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Reviews
Far from Home (1989)
Seen it all before
Ah the curse of insomnia compels me to watch yet another crappy late night movie on the goggle-box.
Horny teen Drew Barrymore and her dishevelled looking dad, run out of gas in the Nevada desert and wind up stuck in a godforsaken town / trailer-park. According to the sign the population is 132, every one of them a stereotype.
As luck would have it father and daughter have arrived just in time for a spate of murders. However, any interest that might arise from these slayings is soon curtailed by the fact that you can guess who the killer is almost straightaway.
Meantime, dad keeps searching for someone / anyone with gas to sell, while Drew attracts the attentions of the local bad boy by wandering around in her swimsuit. And for a fourteen year old she certainly fills out a bikini top disturbingly well.
Of course it all ends as it began - predictably. But at least I managed to get some sleep afterwards.
The Prestige (2006)
A shallow cinematic confidence trick
Having established his reputation with the tricksy, but effective thriller Memento, director Christopher Nolan and his screenwriter brother, Jonathan, return to the "nothing is what it seems" school of movie-making with their latest film, The Prestige. Unfortunately, this time the result can only be classed as a fraud.
Focussing on Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale), a pair of duelling Edwardian era magicians; for most of its overlong duration, The Prestige maintains the pretence that it is grounded in recognisable reality. Indeed at least one of the characters, the pioneering inventor Tesla (creepily played by David Bowie in one of the film's few highlights), was actually a real historical figure. Although the drama is steeped in illusion and trickery, the film lures its audience into thinking that all they are seeing is mere sleight of hand; tricks of the conjurer's trade, many of which are revealed in some detail.
Yet when it comes to explaining the final baffling illusion, the Nolan brothers suddenly reveal the whole movie to be one big confidence trick. There is no ingenious explanation for Angier's climactic spectacle. It is in fact impossible; a cheat relying on an absurd sci-fi wheeze that renders the whole story completely meaningless.
When Angier discovers all the cats and top hats out in the woods, my first thought was that Tesla was trying to con him into thinking he was being sold a cloning device, since obviously for it to be a REAL cloning device would just be too preposterous. But no, apparently not.
Compounding the risible plot denouement, the film's dramatic and romantic elements also fail to engage. The love stories are underdeveloped, and end up hopelessly mangled by the disjointed, hop around all over the place, narrative structure. Only Rebecca Hall emerges well from these romantic subplots, managing to produce a convincing performance from the underwritten role of Borden's wife, Sarah. In contrast Scarlett Johansson just looks bored, as the glamorous assistant, Olivia. She appears to have faxed in her performance from the Hollywood hills. Her accent is a mess, and she seems to be relying upon her, admittedly ample, cleavage to do most of the acting.
About all that pulls The Prestige up from a one or two star rating to a four, is impressive cinematography, and some excellent set designs and period detailing. Won't be enough to get me to watch it again, though.
The Mummy (1999)
Cringeworthy Indiana Jones Rip-Off
"The Mummy" is an embarrassing slapstick style rip-off of the Indiana Jones movies. It's not funny (though it thinks it is), it's not exciting, it's not dramatic, it's just willfully stupid.
I'd summarise the plot for you, except that this would only serve to dignify the film by suggesting it actually has a story and characters worthy of the name. In fact there are only clichés and cringeworthy stereotypes, and to make matters worse the film-makers actually seem to glory in their total lack of originality or imagination. Every scene is presented with a condescendingly postmodern nudge-nudge, wink-wink, you've seen this one before haven't you, kind of attitude, as though by gaining audience recognition of the clichés and stereotypes this somehow makes them clever.
Allegedly the action occurs in the 1920s, but actually the film scarcely even pretends to take its period setting seriously. This is not simply a matter of historical inaccuracies. The original Indiana Jones movies had plenty of those, not least in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" the mystery as to what the heck half the German army was doing in British occupied Egypt circa 1936. Yet despite such absurdities, these movies were still careful to recreate a period setting that did, however tenuously, ground them in a semblance of reality.
"The Mummy" in contrast is set in an unreal fantasy land, completely divorced from any actual time or place. Just about everything is computer generated, and it shows. I'm sure I can't be the only one who regards CGI as the emperor's new clothes. Fair enough, it can be genuinely effective when used subtly to enhance footage that has been shot in actual sets or locations. But once you start using it to create whole worlds it just winds up making everything look like a video game. Call me old-fashioned, but I always thought that the whole point of good special effects was that they should be seen and not noticed. If people come out of a movie commenting on how amazing the CGI effects were, then self-evidently they weren't amazing at all. They were rubbish, because everyone was aware of them. In the case of "The Mummy" the phoniness of the CGI only exacerbates the phoniness of the script.
