Owsler's blog

Angels & Demons review

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Tackling a Dan Brown film adaptation on a critical level is akin to committing textual hari-kiri. Such folly to peek around the corpulent mass of worldwide receipts totalling over 700 million just to poke at the lifeless form of ‘The Da Vinci Code’.

What’s most amusing about the adaptation of the second in the Robert Langdon sequence is that it really should be the first. ‘Angels and Demons’ having been published before ‘The Da Vinci Code’. The grand revelation of Mary now coming before the events of this movie. An obvious retcon considering the huge success of the book, but a stupid one because it completely negates its efficacy.

When Langdon shares a joke over the revelation with a papal representative in the opening, it only cements the obvious: Dan Brown’s works are nothing more than potboilers. Never meant to stir up any controversy. Hardy Boys novels writ large and looking to the almighty dollar like any enterprising scriptwriter latching onto the new money-machine trend.

Their success is solely down to the ridiculous fervour generated by the media and subsequently by the first thousand readers who yawningly leafed through them at an airport bookstand. And of course it should be no surprise, then, that films based on pedestrian works will produce wholly pedestrian films.

Saying that, one of the few things this film does gets right, at least on the surface, is streamlining. Scripter Akiva Goldsman has clearly learned from the meandering debacle of ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and cut much of the fat, conflated characters and reduced the role of the Hassashin to little more than hired Merc.

He’s also one of the best characters, and says very little. Unlike the rest of our cast, and specifically our lead.

Tom Hanks’ Robert Langdon has to be one of the most impotent heroes in cinema. When he’s not giving us, I’m sorry, Dr Vetra (Ayelet Zurer, reduced to beautiful yet bland helper-heroine) impromptu lectures on the history, and much maligned with it, of the Catholic Church, he’s rushing around Rome like a more cavalier Simon Schama; failing miserably to save anyone. Not to say Hanks is bad. It’s impossible to hide that infectious wit and charm. It’s just as the focus of a movie, there seems very little reason for him to be there.

So desperate not to repeat the mistakes of the first film, and more probably an effect of the rush to complete the script before the Writers’ Strike, action takes centre stage. Our heroes facing off against an Illuminati threat that has, following the death of the Pope, planted an anti-matter bomb somewhere in the Vatican, taken the four papal candidates captive and threatened to kill them, one every hour. It’s up to Indiana Langdon to find them and prevent an explosion that could take out the Vatican and a large chunk of Rome with it.

It all sounds very exciting, and to the credit of director Ron Howard it very nearly is. His camera whipping from chapel to crypt, crypt to church; by car and on foot. Unfortunately, he does such a good job of the look of the film that, as each scene ends with failure, you start to appreciate it more as a very lush, evocative, but breathless travelogue.

‘If you’ll look to your left you’ll see a beautiful CGI recreation of the Pantheon and over there is the equally striking Santa Maria della Vittoria. Oh, please ignore those screams, that’s just a cardinal being burned alive. Now, moving on…’ Joking aside, on the visual side this film is superlative and for that the filmmakers should be commended highly.

It‘s a shame then, that amidst the increasingly deflating tension, the film feels the need to say something. And so we get softly spoken Camerlengo Patrick McKenna. And you have to pity poor Ewan McGregor who’d actually be quite commanding if it wasn’t for his faltering Irish accent and the string of sermons he has to give. One of them an excruciating speech, ostensibly calling for parity between religion and science, yet filtered through the usual patronising Catholic mandate.

These faults even manage to dim the glow of Howard’s success with ‘Frost/Nixon’. His decision to drench the film in obvious light/dark opposition and that heavy Catholic fear is one thing, but composing clumsy images as when Langdon tosses aside the white collar from a priest’s shirt is beneath him. There’s even the on-message appearance of a stem cell protest at the site of one of the murders.

On the other hand he also shows signs of continued improvement. In one spectacular image, rupturing the heavens themselves, and turning them into a tableau of the cosmos. In another he makes all the grinding talky-talk redundant, juxtaposing the potential of the LHC machinery with the smoke rising up through the Sistine Chapel chimney. Both objects that could communicate change for the good, as well as the bad. One of science. One of religion.

Unfortunately these successes are all but smothered by the interminable spat between the two disciplines. It’s left to the fine work by composer Hans Zimmer to lift the film, much as it was in the previous one. It’s the usual mix of choral blast, matching the Catholic darkness and pomposity onscreen, and moments of serene contemplation. Thanks to Zimmer the film is taken to heights it really doesn’t deserve.

Star Trek Review

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Welcome to episode one in the reboot of the Star Trek franchise. Not just a reference to J.J. Abrams TV roots, but also a frankly unnecessary Lucas-ification of material that once served as inspiration to the less intellectually stimulating, more action driven fun of Star Wars.

The humanist, positivist philosophy of Rodenberry is subdued, and in its place are goofy moments of comedy involving dinky little aliens, sentimental sound cues cribbed from Lost, slapstick transporter overshoots and poor choices in editing cues that turn once legendary catchphrases like, ‘Live long and prosper’ into middle finger one-liners.

More importantly though, replacing the more contemplative moments, the kinds suggested by those pulsating first notes of the classic theme, is a more prosaic questing story, similar to one through which another legendary sci-fi character was brought to our attention.

Luke Skywalker and James Tiberius Kirk, both farm boys, both fatherless. Both unconsciously driven to better themselves. In this film their paths are intrinsically linked. In fact in one scene involving the straw haired moppet Kirk, and some joyriding stupidity, it even betters Star Wars for obnoxious petulance.

