For Your Consideration

The Descendants

2012-01-27T16:16:00.001Z

This year’s Oscars are boiling down to a two-horse race between the rather lovely but unfortunately French film The Artist and this slow moving navel gazer from Alexander Payne. It would be a real travesty of some jingoistic American pride deprived the genuinely innovative and lovely (but French) film of Best Picture in favour of Payne’s decent but slightly tedious film.

Yet another film about a rich American re-evaluating their life, The Descendant’s sees George Clooney plays Matt King, a Hawaiian lawyer and executor of his family’s enormous trust. When Matt’s wife Elizabeth is left in a deep coma by a powerboating accident , he is forced to reconnect with his daughters, teenage tearaway Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) and prepubescent bully Scottie (Amara Miller). As he tries to figure out how to shepherd them through life without their mother, Matt discovers some uncomfortable revelations about his wife which make him reassess their life together and how his aloofness has impacted on the rest of the family. All this plays out while Matt is also faced with a massive decision that will enrich his wider family but put one of Hawaii’s smaller islands at risk of ruination.

The Descendants reaches these shores propelled by a wave of Stateside adulation with the film picking up award a-plenty in the last month or so. I have to admit, I can’t fathom why. This is nothing new from Payne. He specialises in movies that feature middle aged (or, indeed, old aged in the case of About Schmidt) characters who find themselves forced to go on a journey (often literal as well as metaphorical) where they re-evaluate their life and reconnect with their past. It all feels a bit been here, done that. Same movie, different stars, diminishing returns.

In fairness to Payne, there’s a surprising lightness of touch which belies the serious subject matter. This is, after all, a film about a man dealing with the aftermath of a terrible accident and his wife’s expressed wish not to be kept alive in a vegetative state. That’s pretty heavy stuff and, yet, The Descendants never feels bogged down in misery. Sure, there are some very down moments but Payne adds just the right amount of levity to ensure that he steers well clear of “Lifetime: Television for Women” territory.

He has also drawn some fine performances from his cast. Clooney is certainly very good here. They’ve gone to considerable effort to make him look less like the suave charmer that you usually expect but the performance has much more depth than that. It is in the moments when Clooney’s breaks down the reserve to give you a glimpse of Matt’s pain at the loss of his wife – however flawed she was – that The Descendants stops feeling terribly arch and clever and starts to feel real. Those moments are few and far between, however. Woodley takes an ostensibly irritating character – a super-petulant teen – and turns her into something more three-dimensional and almost endearing.

Nevertheless, there was something missing from The Descendants for me. There’s no-one to root for or empathise with. Matt seems decent enough but his reaction to his wife’s coma veers wildly from near-indifference to the occasional tear – he’s hard to catch hold of. The absence of any input whatsoever from Elizabeth means that we are left to draw our own conclusions on what kind of person she was and, frankly, I wasn’t too sorry to see her shuffle off to the next life (don’t worry, I’m giving nothing away there). Indeed, by the time the final reel kicked in I was almost wishing she’d hurry up and get on with it. That can't be right, can it?

Stars: ***

Weekend

2012-01-27T16:16:00.000Z

Andrew Haigh’s simple love story may be based around a gay couple but it will resonate with a much wider audience. Two people hole up together for a weekend pick over live and love and both emerge better for it. It’s a beautifully drawn, insightful and deeply moving film.

Painfully shy, lonely Russell (Tom Cullen) leaves his mate’s house and heads into town to a gay club looking for company. He ends up being rescued from an unsuitable match by the confident and ballsy Glen (Chris New). What starts off as a simple one-night stand grows into something much more as they start to get to know each other properly and they spend the next two days in and out of bed, drinking and taking drugs and sharing their stories with each other. They are from entirely different ends of the spectrum – Russell is out but uncomfortable with the realities of his sexuality, Glen is unashamed of who he is and won’t be cowed by anyone – but they have a deep connection. Their relationship, however brief, will

Haigh does a wonderful job building the relationship in a realistic way – he hasn’t fashioned the kind of Hollywood love story where it’s all walks in the park and montages set to songs about female empowerment. This is a love story played out in the bleak concrete wilderness of one of England’s less glamourous cities and Haigh doesn’t try to gussy up that harsh environment, just as he doesn’t try to dress up the relationship with soft lighting and shots of the two of them staring romantically at each other. It’s messy and imperfect, they don’t always agree and it’s their differences that propel them forward more than anything else.

Cullen delivers one of the performances of the year in Weekend. Russell is the romantic heart of the film, shy and bumbling and utterly endearing despite the reserve. It is absolutely criminal that he hasn’t, at the very least, been recognised with a BAFTA nomination (possibly the frank approach to sex scenes were off-putting for the stuffier end of the Academy). New has the showier role but does a great job of stripping back Glen’s bravado to reveal someone far more vulnerable than the façade he projects.

Weekend is so well done that you’d want to be the kind of person who pinches babies not to be moved by it. A fine achievement, it deserves a wide audience. If you are the kind of person who appreciates the likes of Before Sunrise and Brief Encounter, this is the film for you.

Stars: ****

Like Crazy

2012-01-27T16:15:00.001Z

At first glance Like Crazy is a story about the all-consuming power of love but delve a bit deeper and you have something far more interesting and complex. It’s just a pity that the whole story hinges on a ridiculous decision early on that haunts the rest of it.

Felicity Jones plays Anna, an English student nearing the end of her visa in America. She bravely makes a play for Jacob (Anton Yelchin), the teaching assistant at one of her classes, and they fall head over heels for each other. However, this relationship comes with a deadline with her departure for England imminent. Despite dire warnings from her parents, Anna makes the impulsive decision to stay on a couple of months past her visa expiration date. Inevitably, because Eamonn Holmes is more likely to score a date with Kate Middleton than you are to get an easy ride from US immigration, Anna has difficulty getting back into the country and finds herself banned from visiting for three years. Anna and Jacob try desperately to keep their relationship alive despite thousands of miles between them. But with all their efforts focussed on the physical distance that parts them, they pay scant attention to the emotional gulf that’s opening up as the years pass.

This all starts off with rather frustrating decision by Anna to ignore her visa requirements and linger on in America well past her departure date. Fair enough, she’s caught up in the heady rush of new love but it’s totally illogical and for a little bit you just can’t forgive them their stupidity or sympathise with their plight. Equally, it’s never totally clear why he won’t move to England. He makes furniture and it’s hardly downtown Baghdad but it’s never seriously considered. Nevertheless, director and co-writer Drake Doremus ploughs ahead and does his best despite the poor foundations laid by the script.

It’s really down to Jones’ utterly compelling performance that you choose to gloss over the absolutely enormous holes in the storyline. It is beautifully restrained – no histrionics here - but quite heartbreaking at times. She and Yelchin have good chemistry even if he is a little bland and looks slightly like a bug lab rat.

Although he is dealing with a problematic script Doremus deserves praise for creating a naturalistic look that elevates this above your standard romance into something that feels much more authentic. The exquisitely sad conclusion, which is nowhere near as straightforward as they normally are, is very nicely pitched.

As pleasantly surprising as it is frustrating, Like Crazy is a decent little movie boosted by a lovely central performance from Jones.

Stars: *** and a half

W.E.

2012-01-20T00:50:00.001Z

About two thirds of the way through W.E., Madonna’s take on the romance between Wallis Simpson and King Edward VII, it finally clicks. This is not a film about an infamous love story, it’s a film about how annoyed Madonna is that Guy Ritchie made her live in London for so long.

W.E. tells the story of two women who find themselves in difficult situations but who take wildly different paths. In the late 90s, Wallie Winthrop (Abbie Cornish) is suffering through a bad marriage to her abusive, cheating husband (Richard Coyle). She seeks refuge at her old workplace, an auction house where the estate of exiled royals the Duke and Duchess of Windsor is being held. As Wallie struggles to come to terms with the breakdown of her marriage with the help of a pushy Russian security guard (Oscar Issacs), she immerses herself in Wallis and Edward’s story. As she delves deeper into the Empire-shattering romance between a King (James D’Arcy) and a twice-divorced American (Andrea Riseborough), Wallie begins to find the strength she needs to free herself from her marriage. But is she barking up the wrong tree? Was the love story that some considered the romance of the century really something else entirely?

Predictably, W.E. got a bit of a pasting from critics when it premiered at Venice last year. They were being unnecessarily cruel. It is nowhere near as bad as people have made out. Madonna’s script doesn’t contain any major howlers (though her decision to have Wallis dance to Pretty Vacant is both jarring and the kind of painfully obvious juxtaposition that Dawson Leery might consider profound) and she does a good job recreating the 30s (she would though, she was probably there). Her direction is competent enough though she is incredibly frenetic with the camera – it rarely, if ever, settles for more than five seconds. She also draws a fine performance from Riseborough as the beguiling Wallis but Cornish could have been a tiny bit less insipid.

The film’s major problem is that Madonna fails to adequately marry her two stories until the very final reel. They feel like they are running entirely on separate paths (except for the odd, slightly ridiculous intervention from an imaginary Wallis into Wallie’s life) and the parallels in their lives shoehorned in to ensure they relate to each other feel clunky.

Frustratingly, she hits on something really interesting at the end which changes the thrust of the movie entirely – introduce it earlier and she could have really had something special on her hands.

W.E. is no disaster but it will find it difficult to rid itself of the spectre of Madonna.

Stars: ***

Haywire

2012-01-20T00:48:00.000Z

Director Stephen Soderbergh seems to have gotten a little bit of his mojo back.

After a couple of patchy years where he delivered some of the most boring (the interminably long Che biopics) and offensively lazy (anything with Ocean’s in the title) films imaginable, he’s managed to make two relatively decent, watchable films back to back with last year’s Contagion and now Haywire.

An unashamedly dumb action-thriller, Haywire sees Soderbergh have a bit of fun for once with a script where the story is just a vehicle for lots of gloriously over the top fight scenes. And while it is certainly not perfect, it is definitely entertaining.
Former American Gladiator (I kid you not), Gina Carano, plays Mallory Kane, a freelance spy who is hired by corporations and governments to head up the kind of missions that they don’t want tracing back to them. When we first meet Mallory, she is sitting in an anonymous diner looking a bit shifty. She is soon joined by fellow operative Aaron (Channing Tatum) whose attempts to manhandle her result in a severe arse-kicking. Mallory is not a woman to be messed with as we learn in the course of a series of flashbacks. She is on the run having found herself on the receiving end of a double-cross from someone close to her and, unfortunately for everyone else, Mallory knows her martial arts and isn’t afraid to use them. Carnage ensues. Total, utter carnage.

Haywire is good fun but it surely does not bode well that your abiding thought on leaving the cinema after watching Haywire, Stephen Soderbergh’s star-studded action-thriller, is: “why the hell didn’t they just get Angelina Jolie to do it?”. If ever a film was written for Jennifer Aniston’s arch-nemesis it was this one. It doesn’t help their cause that they seem to have gone out of their way to find an actress to play the lead role that looks extraordinarily like Jolie but has none of her undeniable charisma.

Carano is very much the weak link here. She’s definitely good at beating the living daylights out of men twice her size but she seems entirely vacant throughout. This is the second film in which Soderbergh has cast an unknown female lead (he pulled the same trick when he used porn star Sasha Grey for The Girlfriend Experience) and, once again, the result is similarly uninspiring. Carano delivers her lines with grim determination – there is no sparkle in her eye, no sense of joy. In fact, she’s pretty dead behind the eyes throughout.

Luckily, her rather flat performance is overshadowed by strong supporting cast headed up by Ewan McGregor, playing the villain for once. It is Michael Fassbender though who pulls the rug from under his co-stars delivering the film’s most successful sequence as an operative working with Mallory on a job in Dublin who isn’t all he’s cracked up to be. It’s at this point that Haywire, which feels a little blah for the first 15 minutes, really comes to life when the Dublin section kicks into gear and it manages to successfully maintain that energy for the remainder of the film. The fight scene between Fassbender and Kane, in which they wreak havoc on one of the Shelbourne’s rather lovely looking rooms, is one of the standout moments.

It is after Dublin, when Mallory travels back to the US to try to clear her name (really, they didn’t make much of an effort avoiding tired cinema staples), that Haywire begins to lose its way a bit. The action is still excellent but the story becomes insanely convoluted and by the end you really aren’t entirely sure what’s happened. Soderbergh has also assembled a great supporting cast and given some of them – namely Antonio Banderas and Michael Douglas – feck all to do. Seems a bit of a waste.

Nevertheless, and as long as you don’t think too hard about it, Haywire is good craic. It would have been better craic with Jolie in it but you can’t win ‘em all.

Stars: ***

The Sitter

2012-01-20T00:47:00.000Z

In one hundred years from now when sociologists look back on the significant cultural phenomena of the early 21st century, they will surely find the popularity of the “comic” actor Jonah Hill truly baffling.

Certainly I do. Hill, who looks like he will inexplicably land himself an Oscar nomination this year for a rather bland performance in the vastly over-rated Moneyball, has always given me the heebie-jeebies. There is, as Ann Widdecombe would have it, something of the night about him.

Perhaps Hill recognises this himself because here is starring in a film where he plays a slightly creepy, definitely pathetic waster who has no business being left in charge of kids but finds himself looking after three of them anyway. Hill plays college drop-out Noah who spends his time watching television and chasing after his supposed girlfriend Marisa (Ari Gaynor), a woman so ridiculously far out of his league that their one-sided relationship could only ever exist in a film created by the frustrated men who churn out these lame Hollywood comedies. When his mother gets a shot at bagging herself a surgeon, Noah is drafted in to mind her friend’s three kids – sexually confused Slater (Max Records), over-sexualised tweenager Blithe (Landry Bender) and pyromaniac Mexican adoptee Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez). When Marisa calls Noah from a party demanding that he bring her some cocaine, he rather ridiculously takes his three charges on a journey into the night. As you might have guessed, things go awry.

There isn’t a single original thought behind this film. The story will be familiar to anyone who has ever seen Adventures in Babysitting or any of the many other babysitting-gone-wrong films that Hollywood has produced over the years. Perhaps director David Gordon Green and his scriptwriters thought they were onto a winner by marrying a tried and tested plot with the crude humour that has served them well enough in the past few years. It doesn’t work. And that’s the case from the very start with an opening scene that will surely rank as one of the most repulsive moments on screen this year. There’s nothing funny about The Sitter.

You can get away with mildly amusing when you’re aiming for a bland, inoffensive rom-com but you can’t do that when you go down the ribald route. It has to be funny and The Sitter barely raises a smile, let alone a laugh.

For Hill, the role is something of a departure – as well as being hideously crude, his character is supposed to have something of a heart – but it’s certainly not the star-maker that he needs at this stage in his career. Best to stick to playing creepy sidekicks for now.

Give it a miss.

Stars: *

Shame

2012-01-13T11:34:00.000Z

My, what a road we have travelled. It wasn’t that long ago that a film like Shame would have had Catholic Ireland up in arms prompting the censor to go and make a show of us all by banning it. This is nowhere near the most explicit film that has graced an Irish cinema screen (that honour must surely go to the super-graphic but woeful 9 Songs) but it is probably the most provocative.

Michael Fassbender plays Brandon, a sex addict who hurtles from one risky encounter to another and who resorts to sexual release (whether brought about by the one he loves or another person) when he finds himself in a stressful situation. Through chance encounters, the use of prostitutes and a healthy grasp of where to go on the internet, Brandon maintains rigid control over his life. Then his sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) comes to stay and his tightly wound world begins to unravel bit by bit. She can see that her brother is in trouble and tries to pull him back from the brink but Sissy has her own demons to confront.

This is an audacious piece of film-making from director Steve McQueen, working off a script by flavour-of-the-month Abi Morgan. I am not quite sure if it rings entirely true, however. There is an ambiguity to the story that is both admirable and clever but also incredibly frustrating. Brandon’s troubles feel authentic but the vagueness of Sissy’s torments makes it difficult to empathise even though she is by far the more likeable of the two. There is an inappropriateness to their relationship that goes unexplained (this is evident right from the start) but which hints heavily at incest and asks a little too much of the audience.

It is the central performances that really make Shame. There’s no doubting the courageousness of Fassbender and Mulligan, both of whom quite literally lay themselves bare. Fassbender in particular goes to places that not many actors on the cusp of hovering around the bottom of the A-List would dare to tread. (For those of you who are affronted by the idea of an Irish man being involved in a film as frank as Shame it may help you to remember that he’s part German too.) It is an extraordinarily intense, committed performance that is almost excruciating to watch at times. Mulligan also brings a lot to the table by perfectly complementing Fassbender – his pent up aggression matches her weariness – and her version of New York, New York is very moving.

Not one for the first date, or even the tenth, Shame is a brutally uncompromising film that, admittedly, won’t be to everyone’s liking but will certainly challenge your perceptions.

Stars: ***

War Horse

2012-01-13T11:32:00.000Z

This is a story about the love between a man and his horse. Or rather, the sometimes slightly creepy love between a man and his horse. But mainly the totally incredulous story of a man and his horse who are parted by war but who are destined to be together regardless. Utterly ludicrous and grossly manipulative War Horse certainly is, yet somehow it just about works.

Based on a children’s novel, the film stars newcomer Jeremy Irvine as Albert Narracott, the son of a drunken farmer (Peter Mullan) whose pride forces him to challenge the local landlord (David Thewlis) during an auction for a thoroughbred horse. The end result is that the family’s annual rent is spent on a horse that won’t work the land. It is left to Albert to break in this horse, which, through lack of imagination, he christens Joey. Albert turns out to be a bit of a horse whisperer - either that or there’s something far more sinister going on between him and Joey - and they achieve a great feat which looks likely to save the farm.

And then it rains something shocking so Joey finds himself up for sale to the highest bidder. Unfortunately for him, he is sold to a rather pompous officer (Benedict Cumberbatch) just as war breaks out and Joey finds himself among the poppy fields in Flanders. It will prove to be an eventful war for Joey with taking on several owners including an incredibly irritating French girl and two German brothers with a rather unnerving fondness for each other. Meanwhile, in an effort to find Joey again, Albert is signing up for the war effort. These things never go well, do they?

