patchy last decade (to put it kindly), it is fair to say my expectations for it were set extremely low - especially given that Allen's last film was utterly abysmal. But for the first time in what feels like a decade, I absolutely loved a new Woody Allen film, almost without qualification. For the first time since childhood I laughed during one of his movies: not knowing laughs of polite recognition, but hearty, belly laughs. For the first time in around a decade, here is a Woody Allen film with imagination.

'Midnight in Paris' has not yet been rated by the BBFC and will probably not see a UK cinema release until 2012. However, the film is currently on general release in France.

'Hanna' review:

From the vengeful "Bride" of the 'Kill Bill' films to Zack Synder's 'Sucker Punch', violent actioners featuring female protagonists are an increasingly common sight at the multiplex. Few eyebrows will be raised then, in the era of 'Kick-Ass', to hear about 'Hanna' - a film about a teenage girl brought up as a deadly killer. After all, Angelina Jolie has been shooting people on our screens for years. But whilst the vast majority of silver screen heroines are really just scantily-clad male fantasy figures - strong characters in only the most superficial sense - 'Hanna' is a smart, character-driven movie which brings to mind the complexities of Ripley in 'Alien' rather than the mindlessness of 'Salt' or 'Tomb Raider'.

The impressive Saoirse Ronan, who shone in director Joe Wright's 'Atonement', stars as the title character raised as a killer in an icy wilderness and tasked by her father (Eric Bana) with killing the secret agent (Cate Blanchett) who drove them into hiding. She quickly performs this task (or so she thinks) and then ends up on the run from the American military, as well as a bizarre group of German thugs/circus performers lead by an extremely camp Tom Hollander.

The film centres primarily on her awakening as a fully-fledged individual (rather than just a killing machine): it's a coming of age story for Hanna as a women. But the film also explores the ideas of motherhood via Blanchett's interactions with various figures in the young girl's life: her mother; her father; her grandmother. Behind Blanchett's pursuit of Hanna there is an engaging ambiguity. There is a wordless suggestion at one point that she can't herself have children. Does she want to mother Hanna? Or destroy her? Far from simply existing as a take-it-or-leave-it subtext, these themes compliment the film's moments of action and visa versa. Violence is almost always married to the thrill of experience and the development of character.



The first time we hear anything of the pounding Chemical Brothers score is when Hanna makes a conscious decision to leave the safety of life with he father and accept her deadly mission. The music functions to make her anxiety and excitement palpable, and every time we hear the music subsequently - such as when she is escaping from a military facility - it, along with the artful strobe lighting, forms part of a hyper-stylised representation of Hanna's psyche. When soldiers surround her log cabin near the start of the film, the music stands for nervous anticipation of first contact with people other than her father. In this way Hanna is an example of proper cinema - often using sound and image to tell its story rather than simply leaving that to dialogue.

There is a terrific internationalist air to proceedings too as Hanna alternates between languages and goes through several countries over the course of her journey. Wherever she goes she interacts with people from other far-flung places too, but without the film being particularly showy about it. The film also manages to pull off something very rarely seen, as a kiss between Hanna and a girl she befriends (played by the terrifically funny Jessica Barden) manages to avoid seeming gratuitous or cynically motivated. In fact Hanna's relationship with Barden's character is not even really sexualised: it functions more as part of her character's longing for new experiences and human contact, played out with the only person (aside from her father) with whom she establishes a bond of trust.



In terms of cinematography and art design, 'Hanna' is tremendous and beautiful - especially when it comes to outdoor sequences bathed in naturalistic light and the warm fire-lit interiors of Hanna's cabin during the opening sections. The expertly choreographed lighting of the chase sequences is dazzling and bursting with energy. Though, as with Wright's much-heralded Dunkirk tracking shot in 'Atonement', there is a self-conscious aspect to some of the film's visuals. For instance, what do we gain from a brief shot from the point of view of a wounded animal during a hunt? It's jarring and out of place in a film in which the music and design is otherwise so consistently placing you in the position of the protagonist. Some of the accents, especially that of Eric Bana, are also pretty peculiar and changeable, though this isn't such a big deal in a film with such a stylised reality.

For some, the middle section of the film (in which Hanna goes on a road trip with a nice middle class family) might seem at odds with the pacing and the tightness of the earliest sections and the finale - and they may have a point, given the expectation of a straight thriller. But to make this assessment would be to miss the point of what 'Hanna' actually is. It's a film where action is secondary to character development, in which Hanna's interaction with non-violent people and her discovery of friendship - and just maybe Platonic love - is every bit as important as any scene of neck-snapping or gun-wielding. It's 'The American' from the perspective of a curious, confused and hyper-active young girl, rather than a middle-aged, world-weary man. This is what makes the film stand apart from the superficial "girl power" crowd. 'Hanna' is the real deal.

'Hanna' is rated '12A' by the BBFC and is on general release now.