And the parallels go on; Luke staring out at the twin suns replaced by Kirk’s pit stop at the shipyard where the Enterprise is being constructed. His Obi-wan, the equally commanding Bruce Greenwood as Captain Pike.

It’s Pike that takes Kirk’s rebellious, bar-brawling energy, and attempts to channel it into a career at the Federation, a kind of galactic UN, that serves as an exploration and peace keeping force. Little of which we see in this film.

In short, the film is far from perfect. In fact at times it battles with mediocrity, the central time travel theme a contrivance rather than an intriguing look at the future and mankind’s greatest frontier. It leaves poor Leonard Nimoy, returning as original Spock, as little more than doddery plot device, slotting the core cast neatly into their respective roles.

This leaves the action as filler. Starship battles that would make Lord Nelson’s eyes bleed replace submarine ping subtlety. All noise, glossy effects and glossy gyroscopic cameras. Without proper motivation and therefore significance, it’s left to the worst kinks of Star Trek, the smoke screen science, to support it. And so transporter signals are jammed, and we get an admittedly thrilling, yet vapid super sonic freefall closely followed by the clash of steel.

What’s worse, amidst these streaks of CGI colour which are, in the case of one heroic phaser battle, nigh on incomprehensible, we realise the movie lacks a decent villain. Eric Bana’s Nero, a petulant, shouty infant compared to the Shakespearean stature of Montalban’s Khan. Seriously, the biggest threat to our new look crew is a stellar miner.

Saying that, as is true for all of Abram’s previous work, it’s the character work that saves this movie. More than that; it manages to turn it into a truly stirring piece of cinema.

Each of the beloved characters are present and correct. Chris Pine displaying all the playboy swagger of Kirk, nailing classic Shatnerian joie de vivre in the film’s final moments, and adding youth and vigour to the role. Quite simply he’s the better actor, bringing an immediate presence, rather than one embellished by time and cult following.

He’s matched by Zachary Quinto, giving a superb performance as young Spock; perpetually in conflict with an emotional spectrum you realise is almost as alien a concept as he is. He shares some wonderfully tender moments with Zoe Saldana as Uhura, who balances vulnerability with nerdy bullishness to perfection.

Likewise, his clashes with the acid tongue of realist Dr Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy (Karl Urban as the film’s true highlight) not only give us some of the best lines in ‘green-blooded hobgoblin’, but sells some of the more intrusive classic references the movie throws up.

While Chekov (Anton Yelchin), Sulu (John Cho) and Scotty (Simon Pegg) aren’t quite there yet as characters, Yelchin little more than a comedy accent and Pegg a slightly less demented Sick Boy from ‘Trainspotting‘, you can’t help but be charmed by these characters interactions and altercations. The movie managing to capture some of the elusive, swashbuckling heart of the matinee.

So exciting, sure. Thrilling, most definitely. But where’s the epic implied by that fantastic final trailer? Where’s the things Roy Batty has seen? The things we wouldn’t believe. Maybe they’ll always be the domain of machines. Us humans are too busy being blinded by 80s strobes, deafened by cacophonous sound effects and seduced by young pups with movie star charisma.

Or maybe, as the pilot episode structure suggests it’s all there waiting, ready to be explored. Ready to germinate in future episodes and become far more than streaks of coloured, magical light going at warp speed.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

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Unlike the late night fox that picks your rubbish clean looking for treasure, the film studio of the same name apparently takes that treasure and turns it into complete rubbish. This is especially true of their comic book properties.

Picking the gristle of the Fantastic Four debacle from his teeth is Fox studio exec Tom Rothman. And by all reports it’s his repeated interference in the production of ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’ that has resulted in this mediocrity.

Look at the title. It’s bad enough they’re going down the now wizened route of origin story, one that disperses the final wisps of mystery and punctures resulting tension, but this title babies an audience of presumed idiots. Those who have already forgotten this movie is the result of a successful franchise.

What’s worse, one of the worst flaws of this film rests on dumb irony. Trying to tie it to current continuity and give it more resonance they’ve muddied the waters further with adamantium bullets that turn Logan’s amnesia into goofy contrivance, a young Cyclops and, inexplicably, new character Emma Frost, a mutant that we have yet to see again.

Fox’s lack of faith in the comic material they have in front of them seems baffling when you consider Warner Bros. and Christopher Nolan’s artistic freedom and faith in Batman’s history or Marvel striking off on their own with ‘Iron Man’ and set to produce a connected movie universe.

Instead of those blockbusters, Fox gets a complete mess. Striking an uneven tone right from the start, all the epic potential from the trailers is dumped into the opening credits: a vigorous war montage that suggests exciting action, bold cinematography and a ferocious pace.

Why then are we instead introduced to Team X, supposedly a black ops unit and yet they walk right up to a mission objective looking like a bunch of narked-off strippers. Why go for subterfuge when a gay wisecrack in a lift would be far more apropos. And it’s like this for the rest of the movie: a cinematic scrap between studio-approved banality and fleeting moments of drama.

There’s no doubting Jackman’s presence, and Wolverine is one of, hopefully, many defining roles for the actor. Unfortunately he’s hamstrung by a script that spreads all of his character’s facets amongst the supporting cast. Whether it’s the motormouth merc Wade Wilson (Ryan Wilson, reprising his Hannibal King routine), later the mutant menagerie Deadpool, the tragic Bolt (Dominic Monaghan, probably the best thing in the movie) or the mysterious Gambit (Taylor Kitsch), each of them evince more humour, emotion and wolfish charm than Jackman’s Logan.