War Horse is shamelessly sentimental. How could it not be when it is directed by Stephen Spielberg and written by Lee Hall (Billy Elliott) and Richard Curtis (Love Actually, Four Weddings and a Funeral), three men who have made careers out of eliciting tears from stony men? And if you allow yourself to be swept up in the epic love story of one man and his horse, you will no doubt find yourself a bit misty eyed as you leave the theatre.
Whether it is a film of any real substance is another matter entirely. It seems rather odd that Spielberg and his collaborators are intent on making us care for a horse when the action is set against the background of one of the most extraordinarily bloody wars the world has known. When it all goes a bit Saving Private Ryan, people are dying left, right and centre and, frankly, a horse is a horse, no matter how pretty he is. Perhaps, that is being a bit too cynical - War Horse is certainly best watched with that kind of attitude left at the door.

Still, it is a rather odd script. Sprawling doesn’t even cover it. During the excessive two and a half hour running time, Joey goes through owners like Elizabeth Taylor went through husbands. The film is at its most interesting, and original, when he switches sides – the Germans are given a fair go of it for once and though they are cruel to Joey and his mates, they are no crueler than the British who race them into a massacre. They could easily have slashed about 20 minutes by leaving out the annoying French girl, however. There’s also an unexpected homoerotic subtext going as well not only with the two German brothers who look far too fondly on each other for siblings but with Joey who seems falls very hard for another thoroughbred stallion while at war. What happens in Flanders, stays in Flanders, I suppose.

Where it truly excels is in the cinematography which deliberately echoes the classics (the final shot could have been lifted from Gon with the Wind) and in John Williams’ fantastic score. The acting is, for the most part, very good though Irvine occasionally looks a little bit out of his depth.

So saccharine at times that it will bypass your teeth and start rotting your brain, War Horse won’t please the beret wearing hipsters but it is a fine family film that will age well. Just prepare to blink back a few tears no matter how tough you think you are.

Stars: ***

Margin Call

2012-01-13T11:30:00.001Z

A fascinating take on how the big boys on Wall Street reacted when the sky began to fall in three years ago, Margin Call is that rarest of things – a financial thriller that holds your attention to the very end.

Set over the two days before the world went into economic freefall in 2008, Margin Call is set in a Lehman Brothers-like investment bank which finds itself at the heart of the problem. With trouble already brewing, a round of redundancies sees risk management boss Eric (Stanley Tucci) given his marching orders at the behest of short sighted financial officer Sarah (Demi Moore). Before he leaves, he gives smart, young analyst Peter (Zachary Quinto) the heads up on a project he has been working on and warning him to be careful.
When Peter looks into it, he realises that the firm he works in is a ticking time bomb with losses running into the billions on the cards as the complicated financial instruments that they have been selling are rendered worthless by market turmoil. He brings it to the attention of his bosses Will (Paul Bettany) and Sam (Kevin Spacey). What follows is a lesson in how rich people stay rich by screwing over the little man as the firm goes into survival mode and contemplates the unthinkable.

Director JC Chandor has assembled a cast to die for here and it is easy to see why. There’s plenty of meat on the bones of these characters and seasoned veterans like Spacey, Tucci and Irons seem to relish the chance to take a bite. Irons is majestic as the Machiavellian bossman who ruthlessly sacrifices the world economy to save his own skin but it is Spacey who really steals the show with a compelling turn as the jaded Sam. This is by far his best performance since American Beauty. The younger cast, lead by Bettany, do a fine job of essaying the arrogance and stupidity of the people who brought about this crisis. The only weak link in the cast is Moore, who is okay at first but ends up seeming a little dead behind the eyes.

Chandor also deserves praise for delivering a sharp script that takes a complex issue and puts it in layman’s terms so you can really appreciate the full horror of what these people are up to. He takes it ever so slightly too far by repeatedly driving home the point that the investment bankers were taking home pots of money for doing a job that they didn’t understand. We get it the first time it’s mentioned, we tire of it by the fifth.

Nevertheless, this is a great little thriller – the film that Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps desperately wanted to be – and worth the effort for Spacey’s performance alone.

Stars: ****

Reclaiming Joyce - Interview with Dreams of a Life director Carol Morley

2012-01-13T11:28:00.000Z

When documentary maker Carol Morley picked up a copy of The Sun while on the Tube one day, she probably wasn’t expecting to find a story that would pre-occupy her for the next five years. However, the extraordinary story of Joyce Carol Vincent, a woman who was found in her council bedsit three years after her death surrounded by half wrapped Christmas presents and with the television still on, was too compelling to ignore.
“Over the next couple of days I was trying to see if anything else came out about the story and there was very little. The press never got a photograph of her. Then some people in chat rooms and blogs began writing that she must have been one miserable bitch that no one noticed that she was missing and that she probably deserved the domestic abuse that had been mentioned in the article. At that point I felt that that cannot be somebody’s legacy really, that someone should make a tribute or elegiac piece to Joyce,” said Morley.
With so little information available, Morley set about tracking down Joyce’s family and friends to find out what happened to her. What emerges is the story of someone who was much loved by her friends but whose transitory lifestyle meant that the often lost touch with her for long periods of time. And when she died, nobody noticed.
“I felt that I had got to the bottom of it in some ways when I realised that the reason that she was there for so long without anyone realising was precisely because everybody thought she was off having a better life than they were… In a way it has become more a film about friendship. It is ignored in society, how powerful friendship is, and there aren’t many films about it. What I love about the film is that instead of being a film about blame or accusation, it actually becomes a film about people celebrating Joyce’s life but also feeling guilt and regret,” she said.
Morely uses a mix of interviews with friends and interested parties and reconstructions, with Zawe Ashton playing Joyce, to tell her story. Music plays a major role in the film, just as it did in Joyce’s life, with the film’s most powerful and pivotal scene a shot of Ashton singing “My Smile is Just a Frown Turned Upside Down” in front of the bedroom mirror.
“Joyce wanted to be a singer and loved music. It was an important part of her life and in a way I wanted to give Joyce her voice back away from this headline in the Sun and this dreary stuff written on chatroom sites. I wanted to give her a sense of having once lived by bringing an actor into it who could touch on the emotional and inner life of Joyce rather than merely stating the facts or other people’s opinions or ideas about her,” said Morley.
For those who see the film, it serves as a profound reminder that despite all our connections through social media and so on, what happened to Joyce could very easily happen to any of us.
“A lot of people are leaving the cinema and phoning somebody up, a friend or a relative, and some people are inviting people around to their home because they feel they don’t know them enough. It is making people think of not only themselves and their circumstances but also of other people and that is really a powerful thing. It is not like I started out to make a film that would make people connect or think about modern life but that has been the response,” she said.

My Top Ten of the Year

2012-01-09T16:46:00.002Z

1) The Guard
Brendan Gleeson was in blistering form as the foul-mouthed Sergeant Gerry Boyle in John Michael McDonagh’s wickedly funny film about a racist, drug taking guard with a penchant for hookers who finds himself unexpectedly busting a drug ring with the help of Don Cheadle’s uptight FBI agent. About as Irish as you can imagine, this was a massive box office hit and travelled well in the US earning a much deserved Golden Globe nomination for Gleeson.

2) The King’s Speech
The story of how a stammering accidental-king turned to an Australian to find his voice should have been unmercifully boring but thanks to a great script, and more importantly, a career defining turn by Colin Firth, The King’s Speech was the must-see film of the year. Firth deservedly won an Oscar for his work on the film (having been robbed the previous year) but all three leads were superb. A simple story, well told.

3) The Adjustment Bureau
Pitched as a science fiction film, this was really a cross between Inception and Love Actually. Big themes like free will and the existence of a higher power make way for an achingly romantic story about a man willing to give up everything for love. The amazing chemistry between Matt Damon and Emily Blunt only elevates it further.

4) The Help
Viola Davis gives the performance of her life in this story about a group of maids in the Deep South who stage their own silent protest against the injustice of their situation by revealing their employer’s secrets in an anonymous book. Hugely entertaining with a cast working at the top of their game, The Help had a serious message too but it was wrapped up in the feel good film of the year.

5) Bridesmaids
It was a good year for women on film and Bridesmaids led the charge. Giving lie to the nonsense that women can’t be funny, Kristen Wiig wrote and starred in the funniest film of the year, storming the box office and, hopefully, changing the way that Hollywood looks on projects written by or for females. Improbably turned Chris O’Dowd (or as I prefer to call him Brendan from The Clinic) into a genuine star in the US.

6) Melancholia
Contrarian director Lars von Triers challenges the audience again with this morose story about the end of the world. A film of two halves, this initially looks like business as usual for Von Triers with another cast of detestable characters doing vile things to each other but it turns on its head half way through and becomes something quite moving. The final scene is literally breath-taking. Happily, no genitalia suffer grievous injury this time around.

7) Drive
Ryan Gosling is the definition of cool in this super stylish film from Nicholas Winding Refn. Nothing happens for ages but you are just being lulled into a false sense of security because things get very hairy when Driver’s rage is unleashed. The slow build is well worth it. This felt like the freshest film of the year and that soundtrack was worth the admission price alone.

8) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II
They saved the best for last with the final installment of the Harry Potter series. Eight films later, we finally waved goodbye to Harry, Ron and Hermione after a frantic battle at Hogwarts that saw them defeat Ralph Fiennes who was deliciously evil as the doomed Lord Voldemort. It wasn’t perfect – no Potter film ever is – but it was the best of the series and an emotional experience for cast and audience alike.

9) True Grit
The Coen Brothers took on a classic western with True Grit and breathed new life into the weary bones of the genre. The script zings with one-liners and is very funny but without being irritatingly quirky (see Burn After Reading) while the cast are all pitch perfect. Hailee Steinfeld, in particular, is a revelation as the feisty teenage girl who hires Jeff Bridges’ drunk US Marshall to track her father’s killer.

10) Snap
A deeply unnerving performance from Aisling O’Sullivan (Raw) is at the heart of this small but well-formed film from Cork director Carmel Winters. As a mother coping with the aftermath of her son’s terrible crime, O’Sullivan absolutely dominates the screen with a turn that burns itself into your brain. It also features the late Mick Lally delivering a brave performance in his final screen role. A film that haunts you long after.

Close but no cigar: The Runway, The Ides of March, Puss in Boots, Sensation, 50/50, Arthur Christmas, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Parked, Crazy Stupid Love, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Beaver, Senna, X-Men: First Class, One Hundred Mornings, Thor, Submarine, Never Let Me Go, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Most hated:
The Tree of Life – if there is a hell, it has The Tree of Life running on an endless loop. Lost in its own profundity, this is without doubt, the most boring film of the year.

Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part I – the vampire saga turns grotesque. Proof that Twilight author Stephanie Meyer hates her own gender.

Just Go With It – actually, no, I won’t thanks Adam Sandler. Because you’re really taking the mickey now with this muck.

The Zookeeper – another ill-conceived misogynistic piece of trash from Sandler and his cohorts. Somebody stop this madness now.

Honey 2 – this year’s obligatory appearance from a film that features ne’er-do-wells finding redemption in urban dance.

Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides – a tedious attempt to squeeze more money from a franchise that lost its edge about five minutes after the first film ended.

Fast Five – bunch of Muscle Marys revving their penis extensions and giving each other the eye.

No Strings Attached – Yay, another film about a borderline autistic girl who acts really weird and bags the man anyway. Did these people learn nothing from All About Steve?

Conan the Barbarian – Just the kind of meat-headed dated 80s action flick that should be consigned to straight-to-dvd bargain bin. Unfortunately one of many similarly themed films released this year but by far the worst.

The Hangover Part II – this year’s Sex and the City 2. A lazy retread of the first film - barely bothered to piece together a plot. Worse, however, was the fact that it was desperately unfunny.

The Iron Lady

2012-01-09T16:29:00.001Z

The conservative press in Britain – you know, the ones that hate women, asylum seekers and anyone who isn’t a white, male businessman with fond memories of being rogered in public school - are up in arms about The Iron Lady because it has the temerity to portray their spiritual leader, Margaret Thatcher, as a doddery old woman.

The rest of us should be more offended by the fact that this is a film that seeks to humanise a political monster and does its damnedest to empathise with a British leader whose dogmatic pursuit of a conservative agenda ruined the lives of thousands, if not millions, of people.

We start at the end with Thatcher (played by Meryl Streep – who else could it possibly have been?) succumbing to dementia, talking to her dead husband Denis (Jim Broadbent) and virtually being held prisoner in her own home by her well-meaning staff and daughter Carol (Olivia Colman). While this Thatcher struggles to come to terms with her husband’s passing, a series of flashbacks tell her life story from growing up as the daughter of a politically minded green grocer through her attempts to gain election to parliament (which she ultimately manages by getting married, striking another blow for women’s liberation there Margaret) and her rise to power while the public schoolboys around her floundered. These flashbacks then spend a considerable amount of time casting a sympathetic eye over her performance as prime minister.

Director Phyllidia Lloyd must wake up every day and thank her maker that Meryl Streep exists and gives her the time of day. It was Streep – and an extremely healthy dose of goodwill generated by the stage show – that made her debut Mamma Mia such a success and she once again has been called into action to save this poorly conceived biopic from total disaster. The Iron Lady is bogged down by plodding direction and an absolutely horrible narrative structure that jumps from one era to the next like an ADHD child hyped up on chocolate and Coke. To be fair, Lloyd deserves praise for drawing out one of Streep’s best performances since her heyday in the 80s and the blame for the atrocious use of flashbacks lies solely at the door of screenwriter Abi Morgan.

Thatcher will be remembered for four things: ordering the destruction of the Belgrano, the Argentinian ship carrying hundreds of men away from the Falkland Islands, resulting in their needless deaths; letting the hunger strikers starve themselves to death; breaking the miners and introducing the Poll Tax, a tax on mere existence which led to her political demise.

She’s certainly not going to be remembered for struggling to balance home and work but Morgan rather stupidly decides to focus on this wholly uninteresting aspect of Thatcher’s life. As a result we get a very scant look at the moments that defined one of the most controversial political careers in history and we get no real sense of the havoc wreaked on the families of those directly affected by her ideologically driven decisions. The film literally glosses over the hunger strikers - they get a single line throughout – and the miners get relatively short shrift. What is really galling, however, is the use of the sinking of the Belgrano – a decision made in full knowledge that hundreds would die and that ship was not a real threat – as a tool to celebrate Thatcher’s strength as a leader. For anyone who isn’t in awe of the woman, it’s actually offensive how much this film admires her work.

But then there is Streep, who transcends the mediocrity of the film around her with a truly mesmerising performance. She doesn’t just deliver an impression of the woman; she totally embodies everything that Thatcher was about. It feels utterly authentic. She is supported with strong performances by Broadbent and Colman (doing a wicked impression of Carol) and a brilliantly understated turn from Anthony Head as Thatcher’s right hand man and author of her downfall Geoffrey Howe.

Still, good work from the actors aside, this is a pretty poor effort. There’s a serious film to be made about Margaret Thatcher. This is not it. In fact, what we what we really have here is a two star movie elevated to three stars because it features a genuinely stunning turn from Streep. Without her input, it would amount to nothing.

Stars: ***

Dreams of a Life

2012-01-09T16:27:00.001Z

This a film that plays on our deepest fears about being alone. The story of Joyce Carol Vincent, a woman who had so detached herself from the world that nobody noticed she was missing for three whole years, should be a lesson to us all – Facebook friends are all well and good but if nobody’s calling to your door, you’re in trouble.

It is hard to fathom what happened to Joyce. She was discovered sitting on the floor of her grotty bedsit in a north London borough by housing association workers who were there to repossess the property. She had been sitting there for three years. The body was so badly decomposed that she had to be identified by matching her teeth to a photo. Three years. Let that sink in. Three whole years her corpse sat there with the telly blaring at it and nobody noticed. Nobody checked on her, nobody wondered why they hadn’t seen her for a while, nobody seemed to care. It’s a horrifying story.

Director Carol Morley spent five years researching Joyce’s story having happened across it when she picked up an abandoned newspaper on the Tube. It was very much a labour of love for her and it shows. She could easily have dwelled on the more ghoulish aspects of Joyce’s death – the decomposition of the body meant that it was not possible to establish a cause of death – but, instead, she spends much of the film celebrating her life.

The police investigated Joyce’s death but could find little or no information on her. Through her tenacious search, however, Morley has rounded up a group of Joyce’s former friends and acquaintances to tell her story. Tellingly, Joyce’s family refused to take part. The story they build is of a mysterious woman who drifted through life acquiring no real friends of her own but adopting the friends of boyfriends, flatmates and co-workers. Strangely though they all seemed to love her and enjoyed her company. But she would move house regularly and it wasn’t unusual for her to disappear from people’s lives for six months at a time. So nobody noticed when she disappeared for three years.

Using a combination of talking heads and reconstructions with Zawe Ashton playing Joyce, Morley skilfully builds the story before it takes a darker turn as the reasons for Joyce’s decline are explored. One stand out moment sees Ashton singing “My Smile Is A Frown” hinting at Joyce’s skill at hiding her sorrow. This leads to a heartbreaking final third where her friends finally succumb to the guilt of her lonely death.

Dreadfully sad but powerful stuff.

Stars: ****

Goon

2012-01-09T16:26:00.001Z

Often hilarious, this Canadian comedy works because it isn’t trying to be terribly arch or clever. The humour is broad and exceptionally crude but strong performances from a cast who are clearly enjoying themselves and a script that delivers on laughs with impressive regularity ensure that this isn’t the mess that rightly should be. And miracle of miracles, it is a sports film that sticks rigidly to the usual formula but isn’t so boring that makes you want to punch your own face.

Scott plays Doug Glat, slow on the uptake but handy with his fists, who comes to the attention of his local hockey team’s manager when he gives a fellow spectator a good hiding for slagging off his gay brother. The manager is in need of an enforcer – someone whose purpose is not to score goals but to protect his team-mates and intimidate the opposition by beating the crap out of them on a regular basis. Despite the fact that Doug can barely skate, he proves adept at this and quickly moves up the rankings with a transfer to another team. He is expected to protect star player LaFlamme (Marc-Andre Grondin) whose last meeting with a decent enforcer (Liev Schreiber) left him terrified to play hockey.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who sees Goon that it emerges from the same talent pool that created Knocked Up and Superbad. Jay Baruchel (best known for playing the skinny kid in Million Dollar Baby) plays Doug’s crude best mate Pat but also co-wrote the script with Evan Goldberg (Superbad, Pineapple Express). So it’s no shock that the humour here plays to a low common denominator even if it is refreshingly light on toilet jokes. That kind of humour isn’t for everybody but if you buy into it Goon is very funny. It is also almost entirely absent of the sexism that slightly marred the likes of Knocked Up.