As for the acting, it was generally pretty bad, although given the script that was hardly surprising. The only "character" who stood out at all was John Hannah's, and that was for entirely negative reasons. I don't usually mind Hannah, but here his character approaches Jar Jar Binks levels of obnoxiousness. Frankly I just wanted to punch his face in every time he appeared on screen. Meanwhile, Rachel Weisz looked gorgeous as ever, but that was woefully insufficient compensation for two hours of crass, cynical, cretinous drivel, passing itself off as entertainment.
The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
How to Make a Buck Out of Climate Change
Climate change. Everyone's talking about it, thought the Hollywood execs, so how can we make a buck out of it? Well for starters, we're going to have to speed it up. A lot! I mean, a small rise in average temperatures over half a century? Boring! What we need is climate change for kids with Attention Deficit Disorder. So lets squeeze it all into a few days. And as for that modest rise in sea levels they're predicting, lets make it a colossal tidal wave slamming into New York.
Looking good! So what else do we need? Hey, how about a new ice age. One that descends right across the northern hemisphere in about five minutes flat. And how about vast super-storms that freeze people solid in a couple of seconds! And huge tornadoes smashing up LA! Looking real good!
Now, I guess we need a few characters, and some sort of a script, don't you think? Hey, do we still have those chimps on contract? You know the ones with the typewriters. Yeah, give them an infinite amount of time and they'll type out the complete works of Shakespeare, or something like that.
No, we don't have an infinite amount of time. Just go with their first draft. It'll be fine. Long as we stick enough CGI effects in there, nobody's going to care one way or another.
It's All About Love (2003)
A Mildly Intriguing Failure
"It's All About Love" is without doubt one of the strangest films I've ever seen. Unfortunately, while some aspects are quite intriguing, the film as a whole turns out to be more pretentious than profound.
Set in a near-future world plagued by highly unusual environmental phenomena, perhaps heralding a new ice age, the story takes James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis into the realms of psychological mysticism. For in this world, mankind's contribution to a changing climate does not derive from anything so prosaic as carbon emissions, but rather from an excess of human loneliness and alienation, and a corresponding absence of compassion and love. These same emotional shortcomings are also causing a spate of spontaneous deaths among the lonely and the loveless; so many in fact that pedestrians simply step over the bodies without a second glance.
At the centre of the story are John Marshevsky (Joaquin Phoenix) and his champion figure skating wife, Elena (Claire Danes). As the film opens John is making a brief stopover in New York, where he is intending to finalise he and Elena's divorce. However, it soon transpires that Elena is in trouble. Her managers are plotting a very strange fate for her, and John is drawn in to helping her escape. In the process the couple find their love for each other is renewed.
Unfortunately, the precise nature of the conspiracy surrounding Elena is underdeveloped, and not entirely convincing either, problems that afflict much of the rest of the film's plot too. Initially, it seems to be suggested that John and Elena's love is somehow pivotal to the world's climatic predicament, yet once their romance is rekindled it makes no discernible difference to the planet's descent into a deep freeze. There is also a seemingly superfluous story strand involving John's brother played by Sean Penn, who spends his entire time flying in planes around the world, providing a commentary on the changing climate.
Nevertheless, the film does maintain a rather haunting, elegiac atmosphere throughout, which for the most part kept me engaged, even as the plot grew increasingly frustrating. It is a beautifully photographed film, and also benefits from an evocative use of sound.
Yet in the end nothing can adequately compensate for the deficiencies of the story and script. Having suspended my disbelief in anticipation of seeing some answers, few were forthcoming and they were just not enough to cover the film's many bizarre conceits, not least the "flying Ugandans" (yes, you read it right). While I'm not someone who demands every nuance of plot or character be explained, this film definitely leaves far too many holes, and for that reason, although it is not without points of interest along the way, "It's All About Love" must ultimately be judged a failure.
Say Anything... (1989)
Nice Guy Gets Nice Girl
I happened across this film whilst channel-hopping, and decided to watch it with absolutely zero expectations. Given my usual aversion to any film described as a "teen romance", it may be that I was just in a good mood, but to my surprise I rather enjoyed it.