'L'affaire Farewell' review:

'L'affaire Farewell', just released in the UK and directed by Christian Carion, is an unspectacular 2009 French spy thriller based on a "true story". Set in Moscow in 1981, the focus is on an ordinary French man living in Moscow, Pierre (Guillaume Canet), who reluctantly falls into spying for his government after striking up a relationship with a Soviet informer, Sergei (Emir Kusturica). Sergei is disillusioned with the state of his country and is willing to part with the names of most of the Soviet spy network in Europe and North America, crippling the USSR's ability to effectively participate in the cold war. The importance of this information means that suddenly Pierre is on a mission that goes right the way to the White House and is credited (by the film) with bringing down the "Iron Curtain" a decade later.

Yet anybody expecting a taut and gripping espionage thriller will leave the theatre disappointed. 'Farewell' is mostly concerned with the (I imagine speculated) family strife between the spies and their respective wives. Sergei is having trouble bonding with his teenage son. And he has a mistress. Pierre lies to his wife, saying he won't accept the spy mission. Trouble ensues. Aside from that, there are several tedious and poorly scripted oval office scenes in which a cartoon cowboy version of Ronald Reagan (Fred Ward) spouts exposition to his staff - who really ought to know that, for example, France is a vital ally against the Soviet Union.



There are also lots of moments of light comedy of cultural difference, as Sergei adorably mispronounces the name of Western pop bands and bends Pierre's ear over perceived French national characteristics ("you French are such chauvinists!"). Trite images of the Soviet Union are abound, as imposing statues of Lenin, decommissioned tanks and big scary monuments to the working class dominate the cityscape. Stern men in uniform lurk on every subway and take dour looking people away at the flash of a badge. Ultimately it's a patriotic TV movie about a French triumph rather than a cinematic history lesson.

I recently read an interesting book on the Middle Ages which detailed how the records relating to various kings were amended after their reign at the expressed instruction of the new regime. For instance, Richard III, immortalised as a hunched villain by Shakespeare (writing, remember, for a Tudor audience), was in reality a relatively fair and popular ruler - and there is no evidence suggesting the popular story of his murdering the young princes in the tower is anything more than propaganda. Yet it has endured and, in secondary school, I first encountered that story as a historical fact.



Similarly, that great hero of English patriotism, Richard the Lionheart, was in reality a Frenchman who spent just six months of his decade-long reign in England (a country he despised), and that was only to gather taxes to fund his wars of religious intolerance and indiscriminate mass murder in the Middle East. And yet he is canonised a national hero by a statue outside the Houses of Parliament. History, so it goes, is written by the winners.

But you needn't look as far back as the as the twelfth century to find evidence of that truism: films - the dominant means by which most popular history is now transmitted - frequently pervert the events of even the recent past in the name of entertainment. The two biggest critical hits of the last year, 'The King's Speech' and 'The Social Network', both did this. It's just that they do it better. 'Farewell' is tedious, badly paced and scarcely even redeemed by its Clint Mansell score (which is eerily similar to his work on 'Moon', released the same year).

'L'affaire Farewell', being a French movie, tells us the story of the brave, selfless, ordinary French people for vanquished communism, and to whom every health insurance paying, tuition fee protesting "man and woman of the free world" apparently owe a debt of gratitude (so says Willem Dafoe in a pointless cameo as the director of the CIA). It's a "true story" and yet, funnily enough, all the names and details have been changed. It strays far enough away from "the facts" that there is a sequence in which Sergei's moody teenage son struts around a meadow dancing like Freddy Mercury (who he can't have ever seen) whilst listening to Queen on his Walkman (the epitome of freedom, apparently). It's a reality where Ronald Reagan begins every meeting by showing his aides the same scene from 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance'.



It would be unfair to accuse 'Farewell', directed by Christian Carion, of being wholly anti-communist/pro-capitalist, after all the action takes place at a time when France's own government was socialist under the leadership of François Mitterrand. So the film contains lines of dialogue in mild support of socialism: for instance Sergei tells Pierre that French holidays were introduced by lefties. In fact, the film is overall critical of both sides of the conflict, with the protagonists used by competing powers who ultimately show little loyalty to their spies once goals are met.

If it's "pro" anything, that thing is France. It's the story of a French triumph - one that we are told ultimately won the cold war. Reagan wants to interfere with Mitterrand's newly elected government, but the French president rebuffs him and stresses his country's independence, though he does honour their alliance and provides the US with intelligence. This isn't France as a US lackey but as the most vital power in ensuring the ultimate allied victory. It's a film about the moment when France changed history: for better, for everyone and forever. And don't you forget it. Who cares what actually happened? This is what happened now.

'L'affaire Farewell' is out in the UK now and has been rated '12A' by the BBFC.

'Thor' review:

Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk and Captain America are popular and, to varying degrees, iconic comic book superheroes. With this in mind, Marvel Studios decision to make big, blockbuster films based on these "properties" is understandable and even inevitable. But Marvel, now owned by Disney, have bigger plans for their so-called "cinematic universe" which involve interlinking their different characters in the same way they did with the comic book continuity years ago. It makes obvious financial sense: like Iron Man but not so fussed about the Hulk? Well, chances are you're going to pay to see the big green guy anyway because of that Tony Stark cameo.