Even Liev Schreiber (a massive improvement on the previous actor), playing villain Sabretooth, has more bite and animalistic energy, leaving Jackman to pull off ferocious poses that look rather absurd surrounded by this puff piece. In fact, rather than elevate the character, it’s a regression, declawing the rebel with dubious morals and turning him into little more than Superman in a bad leather jacket.

The uneven tone aside, the script is a mess of moral platitudes, perfunctory twists, and an all too familiar redemption theme as Logan fights to prove he is not the animal a better film would have willingly indulged and still succeeded in ensuring the audience’s sympathies. Instead of rounded characters, it’s a who’s who of mutant kind that rather than sating the fans and thrilling the audience, instead, annoys and confuses them both equally.

The defining moment, the torturous baptism of liquid adamantium that transforms Logan into Wolverine, is less excoriating and more a disappointing signal of the film’s turn. Rather than let our hero suffer for a moment in the wilds, we’re inflicted with a moment of goofy comedy as an old couple spots him streaking across their ranch.

In between moments of slapstick as Logan examines his new metal claws and destroys a bathroom, sage advice is imparted by the wise old man. Fortunately he is able to gift that familiar leather jacket before the couple is cut to pieces by one of Logan’s pursuers.

While the climax is grounded in the reality of the Three Mile Island meltdown, the location for the mutant equivalent of Guantanomo Bay, it’s undercut by the hysterical comic book destruction wreaked by the characters. It’s this strange back and forth in the script, this schizophrenic setting up and then breaking down of logic that runs through the whole film and truly scuppers the movie.

In fact, when a small moment involving Monaghan’s Bolt early in the film expresses more sad humanity than all the heroic posturing in the climax, you realise this movie was doomed from the start.

Let The Right One In

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Vampires, more than humans, realise that love is the one truly soul destroying element in the universe.  And being immortal they crash up against the shores of this tragic landscape again, and again. In doing they also face the very thing that sustains them. The thump, thump of a heart and hunger.

The recent ‘Twilight’ touched upon this. The chaste love that must result if there is any chance of happiness. Unfortunately this was less to do with anything stirring, and more an extension of the writer’s batty Mormon beliefs.

It is with Tomas Alfredson’s ‘Let the Right One In’ that we have a fresh transfusion to obliterate the anaemia of what has gone before. Opening on a shot of falling snow bristling with strange magic, we switch to the stark, depressing reality of a Swedish tower block and the story of frail Oskar.
 
The film revels in this kind of opposition. Not a straighforward riff on the Vampire myth it instead shows how the myth impinges on the real world. In fact, while the film depicts familiar vampiric tropes, these are so well implemented into the fabric of the story to almost be a part of reality itself.

In fact, break it down and vampirism is simply innocence corrupted, specifically love. The eroticising or perversion of it into something dark and violent. And on one hand this is the essence of Eli and Oskar’s journey.

And it’s held together by an extraordinary performance from Lina Leandersson. Not to take anything from Kåre Hedebrandt as Oskar. He articulates the effect Eli has on him beautifully, moving from bullied timidity to a certain bold maturity. It’s Oskar’s likeability that draws us in to the story, but his is more a passive role. It is his interaction with Eli and his gentle expressions of affection (gifting his Rubiks cube or offering candy) that allow him to take his first faltering steps on the road to adolescence.

In contrast Eli is the aggressor. But it’s subtle; Lina’s face giving mere suggestion. On the surface she is porcelain purity with a wrinkled nose of cuteness that Oskar finds so charming. Go beneath, however, and her eyes describe an eternity of sorrow, pain and exhaustion.

While Alfredson refuses to shy away from her brutal and sometimes horrific acts, and in some ways he revels in them, proving in one scene of carnage at a swimming pool what an arresting visual director he is, when Eli turns those eyes on you, it is not so easy to condemn.

She’s being consumed by a terrible twofold dilemma. The corruption of an innocent and how best to express the bond she shares with Oskar; maternal or love? But more importantly, old ages’ greatest fear; being alone.  In fact, the movie repeatedly emphasises how terrible it is to grow old; the inadequacy of Oskar’s parents, his teachers, the police and most importantly the decrepitude of Hakan and his strange relationship with Eli.

Is Hakan a man servant, a ward, a lover, a father figure or both a poignant and terrible look into the future for Oskar? These are a few of a myriad questions the film ignites in you, and the delicious thing about the poetic final scene on the train is that it leaves them all potential.

There is trickery at work here. That terrible, but fascinating tug at the heart and mind which cannot be resolved by one explanation anymore than by another. It should come as little surprise really when you consider the title is both a play on the vampire myth of invitation and also a warning to choose first love carefully or be ruined forever.

In fact possibly the most indelible image the film has is of a bloody kiss shared near the end of the film. Both a sign of love, and an ultimate distortion of it. A single resonant moment in a film filled with them. It’s one I was privileged to see at London’s Frightfest and cannot wait to see again. Let the hype continue to build. It’s one the few films that truly deserves it.

 

The International

Imagine for a second a Fleming Bond stripped of glamour and sophistication or a Bourne without the plot device. Imagine the tedium of the bland urban greys and cold metallic blues that make up real intelligence work.

Yeah, sounds terrible doesn’t it. But it’s exactly this that makes Tom Twyker’s ‘The International’ such a draw. The plot is Zeitgeist reality, picking at the nervous tension pervading modern society, surrounding the banking institutions and their less than scrupulous dealings.

In this chilling reality we have grizzled Interpol Agent, Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) and his investigation into the illegal dealings of the IBBC (an obvious reference to the BCCI scandal of the late 90s), believed to be brokering arms deals.