The film relies heavily on Scott’s pitch perfect performance. Things never really took off for him despite breaking out from the highly successful American Pie series and making a decent stab at becoming a leading man with The Dukes of Hazzard and Role Models. His star is one that is very much on the wane but in Doug Glat, he has been given his best role since Stifler and he draws on all the things he is best at – playing endearing morons – to really carry the film. Baruchel and Schreiber have a lot of fun in support and Alison Pill gets some laughs playing that rarest of things – a relatively well rounded female in a male dominated comedy.

One of the taglines for Goon is “Punch destiny in the face”. If that doesn’t make you laugh, it may not be for you but enter into the spirit of the thing and you will be richly rewarded.

Stars: ****

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

2011-12-23T08:39:00.001Z

When thinking of directors to take on the US version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo it is hard settle on anyone more perfect for the job than David Fincher. Having made his name with Se7en, he is no stranger to twisted stories and shows no fear when it comes to subjecting the audience to deeply unpleasant things. This he does with aplomb in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo delivering a film that, unusually for a US adaptation, proves more than a match for the original Swedish take on Stieg Larsson’s book.

Daniel Craig plays Mikael Blomkvist, a publisher who has just been through and lost a bruising libel battle with a shady businessman. With his reputation at an all-time low, he steps back from his investigative magazine when he is drafted into solve a long standing murder mystery by retired businessman Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer). Nearing the end of his life, Henrik wants to know what happened to a beloved niece who mysteriously disappeared from the family island in the north of Sweden never to be seen again. She is presumed dead and Henrik suspects that one of his own family members did the dastardly deed. Mikael sets about his investigation but it isn’t until he is allowed to bring in Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) as an assistant that he really begins to make headway. Lisbeth is a troubled young woman and ward of the state who is suffering at the hands of her guardian. She is also something of a genius when it comes to hacking and ferreting out information that others don’t want the world to see. What they will uncover is far more sinister than anyone expected.

With Fincher fresh off the success of The Social Network and working from a story that seemed tailor made for his talents, expectations were very high for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Happily, it does not disappoint. Fincher has delivered a film that is every bit as compelling as the Swedish version and that feels no less authentic for its translation into English. It helps that he has retained the cold, unforgiving Swedish countryside as his set and that the film seems to have been made without any compromises to the more sensitive sections of the film-going audience for whom Swedish torture films are not high on the agenda.

The Swedish version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was excellent - thanks to Noomi Rapace’s brilliant take on Lisbeth – but it was also a difficult watch. There are a couple of really harsh scenes in there that are hard to stomach. Foolishly, I thought that the Hollywood version might deliver something a little more palatable. Alas, I was wrong. So very wrong. Another director might have chosen to shy away from the grim detail but Fincher revels in it. If anything it is actually more visceral than the original and there are scenes that will linger with you for days afterward. This is particularly true of the pivotal scene involving Lisbeth and her abusive legal guardian Bjurman (Yorick Van Wageningen). It burns itself into your brain and is probably the most uncomfortable scene that you will see on film this or any other year.

The other sticking point was always going to be Mara’s performance versus the career making turn that Rapace put in. I have to say that the Swedish woman just about shades it. While Mara is as determined and courageous in her take on Lisbeth as Rapace was, she just isn’t as compelling. To be fair to her, it is a slightly more subtle performance than Rapace’s aggressively in your face effort but she needs to put a bit more life into it the next time around. Craig is dependably solid as Mikael – it’s a role that really takes a back seat to Lisbeth anyway – and the rest of the cast all do well. It is strange though to hear everyone including the Americans in the cast attempt a Swedish accent except Craig – it’s like he’s beamed in from elsewhere and it is slightly ajar with what’s going on around him.

There’s a real problem at the heart of the script, however, in that it takes ages for Lisbeth and Mikael to start working together. The film springs to life when they do so you end up wishing that they’d come across each other much sooner. And because the book is heavy on detail, we have to endure a slightly pointless and far-fetched epilogue.

Nevertheless, this is really well made and acted and, if you can stomach the more gruesome elements of it, it is a fine thriller that will stay with you for quite a while.

Stars: ****

Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol

2011-12-23T08:36:00.001Z

A few years ago a fourth Mission Impossible film felt as unlikely as an Oscar win for Mo’Nique, star of Phat Girlz and Farce of the Penguins. And yet, here we are in 2011 with Mo’Nique polishing her Precious statue and Tom Cruise breaking out his super-serious face for another outing as secret agent Ethan Hunt. With the franchise on life support following a very poorly received third instalment, there’s a lot riding on Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. It just about manages to give the franchise the jolt it desperately needed.

Hunt is a prisoner at a Russian prison when the IMF (the Impossible Mission Force as opposed to our paymasters) break him out. His new mission is to infiltrate the Kremlin and retrieve a file identifying Cobalt, a rather foolish man who believes that a full scale nuclear war is what’s needed to start the world anew. However, when Hunt and his team – Carter (Paula Patton) and Benji (Simon Pegg) – attempt the mission, one of Cobalt’s people is already in the building planting a bomb which the Russians promptly blame on Hunt. He and his team must work off the grid to try to find Cobalt and clear their names or face being pursued for the rest of their lives. Along the way they pick up analyst William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) who proves very useful both for his convenient ability to identify all bad guys on sight and because he is handy with his fists.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol marks the live action film debut of Brad Bird, who came to prominence when he directed the Oscar winning Pixar film, The Incredibles. It is best not to think too hard about the fact that The Incredibles is, broadly speaking, somewhat similar to Mission Impossible because you’ll only be reminded that it is a far superior film. Bird, however, acquits himself well now that he has stepped away from the computer. He knows how to deliver an effective action sequence – regardless of whether or not mere physics get in the way - and that’s all you really need when it comes to a film like this. Although a slightly less convoluted plot structure would have gone a long way to shaving about twenty minutes off the stupidly long running time.

Much is being made of the scene where Cruise scales the world’s tallest building in Dubai, the Burj Khalifa. His reasons for doing so are utterly ridiculous but there is no denying that it is a spectacular scene. It is not, however, one that people with any kind of fear of heights will enjoy. Cruise, who tells us that he likes to do his own stunts, is a brave man if he volunteered to do do it himself. Brave or incredibly stupid.

Perhaps, he is just marking our cards. The last Mission Impossible coincided with the career implosion that saw Cruise’s bankability at the box office ebb away. It was released shortly after his infamous hyperactive attack on Oprah’s couch and its relative commercial failure was seen as proof that the Cruise brand was turning toxic. So maybe there’s a point being made here. He hasn’t gone away you know. Unfortunately for Cruise, the memory of his rather strange behaviour in real life lingers on and no amount of leaping about on tall buildings is going to rectify that.

If he was trying to re-establish his action man credentials, he should probably have thought better of bringing Renner into the mix. While Cruise looks a bit tired and weary, Renner brings a different kind of energy to Brandt. Compared to Cruise’s bland, humourless delivery, The Hurt Locker delivers a much more compelling performance. If, as the rumours suggest, his character is being set up to take over from Hunt, the Mission Impossible franchise is in good hands, indeed. Pegg is becoming increasingly insufferable with each Hollywood blockbuster and this one is no different.

It is ludicrous, of that there is no doubt, but to be fair to it, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol stays on the right side of fun for most of its very long running time. Bird has succeeded in reinvigorating a tired franchise that engages and entertains. What more do you want really?

Stars: ***

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

2011-12-23T08:34:00.001Z

Oh dear. Guy Ritchie’s twelve step programme to rid himself of Madonna’s pernicious influence appears to have hit a snag. Having taken a giant leap forward with Sherlock Holmes two years ago – and by that I mean having finally produced a watchable film that didn’t involve Vinny Jones or gangsters – Ritchie attempts the same alchemy with this sequel but falls short. A Game of Shadows is a pale imitation of its predecessor despite retaining the original cast and introducting Holmes’ arch nemesis Moriarty. In the words of the great philosopher, Paula Abdul, this is a case of two steps forward, three steps back.

The action takes up shortly after the first film’s conclusion. A series of explosions in Europe are being attributed to anarchists but Holmes has other ideas. After a chase sequence through the streets of London with Irene (Rachel McAdams) being pursued by Holmes (Robert Downey Jr), we are finally introduced to Moriarty (Jared Harris) who delivers an early demonstration of his intelligence, power and ruthlessness. Meanwhile, Holmes is organising Watson’s (Jude Law) stag party. Having met up with Holmes’ brother Marsan (Stephen Fry) they go to a gentleman’s club where they meet gypsy Madam Simza (Noomi Rapace), a target for Moriarty’s assassins. From then on, Holmes and Moriarty are set in pitched battle.

Their initial exchange piques interest and sets up what should be a fascinating battle between two equals mentally slugging it out but, unfortunately, this movie never lives up to that promise. Instead of crackling, the rest of the exchanges between Holmes and Moriarty are easily telegraphed. There is none of the uncertainty and tension that marked the tussle between Holmes and Mark Strong’s Lord Blackwood in the first incarnation of this franchise. Moriarty is supposed to be an uber-villain Instead what we get is not so much an evil genius as a well connected businessman, scholar and diplomat. Seanie FitzPatrick with a PhD. Okay, an evil businessman, scholar and diplomat, but this is supposed to be Holmes’s greatest foe, not one straight from the James Bond casting stable. Having done a good job establishing Holmes’ character first time around, they muck up the one character that is key to keeping this franchise going.

The chemistry between the original cast still remains. Downey Jr slips back into the role without missing a beat and he sparks well off both McAdams and Law. Of the new additions, Fry probably fares best providing comic relief and, with one sequence later in the film, adding a new string to his bow. However, Rapace, who makes her Hollywood debut here after making a splash with her work on the Millennium trilogy, needs to reassess her representation. If this was to be her Hollywood breakout she’s not been well served by a character who adds little to the development of the story. Her only real function is to act as a bridge to meeting other gypsies. Either the part was thrown in at the last minute or a lot of her material ended up on the cutting room floor.

A Game of Shadows’ main problem is its plot. It is all rather dull and predictable. The first film was pacey and exciting, keeping the viewer guessing as it progressed,but this time around the intrigue makes way for action and the film suffers as a result. Action is, of course, Ritchie’s comfort zone. He is much better when his characters have a couple of guns in hand than when they are being more cerebral. That works for something like Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels but Sherlock Holmes deserves better. There is no doubt that the action sequences are very stylish. He deploys his signature slow motion footage set against rapid editing and produces something close to Lock Stock and Two Smoking Cannons. In doing so, however, he sacrifices the plot at the great altar of blowing crap up.

It doesn’t help that while the first film felt fresh and innovative its thunder has been stolen somewhat by the BBC’s brilliant modern take on Sherlock Holmes starring Benedict Cumberbatch. Compared to the flare and ingenuity demonstrated in that adaptation, this feels very by-the-numbers.

All that said, it’s still very watchable. Most films starring Downey Jr are. Nevertheless, if this is to turn into a trilogy, Ritchie will have to both keep his fingers crossed, take some clever pills and come up with something more involving next time.

Stars: ***

Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked

2011-12-23T08:33:00.001Z

Alvin and the Chipmunks return for their third outing on the big screen with Chipwrecked.

Pause a moment to take that in: this is the THIRD Alvin and the Chipmunks movie. The third time that Jason Lee has prostrated himself at the altar of manna to act opposite a group of singing rodents. And the third time that a group of songwriters have agreed to have their carefully crafted pop songs sung by a group of people who sound like their testicles are being slowly ground in a mincer.

Chipwrecked sees Dave (Lee) take chipmunks Alvin (Justin Long); Simon (Matthew Gray Gubler) and Theodore (Jesse McCartney) and the chipettes Brittany (Christina Applegate); Jeanette (Anna Faris) and Eleanor (Amy Poehler) on a cruise. Alvin, because he’s a little brat, creates havoc on the ship and manages to get the rodent cast stranded on a desert island with Dave and their former manager Ian (David Cross) in pursuit. While on the island they meet the slightly demented Zoe (Jenny Slate) who has been stranded so long that she believes the balls that she has assigned names too are actually conversing with her (this is one of the film’s better running jokes). There’s more to Zoe than meets the eye and things will come to a head as the chipmunks try to make their way off the island.

The Chipmunks franchise is hugely popular despite critical maulings so this review is basically the equivalent of roaring your head off into a vacuum. For what it’s worth, this is marginally better than the last film but that isn’t saying much. It remains auto-tune hell - like being stuck in a world where the X Factor contestants are giving an endless group performance. Each song is soullessly delivered in a shrill tone that some people find cute but will have sane people wishing for burst ear drums.

The choice of songs remains as bizarre as ever. The final medley includes Lady Gaga’s Born This Way. Surprising given that this film is pitched at the conservative family-values America where anyone who tries to live by that mantra is likely to get their head kicked in. Then again, Theodore is a young boy who enjoys making necklaces – perhaps, Alvin and the Chipmunks is more subversive than it appears. Of course, they cut to another song before that rather niggly bit about being transgendered but the message is planted.

Kudos though for not releasing it in 3D. It’s a prime candidate for the treatment and presumably they would have made a few extra quid with it but it would have added nothing.

Just about bearable.

Stars: **

The Deep Blue Sea

2011-12-23T08:31:00.001Z

Rachel Weisz shines in this elegant and introspective drama from writer-director Terence Davies but the film suffers from stagey treatment and a wooden leading man.

Set largely across one eventful day in the life of Hester (Weisz), is the story of a woman grimly clinging to a dream life that is fast disintegrating. We start with her suicide note and over the course of the day, through a series of brief but neatly structured flashbacks, learn what prompted her to take this drastic action. Married to a stuffy old judge (Simon Russell-Beale), she began an affair with a dashing RAF pilot (Tom Hiddleston). Stuck in an existence where even the manner in which she pours her tea is a matter of concern for those around her, she takes the drastic step of leaving her husband for the pilot. When he turns out to be all style over substance, things begin to look bleak.

Davies has adapted The Deep Blue Sea from a play and it shows. Although at its heart is a beautifully grounded performance from Weisz, the film finds it very hard to shake off its source material. As a result, there are parts which are far too theatrical and the film ends up feeling very unnatural. There’s one particular scene outside a pub that has more business being played out on the stage at the Everyman than performing a pivotal role in the development of a film.

There is another problem, however, and that is Hiddleston. It’s hard to empathise with Hester’s plight when she’s pinned all her hopes on a man who is, quite clearly, a selfish cad. This is worsened, however, by Hiddleston’s failure to bring any semblance of charm to the role. He is also guilty of emphasising the theatricality of the piece by barking most of his lines in a style not too far off the Joey Tribiani school of spit-acting.

It’s a real shame because Weisz is really wonderful here. It’s a real shame that she won that Oscar because she’s an actress of great skill and it’s rare that she gets a chance to get her teeth into a meaty role like Hester. She has you transfixed almost immediately and the film ultimately succeeds on the back of her performance. Her work opposite Russell-Beale – also excellent as the timid cuckold - is lovely to watch and gives the film the emotional core so absent from the relationship with Freddie.

Their performances are worth the ticket price but it is maddening to think that a better actor than Hiddleston and a few tweaks to the script could have elevated this into something much more substantial.

Stars: ***

Puss In Boots

2011-12-10T10:06:00.001Z

The last two Shrek films have been an insult to humanity. The part of humanity with access to movie theatres anyway. They were slapped together with no real effort made to come up with a decent story or, in Shrek Forever After, anything approaching a good joke. Effectively they were shake-down exercises designed to eek a little more money out of a tired franchise. Who can blame them? Despite having all the appeal of a coffee enema, Shrek Forever After raked in more than $750 million at the international box office – proof, if it were ever needed, that there is one born every minute.

Knowing, perhaps, that they have burned their bridges with the last full-scale instalment, Dreamworks and the team behind Shrek have now turned to spin-offs to keep the tills ringing. To be fair to them, they’ve chosen wisely in Puss in Boots. The Antonio Banderas-voiced felonious ginger feline has been far and away the best thing about Shrek since he was introduced in the second instalment. Indeed, it was a real shame that they gave the character such short shrift in Forever After – he might have lifted it from being an excruciating mess to merely appalling.

Rather than scurry further down the rabbit hole of Shrek’s redundant story, Puss in Boots is a prequel, giving a complete back story to the cat and cleverly incorporating some hitherto unused fairytale characters.

We start with Puss, currently being pursued by a bounty hunter, learning that heinous criminals Jack (Billy Bob Thornton) and Jill (Amy Sedaris) have secured the magic beans that he has been searching for his whole life. These magic beans are the key to finding the golden goose and its golden eggs. Puss attempts to steal the beans from Jack and Jill but he is interrupted by Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek) who wants them for herself. It turns out that Kitty is working with Humpty Dumpty (Zach Galifianakis). He and Puss were childhood friends, and had been searching for the beans together but had a massive falling out with the result that this is the first time they have spoken in years. They resolve to work together to steal the beans and find those golden eggs. All is not as it appears, however.

The story of Puss in Boots is flimsy to say the least. It is better than the drivel they came up with for the last two Shreks – that almost goes without saying – but it is still a little too slapdash. Don’t get me wrong, there are things to like. The inclusion of Humpty Dumpty is genius and it’s the first time that Galifianakis has been tolerable in a film. Making Jack and Jill a couple of hard faced outlaws is brilliant and having Jack be a bit broody ever since he broke his crown while fetching that pail of water is one of the film’s funnier strands. Nevertheless, it’s a paper thin plot.

It survives and succeeds, however, on the strength of that central character. Puss in Boots is one of the few Shrek characters to have emerged from those godawful last instalments with his goodwill intact. He is still hilarious. This is due both to the script, which is best when focussed in on Puss and lashing out the subtle jokes with pleasing consistency, and Banderas who proves as game for a laugh now as he was when the character was introduced for the first time.

Of course, then they went and spoiled it all by releasing it in 3D. Surely, we have had our fill of this utterly pointless gimmick by now? While animated films fare better in 3D than their live action counterparts, due largely to the brightness of the picture, the experience is almost never enhanced by 3D. So it proves with Puss in Boots which is a perfectly good film in its own right and shouldn’t need the box office boost of forcing people to pay for those stupid bloody glasses. If you can get to a 2D screening, you certainly won’t be missing out.