The ultimate goal for Marvel, as announced way back in 2005, is to make what (they hope) will be a massive super-blockbuster in the form of 'The Avengers' - the superhero equivalent of the Travelling Wilburys. And they have been steadily and unsubtly promoting that future franchise ever since by shoehorning cameos, in-jokes and geek-oriented references into each film - often via Samuel L Jackson. 'Iron Man 2' was so concerned with setting up the Avenger origin story that parts of that film felt like an extended trailer. The problem with this game-plan is that, in order to form the on-screen Avengers, Marvel have to set-up some less iconic and potentially less cinematic heroes for that movie to make sense. That's what brings us to 'Thor'. A superhero movie no one asked for.



Thor is somewhat harder to buy into than his future co-vigilantes. Iron Man is a normal guy - albeit a billionaire scientist with a fancy suit - whilst Hulk and Captain America are just victims of experiments in radiation. Crucially, they are all human beings. However, Marvel's Thor supposes that the realm of Asgard is real and exists on a distant planet, with the Viking "gods" of Norse legend being super-powered, space-travelling aliens. Thor, an Asgardian, throws a huge mythical hammer, Mjöllnir, that can only be lifted by those considered "worthy". In contrast to the likes of Spider-Man, his family aren't "normal" either: dad is Odin and his brother Loki. How could this story of a fallen god landing on contemporary planet Earth possibly seem credible? Ancient myths, like that of Hercules, are full of such stories (as are texts as diverse and evergreen as The Bible and Superman), but 'Thor' has to fit in with the likes of 'Iron Man', which featured the War in Afghanistan as a plot element. How can planet Asgard and the War in Afghanistan possibly co-exist in the same filmic universe?

The daunting task faced by director Kenneth Branagh has been to construct a film which marries both worlds - the fantastical realm of Asgard and a dusty New Mexico town - in a way which makes sense. And, surprisingly, he somehow does this rather well, aided by 'I Am Legend' screenwriter Mark Protosevich who solves the principal problem by using self-effacing humour. When the brash and violent Thor (Chris Hemsworth) lands on Earth (stripped of his powers), after being cast out of Asgard by Odin (Anthony Hopkins) for starting a war with a race called the Ice Giants, the film immediately becomes a fish out of water comedy of sorts. Thor tries to beat up a hospital full of doctors who are trying to heal him before being knocked out by an injection, and later he smashes a coffee cup and loudly demands a refill in a busy cafe. He acts pompously and is lampooned as a figure of fun whilst he adjusts to alien surroundings.



This jesting is an effective slight of hand that keeps us from laughing at the transition between the two worlds. As with a stand-up comic who cracks jokes about their own obesity, the film heads off any potential tittering cynic at the pass because it's meant to be funny.

From then on the young "thunder god" adjusts to his new surroundings fairly quickly and the world of Thor comes to makes sense to us. By the time he dons his faux-Viking battle fatigues and does battle with The Destroyer (don't ask) on Main Street, we have successfully suspended our disbelief. Instead we can enjoy the fights which - let's face it - are the reason we go to the cinema to watch superhero movies. Branagh perhaps commits the crime of shooting too much action in disorienting close-up and some of the effects work is a little ropey, but 'Thor' is nevertheless good value entertainment with its share of climactic fist-pumping moments. It's also not as shallow as you might expect, with pretty well-rounded characters and a sympathetic villain. Its director is best known for adapting Shakespeare for the screen and, had the Bard penned a treatment of the screenplay, it would be easy to imagine this story from the point of view of Loki (Tom Hiddleston) as a great tragedy.



This unexpected depth owes much to the actors. Hemsworth, for his part, is pretty good as Thor and his transition from, as Protosevich has put it, "an Old Testament god to a New Testament god" is carried off well. It doesn't feel like the usual sudden third act u-turn when he becomes worthy of reclaiming his powers because he has genuinely changed before our eyes, becoming more humble and gentle through his association with scientist Jane Foster, as played by Natalie Portman. It may seem as though Portman, a recent Academy Award winner, is slumming it in 'Thor' (an accusation also levelled at Branagh) - and who could blame her after 'Black Swan'. But she gives her all to the role regardless and elevates a love-interest character into something more interesting and appealing. Like Hopkins, Hiddleston and veteran Swede Stellan Skarsgård, she adds believability to this obscure Marvel tale, and in doing so eases what must have been the studio's greatest concern.

Fun, light-hearted and - at times - morally complex, 'Thor' is more than just a cynical means to an end (even if it does feature a completely pointless and convoluted cameo for another Marvel hero). That is not to say, however, that it isn't also serving as a Trojan two-hour advert for 'The Avengers'. It's just that it's good enough that you won't mind. For comic book fans, summer 2012 can't come soon enough.

'Thor' is out now in the UK and has been rated '12A' by the BBFC.

'Little White Lies' review:

Running times can be a precarious business. The recent release of Disney's 'Winnie the Pooh' left many critics feeling short-changed by a film that, ignoring shorts, was less than an hour in length - a fact which resulted in a string of low to average review scores. At the other end of the spectrum there is the French ensemble comedy-drama 'Little White Lies', which outstays its welcome over 154 minutes of forced jollity and self-indulgent boohooing.