After losing a colleague and a potential informant to the bank’s operatives and stymied by the beauracry of his position, Salinger breaks with protocol and heads off on a country spanning mission to thwart their plans.

Owen was never right for Bond. Flatfooted and far too versatile an actor for glossy vacuity, here he seems to relish the irony of an agent with limited powers yet driven by a mania that has caused him trouble in the past. He’s blandly professional; charming in a blunt, fragile way and brings the right side of vulnerability to the superlative action sequences.

Speaking of action, it’s not such a great surprise Twyker’s at the helm. Similarly mismatched for commercial cinema, he brings a perfect blend of clinical kineticism to the edit. There’s a whiff of the choking paranoia of 70s Pakula and the horrible normalcy of Pollack’s Three Days of the Condor. And while his chilly direction means the film sags once the foot comes off the gas, it’s when it’s on that this film really bucks.

Astonishing is one word to describe some of the action in this film; the film evincing an impressive precision in a world of whirligig camera work and choppy editing. He’s one of very few Anti-Bays, and for that alone he should be commended.

In fact it’s rare to see action that actually articulates rather than just entertains. Each location of the film, whether it’s the blank, drizzle of a car park, the stark professionalism of a hit in a Milan square, or the channels of the NY streets expresses the same oppressive atmosphere evident in Twyker’s direction. And in the Guggenheim, Twyker has found a perfect location for a gunfight.

The curving architecture of the building, embracing, yet constricting. Action as expression of mood. Everything from the pure white of its walls, punctured by bullets; the ant-like people streaming, screaming from the floors below as the action takes place on the floors above; assassins mixing in with the confusion of fragmented and reflected images from the video installations and shiny panels lining the walls, screams tour de force filmmaking.

It’s little surprise really when you consider the influence of Krzysztof Kieslowski on Twyker, a similarly dynamic, humanistic director. The ending of the film resonates with his themes, especially moral dilemma and coincidence. Less deus ex machina, more cruel play of fate that gives us a happy ending while twisting the knife even more as the credits roll.

Gran Torino

Like Disney meeting Dirty Harry over a Pabst Blue Ribbon or three, a surface examination of Clint Eastwood’s ‘Gran Torino‘ might suggest a film littered with clichés and meandering like that befuddled favourite uncle that always pops up with a story to tell. Well forgive yourself being wrong. Beneath the hood of this simple story there’s a film revving with charm.

The film tells the story of Korean Vet, and retired Ford factory worker, Walt Kowalski. His life is infused with bitterness, suffering the death off his beloved wife, the irritation of a pastor in pampers and rapid ethnic change in the neighbourhood, including septuagenarians hocking tobacco spit further than he can. He’s unloading bile faster than the old carbine rifle he keeps in a basement locker and when gangs begin to encroach on his Hmong neighbours, Sue (Ahney Her) and her brother Thao (Bee Vang), there’s a sense that even Walt will have to take a stand.

Recalling the greatest films of Sam Peckinpah this is an elegiac tale for a world that once was. You can see it in the proud, vehicular perfection of Walt’s coveted Ford Gran Torino. Part of a proud history of blue collar American workers. And Walt takes a quiet joy keeping it in a pristine condition that attracts the greedy eye of his granddaughter, the curiosity of Thao and the evil of the gangbangers that want to initiate him. Even so, it will always be a relic, in the same way that a gunslingers horse was to the first motor car. Except this time it’s the anorexic curves of technologically driven Japanese machines that even Walt’s no-good sons indulge in.

More importantly it represents a way of being. A muscle car masculinity if you will. While some might be shocked or appalled by the verbal virulence of Walt, the trite conditioned response of the tediously liberal, others will struggle to not find humour in the deadpan cannons fired out from his porch or at the barber shop; the funniest of which comes as he gives Thao his first lesson of manhood.

Whatever you might think, Walt’s attitude towards the multi-culturalisation of America is less about twisted amorality (he is after all of Polish descent) and more about what has been lost to him. The death of his wife cost him his anchor. That which grounded him, and kept the horrors of his past at bay. His apparent bigotry is him lashing out at a world he finds hard to understand. A more violent, impropriety world. Where good manners are lacking, and a man is more coward than lion.

While his dealings with the Hmong family next door seem banal, the dialogue has a ring of improvised, awkward truth about it. And there’s a genuine delight at seeing the slow erosion of that granite face as he warms to the Hmong and their culture. A change that might repel when presented as saccharine Hallmark card, but with the profound weight of Clint’s persona and force of will behind it, it’s impossible not to be touched by it.

Soon Walt’s ethnic slurs lose their bite, first through Sue and her youthful wit and seemingly resolute spirit (the shattering of this is one of the film’s genuine surprises), and then with Thao. And as the film makes its move down a darker path we see these outbursts for what they are; a protective barrier around Walt keeping people at bay, much like an ancient cowboy’s refusal to take on a sidekick, or a grizzled detective denying that offer of help. They, like Walt, as he admonishes himself for involving himself in the gang trouble, know the damage that can be done, and the pain that can be caused by people getting too close.

While the vigilante has become little more than a bolt-on to the action genre in recent times, Walt is less about the violent redemption and an exultation of the earlier boot heel justice and macho one-liner (though forgive yourself relishing one as punchy as, “ever notice how you come across somebody once in a while that you shouldn’t have fucked with? That’s me”). This is a fond farewell to Clint’s wielding of cinematic persona, plucking the best bits of his William Munny, Dirty Harry and The Man With No Name and suffusing them through a masterly, yet simply directed film.