Stars: ****

Another Earth

2011-12-10T10:05:00.001Z

In a world where Adam Sandler gets to dress up as his sister in Jack and Jill, it can be very frustrating when you come across a film that has the kernel of a good idea but a budget that wouldn’t buy you a box of popcorn. Another Earth is one such film.

Rhoda (Brit Marling) is a promising young student who gets drunk at a party and ends up crashing into a family killing a pregnant woman and her son. Husband John (William Mapother) is put into a coma but survives. At the time, another Earth-like planet had been spotted in the sky – an exact replica of our own. Four years later, Rhoda is release from prison and finding it difficult to cope. She goes around to John’s house to apologise and, when he doesn’t recognise her, ends up becoming his cleaner.

It is a given when confronted with a sci-fi film that you are going to have to suspend your disbelief for a while. Usually that means accepting that time can bend, that blue yoga enthusiasts exist on another planet or that Sam Worthington can act. You can make those stretches quite easily.

The problem with Another Earth is not with the sci-fi element but rather the human story. I don’t believe for one second that you wouldn’t know absolutely everything you could about the woman responsible the death of you wife, son and unborn daughter. It beggars belief that John wouldn’t have seen, at least, one picture of Rhoda after waking from his coma.
It is problematic because you need to be able to buy into this credulity stretching plot development in order to get the overarching themes of guilt and forgiveness that director Mike Cahill and co-writer Marling are trying to get at. This is a film that yearns to be taken seriously – in fact, it needs to be because effects are non-existent – but it only barely stands up to scrutiny.

That said, as an intense drama, it works to a certain extent. The tension between Marling and Mapother is unbearable at times and both do a good job with some fairly complex characters. It also looks great – indeed, it looks far better than its miniscule budget deserves.

In a way though, it’s hard not to wish that they’d had some money thrown at them so they could go the whole hog with Earth 2. Instead, we are left with the feeling that there is much more to this story (the final shot does not help matters) and that we are missing out on something far more intriguing than the downbeat drama that get.

Stars: ***

Tyrannosaur

2011-12-10T10:03:00.001Z

Paddy Considine doesn’t think much of humanity. Anyone who goes to see his directorial debut, Tyrannosaur, will be in no doubt about that. This is an unrelentingly grim film about people who live with under constant threat of violence, whether their own or others. It is a tough watch but worth it for Peep Show actress Olivia Colman’s extraordinary performance alone.

Peter Mullan plays Joseph, a thoroughly vile individual who is a bubbling cauldron of grotesque violence ready to erupt at any moment. He’s the sort of man who loses money to a bookie and then takes it out on his dog by kicking him to death. Then he mourns his loss as though he’s a victim there. It’s no surprise then when we learn, through a casual aside from a family “friend”, that he was a wife beater. He meets god-botherer Hannah (Colman) while she volunteers at a charity shop. She shows him a kindness by praying for him. Hannah has her own secrets, however. She is married to James (Eddie Marsden), a man who somehow manages to be even more disgusting than Joseph. When Hannah turns to Joseph for help as she tries to escape her husband, we are left wondering whether it’s a case of out of the fire into the frying pan.

This is a good first effort from Considine but it lacks the maturity that you might expect from someone who has worked with some of the better directors knocking around Britain these days. He sets out to shock. This immaturity is exemplified by the final third when the film takes an unexpected turn straight out of the secondary schoolboy’s book of crap essays to shock teacher. He certainly succeeds in shocking the audience but he has no grasp of light and shade – Tyrannosaur inhabits a murky world where hope is non-existent and everyone is miserable. That is not to say that Joseph and Hannah should burst into shonky version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” but even a tiny bit of levity wouldn’t have gone amiss.

While the story has its problems, Considine really excels in two areas. He draws two really stunning performances from his leading actors. Mullan is absolutely terrifying as Joseph – rage barely contained, it feels like he might burst through the screen and rip your face off at any moment. Colman is a revelation as the timid and deeply wounded Hannah. It is a moving, heart –breaking performance that deserves wider recognition. Considine is clearly an actor’s director and with some better material, he will do very well. He also shows some skill at creating atmosphere – you won’t find a film whose colour palette so perfectly matches its subject matter this year.

A hard watch but worth it for the performances alone. This is a decent debut but there’s plenty of room for growth.

Stars: *** and a half

Happy Feet Two

2011-12-02T19:26:00.001Z

It is always disappointing when a sequel fails to live up to expectations but doubly so when the original was much-loved, fresh and original. Unfortunately, Happy Feet Two falls far short of the very high bar set by its predecessor. It’s only marginally entertaining and completely absent of inspiration.

Mumble (Elijah Wood) and wife Gloria have ended up with a son Erik (Ava Acres) who shares his father’s social ineptness and who has yet to find his particular skill. As a result, while his fellow Emporer penguins are singing and dancing away, he’s hiding for fear of making a fool of himself. When he does just that one day, Erik and two friends go for a wander along with Latino penguin Ramon (Robin Williams at his most grating) where they discover another penguin colony. This new community is ruled by The Might Sven (Hank Azaria), a penguin who can fly. Mumble retrieves the three boys but on returning to Emporer Land finds that the colony has been trapped by a giant floating iceberg and is going to starve to death unless they can get help. Cue the arrival of Sven and his colony. It takes a bit more than a penguin who can fly to get them out of this mess however.

To be fair, following up the Oscar winning Happy Feet was always a tall order. That was a smart, funny and heartwarming but it was also groundbreaking. Unlike most animated features, it had a serious point to make about the environment and it somehow managed to balance that with dancing penguins. There was a lack of cynicism about the whole enterprise. That naivety is not something that you usually expect from animated features – they have generally been focus grouped down to the individual frame and designed to maximise marketing potential at toy stores in the run up to Christmas. Cars 2 is a perfect example of this – Pixar, a studio that has done consistently good work for ten years, produces a sequel to its most lacklustre offering solely because that first picture spawned an enormous amount of merchandising.

The Happy Feet franchise was supposed to be above all that. This was a franchise that genuinely cared about the message it was sending out to kids and their parents. Sure, there were plenty of tie-ins available at toy store but Happy Feet still had heart. Alas, the lure of big box office and ringing cash registers has proved too much for director George Miller and his team of animators. In Happy Feet Two they have delivered a sequel that is every bit as cynical and marketing driven as you would expect from the most ruthless of film studios. Like Disney.

Miller and his co-writers (four of them – too many cooks and all that) seem utterly bereft of ideas until about half way through when a calamity finally ensues. As calamities go it is a good one but the lead up to it has been so slight that it ends up being deceptively blasé. Until the suicidal penguins step in that is. Don’t worry, they live, but it’s not the sort of thing you expect in an animated feature.

The film starts almost immediately with a song and dance number that drags on and on and on and that is actually cringe worthy. Whether this is to justify the fact that they have inexplicably cast pop star P!NK (her exclamation mark, not mine) in a major supporting role, I do not know but it does not work. An embarrassing mishmash of songs that are either curiously irrelevant or difficult to identify, it’s a very odd way to launch into the film and almost disorientates the audience for a while. It feels paper thin throughout which is a shame because the previous instalment was so rich with ideas. Musical numbers pepper it but rather than enhancing the film, this time they feel more like filler.

It will pass time amiably enough if you are stuck but lower your expectations. A lot.

Stars: **

The Thing

2011-12-02T19:24:00.001Z

This is not a remake. I repeat this is not a remake. Although it shares its name with John Carpenter’s 1982 film, the makers of The Thing (2011) have had more sense than to try to mess with that film. Instead they have fashioned a prequel which nicely segues into Carpenter’s film. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make quite the same impact.

It’s the early 80s though you’d hardly know it and palaeontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is called in by a group of Norwegian scientists who have discovered giant space ship buried beneath the ice but, more importantly, an alien being frozen in ice. When they bring this thing back to base, team leader Sander (Ulrich Thomsen) insists that a sample should be taken from the creature even though Kate warns him against it. Although why she would have any greater knowledge why this is a bad idea is a mystery. As you might expect, all does not go well. When the sample is taken, the alien comes back to live and starts to attack all on base. The problem is that this alien is a parasite that assumes the identity of its victim while in the hunt for the next food source. And so starts the paranoia.

Bland. That’s the first word that springs to mind when considering The Thing. There’s nothing particularly dazzling about it – the acting is fairly mundane, the story shows some promise but ends up being a by the numbers horror and the gore is nowhere near as in your face as it should be. It’s not scary either and you’d think that would be a crucial element of any good horror. All in all, it’s not a terrible film but it’s not a particularly good one either. It’s just a bit lame.

I suppose we are expected to be impressed by the special effects. The alien is created using computer generated imagery but very often it looks like a grizzly bit of chicken, albeit one with the ability to eat you whole. To give it its due there’s one memorable shot when two characters literally melt into each other but that’s hardly worth the ticket price.

In fairness, it could have been much worse. There was a recent period when Hollywood was churning out remakes and prequels of much loved horror films and the results were excruciating to sit through. At least this is watchable enough.

Stars: **

The Ides of March

2011-12-02T19:23:00.001Z

This political drama directed by George Clooney treads no new ground but a stellar cast, a witty script and a strong hand behind the camera give it the lift that it needs.

Ryan Gosling plays political adviser Stephen, an idealist working on the presidential campaign of liberal Democratic candidate Governor Mike Morris (George Clooney). The two men share a vision for America that isn’t all that far removed from Barack Obama’s though Morris is pointedly more radical in his approach. With their candidate leading the field, Stephen and his boss Paul (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) are attempting to close the deal by winning the Ohio primary and sealing a deal for the endorsement of a former contender (Jeffrey Wright). However, events involving intern Molly Stearns (Evan Rachel Wood) threaten to derail the entire campaign.

Clooney has assembled a fine cast for this film and allows them to shine by taking a backseat for much of the running time. Gosling is demonstrating with every performance that he is capable of becoming a truly great actor. Here he delivers the kind a solid, compelling performance that marks him out as a future leading man. His scenes with Clooney, in particular, are brilliantly done with the two men subtly sparring for your attention – the younger man just shades it.

Having hugely impressed with his second outing in the director’s chair, Goodnight and Good Luck, Clooney proves that was no fluke with The Ides of March. While it doesn’t show the technical flare of his last effort not a moment is wasted on screen and he crams in a lot in a relatively short running time. Half of his work was done though before they even switched on a camera by selecting that cast.

Where it does fall down is in its rather run of the mill story. It’s a standard political thriller. A well written one, for sure, but pretty mundane in the grand scheme of things. Wood’s character is a bit uneven – her actions in the latter half of the film do not tally with the sassy woman we are introduced to at first. Marisa Tomei plays a political journalist who may as well have duplicitous hack tattooed across her forehead – it’s not her fault, it’s just a bit of a lazy character thrown in as an afterthought.

Overall though, this is a nice little insight into power and its ability to corrupt that well written, directed and acted. A class act.

Stars: ****

Moneyball

2011-11-25T06:04:00.000Z

Films about sports that are largely confined to northern America are about as interesting as watching Grainne Seoige pretend she cares about anything GAA other than Paul Galvin's thighs on Put ‘Em Under Pressure. Movies about maths are few and far between for good reason because as any teenager who has sat through one class of Leaving Cert Honours Maths will tell you, it’s booooooring. A film that combines the two? Well, pull up a chair, we’re in for a doozy.

I am, perhaps, being a bit unfair to Moneyball. It has some serious pedigree behind it. The script was penned by Academy Award winners Aaron Sorkin and Steve Zaillian and it is directed by Bennett Miller (nominated for Best Director for the over-rated Capote). It also stars Brad Pitt who, despite his involvement in the year’s most over-praised snooze-athon The Tree of Life, generally has a nose for decent movie. Okay, it co-stars Jonah Hill whose creepy shtick became a little bit tedious a while back but you can’t have it all. Even so, this is a rather worthy but uninteresting film. You expect more from people of this calibre.

Pitt plays Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland Athletics baseball team who fail to beat the Yankees in the playoffs in 2001 and he finds himself with less money to spend on next year’s team. He meets with mathematical whizzkid Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) who suggests a new way of selecting baseball players which will allow Oakland to pick up good players who have been overlooked by other teams because they don’t do well in their particular niche. This mathematical approach is greeted with scepticism by both Oakland’s staff including team manager Art Howe (Seymour Hoffman) and the wider baseball community. After some manoeuvring though it begins to pay off and things start looking up for Oakland. Whether they can carry it through to the end is another matter entirely.

It’s all terribly well-made and there are a couple of good lines in there, presumably from Sorkin who is a dab hand at the pithy dialogue, but this is really uninspiring stuff. For a start, anyone who is unfamiliar with baseball is going to get lost within minutes so when they start to break down what is a very complicated concept (the mathematical formula used to pick these players) you haven’t a clue what is going on. Never in the history of movies about sport has a film so wilfully demanded that its audience be informed about the sport itself. There’ll be plenty of people out there who get baseball but the majority on this island at least will be clueless. That won’t change while watching Moneyball.

To be fair, Moneyball is not aimed at the likes of me - when it comes to sports where people with suspect morals either kick or hit a ball back and forth, I’d rather stare at a blank wall for a few hours. I very much suspect, however, that the fanfare which greeted its arrival at the box office in the States was informed by the fact that the majority of film critics are men. Not only that but they are men who do an unmanly job – there’s no great hardship in sitting in a movie theatre for a couple of hours even if you are being subjected to Tim Allen in The Santa Clause 504. So on the rare occasion when a sports film briefly flirts with credibility, they take the opportunity to show how masculine they are by fawning all over it. The fact that this film, which is a struggle to get through if you have no prior knowledge of baseball and no interest in what is essentially a glorified came of rounders, is being touted as a possible Oscar contender and has almost universal approval on Rotten Tomatoes suggests to me that they have lost the run of themselves.

Pitt is good and the film is best when he is on screen but it is an undemanding role. Hill is pretty insipid but at least he refrains from his usual overbearing creep act. Hoffman is criminally underused. There are virtually no women involved – these men live in a vacuum where women are ex-wives and daughters to be dealt with after the ball game is done. Miller’s direction is unimaginative.

Ultimately, I cannot believe that anyone who doesn’t know about baseball could enjoy this. Maths nerds maybe. Otherwise, welcome to Dullsville.

Stars: ***

The Green Wave

2011-11-25T06:03:00.000Z

This powerful documentary serves as a timely reminder of how lucky we are to live in a democratic state and, as the EU encroaches, how important it is to hold on to that freedom.
Using a combination of animated sequences, talking heads and citizen journalist footage, The Green Wave tells the story of how the people of Iraq tried to assert their democratic will over the Iranian government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad only to get slapped down in brutal fashion with little intervention from the outside world.

The Green Wave starts out with hope – fed up of their government’s inability to improve their living conditions despite pots of oil money knocking around, the Iranian people turn to reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi as the 2009 presidential election looms. When it becomes apparent on the day of the vote that Mousavi is winning by overwhelming numbers, Ahmadinejad’s forces step in to interfere with the election by closing down polling stations and mysteriously discovering more votes in ballot boxes than people on the electoral register. Ahmadinejad is declared the winner and all hell breaks loose as his forces supress peaceful protests with bullets.

Director Ali Samadi Adhadi does an excellent job capturing the euphoria of that a sudden glimpse of freedom can bring and the despair that ensues when it is snatched away.

Ali Reza Darvish’s beautifully drawn animated sequences - a couple of shots are so good that you find it hard to distinguish if they are real or not – are deployed to represent contemporaneous blog posts. These are interspersed by interviews carried out with Iranian exiles who were on the ground when it happened and suffered the terrible consequences afterwards. Some deliver powerfully moving accounts of torture and imprisonment where people are beaten to death by sadistic guards for no other reason than they can. Tweets are used to convey their increasing desperation and urgent cries for help as security forces crack down.

It is a heady mix and one which Adhadi handles extremely well. His pacing ensures that you never lose interest and rather than go for the melodramatic, he has delivered a thoughtful documentary that focuses on fact and lets those facts speak for themselves.

In many ways, The Green Wave is a profoundly depressing film. Of course it is - to see people’s optimism so cruelly beaten down is never a pleasant experience. However, this is a brave documentary, unflinching in its criticism of a corrupt regime and a call to action for political leaders paying lip service to democracy. Well worth seeing.

Stars: ****

Dream House

2011-11-25T06:00:00.001Z

Poor Jim Sheridan. Having managed to overcome the disappointment failing to stop 50 Cent spluttering his way through Get Rich or Die Tryin’, he pulled things back with Brothers only to find himself lumbered with this turkey. When the only thing of note about your film is the spontaneous real-life marriage of the two main leads, you are in trouble.

Publisher Will (Daniel Craig) quits his job in the city to spend more time with his wife Libby (Rachel Weisz) and their two children at a new house in a small town. However, it becomes clear very quickly that all is not as it seems with this new abode. A man appears to be watching the family on a nightly basis and Will discovers a bunch of teenagers holding a séance in the basement. Attempts to elicit answers from neighbour Ann (Naomi Watts) draw a blank. Eventually, Will and Libby learn that the former owner of the house killed his wife and kids there five years ago and he may be back in the area. Further investigation reveals something far more complicated is afoot.

Where to start with Dream House? The script is awful. It veers all over the place, takes a 180 degree U-turn half way through (we are talking Bobby Ewing popping into the shower for a year levels of ludicrousness here) but never fails to stray from the conclusion that you’d want to be blind not to cop from about five minutes in.

By all accounts, it’s a miracle that Craig and Wiesz got together on Dream House because filming was fraught with tension. Sheridan clashed with his producers regularly and when it came to the final cut of the film, was so unhappy with the result that he asked to have his name removed. Weisz and Craig were similarly uninspired by this cut and refused to do any promotion for the film. It bombed in the States.

It’s no surprise that all involved might want to disassociate themselves from Dream House. It is a mess on an epic scale. Even if the script hadn’t been so bad, the incredibly slow pacing makes watching it feel like wading through a vat of pungent glue. Sheridan would, of course, claim that his cut would have been much better. I don’t really see how it could be. The central twist on which this film hinges is tired and irritating. There is no getting passed that. It doesn’t help that Craig delivers one of his poorest performances to date – he’s a blank canvass throughout – or that Watts just disappears in a role that mounts to nothing.