Called 'Les petits mouchoirs' ('The Small Handkerchiefs') at home, the film was a runaway success at the French box-office, with Marion Cotillard starring alongside equally big names in the domestic cinema such as François Cluzet, Benoît Magimel, Gilles Lellouche and Valérie Bonneton. The excitement it generated can perhaps be attributed to its being director Guillaume Canet's follow-up to the 2006 international hit 'Tell No One'. Though far from being another taut thriller, 'Little White Lies' is an airy summer jaunt around pristine beaches in the company of a smug group of affluent thritysomethings.



There is a measure of tension however, as this group of Parisians embark on their annual holiday in the shadow of a road accident which has left one of their number hospitalised and in critical condition. Their decision to take the holiday calls into question the strength of the friendship group and many home truths are aired, with each character forced to confront their self-involved nature. There are tears, fist fights, boating mishaps and smashed crockery, all set to an alt-rock soundtrack which never leaves you in any doubt as to what you are supposed to feel as you weep into your pinot grigio.

The film wears its desire to be poignant on its well-tailored sleeve and ends up being irksome, but in a controlled dose 'Little White Lies' could have been more bearable. The actors, though confined to playing broad comic archetypes (the funny one, the kooky one, the uptight one, the closet homosexual one), are watchable and the whole thing is beautifully photographed by Christophe Offenstein (especially an early tracking shot through the streets of Paris at dawn). Many of the comic incidents - such as the moment one lovesick chap ploughs his speedboat into the harbour whilst struggling to answer his mobile phone - are charming and occasionally raise a chuckle, but there are too many of them and too much nothing in between. Like Peter Jackson before him, Canet has spectacularly abused final cut privilege.



I don't mind that 'Winnie the Pooh' is barely fifty minutes long, because it's a fun fifty minutes and I didn't find myself checking my watch in the cinema (a real rarity). Whilst I wouldn't chop a minute off an epic like 'Seven Samurai' and I'd love to see the rumoured five-hour director's cut of Terrence Malick's 'The Thin Red Line'. But generally films with shorter running times (around or just under the ninety minute mark) are more satisfying examples of the art: tightly paced and disciplined movies which have a clear idea of what they are trying to do and get to the point with pleasing economy.

By contrast 'Little White Lies' is an almost interminably long film and for no obvious reason. Canet could have done with shaving an hour of its running time and, if done skilfully, could have made most of the same points about his characters with greater dynamism.

'Little White Lies' has been rated '15' by the BBFC and is out now in the UK.

'Winnie the Pooh' review:

"Promise me you'll never forget me because if I thought you would I'd never leave", says the young Christopher Robin to Winnie the Pooh in one of A.A Milne's original short children's stories about that stuffed bear of little brain. Milne's wit endures, but it is probably Disney who have done to the most to ensure the endearing little chap is never forgotten, along with his friends Eeyore, Rabbit, Piglet, Owl and Tigger.

Three Wolfgang Reitherman directed short films, made by the studio in the mid-sixties, were turned into the celebrated feature 'The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh' in 1977 and Disney haven't stopped milking the "franchise" for all it's worth since - turning Milne's creations into a brand famous around the world among people of all ages. As well as piles of every kind of merchandise, the years since have seen dozens of small-screen series and even a handful of cheaply produced theatrical releases courtesy of the television unit.



Yet the latest commercial outlet for the series is a refreshing return to those early shorts and a loving, respectful homage to everything that is joyful about Milne's characters. Not to mention a faithful successor to the original film, with an opening tracking shot through Christopher Robin's live-action bedroom and with suitably retro styling on the credits. The new film, simply entitled 'Winnie the Pooh', is no half-hearted knock-off. Instead it's a proper part of the Disney animation canon - Disney Animation Studios 51st feature - and boasts some of the best hand-drawn animation talent the company has ever produced, with Renaissance-era veterans like Andreas Deja and Mark Henn reliably providing the nuanced and detailed character work demanded by the source material.

It may seem at odds with the folksy, laid back charm of this resolutely "old-school" piece to talk about the animation work in these terms, but a lot of work went into the film's apparent simplicity. Moments of good natured humour are emphasised by some of the finest character animation in memory, with subtle sighs and changes in facial expression being the principal joy here. The story is slight and the running time relatively short (though only a minute shorter than its 1977 predecessor), but that's what you want from Pooh. The film is a whimsical breath of fresh air that never comes close to outstaying its welcome.



With many of the original voice actors no longer with us, the characters have new voices, though they feel familiar as the new actors pay respectful tribute to those who came before. Pooh is hilarious as voiced by Jim Cummings (also the voice of Tigger), who captures the right level of sweet simplicity, with an edge of impatience for the bear. Scottish comic Craig Ferguson somehow manages to channel the spirit of Hal Smith as the pompous owl and John Cleese even sounds a little like the original film's narrator Sebastian Cabot (best known as the voice of Bagheera in 'The Jungle Book'). Only Tom Kenny as Rabbit is a little less effective than his ancestor, with his voice lacking the impotent rage of Junius Matthews.