As we see and also hear in the final few shots of the movie, like the Gran Torino, they don’t make them quite like Clint Eastwood anymore.

Watchmen Review

- None of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with you.
- You're locked up in here with me.

A ferocious and fan favourite threat from a masked sociopath, but taken out of context, these lines of dialogue from Zack Snyder’s  ‘Watchmen’ also shed light on one of the controlling themes of this adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s seminal work of superhero deconstruction. That for all its meditation on God, fate, and destiny, it is time that holds humanity prisoner.

In fact, time is everywhere in this film. Both in the main and the minutiae. As a cinematic feat, Snyder has outdone himself. Cramming even a modicum of the narrative complexity shown in the original graphic novel into a 2.5 hour movie would be a tremendous accomplishment. The fact he has done so much more is nothing short of a miracle. Truncated in length certainly, but rarely is there a scene short of emotion and that’s to be applauded.

The opening credit sequence alone is a work of art, wowing us with a Golden Age aesthetic that sets up the later mix of stripped down 70s cinema and the colour pop of modern CGI. It evinces a sophistication and confidence in editing that almost mocks the Herculean task Snyder has taken on.

Propelling us into an alternate history of the film, Snyder effortlessly moves from the brutal dance of Nat King Cole’s ’Unforgettable’ and the murder of the Comedian/Edward Blake (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), before time shifting back to the 40s and 50s and the early heroics of our heroes predecessors, the Crimebusters. Then we’re in the 70s and the rise of the Watchmen (one of many slight alterations that serves our understanding rather than denigrates the source material) before we’re back in the 80s again, and the present day.  

Intermixed with this are twists on famous historical events, whether it be the famous kiss on V-J Day, cheekily turned into a Sapphic tryst by the sultry heroine Silhouette, or JFK’s handshake with the glowing blue God, Dr Manhattan on the grounds of the White House, a rifle crack away from being assassinated by the Comedian from the grassy knoll.

As a cinematic sequence it’s a tour de force. Bursting with visual information and comprehension, both beautiful and perfectly paced, this is six minutes of Snyder slamming home the movie’s gambit: a firm affirmation of cinema’s mantra, ’Show, don’t tell’. Repeat viewings of the film will reward audiences with a wealth of references to the narrative complexity of the original novel, including the recurring ink blot and smiley face motifs and sly expressions of the story’s themes.

But more importantly the film manages to fix our heroes and their predecessors in a living, breathing history as pop culture icons; glorified in Warhol artwork or vilified in back alley graffiti as vigilantes. Here politics goes under the spotlight with the unpleasant hypocrisy of Nixon and his Keene Act, outlawing the majority while advocating those that serve the government.

The aforementioned Comedian is one of these heroes. A leering killer with the face of Clark Gable, he’s happy to take any black ops job his country and President throws at him, fuelled by a darkly comic  perception of humanity and the paranoid tensions between the US and Russia.

His death kicks off the film’s main plot and the suspicions of Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), a man swimming in the social mire, both disgusted and sustained by it and now obsessed with the idea that somewhere amongst it all there is someone gunning for his colleagues, including his old friend Nite Owl/Dan Dreiberg (Patrick Wilson), Silk Spectre/Laurie Jupiter (Malin Akerman) and Ozymandias/Adrian Veidt (Matthew Goode). What he actually uncovers is a plot that could either sink humanity forever or save it. A rather hoary conceit if handled badly, but thankfully Snyder has surrounded himself with a cast ready to support his fidelity to the source novel.  

It’s Haley’s Rorschach that truly amazes, articulating a seething dichotomy of ferocious adult and neglected child even beneath the shifting mask. So good is his performance you crave the things Snyder had to cut or alter- the baptism of fire, the origin of his mask. However, it’s his arc that is one of the mos complete, the most satisfying; ending on a note of such tragic poignancy to make you forget he’s surrounded by gaudy capes.  

Not to denigrate their work mind you. At the low end of an impressive scale we have Malin Akerman. Nigh on identical to the novel’s Silk Spectre, but saddled with some of Snyder’s sillier superhero commentary. Nipples on a Veidtsuit are one thing, but striking superhero poses don’t make up for a loss in feisty. While her romance with Nite Owl is buoyed by Wilson’s bumbling charms, their sex scene is more panto pornographic than erotic. Slapping it with a song as on point as Hallelujah is one of Snyder’s few serious missteps.

Casting Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the Comedian certainly wasn’t. As with Hayley’s Rorschach, there was always a danger that cinema would turn the repugnant into the purely iconic, but thankfully Morgan is gleefully wicked through and through. Flashbacks to pivotal events in his life form the dark pool from which we dip into the rest of the characters in the movie and Morgan detonates that thick jawed charm in every moment. He’s the chaos that slams up against the cool, calculating precision of Matthew Goode’s Ozymandias, and while there’s an odd hint of the Germanic in that voice, it’s diffused through a curious mix of Peter O’Toole and Bowie’s alien distance. Aloof, almost disdainful, but left with a mountain of exposition in the climax he does a sterling job.

But it’s with Billy Crudup’s Dr Manhattan that we have our most interesting character. Snyder keeping almost intact arguably the most famous chapter from the novel. It’s a humanising sequence for a man that has shed all but a fraction of his humanity and you can hear every iota of this in Crudup’s cooly detached voice; emotionless, yet somehow pulsating with emotion. You could say that with some of Moore’s dialogue Snyder would have been better shearing than saving, but with Crudup he has the perfect mouthpiece, sending that epic prose soaring.