Utterly pointless, poorly executed and an embarrassment to all involved. This one should never have seen the light of day.

Stars: *

Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part I

2011-11-18T12:01:00.004Z

Speechless. Just speechless. That's how this fourth instalment in the Twilight saga, Breaking Dawn Part I, left me. And not in a good way, my friends. Most certainly not in a good way.

Critics tend to sneer at the Twilight films automatically - they are aimed at teenage girls and are, somehow, easily dismissed because of that. Personally, I have a soft spot for the first film and although the following two suffered from the law of diminishing returns, they were enjoyable enough. But, man, it's hard to resist the bandwagon when you are faced with something as genuinely excruciating as Breaking Dawn Part I.

This is all down to Stephanie Meyer who wrote the books on which these films are based. She is no JK Rowling. Having struggled through the first Twilight novel, I am in no doubt about that. (Brief summary - Bella: "Why do like me, Edward?"; Edward: "I don't know but I am going to be an asshole about it"; Bella: "But, I don't understand, why you would like me, Edward?" and so on until your brain starts to voluntarily shut down.) But only in her wildest dreams should an editor have let her away with the utter tripe that she seems to have come up with for the fourth and final book.

You'll have to forgive me here but it is not possible to truly demonstrate the sheer awfulness of this film without including some major spoilers. TURN AWAY NOW IF YOU DONT WANT TO READ THEM. (That said, every trailer and news story about the film has revealed all you need to know already but anyhoo.)

We start with the wedding of Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) which takes place at his family's home in the woods. It's, like, totally dreamy. Bella wears a stunning white dress, the groom and his family refrain from sucking the life's blood out of the rest of the wedding party. Jacob (Taylor Lautner) gets a bit sniffy about it. All in all, it goes well. Then they go on honeymoon and when they start getting jiggy with it, Edward loses his self control a touch and, well, she ends up a bit bruised. How romantic, ladies and gentlemen. Of course, because Bella was already behaving like a battered wife, it makes no odds to her. He knocks her up and the demon spawn starts to suck the life out of her from the inside but this doesn't concern her. She wants to keep the baby so then we are treated to an hour of pro-life propaganda.

It's the birth though that really does it. I can quite honestly say that I have never seen anything like it in all my days. It's extraordinary. Gratuitously gruesome, so badly edited and an advertisement for natural birth if ever there was one. It is horrifying and laughable in equal measure. What follows pales in comparison.

I don't blame the cast for any of this. They do a perfectly serviceable job. In fact, I believe that Pattinson is on the verge of developing a third facial expression. One of shock at the sheer insanity of it all. Lautner fulfills his brief as always - shirt off in the first thirty seconds and then two hours of staring intently at Bella like she's fit for eating. He does, however, have to cope with the film's most ludicrous moment - the point when you really understand that Stephanie Meyer is a terrible, terrible writer and that Breaking Dawn is an appalling story. You'd almost feel sorry for him were it not for the fact that these films have made him very rich and popular.

Those who hate Kristen Stewart - I do not count myself as one of your number - will be dismayed to note that she seems to have overcome her Achilles' heel. Not once does she lower her eyes and bite her lip pensively. That said, her attempt to convey nervousness as she saunters toward the altar does her no favours. She literally looks like she's doing sums in her head. She is still by far the best thing about this instalment.

The fault lies with Meyer and, I suppose, screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg who fails to reign in her greater excesses. That said, she probably would have had her head ripped off by the Twi-hards if she did attempt to meddle too much. They have taken a perfectly good modern gothic romance and turned it into a loathsome gothic horror. Director Bill Condon takes a film franchise that once had a mild edge and turns it into a melodramatic soap opera that belongs on afternoon television. He does a shocking job with it which only adds to the pain.

It's a real shame because I was enjoying the Twilight saga up to this point. But, then, those first three films didn't make you feel like you were being bombarded with Meyer's horribly twisted, conservative outlook on the world. Bella is basically a 1950s Catholic housewife left to suffer her husband's abuse and keep a baby that's killing her because, God forbid, she should try to save herself. Pardon my French but it's bullshit.

There isn't a shark in the world that this film has not jumped. It'll make millions but every person who goes to see it will have lost a little part of their soul.
Stars: *

Rural Ireland, where men are min and sheep are scared...

2011-11-11T17:26:00.000Z

When Sensation director Tom Hall told Domhnall Gleeson that he was writing a movie about two people locked in a room having sex, the Harry Potter actor had a unique response.

“I said I would like to be both of those people! He wrote the script and kept me involved the whole way through. I thought this was a brilliant character, he was such an odd kind of a fella and I was dying to play him,” he said.

Gleeson plays another Donal in Sensation, the story of a socially backward farmer who uses his inheritance to hire a prostitute and somehow ends up becoming a pimp. The premise sounds like it should be played for laughs but while there is a good streak of black comedy through Sensation, it, nevertheless, takes an uncompromising look at a hidden side of Irish life. Donal is no Richard Gere perched on a balcony asking his prostitute to love him. Those of a sensitive disposition should turn away now.

“I liked the idea of not asking an audience to like somebody immediately. The idea of the guy masturbating in the field, then seeing his Dad dead and not really caring before hiring a prostitute and drowning some kittens is very funny and a weird way to start off. Really? This is our guy? The guy we are going to follow for the next hour and a half?” said Gleeson.

Donal’s problem is that he’s led a sheltered life and his only real experience of sex has come from his exceptionally good rural broadband connection. He hangs around with a similarly inept loser and makes horrible attempts at chatting up local women that start and end with: “my father just died”. Donal is a natural by-product of repression followed by submersion, according to Gleeson.

“You get told about the facts of life and that is the most beautiful and natural thing in the world and then you go on the Internet. And most of the stuff on there is not the most beautiful or natural thing in the world and we are talking about a character whose only experience prior to this, all of his knowledge about sex comes from the Internet and he has a lot of knowledge about sex but he has no practice. He has never been with a real person, he has been with pixels. It’s a complicated set up… Where do you begin?” she said.

While it is certainly not an explicit film, it is probably one of the frankest Irish films you are ever likely to see. Having previously only acted in kissing scenes on film, Gleeson admits it he was nervous when it came to tackling some of the film’s more risqué scenes.

“I never had to touch myself in a field before except in my personal life! You get a little bit nervous but Tom was also really good before we started. We went to a hotel room, myself and himself and the actress and we kind of walked through the scenes, just talking about where the camera would be, what we would show, how we would make it look like this is happening and what would still be comfortable,” he said.

It helped that he and lead actress Luanne Gordon got on well when filming commenced.

“We had a good laugh. You have to strip and wear a tiny thong so that you are not flapping around the place – if you don’t laugh then you are in serious trouble. If that turns into a serious set up then: what the fuck have you done with your life? You have to understand that some of this is faintly ridiculous but we are also trying to create something that is in some way beautiful in an odd sort of a way,” he said.

Donal’s story, while it descends into anarchy, will strike a cord with anyone who has ever emerged from a period of loneliness and looked back in horror.

“It is not your general kind of movie and it is certainly not Transformers. Thank god it is not in 3D because that would be too upsetting for everybody but I am really happy because I think we have got a lead character who is very engaging while being completely disengaged and I think that we have a story that you can recognise. Everyone has been lonely and everyone has laughed at themselves subsequently for being lonely. Thinking “that was kind of pathetic” that was awful. When you think about how serious you are when you are down, when you recover from that, it can become hilarious,” he said.

Next up for Gleeson is Anna Karenina, another Oscar-baiting collaboration between Joe Wright and Keira Knightley, and comic book adaptation Dredd. He’s hoping to continue mixing big and small budget films.

“It would be lovely if that continued to be the case. You never know, I am relying on others to hire me. In a funny way they are not my decisions really, you just try to work with good people really and continue to do that and if you do then you are well set up,” he said.

Arthur Christmas

2011-11-11T17:24:00.001Z

It’s been quite a while since we have been treated to a decent Christmas movie. The last few years Hollywood has delivered a series of films that have been cynically fashioned by focus groups organised by studios desperate to cash in on a quick buck.

Anyone who has had to sit through Four Christmasses (it felt like 400), Surviving Christmas – the film that almost left Ben Affleck’s career for dead – or, and for this Jesus truly did weep, Fred Claus, knows that these films are vapid efforts, hastily assembled and poorly executed. Like a Westlife Christmas number one where they take a sad song, add a few bells, make sure that Nicky stays well to the back and hire a few snow machines for the video; they are films utterly devoid of heart. All involved should be on a naughty list somewhere.

In fact, it’s been eight years since Hollywood produced the kind of Christmas movie that gave you the warm and fuzzies without leaving you feeling used like one of Ryan Gigg’s former mistresses. Eight years go audiences could choose between Elf, Love Actually and Bad Santa – all very different in their approach but all successful Christmas films. It is saying something that the best Christmas film of the last few years was a little seen Scandanavian comedy horror about an supernatural Santa intent on punishing naughty children. Hardly something that kids will enjoy in the run up to the big day.

Which is a very roundabout way of saying that, joy of joys, we finally have a Christmas movie worth caring about in Arthur Christmas. Whether it’s the fact that it comes from Aardman Animations – home to Wallace and Gromit – or that it is British in its sensibility, but there’s something very beguiling about it.

Santa (Jim Broadbent) has hit retirement age with this year expected to be his last Christmas before stepping aside to let his son Steve (Hugh Laurie) take over the reins. Except there are no reins anymore because Steve has replaced the sleigh with a sleek and stealthy space ship that allows Santa to traverse the world delivering presents with the aid of hundreds of super-efficient ninja elves. Santa may have lost some of his charm in the process but this high-tech operation ensures that no child is left behind.

Except on this night when the ineptitude of Steve’s brother Arthur (James McEvoy) causes a sequence of events which result in a little girl from England being left without her bike. With all the other presents in the world delivered, Steve thinks that one missing is statistically acceptable and refuses to let Santa make another journey to rectify the mistake. Arthur, who is a bit shambolic but believes in the true spirit of Christmas, has other ideas so he ends up drafting in Grandsanta (Bill Nighy) and dusting off Santa’s long forgotten sleigh in order to deliver the package himself.

Arthur Christmas is everything you want in a Christmas film – it’s charming, funny and smart throughout but it also has the tiniest bit of an edge to ensure that it doesn’t stray too far into twee territory. There’s a warmth to it that will melt the frostiest of hearts and you can forgive it for arriving way too early in the season (November! Really?). It also manages to straddle the very fine line between appealing to kids while keeping their parents on board. It is literally, fun for all the family.

The voice cast do an excellent job as well. Nighy’s voice is actually unrecognisable as the gravelly Grandsanta but anyone with a keen ear will recognise that they’ve assembled the best and brightest for Arthur Christmas. McEvoy, in his second animated film of the year after the very successful Gnomeo and Juliet, gives the film its heart without with making Arthur seem like an insufferable do-gooder. Laurie is excellent as the emotionally challenged Steve.

It is not perfect. You can see where this is going from within about five minutes of it starting and the characters don’t really register as high on the cute-scale as you might expect. The one major drawback is that they’ve gone and released it in 3D when there’s absolutely no need – it adds virtually nothing to the experience and runs entirely counter to the film’s tradition beats technology message.

Never the less, if you check your natural cynicism at the door when going to see Arthur Christmas, you’ll find plenty to entertain you.

Stars: ****

The Awakening

2011-11-11T17:23:00.001Z

This moderately effective chiller does a decent job of unnerving you right up until it loses you entirely with its faintly ridiculous big reveal.

In post-World War I London, families are being taken advantage of by con artist clairvoyants preying on their pain and promising them a connection with their loved ones in the afterlife. Paranormal investigator Florence(Rebecca Hall) has made it her life’s work to expose these shysters. When soldier turned schoolmaster Robert (Dominic West) asks for help in dispelling the myth of a ghost at his boarding school, Florence is, at first, reluctant but eventually demurs and travels to the big old scary house in the country. It is school matron Maud (Imelda Staunton) who is most impressed by Florence’s work and who helps her set about proving that this school ghost doesn’t exist. Alas, though, things aren’t quite as simple as that.

You don’t really get that many haunted house films these days – they just aren’t scary enough in a world where horror movies compete against each other to see which can be the most disgustingly gory. A classic chiller like this is a refreshing alternative to watching someone getting their eye gouged out but, that said, it is not without its problems.

They could have worked a little harder on the atmosphere. It’s a little too bright and breezy at times and there’s a long section where nothing much happens. It is the ending, however, that really lets it down. It is far too neat and tidy and really doesn’t make much sense even allowing for the fact that it is set in the 20s.

It’s a measure of the quality of The Awakening that director Nick Murphy was able to attract a cast like this. Hall may not be an A-lister but she is on her way there and I sincerely doubt that her agents would have let her take part in the kind of putrid disasters that killed of Halle Berry’s career. As it is, Hall is mesmerising – she delivers a strong central performance that anchors the film and keeps your attention throughout. West, too, makes a good fist of it as the stoic Robert, still picking at the wounds of war. It is Staunton who has the toughest role but, as you might expect, she manages to pull it off.

Still though, there is that ending. It is a shame really because a little less light and a better conclusion and this would have made for an truly excellent film. Nevertheless it is entertaining and effective in parts and well worth a look if you are stuck for something this weekend.

Stars: *** and a half

Mademoiselle Chambon

2011-11-11T17:22:00.001Z

This French film about two people who are right for each other but meet at the wrong time may try the patience of those with short attention spans but stick with it and you’ll be treated to a touching, heartfelt film.

Vincent Lindon plays Jean, a decent man and builder whose wife (Aure Atika) is pregnant with their second child. When an accident at work leaves his wife unable to pick up their son, Jean goes to the school. There he meets his son’s teacher Veronique Chambon (Sandrine Kiberlain) and the pair seem to have a moment. She asks him to help her with a broken window at her apartment and, while there, he asks her to play the violin for him. Each time they meet the step closer and closer to crossing the line but something holds them back.

Mademoiselle Chambon is a simple film, well realised. The story of two people who fall in love at the most inconvenient time, there’s not much more to it but it is beautifully realised. It is also a frustrating experience but that’s the point. You’re so used to seeing people leap into bed with each other at the first moment’s opportunity that watching Jean and Veronique dance around each other for ages is both novel and a little bit infuriating.

It won’t be for everyone. It is glacially paced – director Stephane Brize choses to revel in the small moments allowing her characters to sit still and think. Nothing particularly extraordinary happens - it opens with the Jean and his wife clashing over their son’s English language homework and keeps that understated tone throughout. Veronique’s backstory could do with a little more fleshing out – there are hints of family discord for instance but nothing more.

Even so, there is much to like here. Both leads take full advantage of the acres of silence on offer to establish their connection through stolen glances and tentative touches. The subtleness of their performances is a joy to behold.

If it all sounds a little familiar, that’s because it feels like a modern day Brief Encounter though they go much further than Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson. And like that film, Mademoiselle Chambon will break your heart.

Stars: ****

In Time

2011-11-11T17:21:00.001Z

A $40 million morality tale about the enormous gap between rich and poor, In Time has some interesting ideas going on but, alas, they amount to a hill of beans.

In a future world where there is no more aging, time is literally a currency. Having turned off the aging gene, everyone gets 25 free years before their final 12 months kicks in. You can buy extra time by working or exchanging time with another using a clock embedding into the forearm. A coffee costs four minutes but prices keep rising and the stakes get higher.

Justin Timberlake plays factory worker Will. He lives day to day, earning an extra 24 hours by working in a sweat shop and returning to the ghetto apartment he shares with his mother (Olivia Wilde). One night he saves a rich man (Matt Bomer) from a time snatching gangster (Alex Pettyfer). Like all rich kids, this man is full of ennui and effectively commits suicide by passing his time on to Will but not before he tells him the truth – for the rich to live, the poor must die. When it turns out that this is too late for the person he loves the most, Will takes his new found “wealth” and goes to the rich part of town with the intention of getting his revenge. When he meets spoilt rich girl Sylvia, things take a different path. Meanwhile, Cillian Murphy’s time keeper is on his trail.

This is an enormously discombobulating film. It starts pulling the rug from under you almost immediately when you realise that Wilde is playing Timberlake’s mother. In real life, Wilde is actually three years younger than Timberlake. You keep expecting them to jump each other’s bones at any moment but thankfully this is not a particularly screwed up episode of Hollyoaks. Seyfried’s father is played by Pete Campbell from Mad Men (Vincent Kartheiser). He introduces his wife and she looks younger than Seyfried. It’s unnerving but the way it plays with your perceptions is really quite interesting. That said, it is also problematic because you’re forever trying to figure out who is who and characters going around endlessly telling everyone their real age.

There’s plenty of creative ideas here but In Time fails to capitalise on them. If feels a bit flat to be honest and after a promising start moves into the usual action tosh with a misguided modern day Robin Hood vibe mashed up with a bit of Bonnie and Clyde. The transformation in Timberlake’s character makes no sense. He’s a decent man at the start but turns into a thug overnight. It just doesn’t wash.

It is also all a bit heavy handed. Writer-director Andrew Nichol clearly thinks that he has created something far more profound and thought provoking than it really is. For a film that perceives itself as being intelligent, it doesn’t half think its audience are thick. Every ten minutes or so, someone drives home the inequity of the whole situation by making a sneering comment or, worse, a lengthy speech explaining the ridiculously obvious in excruciating detail. It’s like being beaten about the head with a copy of the Socialist Worker’s Party newspaper.

If I was a young Hollywood actor or actress and I hadn’t been selected to star in In Time, I’d be mighty worried. Director Andrew Nichol has assembled a cast of Tinsel Town’s bright young things for this and, for the most part, they don’t make a show of themselves. Timberlake has previously demonstrated decent comic timing but he proves a pretty decent action star as well. Seyfried forgoes her usual naivety for a more hard edged performance that just about works. Just. Kartheiser plays Pete Campbell and you can’t complain about that. Murphy, who is basically an elder statesman in this cast, gets one of the more interesting characters but not enough screen time. Some of the supporting actors though, well, let’s just say that they. Llke. to. pause. between. sentences.

It is unfortunate that Nichol resorts to action scenes, chases and random killings. He had the makings of a good film here – an interesting one with things to say about class and money – but, like many before him, he succumbs to Hollywood cliché in the end.