There are several songs along the way, which are simple, forgettable and inoffensive and probably represent the film's weakest suit - especially when compared with ditties like "Rumbly in My Tumbly" and "Up, Down Touch the Ground" from the original. But Zooey Deschanel's rendition of the original theme song is suitably winsome and the tunes that misfire are still endearing in an ineffectual, childish way that is so very Winnie the Pooh. In any case, they are always accompanied with imaginatively animated sequences and full of innocent humorous phrases which take the curse off any faltering melody.



As with the 1977 classic, 'Winnie the Pooh' is at its heart a combination of three very simple short stories: a search for Eeyore's missing tail, Pooh's search for honey and the gangs' quest to rescue Christopher Robin from the dreaded (and imaginary) "Backson". But whereas the original feature was divided into three brief episodes, this new film more ambitiously entwines them into one feature-length narrative. Yet despite a slightly more plot-driven approach, the film is still content to meander at a leisurely pace towards its conclusion. Like a sunny stroll through the Hundred Acre Wood, it's much more about the journey than the destination and the amount of fun you have will very much depend on your pre-existing level of fondness for these characters.

As you might expect from a gentle children's tale, this film is very much aimed at youngsters - a fact amplified by the presence of two excessively toddler-friendly shorts beforehand. There are no nods to the adults or in-jokes at all. But it's nice to find a modern animation totally free of any post-modern winking and there is fun to be had here for adults so long as they are prepared to indulge their innermost child. As the credits rolled I found myself identifying with the sentiment of this bittersweet passage from Milne's The House at Pooh Corner: "And by and by Christopher Robin came to an end of things, and he was silent, and he sat there, looking out over the world, just wishing it wouldn't stop."



With the knowledge of a job well done, maybe Disney should allow these characters to get some rest for a while, safe from some of the more crass exploitations of recent decades. They needn't remind us of their charms quite so incessantly now, because with 'Winnie the Pooh' they've ensured that our old friends, as we remember them, are not soon forgotten - all with a wistful poetry and fondness for childlike wordplay that would make A.A Milne himself proud.

'Winnie the Pooh' is rated 'U' by the BBFC and is on wide release across the UK from today.

'Route Irish' review:

After the comparatively light-hearted 'Looking For Eric', Ken Loach has returned to grittier fare with 'Route Irish', a drama about the privatisation of the war in Iraq which plays like a murder mystery detective story. Fergus (Mark Womack) learns that his lifelong best friend Frankie (John Bishop) has been killed by roadside bomb on Baghdad's most dangerous road - Route Irish - whilst working for a private military company. Being an ex-soldier himself, Fergus is suspicious of the official account of how his friend was killed and starts contacting former colleagues and making inquiries before inevitably attracting the attention of those at the top.

Aside from the occasional flashback or video recording, 'Route Irish' is set in Liverpool, and Loach does an incredible job of bringing the Iraq war home to the UK. Over the course of Fergus' investigation we witness the use of so-called waterboarding torture, carried out in an abandoned garage by a motorway. We are also shown a gang of private soldiers turned loose on a number of British homes as they try to regain evidence of a war crime - with their brutal methods directed towards a British Muslim aiding Fergus. These moments take now familiar images of the conflict and put them in a new and, for many, more identifiable context where the basic inhumanity of the acts is crystal clear.



Writer Paul Laverty's dialogue can be a little on the nose at times, with the earnest, highly politicised subtext often working in the foreground, yet it is great to see Loach still making such transparently socialist films in the era of 'The King's Speech'. There is never any doubt of Loach's identification with the working class in 'Route Irish', with the real villain being capitalism as fronted by smartly dressed social elites. (So undesirable to Loach are the trappings of well-heeled conformity that he has Fergus break open Frankie's coffin prior to his funeral and remove the necktie he has been fitted with.) As with the criminal gang in 'Looking For Eric', those working class lads who terrorise others do so out of self-interest and, usually, for money - in effect betraying their social class. As always crime and capitalism are portrayed as equally anti-social.

As a former private security soldier, Fergus is also guilty of complicity with these values as he waged war abroad for a £10,000 a month paycheck. The progression of his character is driven by this guilt, compounded by the fact that Fergus persuaded Frankie into taking up the same work in the first place - effectively making him culpable for his friend's death. He begins his criminal investigation motivated only by a thirst for revenge but, but as he comes to realise the full horror of the PMCs, with their legal immunity giving rise to all manner of cowboy antics, his motivation becomes more noble and in the end he seeks redemption for his own crimes.



It's occasionally a heavy-handed affair, but a decade on from the start of the "War on Terror" Loach is taking a unique look at this much-filmed conflict. He does so with a really well paced thriller, which lasts just under two hours but never lags. Fergus is a sort of working class James Bond - ditching dinner jacket glamour and fealty to the crown for hard-edged blue-collar smarts - as he uses gadgets and guile to uncover the central mystery. 'Route Irish' works as a cracking whodunnit as much as a highly political commentary.

'Route Irish' is out now in the UK and rated a '15' by the BBFC.