It’s with one of these lines that we see how transcendent a narrative Watchmen truly is. While it’s up for debate whether Snyder has improved or betrayed the original climax to the story, and it’s probably the only place his slo-mo as dramatization of the comic panel fails, giving us crappy wire-fu compared to the more visceral, grand guignol of the earlier action, it’s here that the temporal nature of the narrative is solidified.

Manhattan kisses Laurie goodbye, softly considering the possibility of creating new life on another world. Though God as a concept has been punctured, the fact these words are spoken by an entity so in control of time, in a story that plays so deliciously with it, you have to wonder if the players in this intellectually stimulating, visually stunning near masterpiece have not just been ditched by a higher power, doomed, as the final shot suggests, to repeat their mistakes in the same cycles of war and death that were the Comedians favourite punch lines.  

2008/2009

It’s awards season and as good a time as any to take a look back over the releases of 2008 and then peek into the future at the coming movies of 2009.

I’ll quickly preface this by saying that unlike most movie audiences, the burden of expectation on critics and movie buffs is equivalent to Atlas with a full bladder and jock itch during mosquito season. Thanks to the trailers, TV spots, script reviews, production art, set photos, test screening reviews, we’ve seen 60% of the movie before its hit the cinema and as you’d expect it almost never matches the one you’ve got playing in your head.

A Knight to Remember….

What a shock then that not only was 2008 an upturn in movies, I’d be surprised if it didn’t warm the hearts of even the most inveterate cynic.

To really credit the comic book film as a genre, it reached its apotheosis this year, but most importantly, in the form of Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’, received much deserved critical acclaim. Building on the promise of the first film, ‘Batman Begins’, that breathed new life into the stale superheroics of the once great ‘X-Men’ and ‘Spiderman’ franchises, Nolan and Warner Bros brought an edgier crime noir feel to the next in the series. Immersing us in a crafty marketing campaign and waking us to the idea of a comic villain, in the form of Heath Ledger’s menacing Joker, snagging Award nominations.

If ‘The Dark Knight’ was the dark, scuffed side of this cinematic coin, John Favreau’s ‘Iron Man’ was the light, irresistibly bright reverse. Coming second only to Bats as the biggest US grossing film of 2008 and giving us yet another wonderfully charismatic performance, this time from the now redeemed actor, Robert Downey Jr.- matched only by the one he gave in ‘Tropic Thunder’.

While some of the other movies in the genre didn’t do quite so well filling the studio coffers, ‘The Incredible Hulk’ at the very least, realised the potential of a 9ft tall Emerald powerhouse that uses cars for sparring practice and puts out a Chinook engine fire with some mild applause. Similarly, while not breaking big at the box office, ‘Hellboy II: The Golden Army’ surpassed its predecessor for breadth of imagination and wit.

I could go on to discuss the relative merits of Angelina Jolie’s tattoos in the absurdly enjoyable ‘Wanted’, the disappointment of ‘Indiana Jones and the Empty Skull’ and ‘Hancock’ or the ridiculously violent fun of Rambo’s return, but besides all that, the other great thing about 2008, is that while the Oscars have become, and almost certainly always will be, a soulless, glad-handing vacuum of a personality contest, this time around we have a raft of movies to actually cheer for.

A number have been critiqued on this very site, and whatever your thoughts on ‘Milk’, ‘The Wrestler’, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, ‘Frost/Nixon’ and ‘Benjamin Button’, you couldn’t call them boring. Each one, a burst of diversity, accomplishment and entertainment. Something that we now have to cross our fingers will be repeated as we move ever further into 2009.

Watchmen will be the movie of the year……

Considering I’ve discussed the success of the superhero in such depth above, it seems necessary now to tear it apart with fine textual scalpels.

Not that I have much work to do as coming in March (and that seems a sure thing now, as I’ll explain in a moment) we have Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s ‘Watchmen’.  A seminal masterwork of the comic medium, as deconstruction of the superhero, a movie version has been gestating for years and recently hit what can only be described as a legal clusterfuck as the production studio Warner Bros came under fire from Fox over rights issues.

I’d very much like to bore you to tears with an overview of what will probably go down as a neat bit of publicity (and quite frankly, I can’t think of a movie more deserving of it) suffice it to say, a suit was filed, a court date booked and thankfully, after much legal wrangling and expensive lunches later, we have a positive result.

In short, ‘Watchmen’ will be the movie of the year. If everything onscreen matches the quality of the stuff drip-fed from the production over the past couple of years, this will be both an astonishing creative accomplishment, vindication for the studio after they bravely took on a property no-one wanted to touch, but most importantly, a movie that combines the depth of thought of a literary novel with the lavish production values of a Golden Age epic.

Set in an alternate America where superheroes have been outlawed and political tensions with Russia have set the Doomsday Clock at 5mins to Midnight, the uncompromising vigilante Rorschach brings together his former teammates over the savage murder of a former colleague, the resulting investigation revealing well kept secrets that could have a catastrophic effect on our world. Alternatively you could call this a movie about a luminous blue penis, attached to an atomic God, but that’s kind of the point. The movie’s got something for everyone. Check it out over at:

http://watchmenmovie.warnerbros.com/

and

http://rss.warnerbros.com/watchmen/

and for the ultimate Watchmen resource, check out this site:

http://www.watchmencomicmovie.com/

Terminate the Transformers? Make it so…..