A large part of its appeal undoubtedly lies in the fact that John Cusack and Ione Skye do make a genuinely likable couple, helped out by an understated script that allows them to be just that. In a number of other films by Cameron Crowe, I've felt the emotion was cloyingly overdone. However, although "Say Anything", with its central premise of "nice guy gets nice girl", occasionally teeters on the brink of such sentimentality, it never quite topples.
There's a pleasant naturalistic quality to the film. Not what you would call realism, just an unforced emotional sincerity. Despite the fact many of the characters could, on the face of it, easily be slotted into familiar stereotypes of the genre, the script ensures they diverge just enough to keep things interesting.
This is particularly true of Ione's father, engagingly played by John Mahoney, better known as Marty Crane on Frasier. At first I assumed he was going to be the standard domineering dad, putting his foot down to prevent his darling daughter consorting with a guy who just wasn't good enough for her. And to an extent this does happen, but it is all a good deal more subtle and nuanced than I had been expecting.
Elsewhere, the film could be accused of leaving a number of the supporting characters underdeveloped, and some of the subplots unconcluded. Yet I actually didn't really mind. If anything it helped add a kind of authenticity to the story. After all in reality people can drift in and out of our lives quite haphazardly, without providing us with in depth looks into their character, nor any neat endings for their stories.
In summation then, although "Say Anything" is no cinematic masterpiece, if you approach it in a relatively uncynical frame of mind, you should find it an engaging and sincere romantic drama.
The Yards (2000)
An acutely observed crime drama
'The Yards' is a sombre tale of corrupt city bureaucrats, semi-gangsterish businessmen, and the small-time crooks who do their dirty work, as they tussle over maintenance contracts on the New York subway system. This is a world of mundane corruption and criminality, whose inhabitants live several rungs down the ladder from the kind of mafia dynasties depicted in 'The Godfather'. Although the cinematography certainly nods towards Coppolla's epic, particularly the dark brooding interiors, this is a less self-consciously grandiose drama, more an intimate study in betrayal.
The chief protagonist is Leo Handler (Mark Wahlberg) a young man returning home after a spell in prison. As is obligatory in such tales, he is intent on going straight, but finds himself lured by his smooth-operating buddy Willie Gutierrez (Joaquin Phoenix) into the semi-legitimate business operations of his step-uncle Frank Olchin (James Caan).
Frank is finding it increasingly tough to win subway contracts, due to competition from rival Hispanic firms, who are being aided by preferential treatment policies for minorities. This has led him to task Willie with sabotaging the operations of his competitors so they fail to meet municipal work standards. When one of these sabotage missions goes violently wrong Leo finds out just how fragile loyalties can be. Nepotism and friendship soon evaporate when their is a murder to be explained, and Leo must fend for himself if he is not to take the fall.
The film provides an intriguing look into a sordid and incestuous community in which family and business interests intertwine, with connections, favours and dirty tricks being the accepted way of getting things done. The protagonists are not simply bad people, but are proper characters, compromised as much by the environment they operate in, as by lax personal morality. In the aftermath of the murder, their betrayals are not mere cold-blooded expedients, but anguished decisions driven by instinctive self-preservation.
Overall this is a subtly observed drama, skillfully acted (particularly by Joaquin Phoenix) and handsomely shot. The final climax may be just a tad overwrought, but personally it could not spoil an otherwise admirable film.
London to Brighton (2006)
Exploitative grimness
This film left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Doubtless the film-makers would justify its relentless grimness by describing it as a comment on the plight of the impoverished underclass in contemporary British society. Yet I suspect this claim would not be entirely sincere.
London to Brighton may be filmed and acted in the same realistic, unpolished style of a Ken Loach film, but for me it lacks the degree of empathy and compassion for its protagonists, which typifies Loach's own work. Instead, I felt there was a strong element of middle-class voyeurism going on. From the comfort of an art-house cinema the film invites its audience to partake of a little gutter porn, down among the pimps, prostitutes and paedophiles of underbelly Britain, where violence and sexual abuse are taken to be ubiquitous.
The film-makers do not even see the need to tack on much of a plot to justify their excursion into the sordid. From early on it is abundantly clear where the story is heading and equally obvious that the denouement will not be pleasant.
Although the acting throughout is exceptional, nothing could change the fact that this was one journey I would rather not have taken, and certainly not one I would recommend to anyone else.
Munich (2005)
Overlong and superficial
I really struggled to reach the end of this film. It seemed to go on forever, without any real narrative verve or purpose.
None of the main characters were properly developed and consequently I could not have cared less about any of them. There was no serious exploration of the morality or immorality of what they were doing or why. Just a bit of callously expressed indifference from the South African guy played by Daniel Craig, and a lot of pained expressions from the Eric Bana character.