'Rio' review:

The weather has taken a turn for the better here in the UK and with the summer months come the summer movies. With crushing predictability, there will be comic book adaptations ('Thor', 'Captain America', 'The Green Lantern'), accountancy-driven sequels ('Scream 4', 'Pirates 4', 'Hangover 2') and, of course, family-oriented 3D animations. The heavy hitters in that field, Pixar and Dreamworks, will likely dominate the coming months with sequels to 'Cars' and 'Kung Fu Panda' respectively, but first out of the gates is an effort from Blue Sky Studios, the Fox-owned animation unit behind the 'Ice Age' series.

'Rio' is the fish out of water story of a domesticated bird, a rare blue macaw, named Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) who is spirited away from his comfortable home in a cold Minnesota town and taken back to his natural habitat in sunny Rio de Janeiro, in order to propagate his endangered species with the feisty, independent Jewell (Anne Hathaway). Directed by Rio native Carlos Saldanha, the film is a celebration of the vibrant musical life of the city, with a sanitised version of its world-famous carnival an ever-present feature as Blu aims to evade a gang of poachers and return to his obsessive owner Linda (Leslie Mann). Also along for the ride are a slobbering bulldog voiced with charm by '30 Rock' star Tracy Morgan, a paternal Toucan portrayed by Mexican American comedian George Lopez and a singing comedy duo courtesy of Will.i.am and Jamie Foxx.



It's bright, colourful and its intentions seem pure, yet 'Rio' is decidedly average from an animation standpoint and uninvolving on a story level. The human characters lack detail and incidental characters seem to come in two generic flavours (fat white man and thin black man), whilst the character animation lacks nuance. Every one of the wacky cast of characters derive their comic sensibilities directly from the Jerry Lewis/Jim Carey school, waving their arms (or wings) about and shouting every single line. Meanwhile Blu's personal journey - in which he must learn to embrace his animal instincts in order to fly - is a bore. To say it's sub-Pixar is to give the film too much credit - the truth is it's sub-Dreamworks.

Jokes fall flat, musical numbers are forgettable and most of the characters are irritating, albeit with two exceptions. Linda is funny due to her pathetic, obsessive devotion to her pet bird. It isn't clear from the start whether the filmmakers are aware of how crazy Linda's attachment to her feathered friend is, which makes it all the more funny. Sadly though, you soon find that this is written into the story and it starts to feel as flavourless as everything else as the film outstays its welcome. A more compelling reason to sit through 'Rio' is presented by the villainous Nigel, voiced by Jermaine Clement, one half of Flight of the Conchords.



Clement's delivery provides the film's only laugh-out-loud moments and his song is the only one which doesn't completely suck (though I'm not exonerating it entirely). He's certainly a lot more fun than the more overt comedy sidekicks played by Foxx and Will.i.am, who are frankly an embarrassment to behold.

Easily pleased children may find 'Rio' more diverting than I did. But with American animated films showing signs of increased maturity in the last two decades, the bar has been raised and 'Rio' is a relic. Little Timmy might find more to laugh at here than I did, but that isn't to say he wouldn't prefer to watch a film of greater quality - one which is less likely to send his parents to sleep, such as 'Up' or 'How To Train Your Dragon'. The best family films effortlessly cross the age divide and assert themselves as plain good films. 'Rio' is inoffensive and far from terrible, but that's about all that can be said for it - and that shouldn't be enough.

'Rio' is rated 'U' in the UK and is on general release from today.

'Source Code' review:

It's increasingly commonplace for mainstream blockbuster films to (often superficially) involve themselves with ideas traditionally thought to be above the station of mere entertainment. The films of Christopher Nolan, including last summer's 'Inception', are a prominent example, as they seek to engage the audience in discussion of the subconscious - from dreams and memories to Freudian concepts like the id and the super-ego - without distracting from the motorcycle chases and cityscape-bending action that audiences crave.

'Source Code', the second feature from 'Moon' director Duncan Jones, is just such a film: a high-concept science-fiction thriller at the centre of which lie a number of metaphysical concerns. On its most basic level though, the title refers to a computer simulation that enables an American soldier, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, to relive the last eight minutes of a man's life over and over again in order to identify his murderer - a terrorist whose bombing of a Chicago-bound passenger train claimed hundreds of lives. In crass marketing speak, it's 'Groundhog Day' meets 'Under Siege 2' with a dash of 'Being John Malkovich' thrown in for good measure.



Yet if the premise promises to raise philosophical questions, Gyllenhaal's repeated trips into what is described by exposition as the "afterglow" of a deceased man's mind take a dispiritingly familiar route. He starts off disoriented in alien surroundings, before he learns the routines of the various characters around him on the train. This enables him to act incredibly cool in that one scene that is practically pre-written into every time travel concept, as he predicts a string of incidental details as if by precognition in order to impress the girl who has taken his fancy (Michelle Monaghan): a coffee spill prevented, a ringing phone anticipated, and so on. The self-satisfied smugness inherent in this feat feels out of place here when you consider it's taking place on a train full of those recently slain, though Gyllenhaal pulls it off with considerable charm and is generally likable even if he remains unconvincing as an action hero.

Eventually, a couple of plot twists later, he begins to set about the task at hand with more purpose, less internal conflict and less knowing humour, with his mission galvanised by the revelation that failure to track down the bomber will result in the deaths of millions in a second terrorist attack on Chicago. This is the action third of the film as Gyllenhaal jumps out of moving vehicles and runs around with a handgun. In the backdrop to all this, there is a romance, along with a number of revelations about his own "real-world" back-story - including a father-son reconciliation sub-plot.