Stars: **

Sensation

2011-11-11T12:09:00.001Z

You don’t see too many Irish films about sex. You definitely don’t see that many Irish films which feature young fellas touching themselves inappropriately in a field and booking themselves a hooker. Sensation is not your average Irish film. It is an odd, unnerving film that is brave, repulsive and compelling in equal measure.

Domhnall Gleeson plays Donal, a socially inept, emotionally stunted farmer from Limerick with a serious addiction to Internet pornography. Donal’s most intimate relationship is with his hand. When his father dies, Donal uses his inheritance to book himself a lady of the night. Kiwi call girl Kim (Luanne Gordon) proves very obliging even if Donal’s idea of treating a woman well is to wait until the optimum moment to start verbally abusing her. Over a short time the two become closer and end up in a pseudo-relationship where both believe that they are controlling the other. They go into business providing “company” for lonely farmers before it all goes horribly pear shaped.

Sensation is an interesting film from director Tom Hall but I certainly wouldn’t call it enjoyable. In fact, I felt in need of a shower afterwards. That said, it is well worth a watch if only for the fact that it is one of the frankest Irish films you will ever see. Hall is uncompromising when it comes to the grotty, grubby interplay between Donal and Kim and, indeed, their staff and the clientele.

There is also no denying that there is a river of humour that runs through which is blacker than Miley Cyrus’s soul, but there is something deeply unnerving about it as well. These are difficult characters to get a grip on. Their actions, in almost every instance, are unfathomable; their treatment of each other repulsive. There isn’t a redeemable one amongst them – they are all using each other in the most appalling ways. But that is Hall’s intention. You aren’t supposed to like these people but by the same measure, you aren’t supposed to hate them either. Everyone here is pathetic but this is no hooker with a heart turned good story. Nobody is climbing a fire escape for Kim. It’s an interesting anti-dote to the usual Hollywood guff and yet it ends on a weirdly positive note.

The film wouldn’t work without Gleeson’s performance – his Donal looks deceptively placid but there’s an air of menace about him that eventually starts to manifest itself. He never lets up on the petulance, even as Donal gets what he wants. Gordon should be commended too for a performance that doesn’t pander to the audience.

A well-crafted and acted film which shines a light on a side of Ireland we rarely see on screen.

Stars: ***

Straw Dogs

2011-11-11T12:06:00.001Z

Rod Lurie’s remake of the controversial 1970s psychological thriller doesn’t stray too far from its source material and, as a result, some may find it a little hard to stomach.

James Marsden and Kate Bosworth play married couple and Hollywood C-listers David and Amy. Following her father’s death, they return to her home town of Blackwater, Mississippi, and move into her family home. Ex-boyfriend Charlie (Alex Skarsgard) starts sniffing around immediately and David makes his first mistake by asking him and his mates to rebuild a barn by the house. Once in situ, this crew cannot help but slobber after Amy and, frustrated by David’s lack of action to stop them, she tries her own, rather unique method of confrontation. Soon the couple’s kitty meets a gruesome end and the crew begin to close in with devastating consequences for all involved.

Sam Peckinpah’s original Straw Dogs was a controversial movie thanks to the central scene where Susan George is raped in a highly suspect scene which appeared to suggest that she somehow enjoyed it. The scene was cut when the film was released in the US and in the early 80s it was declared a video nasty by the British and banned. It has since been hailed a classic but, honestly, I’m not a fan.

Lurie takes a broadly similar approach with Straw Dogs but it’s interesting to note that the release of this film has barely caused a whimper. This is not one of those sanitised remakes where the truly rotten stuff is removed and sanitised for modern viewers. If anything this is worse because both rapist and victim are fetishized by the camera as though this were an entirely consensual act. It is very uncomfortable to watch. Sadly, this is actually marginally less offensive than the disgusting rape scene featured in the remake of Last House on the Left last year which is one of the few times that I have actively considered leaving a film and I’ve seen every Adam Sandler film released since 2007.

There’s lots of sexual politics at play here – did Amy bring it on herself with her behaviour or dress; does David blame her; how can he be so impotent when his wife is under threat; why does Charlie’s brazen sexuality threaten him so much – but Lurie never really quite gets his teeth into it. Everything is building to this inevitable scene and there’s not much room for anything else.

A solid but entirely unnecessary remake of a film that is probably far too over-praised anyway.

Stars: ***

Anonymous

2011-10-29T11:47:00.000+01:00

I bet when he was growing up Anonymous director Roland Emmerich’s parents told him that he could be whatever he wanted to be. I wish they had told him the truth and limited his ambitions a bit. The man is good with grand scale disaster but dreadful when it comes to drama.

Like a contestant on The X Factor who you think is pretty good until they hit Big Band week and it turns out that they can’t hold a note unless Mariah Carey bellowed it like a donkey somewhere in the mid-90s, Emmerich is hugely exposed by Anonymous. I’m not saying he’s a fraud as a director. The man made Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow and 2012 – he clearly has a gift for preposterous tales of sudden apocalypse but drama is not his forte. Which wouldn’t be so bad given that Anonymous is so silly it’s a tiny notch above your standard omnibus edition of Hollyoaks, however, you can’t help but feel that Emmerich is taking this very seriously indeed. As it result, it falls flat on its pretentious behind.

Anonymous re-imagines William Shakespeare as a semi-literate actor who takes credit for the work of a secret author. The real “William Shakespeare” is Edward de Vere (Jamie Campbell Bower/Rhys Ifans), Earl of Oxford and former lover of the Queen Elizabeth I (Joely Richardson/Vanessa Redgrave). Because being a writer is on a par with being a prostitute in Elizabethan times, Edward must have his works attributed to another if they are to be staged. He chooses poet Ben Johnson (Sebastian Armesto) but when he balks at the idea, it is the vain and selfish Shakespeare (Rafe Spall) who steps in and steals his thunder. Meanwhile conservative forces plot against the Queen’s rumoured illegitimate son Robert (Sebastian Reid) and his friend Henry (Xavier Samuel). Edward tries to use his writings to help them in their cause but even in his most feverish imaginings, he would never guess what is really going on.

Anonymous suffers on a number of fronts but it is the utterly ludicrous plot – treated with an uncalled for degree of solemnity – that really does for it. It is not just that it is riddled with historical inaccuracies which are obvious even to someone like me whose scant knowledge or the period comes from watching The Tudors – an equally dodgy source. You are asked to believe a whole raft of utterly preposterous things which is fine to a point but the last revelation is the tipping point that opens the film up to ridicule. It will likely make you spit your drink out sitcom style.

There are other problems. The narrative skips back and forth in time for the first hour and is very confused – it takes quite a while to figure out who is who and what they are up to. Spall plays Shakespeare like a buffoon and it feels like he’s stepped in from the set of a slapdash comedy being filmed up the road. The role does not work and you want him off screen the moment he appears. Similarly Armesto is absolutely awful. He plays a pivotal role in Anonymous but seems to have taken his cues from the Joey Tribiani School of Acting by Spitting. Every line is delivered with a vat of spittle that must surely have drowned his co-stars. While there is no denying that a lot of care and attention has gone into the design of some amazing costumes, you wish they’d spent more time reconsidering the decision to make Samuel look like the cowardly lion from The Wizard of Oz. It is most distracting.

And yet, it is not a total disaster. If you can ignore the spitting fool and man with lion’s mane, Anonymous is vaguely watchable and entertaining in a soap opera kind of way. Ifans is really rather good – probably too good for the film that he is in – and Redgrave gives a fine performance delicately hinting at Elizabeth’s senility without overegging the pudding. I doubt that Emmerich can be credited for drawing those performances out given what he lets the rest of the cast get away with. Credit where credit is due though, it looks very good and the final shot over the closing credits is really quite clever.

Even so, it is hard to shake the feeling that this film thinks it is better than it actually is. If you can buy into its farcical story there is something to enjoy here but in future, Emmerich should stick to blowing up the world.

Stars: **

The Help

2011-10-29T11:42:00.000+01:00

This film, based on the best selling book by Kathryn Stockett, is funny, entertaining, moving and enraging all at the same time. It may be a bit cheesy at times but director Tate Taylor has delivered a feel good film that isn’t afraid to challenge its audiences’ prejudices.

Set as the civil rights process is starting to make progress in the US, The Help stars Viola Davis as Aibileen Clark, a middle aged black maid who has spent her life working for and suffering appalling treatment at the hands of white people in Jackson, Mississippi. Suffering following the death of her own son, she diligently turns up for work, if only to stop her mistress beating the daughter of the house. She is approached by local maverick woman Skeeter (Emma Stone) who wants to write a book based on the stories of the maids of Jackson. At first, Aibileen is reluctant but when local racist Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard) starts lobbying to introduce a bill requiring separate toilets for black help, she starts to talk. Then her friend Minny (Octavia Spencer), an outspoken woman not built for a life of deference, starts to open up to. When Medgar Evans is assassinated and tensions begin to run high, the other maids follow and Skeeter finds herself with an explosive read.

It is difficult to watch The Help without feeling a sense of real anger. Taylor does a brilliant job evoking the period and doesn’t shy away from highlight the cruel selfishness of the white folk while also bringing levity to the film with a decent strand of comedy. It is not the laughs that you will remember however, it is the overwhelming sense of injustice that really bites.

It is the cast, however, who really elevate The Help. Davis is truly extraordinary as the stoic but struggling Aibileen. Rage bubbles under the surface as she carries a lifetime of drudgery in her shoulders and weary eyes. It is an incredibly moving and nuanced performance and worth the ticket price alone. She is ably supported by Stone who takes a character that could have been naively perky and gives her a much needed cynical edge. Howard is equally good as the vile Hilly particularly in the latter half when the mask begins to slip. In fact, there isn’t a dud performance among the largely female cast.

It is probably a little long and a sub-plot about Skeeter’s love life - or lack thereof - could easily have been excised but these are minor quibbles. The Help takes you through the full spectrum of emotions and only the hardest of hearts will fail to be moved by it. An unexpected pleasure.

Stars: **** and a half

The Adventures of Tintin - The Secret of the Unicorn

2011-10-29T11:39:00.000+01:00

The world was not crying out for a Tintin film. The insufferably perfect boy journalist who doggedly pursues some dastardly criminals with the help of his dog and a beardy sailor could easily have stayed on the page and the world would have been none the worse. Which is why The Adventures of Tintin is such a pleasant surprise. Directed by Steven Spielberg, this animated film is enormously entertaining and visually stunning.

We launch straight into the action as Tintin (voiced by Jamie Bell) buys a model tall ship at the local market only to find that it is much desired by the rather sinister Ivanovich Sakharine (Daniel Craig). His apartment is broken into and the ship is stolen but when he goes in pursuit of it, a whole can of worms is opened. The mystery will take him across the world as he meets Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis) and battles against Sakharine and his men as they go in search of clues to solve a centuries old puzzle. He does all this aided by his extraordinary dog Snowy who is a cross between a terrier and Skippy the bush kangaroo.

The Adventures of Tintin has some serious pedigree behind it. Spielberg’s reputation for rollicking adventure films is well established. Here he teams up with Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings) who acts as producer but whose Weta Digital is behind the computer adaptation which utilises the same technology used to create Gollum. They are working off a script by Stephen Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish – that’s basically the cream of cool British scriptwriting. Their script is peppered with unexpected jokes that play both to the younger and older audience. The cast are excellent especially Bell who takes a main character who could be enormously bland and gives him a bit of life. Serkis has the easier job with the mostly sozzled Captain Haddock but he does well providing much of the film’s comedy.

It is far and away the most impressive motion capture film yet with an unprecedented level of detail and expression on characters faces. It is visually sumptuous – Spielberg has made the most of his chance to locate the action anywhere he wants – with a section in Morocco proving particularly good. It is fair to say that the script can be a little bit convoluted – it is based on three Tintin stories and Moffat is the man who made Doctor Who impenetrably complicated – but it settles well in the final reel.

Your enjoyment of Tintin will very much depend on your reaction to the title character. If he’s the kind of goody two shoes that you want to punch in the face, it is probably not for you. Otherwise, this is an enormously entertaining film.

Stars: ****

We Need to Talk About Kevin

2011-10-21T15:36:00.001+01:00

It’s a brave person who takes on a book that captured a massive audience and a truly courageous one to tackle a book with a complex narrative structure like We Need To Talk About Kevin’s. British director Lynne Ramsay may not be prodigious – she has made only three feature films in the last 12 years – but she proves more than a match for Lionel Shriver’s much loved novel. Inevitably, some things are lost in translation but the kernel of what made We Need To Talk About Kevin utterly compelling remains.

Tilda Swinton plays Eva, a former celebrated travel writer who has fallen on bad times thanks to the actions of her sociopathic son Kevin (Ezra Miller). She visits him at the local prison on a regular basis but the pair just sit there staring at each other, saying nothing. Her house is covered in red paint by assailants unknown and when she attempts to secure a job at a local travel agents, the other staff all greet her warily. On emergence, she is met by another woman who lashes out and viciously slaps her on the face. Kevin has committed a horrendous crime but it is Eva who is taking the real punishment. Through flashback we learn that it was always thus – ever since he was born, Kevin and Eva have clashed while he manipulated his father Franklin (John C Reilly) and bullied his naïve little sister Celia (Ashley Gerasimovich). She recognises that he’s a bad ‘un from the moment he is born but even as they hurtle toward the inevitable, she is powerless to stop him.

We Need To Talk About Kevin, which is written as a series of letters from Eva to Franklin, was always going to be difficult to adapt for the big screen. It is a complicated structure and Ramsay and co-screenwriter Rory Stewart Kinnear do a decent job taming it but the timelines can be confusing (this is not helped by some of the costume choices which often make Swinton look pregnant when she’s not supposed to be). Prior knowledge of the book definitely gives you a better grasp of what’s happening.

Time constraints also mean that some elements must be sacrificed. In this case, it is Franklin’s wilful ignorance at the train crash that is coming down the road. In the book, his role is explored to much greater effect – it is his indulgence and refusal to accept that there something wrong with his son that really clears the way for Kevin to behave as he does.

Ramsay takes another tack altogether and suggests that Eva and Kevin are more alike that she might like to think. Every now and then their faces interchange as they are plunged into a sink of water. When Eva takes Kevin for a day of crazy golf – a futile attempt at some mother-son bonding – she makes a remark about fat people that even he considers harsh. In the book, it’s a chicken and egg scenario – you wonder if Eva hadn’t been so vehemently opposed to him in the first place, would Kevin have turned out as he did but in the film it’s as though it is a genetic inevitability. As a result, I am not sure if it captures Kevin’s rage as well as it could have.

Swinton is perfectly cast as the cold, imperious but insightful Eva. She is the right mix of hard-jawed determination and vulnerability and, at no point, does she try to make us feel sorry for her. She takes her punishment just as much as Eva does. Swinton will certainly be making shortlists come awards season and deservedly so. Miller is rather chilling as the teenage Kevin who only lets his guard down the once toward the end when adult prison beckons. Until then he is all swagger and the performance works well against Swinton’s. Reilly brings an insipidness to Franklin that suits the character well but it’s a pity the script didn’t find more room to develop the character beyond two dimensions.

Despite its flaws, this is a hugely successful adaptation of a very difficult book. Ramsay is to be applauded for the tenacity with which she tackles the subject matter and for having the guts to play around with it a little bit. A fine achievement.

Stars: ****

Monte Carlo

2011-10-21T15:35:00.001+01:00

What do you get when you mix the stars of Gossip Girl and Glee, a former Home and Away actor and Justin Bieber’s main squeeze? A horrible mess, that’s what. This humourless romantic comedy suffers from a horribly clichéd script that proves utterly inept at exploiting the talents of its young cast.

Selena Gomez plays Grace, a shy waitress who has just graduated from High School and is rewarded with a trip to Paris by her over-indulgent parents. Her sister Emily (Gossip Girl’s Katie Cassidy) is due to chaperone having turned down a marriage proposal from boyfriend Owen (Glee’s Cory Monteith) but snippy step-sister Meg (Gossip Girl’s Leighton Meester) is lumped in a the last minute. The three girls find themselves in the Paris that only exists in American films – the one where the hotel rooms are nothing like the brochure, the food is greasy and disgusting and the people are arrogant and, possibly, smelly. It just stops short of throwing a striped shirt, a string of onions and a twirly moustache on every man who passes.

Anyway, Grace gets mistaken for snooty socialite Cordelia and the three girls inexplicably decide to go along with it, taking a private jet to Monte Carlo and participating in a series of very public social engagements leading up to the auction of a ridiculous necklace in aid of charity. All three girls meet men – Meg is tamed by an Australian backpacker last seen planning a high school massacre in Home and Away - with varying results as the plot hurtles toward its inevitable conclusion.

The first five minutes of Monte Carlo show great potential. This is largely thanks to the fact that Meester initially looks like she’s just nipped in from the set of Gossip Girl and is channelling the spirit of the glorious Blair Waldorf through Meg. A couple of pithy insults later, however, and the script sucks away any bite she had by giving her a tedious dead mother back story. Suddenly she seems pathetic. Blair Waldorf does not do pathetic. Immediately, it stops working.

Even so, Meester runs away with things despite Gomez taking the lead role. Bieber’s main squeeze might do well on Nickelodeon but she is far too lightweight to carry a feature film. That said, she is much more interesting when she is playing Cordelia and you do wish there was more of this than the unbelievably boring Grace.

There’s a cynicism about Monte Carlo that doesn’t sit well. It’s like they created a Venn diagram of all the things that teenage girls like, added a touch of xenophobia and stuck rigidly to a tired formula. It has been focussed grouped into twee oblivion.

Stars: **

Melancholia

2011-10-21T15:34:00.001+01:00

Melancholia comes to us having been tainted by director Lars von Triers ill-advised attention seeking comments about the Nazis at Cannes earlier this year. It is a pity that it was overshadowed by that outburst because Melancholia is the most interesting and successful film that von Triers has delivered since Dogville.

Bride Justine (Kristen Dunst) is attending her wedding reception with husband Michael (Alex Skarsgard) when she finds herself succumbing to an overwhelming sadness. This isn’t helped by the fact that her family including a sour-faced, bitter mother (Charlotte Rampling) and selfish father (John Hurt) are all despicable people. Even her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) who organised the event along with her husband (Kiefer Sutherland) is horrible to her. Justine’s malaise runs deep we learn and by the end of the night her marriage will be no more. The film then takes an entirely different direction as a huge and potentially devastating planet – Melancholia – makes its approach toward Earth and Justine joins Claire and her family at their country house. As danger approaches, fear begins to subtly overwhelm everyone involved. Except Justine - she has quietly accepted her fate.