After gushing for far too long over that movie, I’ll get right into the next couple of picks, sidestepping, with a neat dismissal, another big movie hitting in June. Michael Bay’s ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ or ‘Transformer 2: Because You Mugs Paid For the Last One’ will hopefully fail big time in the action department, bringing an end to this rape of our respective childhoods. It’s the only way this won’t drag millions into the cinemas to see another round of shallow characterisation, lame jokes, and non-existent story. Just because it vaguely resembles the vehicle/robot couplings we zoomed across our living room floors as kids doesn’t make it Transformers. Avoid.

Instead, get your fix of hyperactive camerawork, glossy visuals and gung ho patriotism from the far less obnoxious, though dumber sounding McG and ‘Terminator: Salvation’ (subtitles are for morons). Not only is this a continuation of one of the most beloved science fiction franchises of all time. Not only does this have Batman himself, Christian Bale, as one of the most recognisable names in cinema. Get this; it also has a load of new, and Transformer-resembling, machines for you to rush out to the shops and buy in toy form on the movie’s release. The footage looks promising too, albeit with a rather unnecessary reprisal of the classic line, ‘Come with me if you want to live’, voiced by what looks like a prepubescent (Anton Yelchin) playing the legendary, Kyle Reese.

Jumping from Kyle Reese to yet another beloved genre character, Mr Yelchin is also playing the vowel mangling security officer Chekov in J.J. Abrams reboot of the Star Trek franchise in May. Long overdue would be the best way to describe this, and based on the trailer, that both grounds the story and then sends it rocketing into a new frontier, it looks set to appeal to both old and new fans alike. There’s also that cameo that’s sure to send the partisans into paroxysms of geekgasms.   

Sam Worthington, another face from ‘Terminator: Salvation’, stars in the new James Cameron epic out in December. The sci-fi ‘Avatar’ sees him in the lead role as a paraplegic marine forced into a mission of exploration and exploitation on an alien world. Looking set to push the boundaries of cinema far beyond anything we’ve seen before, it’s sure to be a breathtaking mix of pioneering 3-D action and memorable characters. A ‘Blade Runner’ for the new Millennium?

From Wizards to Weepies…..

Powering down for just the sake of word count rather than quality, we have a raft of other releases to pique your interest.

After being pushed back from its usual Autumn slot, the next entry in the Harry Potter series, the Half Blood Prince, is released in July, and based on the almost exponential growth in both maturity, level of performance and effects work; this too will prove to be a smash hit.

Two films that might never have hit the cinemas: ‘The Wolf Man’, the reimagining of the Lon Chaney classic (November) and the perennial childhood favourite, ’Where the Wild Things Are’ (December). The former due to a director walk-out over creative differences. The latter down to bizarre studio pressures. Fan favourites, it looks like both will do their source material proud.

Moving into edgier genre territory we have Vampire myth revision in the shape of already cult Swedish horror, ‘Let the Right One In’ (April) and the surprise return of Quentin Tarantino (surprising only because he seems more interested in collecting projects than actually filming them) with the knowingly misspelled WWII Men on a Mission flick ‘Inglourious Basterds’ (August).

With trepidation I include ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’, slashing through cinemas in May. While it has the talented Gavin Hood at the helm, it has had a very troubled production history, including reports of the infamous Fox Studio head, Tom Rothman, getting involved. And while the recent trailer shows some potential, it looks a little too bargain basement. Adamantium claws crossed for this one.   

Other than that, it’s a burst of bare knuckle boxing sleuthing, as Robert Downey Jr. returns to this preview in Guy Ritchie’s, no doubt, cockneyfied ‘Sherlock Holmes’ (November); a no doubt heartbreaking take on loss in Peter Jackson’s adaptation of  Alice Sebold’s excellent ‘The Lovely Bones’ and finally the Heath Ledger’s last film, ‘The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus’ (TBC). Directed by the legendary Terry Gilliam, it also stars Verne Troyer so Big Brother fans are catered for. In fact, if there’s not a movie for everyone this year, I’ll eat Michael Bay’s hat.

Please note that some of these release dates are TBC in the UK and subject to change.
 

 

Milk

Milk_SeanPenn

It’s 1978, and Harvey Milk has been Supervisor of San Francisco’s District 5 for less than a year, but in that time and in the face of persecution from the religious right and the brutality of the police he had transformed the gay minority from a vibrant Castro community to a political force with hard earned civil rights.

Gus Van Sant’s biopic ‘Milk’ opens on a far more restrained mood that one would expect considering the vitality of the character it portrays, but using the dictaphone recordings Milk made shortly before his death under the cloud of potential assassination, he creates a mesmerising story of a man with an aching love for humanity.

It’s these recordings that narrate the events that take us from Milk’s mid-life crisis in New York, his departure to San Francisco with his lover, Scott Smith (James Franco), where his political activism was ignited and finally to his premature death.

The threat of violence has pervaded much of Van Sant’s back catalogue, including ‘Elephant’, ‘My Own Private Idaho’ and ‘To Die For’ and with ‘Milk’ he creates a similar fatalistic tone; working with Penn to split Harvey Milk into two distinct personas: that of the narrator and the man who inspired a movement.

As Milk, Penn is working against a directorial tapestry moving from moody, contrast lighting in Milk’s kitchen as he solemnly speaks about his life, almost confessing it, to a vibrant chaos of roving camera, intercut Polaroids, home movie footage, disco divisions of the movie frame and in one heartbreaking moment, slow motion.

And Penn excels, balancing the dark interior guilt of a man who once battled his homosexuality rather than embracing it, with the explosion of irrepressible energy and charisma as he grapples with the media and the political machine. It’s a tremendously layered performance, and one that battles with the usual generic Oscar bait status of these kinds of prestige pieces and wins.