As for the plot, it was obscure and incoherent. Often I wasn't even sure what country the action was occurring in, as the assassination crew moved from one anonymous victim about whom we knew nothing, to another. Every now and then a character would announce how many hundreds of thousands of dollars a particular hit had cost, but what reaction the film-makers wanted the audience to have to these figures I have no idea. Certainly the assassins never seemed to be struggling for cash.
There were a few impressive set pieces and the seventies period detail was nicely done. Yet when the film finally ended I was more relieved than anything else. It simply had no resonance for me whatsoever.
La tourneuse de pages (2006)
Vengeance served very very cold
Melanie Prouvost (Deborah Francois) is a girl who really knows how to hold a grudge. Aged 10 she sees her prospects of a musical career go up in smoke at a piano recital when she is distracted by one of the judges, Ariane Fouchecourt (Catherine Frot), a famous pianist who thoughtlessly signs an autograph while Melanie is playing. After this failure Melanie refuses ever to play the piano again.
A decade on and Melanie, while interning at a law firm, gets the opportunity to become a live in nanny for her boss's son. Needless to say the boss's wife turns out to be none other than Ariane.
From hereon in the film plays on our uncertainty as to precisely how and to what extent Melanie intends to take her vengeance against the emotionally fragile Ariane, who of course is totally oblivious to their prior encounter. Is Melanie truly a cruel and beautiful ice maiden out for limitless revenge, or does she have a heart after all? The film keeps the tension going playfully and subtly, helped in no small measure by excellent performances from Catherine Frot and Deborah Francois. In fact about the only criticisms I can think to make are that the script could possibly have fleshed out Melanie's motivations just a little more fully, and also that there were several continuity errors regarding Melanie's dress. I don't often notice such errors, but in this case they involved the sudden disappearance of Deborah Francois' delectable cleavage, which I felt myself compelled to keep a close eye on throughout. A very minor quibble with an otherwise accomplished film.
V for Vendetta (2005)
1984 the panto
This film clearly has pretensions towards political profundity, but is really just a pantomime of comic book villains kitted out in fascist jackboots to try and lend it a veneer of seriousness.
Set in a near future fascist UK there are inevitably numerous nods made towards Orwell's masterpiece 1984. Unfortunately for the film-makers their own work can only emerge from this juxtaposition looking even sillier. Matters are not improved by some ham-fisted attempts to link this future world's totalitarian predicament in with the current "War on Terror". These amount to nothing more than the usual whiny dinner-party critiques, which the film-makers would like to kid us are intellectually daring and important.
Visually the film does successfully capture its intended comic book aesthetic. However, if like me you are not a fan of comic books this will be of limited interest.
As for the acting, it is no more than adequate, although this probably says more about the script than the actors. In fact there are a number of reliable character actors like Stephen Rea and John Hurt in supporting roles. They just look very much like they're thinking of their fees.
Natalie Portman, whose performance has been praised to the rafters in so many other posts, is really no more than OK. She just about manages to hold that absurdly posh, cut-glass English accent all American actresses seem to adopt whenever they play a Brit, presumably coaching themselves by watching Brief Encounter. If ever a Hollywood actress manages a convincing Geordie or Scouse accent, then I'll be impressed.
Meanwhile, Hugo Weaving does what he can with a character who spends the entire film running around in a Guy Fawkes mask. But the fact is there's no real character there for him to play. Just an overblown comic book caricature.
Just to cap the whole sorry experience, the film finishes with an ending which I can only describe as sanctimonious, implausible drivel. Safe to say I won't be rushing back for a second viewing.
El laberinto del fauno (2006)
Visually stunning but lacks coherence
I wish I could say I liked this film more than I did, since it certainly has some impressive aspects to it. Undeniably it is visually stunning, particularly the fantasy sequences, which feature some marvellously weird and imaginative fairy tale beasts. The acting is also excellent.
Yet I just didn't feel the two story strands - the real world civil war drama and the fairy tale fantasy - gelled together in a meaningful way. I'm not sure if the fantasy aspect was supposed to be some kind of allegorical comment on fascism, but if it was it was too obscure for me to appreciate. Instead it just seemed to sit uneasily alongside the often brutal events unfolding in the real world sequences.
Altogether it had the feeling of a film that thought itself more profound than it actually was. Although it carried me along well enough while I was watching it, after it finished the impression I was left with was of a mildly diverting, but ultimately inconsequential piece of film-making.