This is a curious film. On the one hand, it is business as usual for von Triers. How many times is he going to trot out a group of hateful characters and have them claw each other’s eyes out? The man’s misanthropy is well established at this stage and it’s getting very, very dull. The wedding scene here is wholly unbelievable – absolutely nobody would behave the way that Justine’s mother does and if they did, they’d be out on their ear immediately – and, frankly, irritating.

But, then it all changes and it appears that von Triers has been playing a trick on us all. Melancholia is rescued in a big way by its second half. Once the wedding party disappears and we are left with a small family unit coping with the end of their world (quite literally), it becomes riveting. Calling the approaching planet Melancholia is a bit too obvious – we could have guessed that this was all a metaphor for depression without such heavy-handedness – but this second chapter is really well done and beautiful to watch. Throughout, the film is anchored by a rather excellent and brave central performance from Dunst – she isn’t afraid of Justine’s more hateful side – and good support from Gainsbourg.

Almost in spite of himself, Von Triers delivers a massive emotional wallop with Melancholia and the audience is literally left breathless by the experience. It is quite a thing to behold.

Stars: ****

Why Freddie was so ready to play the King*

2011-10-14T11:01:00.000+01:00

It is the incongruous inclusion of airships that shocks most people when watching Paul WS Anderson’s version of The Three Musketeers. Star Freddie Fox was no different and initially had reservations on reading the script.

“I was nervous about the airships when I read the script. Then I came to Bavaria studios, this huge sprawling complex, and I saw Paul’s storyboard for them and they looked so cool that any trace of doubt that I had about them vanished. I don’t think that anyone could call it a staid adaptation and that is what the producers insisted on. They wanted a new version for a new generation to get excited about,” he said.

Fox plays King Louis XIII, a rather slight young man who is more concerned with fashion than politics and who allows himself to be manipulated by Christoph Waltz’s menacing Cardinal Richelieu.

“When I found out it was going to be him that I was acting most of my scenes opposite, I think I slightly passed water a little bit but then got a grip on myself and met him. He is very, very charming but quite quiet and he carries that thing where you can just see something going on in his head all the time. It is perfect film acting. I got to know him very well, we had a lot of dinners together drinking a couple of glasses of German red wine together and got to know each other. By the end, he was just a friend, as opposed to a menacing presence! He is a master,” he said.

While the Three Musketeers is full of fight scenes and spectacular airships, watching Fox teeter around on high heels without missing a beat is equally impressive.

“I did a job when I had just come out of drama school called Worried About The Boy where I played a transvestite called Marilyn in the Boy George scene and I got used to wearing high heels in that. And they were higher and thinner so I found it quite easy but, admittedly, I did not have to do fight scenes. The only bit that was really challenging was mine and Juno’s [Temple (Queen Anne)] dance at the end. That was a nightmare because she had a huge dress on, I had these massive heels and we were just sliding all over the place,” he said.

King Louis is an effete character with an unhealthy interest in fashion and the clothing worn by arch rival the Duke of Buckingham (Orlando Bloom) in particular. The character could easily have descended into camp farce, however, Fox’s version is flamboyant while but over the top.

“It was a conscious decision. I think, in reality and from what I have read, King Louis XIII was a bit of both. He enjoyed pretty people! The fact that he was slightly effete and enjoyed the flamboyance of fashion was that one distinguishing feature but the crux of his story is his love for his wife, his infatuation for her and his desperation to tell her how much he loves her. To give her a bit snog and fall in love but he’s not quite sure how to get there. Like we have all had in those angsty teenage years,” he said.

Although this is his first major film, Fox has always seemed destined for the big screen. His father Edward and mother Joanna are both well known actors and his sister Emilia stars in the BBC’s Silent Witness. It was almost inevitable that he would follow in their footsteps.

“People say it is in your blood and I buy that to a certain extent. In fact, I buy it more after I saw my sister do Who Do You Think You Are? which showed that our line of actors goes back even further than my father’s generation. It goes back hundreds of years. Maybe there is something in that. I definitely didn’t, when I was a tender youth, think I would be an actor. I thought I would be a fisherman or something like that - something romantic. Then I got very interested in being on set behind the camera and, gradually, I couldn’t resist being in front of the camera and that is what stuck,” he said.

His ascent has been rapid. Immediately on leaving drama school he appeared in Worried About the Boy and followed that up with a number of well respected television shows including Any Human Heart and The Shadow Line. He also won acclaim for several theatre roles. The Three Musketeers is his first big scale Hollywood production, however, the call of the stage remains strong.

“For an actor who wants to act in lots of great parts like I do, the stage is always something that will be a part of my life and I will always go back to it. I enjoy it and it gives you another kind of kick that you don’t get making a movie. You get to investigate a part in so much more depth than when you are making a movie. I love it and I would hope that I will always go back to it,” he said.

*I don't come up with the headlines!

Mean Curls

2011-10-14T10:59:00.000+01:00

“We have a bit of a block about Irish cinema,” says Colm Meaney, star of new local film Parked, “The Irish cinema going audience tend to think that if it is Irish, it cannot be any good but hopefully films like The Guard have dispelled that notion. A home made picture like Parked can be compelling, interesting, funny and entertaining and all those things that any other picture can be and hopefully Irish audiences will go to see it in the cinema”.

Parked, directed by first timer Darragh Byrne from a script by playwright Ciaran Creagh, stars Meaney as Fred, a returned emigrant who finds himself homeless and living in his car when the State refuses to provide assistance. He reluctantly befriends a heroin addict (Colin Morgan) who forces him out of his comfort zone and helps him to get his life going again. It is a low key film but well worth seeking out for Meaney and Morgan’s performances alone and has already won praise on the festival circuit.

“It is a funny, moving film – you will laugh and cry and there are not many films that can say that and certainly not many blockbusters,” he says.

Meaney is, perhaps, best known on these shores for his larger than life performances in films like The Snapper, The Commitments and Intermission. Parked introduces a whole new side to the Dublin born actor.

“The character was very different from a lot the stuff that I had done in the past and I realised that it would have to be a subdued and internal kind of performance. Fred is lost a bit. He’s possibly a bit compulsive in his behaviour in that he gets obsessive about little things in his life and because of that fails to see the bigger picture and fails to operate in a socially competent way. I don’t think that he is mentally disturbed or anything like that but he is sort of on the borderline. He is an incredibly shy, quiet, retiring kind of man and he is a gentle smart man in other ways as well. He sees the humour in things and he has found himself in this position where he doesn’t know how to get out of it,” he says.

Next up is television series Hell on Wheels, a post-Civil War western where Meaney plays a businessman hoping to make his fortune with the railroad. The ten episode show starts airing on AMC – home to Mad Men and Breaking Bad – in November. Meaney is, of course, no stranger to television having starred as Chief Petty Officer Miles O’Brien for 13 years in Star Trek: the Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

“I was very happy to do it was because it was a cable show. I have turned down a few network shows because you do 22 to 25 episodes a season and you are looking at nine months a year. With a cable show, the maximum would be 13 so we shot these episodes between mid May and August which is much more manageable. Invariably, these shows don’t shoot in Los Angeles so you can’t be at home there, they shoot in somewhere like Vancouver or Toronto or Michigan so you have to move there which really complicates things,” says Meaney.

He has also moved behind the scenes, bringing his first film to production last year with Spanish-English language film The Perfect Stranger.

“I play the stranger who comes to town and doesn’t speak much Spanish. A young local director in Majorca, where we spend most of our time, showed me a bunch of short films he had made. He had won a couple of Goyas [the Spanish Oscars] for them and he showed me the script, I read it and liked it and said that we would do it. It took us almost three years to raise the money for it and we finally did. We shot it last year and I am very pleased with it,” he says.

Unlike many actors, Meaney has no desire to sit in the director’s chair but he is willing to put in the hard yards if it means that he can get a project to the screen.

“People always expect actors to want to direct. I have no inclination to do it and I think there are far too many good directors out there who don’t work enough, to be honest, for me to be muddying the water but I can certainly help get things made or develop things. I have been around long enough and in enough different contexts and situations to know a bit about the business and be able to introduce things,” he says.

Parked opens in cinemas nationwide on Friday, October 14.

The Three Musketeers 3D

2011-10-14T10:55:00.001+01:00

It is customary when a Paul WS Anderson film comes out to sharpen knives and prepare to eviscerate all before you. This is the man who made DOA: Dead or Alive, Alien vs. Predator and approximately 4,000 Resident Evil films. He is to film what Idi Amin was to human rights.

Naturally, the idea of Anderson making a big budget adaptation of The Three Musketeers fills any right thinking individual with sheer horror, not helped by trailers which revealed the inclusion of giant airships. Airships, people, in 17th century France. Preposterous. Poison pen was very much in hand when approaching this one but disappointingly the vitriol is tempered somewhat by the fact that despite his best efforts Anderson has delivered an entertaining, if incredibly slight, film. It certainly won’t change the world but it is by no means the embarrassment that it ought to be.

Adapted from Alexander Dumas’ book, writers Andrew Davies and Alex Litvak have taken the basics of that original story and added some, let’s call them flourishes. Logan Lerman plays D’Artagnan, a courageous if moronic country boy who leaves the family farm to venture into the city and make his fortune. On arrival, he has three separate encounters with musketeers Athos (Matthew Mac Fadyen), Porthos (Ray Stevenson) and Aramis (Luke Evans), challenging each to a fight. When the four men are forced to work together to fight the forces of the maniacal arch-manipulator Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz), D’Argtanan becomes one of the gang. They are called into action when Richelieu and mercenary spy Milady de Winter (Milla Jovovich) try to frame the Queen (Juno Temple) by stealing her jewels and planting them with Orlando Bloom’s rakish Duke of Buckingham. If they don’t get those jewels back in time, the Queen will be at the mercy of Richelieu and dumb but easily lead King Louis XIII (Freddie Fox).

There’s been quite a lot of moaning about Anderson’s rather unique approach to Dumas’ original text. Sure, the bare bones of the story are there but at no point did Dumas even dream of including floating battleships in his adventure. What harm though? There have been 22 film adaptations of The Three Musketeers, including this one, not to mention television series and animated versions. It’s fair to say that the world is not crying out for a faithful adaptation of a book that has been done to death. Hell, my knowledge of The Three Musketeers begins and ends with classic 80s children’s television staple Dogtanion (“All for one and one for all, muskerhounds are always ready…” – you’ll thank me for that earworm one day) and I’m not complaining. This is pitched as a knock about swashbuckler and shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

Judged by that measure, The Three Musketeers is nothing very spectacular but it is undeniably entertaining. The fight scenes are well executed though strangely bloodless despite numerous people kicking the bucket. There’s a streak of comedy that runs throughout the script and, unusually for a film of this nature, some of it works. Jovovich dominates proceedings (whether that has anything to do with the fact that Anderson is her husband is up for debate) and she does a decent job as the conniving Milady. She is actually sorely missed when she disappears from the screen about two thirds of the way through. MacFadyen, Stevenson and Evans are good fun together but they take a backseat to Jovovich and Lerman. The latter is woefully miscast and the film’s weakest link – he looks like he’s stepped in from a 90210 fancy dress party. Waltz does his usual deliciously evil and menacing performance with Richelieu but you wish they’d given him a bit more screen time to do his thing.

As with a lot of Hollywood blockbusters trying to squeeze as much money out of the audience as possible, The Three Musketeers is being presented in 3D. As with all of those blockbusters, it need not be. The 3D adds nothing to the experience – there are a few moments where they try to make use of it but, believe me, you can easily live without them. Save yourself a couple of quid and go to the 2D version.

Approach with the right mind set and this will serve you well. It is a stupidly silly film, but enjoyable enough.

Stars: ***

Dolphin Tale

2011-10-14T10:54:00.001+01:00

“Inspired by a true story” – apart from “starring Adam Sandler” is there a more terrifying phrase in the film lexicon? It conjures up memories of boring Sunday afternoons spent watching tedious Disney movies about plucky young kids/animals/precocious teenagers who dare to dream the impossible dream and, instead of wasting their time playing computer games, go out and make it happen. I despised those kids/animals with every fibre of my being.

Dolphin Tale is not a Disney movie but it is inspired by a true story about a dolphin who defies the odds and survives with the help of a completely fabricated plucky child. If that hasn’t given you the heebee jeebees already, read on.

Nathan Gamble plays 11 year old Sawyer Nelson, an academically challenged boy who stumbles across a bottlenose dolphin lying on the beach caught in a crab trap. Having helped to release her, he starts to sneak into the local Marine hospital to check on her progress. Despite the reservations of vet Clay (Harry Connick Jr.), Sawyer becomes an integral part of the team looking after the dolphin, now christened Winter. When they are left with no choice but to amputate Winter’s tail, things look bleak. However, inspired by his soldier cousin Kyle’s amputated hand, Sawyer badgers Morgan Freeman’s doctor into designing a prosthetic tail for Winter.

There will be no prizes for guessing what happens to Winter. Dolphin Tale follows a tried and tested formula to the letter and delivers accordingly. If that kind of thing is your bag, knock yourself out. For what it’s worth, this can be incredible dull at times and drags considerably in the middle. This is mainly due to the script which massively misses a trick by focussing in on Sawyer’s relationship with Winter. It might be cute but it doesn’t have heart. They would have been far better off expanding on Kyle’s story – he’s a champion swimmer who struggles to cope with his disability – and incorporating more from the disabled kids who were inspired by Winter’s story. Footage of amputees visiting Winter carried over the closing credits gives you a real sense of her true impact but for some reason they don’t capitalise on this in the script. The cast does a decent enough job – Gamble is not the pain in the ass that a lot of child actors can be - though Connick Jr.’s attempt at tough but fair Clay falls a bit short.

This needs serious tweaking. The guts of a very good story are there but, unfortunately, the ambition is not.

Stars: **

Parked

2011-10-14T10:52:00.001+01:00

This low-key drama from first time director Darragh Byrne walks a fine line between moving and sentimental but pulls it off thanks to two great performances from its leading men.

Fred (Colm Meaney) is down on his luck having returned home from years of working and living in England to find that he has nowhere to go. The State is unwilling to help because he is caught in the no-man’s land of “no fixed abode” so he is forced to take a berth at a park overlooking the beach and live in his car. There he meets the similarly homeless Cathal (Colin Morgan), an encroaching young heroin addict with a very positive attitude on life despite his personal issues. Befriending the shy Fred, Cathal gradually helps the older man to come out of his shell and get his life back on track. However, Cathal has his own problems, chiefly a drug dealer (Michael McElhatton) who is menacing him for money. It is a problem that Fred, inevitably, gets dragged into.

Understated. That’s the perfect word to describe Parked. Beautifully understated. Byrne has taken a well-written script by Ciaran Creagh and fashioned a touching drama that stays on the right side of melodrama and looks far better than its meagre budget permits. Creagh’s script does a nice job of avoiding the obvious while highlighting the absurdity of Fred and Cathal’s situation. Anyone who has ever encountered the galling bureaucracy of the Irish social welfare system will recognise Fred’s frustration at being all but abandoned by the State. It feels much more raw, too, given what the country is going through right now. That said, the anti-drugs message might be a worthy one but it is a bit heavy handed in the final reel – as though Creagh realised half way through that he had created a likeable drug addict and that some balance was needed.

Byrne deserves great credit for drawing excellent performances out of his core cast. Meaney is best known for playing larger than life characters so it is refreshing to see him given the chance to do something more reserved and contemplative. It is an assured performance that avoids stereotypical homeless man shorthand. Morgan, too, does a good job with the nervy and energetic Colin. The two men’s performances complement each other beautifully.

Small in scale it may be but Parked punches far above its weight. Irish audiences should do the decent thing and give it a chance.

Stars: ****

Perfect Sense

2011-10-07T17:03:00.000+01:00

The apocalypse, when it comes, will be no surprise to anyone who has access to a cinema. Since the success of 28 Days Later, in particular, we have had a succession of post-apocalyptic horrors and dramas, all taking the same formula and tweaking it slightly by adding crazy monkeys or a zombie population. The results are almost always the same. Coming up with something fresh and original is a tall order in a genre that has been done to death but Perfect Sense makes a good fist of it with a low key and special effects free epidemic that slowly overwhelms the world. What it lacks, however, is logic and it fails a little as a result.

Ewan McGregor plays Michael, a cold, unemotional chef who scores with women and then throws them out of bed so he can sleep. Susan (Eva Green) is a scientist searching for a boyfriend who won’t turn out to be an asshole. They first meet as an epidemic starts to sweep the world causing people to weep uncontrollably before permanently losing their sense of smell. They commence their relationship after one of them succumbs to the disease while they flirt over food and as the world begins to lose its senses, one after another, they fall in love. Chaos ensues, however, as people panic and their relationship comes under severe strain.

This is a strange little movie that works for the most part but does not capitalise on the original concept. McKenzie’s sparse direction and two fine leading performances give it a leg up but some of the ideas definitely work better than others. When hearing goes, the soundtrack goes silent in parts. It makes sense and contributes to the feeling of panic that subtly creeps up on you as the film goes on. Earlier, though, when everyone loses their sense of taste, the moment is preceded by a ludicrous sequence where the entire world becomes ravenous at the exact same moment and eats anything and everything in sight. This includes lipstick and clothing, which is bad enough, but McKenzie can’t help stepping into oblivion by having one character retrieve a live rabbit for off-screen consumption. If the aim was to repulse, he succeeds but it feels cheap and tawdry and out of kilter with the measured tone taken elsewhere. Indeed, it is at this point, and it is fairly early on, that McKenzie begins to lose the audience and he has to work hard to get people back on track.

That said, Perfect Sense nicely avoids the usual clichés by studiously ignoring the search for a reason or cure for the disease in favour of concentrating on the central relationship. Don’t go looking for answers here, because you won’t get them.

Stars: ***

Don't Be Afraid of The Dark

2011-10-07T17:02:00.001+01:00

An atmospheric chiller based on a little known 70s horror, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark preys on your deepest fears but fails to really provoke them.