The Academy Award nominated Vera Farmiga co-stars as an officer at a secretive US military installation, who briefs our hero on his mission and has soul-searching of her own to do as the film reaches its climax and those metaphysical concerns come to the fore. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Wright makes for an unsettling (and slightly hammy) presence as the cynical, career-driven scientist behind it all.



In contrast to the tight, restrained simplicity of 'Moon', Jones sets about juggling multiple balls at once with 'Source Code' and he mostly succeeds at keeping up our interest in each of them without compromising the film's forward momentum (a pre-requisite of any film set on a train). As a thriller it's energetic, intriguing and reliably entertaining, though it lacks originality in both the way it utilises its uber-silly pseudoscientific premise and in terms of its direction. Jones keeps things very safe and functional, and it lacks a certain stylistic joie de vivre - a disappointment considering how complete 'Moon' felt as it riffed on its various seventies sci-fi influences. Moments of action also lack a visceral quality, with the exploding train never having the shocking impact it perhaps ought to.

As with 'Inception', it's hard to shake the feeling that the film is overly enamoured with its cleverness, which becomes a problem as the concept is undermined by a laboured last fifteen minutes and a twist you'll have seen coming - and which Jones would have done better to avoid. There is a point where you are practically screaming for Jones to cut to the credits. Yet the film limps on and what would have been eery hanging questions quickly become unsatisfactory answers, with an ending that betrays the preceding hour in terms of tone. As with the final shots of 'Moon', Jones is apparently reluctant to have anyone leave the cinema feeling too bummed out, and in the end the film screams compromise.



'Source Code' is a lot of fun and the concept is an interesting one. It is never dull, yet it lacks boldness in its execution and ends up as something fairly generic. With it Jones has shown that he is a competent director of a high-profile Hollywood studio film on a medium budget, and confirms that he knows what he's doing on a fundamental level with a well-paced and exciting film. The only disappointment is that 'Moon' suggested something more. 'Source Code', with its play on the increasingly trite question "what is real?" and its half-hearted ruminations on the existence of the soul, might suggest ideas above its station, but like many recent psychological blockbusters of this kind - it is ultimately content to paddle in the shallow end rather than risk alienating a mass audience.

'Source Code' is out now in the UK and has been rated '12A' by the BBFC.

Trailer round-up...

I haven't posted a trailer round-up for a while - probably about six months or so - so here are trailers for some of the upcoming films I'm looking forward to. Enjoy!

Despite being underwhelmed by the last (decade of) Woody Allen film(s), I'm really looking forward to 'Midnight in Paris'. I like Owen Wilson and Marion Cotillard for one thing, plus the trailer actually looks pretty good. Wilson's delivery gets all the humour out of the writing by the looks of things and Michael Sheen seems to be playing the sort of pseudo-intellectual, New York poser Allen used to parody in his seventies heyday. It's playing in Cannes next month so we'll soon start hearing if it's any good.



After a screening in-competition in Venice last year, I fell in love with Takashi Miike's '13 Assasins' totally. It was one of the very best films on show there, with it's affectionate yet satirical riff on 'Seven Samurai' and it's critique of Japanese cultural values... and the fact that it was just really, really awesome. And it's out soon in the UK - on April 15th.



Another festival favourite was Wim Wenders' 3D game-changer 'Pina', which I saw in Berlin a couple of months ago. As excellent as it is, I don't know that I need to see it again so soon. I'm posting it here however because the trailer is really something. It's a perfect example of how trailers should be cut together.



I'll be the first to say I don't know a lot about Terrence Malick and have very little idea of what to expect from 'Tree of Life', which opens in May after playing Cannes (or before Cannes depending on who you believe), but the trailer is beautiful. He doesn't make many films - this is only his fifth since 1973's 'Badlands' - so this is sure to be a cinematic event.



And finally, I always like to throw in a wild card on these lists (previous optimistic entries have been 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' and 'Tron: Legacy') and this time it's 'Captain America: The First Avenger' directed by Joe Johnston. It's out at the end of July and looks pretty good (at least compared to 'Thor'), though Johnston did make 'Jurassic Park 3' and 'The Wolfman'... so who knows how this one will turn out.

'You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger' review:

Woody Allen has written, directed and, in many cases, starred in a film every year since the late sixties. On top of that he has written stage plays, short stories and newspaper columns, as well as occasionally touring with his jazz band. As a nineteen year old he wrote jokes for Ed Sullivan and his own stand-up comedy would go on to inspire generations of fellow comics, who voted Allen the third best comedian of all-time in a 2004 poll for Channel Four. These are overused terms, but the man is undoubtedly a genius and a legend.

I preface this review of You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, released in the UK last Friday, with this biography because these are facts I feel compelled to remind myself when contemplating his most recent films. It has become a truism that every Woody Allen film of the last twenty years has been perceived as a "return to form", but with hindsight he never really lost form in the nineties, with that decade yielding works as varied and inspired as 'Everyone Says I Love You', 'Deconstructing Harry', 'Bullets Over Broadway', 'Manhattan Murder Mystery' and 'Sweet and Lowdown'.