 

Though the film has a 70s aesthetic, there’s a golden age feel to the story too as we watch a flamboyant Jimmy Stewart going up against the system. Depicted first by the Midwich Cuckoo evil of religious fundamentalist Anita Bryant, her creepy smile piercing the cleverly integrated archive footage, but more importantly by the equally impressive work of Josh Brolin as Milk’s fellow Supervisor, Dan White.

It’s the tortured relationship between the two men that forms the heart of the movie and offers up possibly the more complex performance from Brolin as he plays the part of a man driven down by the conservatism of his community while frustrated by the ease at which Milk’s flourishes. There’s also a sense that he is battling against confusion over his sexuality, but it’s never overplayed, much like the anger and jealousy that bubbles away beneath the surface for most of the film.

It all comes to a head with the scourge of Proposition 6, a Bill that would have made firing gay teachers—and any public school employees who supported gay rights—mandatory. The parallels to the present day are palpable and not only is it the catalyst for the tragic events that end the film, but it’s also a poignant reminder of what could have been in the aftermath of the recent Proposition 8.

In a film that has so many positives, not just in the work of Penn and Brolin, but the supporting acts like Hirsch’s Cleve Jones, a youthful embodiment of Milk’s revolutionary spirit; Alison Pill’s wonderfully charismatic campaign manager Anne Kronenborg and especially Franco’s charming and beaitific Scott Smith, it seems a shame to highlight the negatives, but a rather clunky and twee telephone call bookending two important events in the film and an irritating subplot involving Milk’s lover Jack Lira (Diego Luna) serve to disrupt the film.

But these are minor keys in an often operatic piece of cinema that speaks of astonishing victories and times of change; moments that resonate strongly as we witness the swearing in of the first black President and the whiff of hope in times of great uncertainty.

The Wrestler is a 1,2,3 Count of Success

Wrestler_2

It seems unfair to question the hype surrounding Mickey Rourke’s performance in Darren Aronofsky’s latest film, ‘The Wrestler’, his comeback is, after all, long overdo. But when you consider it as close to biography as an actor could hope for, you have to wonder if there’s really a performance here to critique or just Rourke baring every iota of his soul.

We know it’s been a long time since this new Brando invigorated audiences with his raw acting talent, street charm and good looks in movies like Rumblefish, The Pope of Greenwich Village and Nine ½ Weeks. We can see it in the pulpy mass of face flesh, fishy lips and scar tissue that opens the movie.

And this isn’t make-up, not in the same way as it was for his first faltering steps back into the limelight with Marv in ‘Sin City’. It’s a real body showing the same damage taken in boxing as Rourke’s Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson has suffered in his wrestling career.

He too has said goodbye to real fame a long time ago, restricted now to the faded glamour of small town venues on the lowly professional circuit. And while it might not be the high pomp of childhood heroes like Hulk Hogan, Aronofsky still takes time to depict some of the glitz seen in the billboard of success in the pre-credit sequence, from the bizarre names and the ridiculous costumes.

Most importantly though, he never denigrates wrestling as a sport, in the same way that gladiatorial combat was a sport millennia ago. Instead he makes a spectacle of it, providing visceral insight in much the same way as the Barry W. Blaustein’s documentary ‘Beyond the Mat’ did. Reaching almost Cronenbergian levels of body horror we see Rourke indulging in the method, as he rips a hole in his head using a concealed razor or in one traumatic sequence, winces as medics pick out staples, and glue his wounds back together.

It’s almost unbearable to watch, and made worse by the shots of the actual bout that resulted in the injuries, as Rourke and his opponent are tossed off ladders onto barbed wire wrapped tables and smacked with a variety of objects. The scene climaxes with a sickening moment as Rourke, alone in the changing room, staggers to his feet with wheezing, phlegm racked breaths before crashing to the floor with the onset of heart failure. It’s made worse by a later scene in a half-empty hall of a fan signing, the camera alighting on the crippled forms of former wrestlers, a leg brace here, a colostomy bag there.

In fact one word to best describe the movie is gruelling. And not just in the fights; Aronofsky practically wrenching Rourke up by his cauliflower ears and instead of giving him the best material, offers him a challenge to turn the slight, yet clever script into something truly resonant; something truly astonishing.

You can see it best in the raw, uncontrived outpouring of emotion shared between father and daughter beside a clapped out pier. Refusing to go for the cheap moments, Rourke downplays each line beautifully, recalling the scene from ‘On the Waterfront’ where Brando berates his brother over leaving him little more than a bum.

And that’s pretty much the state of the majority of the ‘The Wrestlers’ cast; each one the bitter product of rampant 80s capitalism, turning people into little more than commodities to be churned up again and again. Just as Rourke craves the worship of the ring and brutalises himself to receive it, his only fleeting chance for romance, the stripper Cassidy (the equally fantastic Marisa Tomei) debases herself to earn the money that will get her out to somewhere better.

Sure there’s a whiff of cliché here, the film using a similar template to that of Rocky and its ilk, but it’s how Aronofsky flips it that makes it truly great. Rather than take us all the way to that happy ending, the final bout that should turn everything around, in this case a rematch between Ram and his old nemesis the Ayatollah, is actually the thing that makes that ending impossible. At least in the traditional sense.

Instead, Aronofsky leaves us stirred by a clearly unscripted moment that comes straight from the heart of Rourke, the actor. Addressing the crowd and most importantly, we the audience, Rourke pours out his heart, never apologising, but simply stating the facts; that as long as we’re around to support tremendous performances like this, he’ll ensure this renaissance continues. Simply put, rather than the 1,2,3 of abject failure that this could have been, it’s a resounding count of success.