The last decade, however, has been far less rewarding with 'Vicky Christina Barcelona' probably the commonly acknowledged high point and - at the risk of sounding like the sort of pseudo-intellectual parodied in his best movies - that film is by no means vintage Allen.



Meanwhile the likes of 'Curse of the Jade Scorpion' and 'Anything Else' have been forgettable, even average. Yet in those cases you suspect that Allen is a victim of both his own success, with genre-defining classics like 'Annie Hall', and his tireless work rate. If those movies weren't Woody Allen films they might just be judged as smart comedies, still well above the average, whilst the fact that he releases at least one film every year means that critics and audiences are never left to anticipate a new Woody Allen film the way they must with Polanski, for instance. However, this logic fails to account for his recent series of movies shot in the UK, of which 'Tall Dark Stranger' is the fourth.

The first of these, 'Match Point', he considers his best work and is among his most commercially successful films. Yet this thriller almost takes a perverse pride in being so very un-Woody Allen. With it he goes for drama rather than comedy, whereas his best films have always combined both, and its interesting central premise is lifted from his superior 'Crimes and Misdemeanors' almost wholesale. 'Scoop' has its moments, but likewise these feel recycled, with Allen's lower-class magician character reminiscent of his agent in the brilliant 'Broadway Danny Rose'. But at least that one is fun. On the other hand 'Cassandra's Dream' is a humourless and trite family crime drama and the worst film he has ever made - totally without redeeming quality.



With these past failures in mind, things didn't look hopeful for 'You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger' - and it's a wonder that he made it at all given his relatively fruitful return to New York with 'Whatever Works'. An ensemble comedy with a typically impressive cast, which includes Anthony Hopkins, Naomi Watts, Freida Pinto, Antonio Banderas and Josh Brolin, 'Tall Dark Stranger' follows half a dozen interconnecting relationships as it explores familiar themes such as mortality and the endless search for meaning in an ultimately meaningless universe.

The story is bookended by a Shakespeare quote which tells us that "life is all sound and fury signifying nothing", but whereas Allen's other films derive an optimistic "whatever makes you happy" philosophy from this state of affairs, 'Tall Dark Stranger' is a bitter and tragic picture of the human condition. The characters are perpetually unfulfilled and unhappy, with the title deriving from the advice an elderly lady (Gemma Jones) seeks from a fortune teller in order to make her remaining time on Earth more palatable.

Of note is the fact that, in his 75th year, Allen also confronts the insecurity brought on from ageing - so long brushed off with witty comments - through Anthony Hopkins' character, who uses fake tan and goes to trendy clubs in order to delude himself into feeling vital. The catalyst for the film's game of relationship musical chairs is his decision to leave his wife (Jones) for a younger woman (a reformed prostitute played by Lucy Punch) and it is this pairing of Hopkins with a younger woman that is the most interesting relationship in the film.



Over the years, even as far back as 'Manhattan' in 1979, it has not escaped notice that Allen frequently pairs old men with much younger women, but the difference in 'Tall Dark Stranger' is that this desire to have a younger woman and forsake his marriage is played as pathetic - partly thanks to Hopkins' tender performance, but it is undoubtedly also down to Allen's writing. In true Allen style, Punch's character is uneducated and lacking in sophistication, with Hopkins struggling to educate her in culture, but here we get a slightly different take on this relationship that has been so much at the centre of what is quintessentially Woody Allen.

Noami Watts and Antonio Banderas are also really enjoyable, especially in the scenes they share together. One moment in a jewellers sees Watts radiate charm and natural comic timing as she reluctantly returns to the shop assistant a pair of diamond earrings she has been trying on, whilst a concluding scene between their two characters is the most quietly effective emotionally, as Banderas underplays everything masterfully. However Brolin's character, a struggling novelist, lacks charm and Freida Pinto is given very little to do as the film's tantalising "woman in red". British duo Punch and Jones turn their characters into caricatures.



'Tall Dark Stranger', with its impressive cast and with its author in reflective mood, could have been really special. However, it is spoiled by an almost complete lack of humour. There are jokes in there but they mostly misfire, or at least his New York Jewish wit doesn't effectively translate when delivered with a British accent.

Worse still the film features a horrendous narration similar to that which (for me at least) spoiled 'Vicky Christina Barcelona'. Through the narration we are told rather than shown what our characters are thinking and feeling, and there is just no excuse for it. The film's musings on life, love and the impermanence of all things also come across as a little obvious and the whole thing feels like a poor facsimile of Woody Allen's earnest 1980s output, but without the strict formal style brought about by his frequent homages to Bergman and Fellini in that period.

'You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger' isn't a complete write-off. The sardonic final scene and Allen's observation that all people are involved in a permanent state of anxiety over their mortality - informing their decisions in work, love and everything else - is compelling. It's just not very funny. But, Allen being Allen, another film isn't far off. Let's hope 'Midnight in Paris' marks a real return to form.

'You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger' is out in the UK now and is rated '12A' by the BBFC.