The film gets off to a great start with a super creepy gothic sequence featuring a mad, toothless man, an unwitting maid, a chisel and a dark and dank basement. The mad man does something terrible in a desperate attempt to retrieve his son who appears to have been kidnapped by some eerie voiced people. It’s grim, very grim and sets the audience nicely on edge.

Unfortunately, all that good work goes to waste as we are whisked off to the present day where architect Alex (Guy Pearce) is renovating the house above this basement with the help of his interior designer girl friend Kim (Katie Holmes). In the midst of all this, Alex’s daughter Sally (Bailee Madison) comes to stay – on a permanent basis but she only suspects as much – and, initially, she and Kim do not hit it off. However, when the creatures that live below the stairs escape the basement and make a beeline for Sally, it is Kim who believes the little girl and makes moves to rescue her. While Alex chooses to ignore his child’s distress, the danger grows and not everyone will survive.

First time feature director Troy Nixey does a good job creating a foreboding atmosphere throughout Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. He is helped considerably by the excellent soundtrack and a nicely chosen setting. However, the script is riddled with plot holes (we are supposed to believe that an architect undertaking a massive restoration project has no idea that there’s a huge basement underneath the building, for starters) and the film loses the run of itself as it hurtles toward the inevitable conclusion.

You can forgive the odd incongruous plot point here and there though if the scares are genuine but, unfortunately, while Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is creepy and unnerving in parts, it is not frightening by any measure. It quite literally loses its bite from the moment that the little beasties attacking Sally get their full reveal. Although they are gruesome looking to a degree, they aren’t a million miles away from a Gremlin and you react accordingly. They’re a little bit troublesome but by no means the terrifying monsters that Nixey wants you to think they are. This reveal happens far too early in proceedings and you can’t really take the threat that they pose very seriously.

It is, unfortunately, trying to be more than the sum of its parts. And by that I mean, that it’s aiming for Pan’s Labyrinth – no surprise given that it’s written and produced by that film’s director Guillermo del Toro – but it ends up somewhere between the Amityville Horror remake and Coraline. Indeed, it occurred to me while watching that a few tweaks here and there and this would have made an excellent horror story for older kids. As it is, that opening sequence and other acts of violence throughout earned this a 16 rating and it loses the audience that might have served it best.

Of the cast, Madison has the most to do and having been a pain in the ass in Just Go With It, she does a much better job here. Sally is frightened but resilient and Madison pitches this well. Pearce on the other hand goes woefully wrong in parts. This is partially not his fault – the script calls on his character to act in a way which is entirely counter intuitive. This is another valiant attempt by Holmes at rescuing her career after negative reaction to her marriage to Tom Cruise sent it down the swanny. To be fair, her performance in Batman Returns didn’t help either. She seems to have matured as an actress, however, with all the hair twisting and lip biting that defined Joey Potter in Dawson’s Creek gone out the window. Still, it’s hard to take her seriously given the firestorm around her home life.

Overall, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is a perfectly serviceable horror that had the makings of something much better but fails to capitalise on that. You know that something had gone awry when the horror you have slaved over turns out to be less frightening than the private life of your star.

Stars: ***

Treacle Jr

2011-10-07T17:02:00.000+01:00

Very little happens in this low key but affecting drama about a man over the edge rescued by his friendship with an unrelentingly positive ingénue.

With a wife and baby boy at home, Tom (Tom Fisher) decides one day that he’s not going home. He dispenses with his phone and credit cards and starts to sleep rough. After he’s attacked by some menacing hooded youth, he winds up in A&E. There, he is befriended by Aidan (Aidan Gillan), a disarming and unshakable man with learning disabilities and a lack of boundaries, who almost forces his way into Tom’s life. Aidan is a short of modern day Pollyanna – he’s a ball of positive energy that still smiles even as he’s on the receiving end of a beating. He lives with the horrible Linda (Riann Steele), an aggressive woman who treats him very poorly indeed.

Treacle Jr is a cracking little film but it is Gillen’s performance that really sticks in the mind. It is a quite extraordinary thing to behold, brilliantly energetic and engaging, it is the kind of confident and fearless performance that Gillen has consistently delivered throughout his career. It is, however, quite a Marmite effort – you are either going to love it or despise it with every fibre of your being. Enter with an open mind, however, and you will be rewarded. Fisher has the more difficult task. Tom is fairly dour compared to Aidan and there’s not much of an attempt to address why he has abandoned his family. However, his quiet approach is a good compliment to Gillen’s out there performance.

Director Jamie Thraves apparently remortgaged the house to make Treacle Jr. Luckily, that money did not go to waste. Treacle Jr is a nice observational piece about two people with very different approaches to life inexplicably drawn together who both benefit from the experience. He hasn’t made the prettiest film you will ever see – the budget and council flat setting make sure of that – but it is well paced, scripted and acted. As labours of love go, he has done a fine job.

Stars: ****

Red State

2011-09-30T17:20:00.000+01:00

The king of juvenile smut and salty language, Kevin Smith, makes a valiant attempt to break out of his comfort zone with Red State but proves inadequate to the task. What he delivers is a film of two very distinct halves. The first is a wicked dissection of the insanity of inbred America’s fundamentalist Christian communities and their fixation with sodomy, the second is an increasingly ridiculous take on overenthusiastic law enforcement post-9/11. He quite literally loses the plot.

To be fair to Smith, he’s not afraid of a fight. Red State takes aim at the activities of Fred Phelp’s Westboro Baptist Church – the homophobic nutjobs who protest outside the funerals of dead soldiers and think that every natural or manmade disaster in the world is punishment from on high for countries who take a moderately liberal attitude to basic human rights. The church at the centre of Red State is headed up by Michael Parks’ charismatic preacher, Abin, and is more akin to a militia than your average happy-clappy Christian group singing Kumbaya and handing out soup. Abin has whipped his insane followers into such a frenzy that they see nothing wrong with the kidnap and murder of members of the local gay community.

Red State starts with three high school students who unwittingly fall into Parks’ trap when they go online to arrange a group liaison with Melissa Leo’s trailer trash mom. Having lured them to her caravan in the sticks, she drugs the three lads and they wake up constrained by cellophane and lined up for sacrifice at the church altar. Meanwhile, Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms special agent Keenan (John Goodman) is ordered to stage a raid on the church’s compound. This very quickly gets out of hand and he finds himself dealing with a Waco-style siege.

Fans of Smith’s previous work may be baffled by this quasi-horror which is about as far away from Clerks as you can get. Having established his career with a series of increasingly provocative but puerile films – climaxing, as it were, with a donkey sex show – Smith has shown that he’s not afraid to tackle taboo subjects. Indeed, he has taken on religion before in Dogma but that was a very different movie to Red State. Although there are nods to the juvenile humour that made him famous, this is a far more ambitious and serious undertaking. He his to be applauded for trying to do something completely different – especially after the disaster that was his last effort, Cop Out – but he lacks the focus required to deliver a cohesive film. There is the kernel of a very good idea here and the first half an hour is a well written critique of fundamentalism but when Goodman and his ATF agents appear on scene it goes to hell.

He draws out some very good performances from the majority of his cast. Parks is a revelation - his every moment on screen is mesmerising. The three lads who foolishly try to hook up with Leo – Michael Angarano, Kyle Gallner and Nicholas Braun – set the film up nicely delivering some quintessential Smith dialogue. Leo, on the other hand, is way over the top, all mad eyes and steely jawed when the siege kicks into gear and Goodman isn’t much better particularly in one scene where he discusses the ethics of a shoot to kill policy with a lesser minion. (The ineptitude of that scene is emphasised later on when that minion, who is arguing for restraint, goes and does the complete opposite with no apparent justification.) It doesn’t help that much of Goodman’s dialogue involves taking orders from an unheard commander over the phone meaning that he is effectively talking to himself. It is an interesting idea that loses its appeal very quickly and leaves Goodman far too exposed.

To be fair to Smith, this is a film that’s designed to provoke reaction and he certainly succeeds in that aim. And anyone who has the balls to take on the morons in the Westboro Baptist Church deserves applause. It is just unfortunate that he couldn’t capitalise on the film’s early promise.

Stars: **

The Debt

2011-09-30T17:18:00.000+01:00

Sometimes, you get to the end of a film and you find yourself rolling your eyes. The Debt is one such film. Having started out well and maintained a steady pace throughout, it goes wildly off the rails in the last reel and is, ultimately, ruined by one of the most ill-conceived conclusions you are likely to see in a film this year.

Helen Mirren plays former Mossad agent Rachel, who along with ex-husband Stefan (Tom Wilkinson) and former colleague David (Ciaran Hinds), is lauded in her native Israel for her role in taking down an infamous Nazi doctor who carried out terrible experiments on Jews in concentration camps. When David returns after a long absence and her daughter releases a book about the mission, Rachel casts her mind back to what happened in Berlin in the mid-60s. The trio – played by the ubiquitous Jessica Chastain, Marton Csokas and the man with the immovable face Sam Worthington - carried out the mission at great risk but all is not as it first appears.

This espionage thriller niftily navigates a complicated narrative structure that sees it skip back and forth in time while continually driving the story forward. It is a difficult juggling act for director John Madden but he manages to pull it off well enough. The 60s section is particularly well crafted and, despite Worthington’s best efforts to kill it with his stony face, establishes an emotional connection with the characters that is largely absent from the modern day scenario. Chastain is everywhere at the moment – she’s basically this year’s Jude Law – and you can see why here. Her honest performance anchors the film and perfectly complements Mirren’s take on Rachel. The cast does a tremendous job, as a whole.

Which is why it is so frustrating that you sit through more than 90 minutes of relatively decent stuff only to have it ruined by a final few minutes that are, frankly, an embarrassment to everyone involved. You could forgive this if The Debt was delivered with even a modicum of tongue-in-cheek but it takes itself very seriously. It is far too po-faced for an espionage thriller and given where it ends up, it has no business keeping such a straight face.

Stars: ***

Arrietty

2011-09-30T17:17:00.000+01:00

A beautifully drawn interpretation of childhood classic The Borrowers, Arrietty is an utterly charming film that will please adults and kids alike.

When Sho (voiced by Tom Holland) is sent to the country to rest before a life-saving heart operation, he finds himself largely left to his own devices by his aunt (Phyllida Law) and her nasty housekeeper Haru (Geraldine McEwan). They are not alone, however, with a family of little people living under the floorboards and venturing out every night to “borrow” from the human beings. When Sho spots 14 year old borrower Arrietty (Saoirse Ronan), the game is up and her parents Pod (Mark Strong) and Homily (Olivia Colman) make plans to move from their comfortable home to somewhere safer. In the meantime, however, Sho and Arrietty strike up a friendship with the sick boy finding comfort in having company and working with her to fight back when Haru calls in Rent-o-Kill.

Arrietty comes to us from the same studio that brought us Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle so, as you might expect, it is stunningly beautiful to look at. There are no bells and whistles here, it is straight forward traditional hand drawn animation but the screen in saturated with colour and each frame is a feast for the eyes. This is all accompanied by a score that’s just lovely to listen to. The voice cast are, for the most part, very good with Ronan doing a good job conveying Arrietty’s infectious enthusiasm. Strong, however, is a little too stiff as her father in a performance that doesn’t quite gel with his dialogue.

It is the simplicity of its story that really makes Arrietty, however. Some might find that a little frustrating – while the family are in trouble, you never really get the sense that something really dangerous is afoot – but I found it totally beguiling. They subtly draw you in so that you genuinely care for this family. For anyone who endured the codswallop that was Cars 2, the simplicity of Arrietty should prove a welcome antidote.

Cheerful and entertaining, this is an elegant, beautiful film is well worth seeing.

Stars: *** and a half

Crazy, Stupid, Love

2011-09-23T16:52:00.002+01:00

The romantic comedy is a difficult beast. Firmly wedded to cliché, it is a genre that rarely feels even remotely fresh or original. Every couple of years, however, someone in Hollywood drinks a little too much Jesus juice and has an original thought. And then the focus groups get involved and they tack on a well telegraphed ending. Crazy, Stupid, Love - with its crazy, stupid, punctuation – is the product of that first thought. A little bit cynical and a tiny bit sweet but, yes, a touch too climax-by-marketing, Crazy, Stupid, Love is a witty and astute take on the intoxication of love.

Steve Carrell and Julianne Moore play bored married couple Cal and Emily. Over dessert on date night, she announces that she wants a divorce. With no reaction from Cal, she goes further and admits that she’s had an affair with a work colleague (Kevin Bacon) in the drive home. He promptly jumps out of the moving car. Having quietly accepted his fate, Cal leaves the wife and kids for a tiny apartment and starts spending lots of time sitting at the bar telling all and sundry about his trampy wife. Sick of overhearing the same story endlessly, womaniser Jacob (Ryan Gosling) takes Cal under his wing and transforms his wardrobe, his hair and his personality. Cal starts to get lucky while his wife tries to figure out what she wants. Meanwhile, Jacob meets Hannah (Emma Stone), a smart, sassy lawyer who isn’t impressed by his moves but may be the woman to tame him.

While Crazy, Stupid, Love does eventually fall prey to the usual romantic comedy tropes, for about 90 per cent of the time it is a clever film that beautifully balances the horribly sceptical with the heart-warmingly sweet. Dan Fogelman’s insightful and sharp script is tightly co-directed by Glenn Ficara and John Requa so that even as it starts to stray into well worn territory, they manage to pull things back from the saccharine brink.

The cast are uniformly excellent. That’s no surprise for Carrell who plays this kind of beleaguered everyman in most of his films but, to be fair, he is terribly good at it. Moore has the difficult task of taking a character who should be hateful and forcing you to empathise with her situation. Emily isn’t a bitch, she’s just confused and Moore pitches that perfectly. Gosling is a real revelation though. Better known for playing tortured men, he demonstrates a great ear for a good line, bounces off Carrell really well and totally dominates proceedings when he’s onscreen.

And Emma Stone is in it. Emma Stone! Show me the man or woman who doesn’t love Emma Stone and I’ll show you an eejit. She’s Lindsay Lohan sans the messy private life and suspect work ethic. After making a major splash with Easy A last year and following up with Crazy, Stupid, Love and The Help, Stone’s presence on the A-list seems both assured and deserved. She and Gosling have great chemistry – the scene where Jacob and Hannah really get to know each other feels totally natural. It is Jonah Bobo, however, as Cal and Emily’s earnest, lovesick son who gives the film real heart.

Unfortunately, Fogleman cannot help but lob on an irritatingly obvious climax which would be more at home in a film starring Katharine Heigl and feels at odds with the intelligent, considered movie that has preceded it. Had he had the cojones to follow through on the film’s earlier promise, he would have delivered something genuinely creative.

Even so, it is hard not to fall for Crazy, Stupid, Love. What doubts you might have are dispelled by a cast on great form and if you don't leaving the cinema with your heart lifted a bit, you are a harder man than I.

Stars: ****

Drive

2011-09-23T16:50:00.004+01:00

A beautifully paced and hyper-stylised thriller Drive is, without doubt, the coolest film of the year.

Ryan Gosling plays Driver, a car mechanic who does a bit of stunt work and get-away driving on the side. He is entirely anonymous (we never learn his name) and operates on a need to know basis – while he is an accomplished driver, his real skill is the ability to calmly assess a situation and establish an exit strategy. This comes in handy when he gets mixed up with his neighbour and potential love interest Irene. When her husband (Oscar Isaac) is released from jail in debt to his protectors, Driver agrees to help him pull off a heist along with a random woman called Blanche (Christina Hendricks). Things go very wrong and Driver finds himself dealing with cruel mob boss Nino (Ron Perlman).

That Drive is stylishly done cannot be denied. There is, however, substance behind that style. Anything else and it would have ended up looking like a particularly expensive edition of Grand Theft Auto. While the pace is incredibly slow, director Nicholas Winding Refn maximizes the potential of every minute wisely – even if that’s something as simple silencing the soundtrack at key moments – and slowly builds to a bone crunching final third that has to be seen to be believed. Sometimes directors are given too much credit but Drive is all about Refn and his ability to carefully develop the sparse script into a gripping, taut thriller.

Gosling, near mute for much of the film, delivers a beautifully understated performance that brings humanity to a character that has the potential to turn cartoonish at times. He exudes an uncontrived coolness that you very rarely see these days and cleverly only hints at the menace to come. You can understand why Mulligan - a woman who is clearly drawn to the bad boys - finds him alluring. They make for an attractive couple but their chemistry is questionable.

This is partly due to the film's great failing - it falls into the same trap as many of its contemporaries by paying scant attention to its female characters. All two of them. Mulligan teeters between touchingly vulnerable and insipid – it’s a delicate balancing act and she just about gets away with it. Hendricks is particularly lost in a brief and thankless role.

A word of warning for the squeamish too: while they are relatively few in number, the violent scenes are exceptionally gruesome and grow ever more disturbing as the film progresses. In truth, the uncompromising ferocity of the violence may be off-putting for some but forewarned is forearmed. Don’t let that put you off though – this is a fine piece of film-making that deserves an audience.

Stars: ****

Soul Surfer

2011-09-23T16:47:00.002+01:00

Soul Surfer is a great story of triumph over adversity but it is far too heavily in thrall to its Christian message and will be an uncomfortable watch for some.

Bethany Hamilton (AnnaSophie Robb) is a promising surfer living an ideal life in Hawaii being home schooled by her mother Cheri (Helen Hunt) leaving time for plenty of surfing guided by her father Tom (Denis Quaid). One day while surfing with some friends at a quiet beach, a shark attacks Bethany biting her arm clean off. Adrenaline kicks in and Bethany directs her own rescue with a calmness that ultimately saves her life. Having survived, Bethany starts to rebuild her life and re-trains herself to become a champion surfer despite losing that arm.

Hamilton's story is certainly inspiring and real footage over the closing credits proves that they haven't embellished too much, but it's hard to know if Irish audiences will be able to stomach the proselytizing. Watching Soul Surfer is a little like being beaten over the head with a heavy bible while getting a kick up the arse from the local Baptist minister. I was half expecting Monica from Touched by an Angel to pop up at some point to say "God loves you and he wants you to be happy". Given that the whole of Ireland laughed en-masse when Britney Spears effusively thanked God for his hand in getting her a couple of MTV European Music Awards - he fitted it in between arranging tsunamis and famines - it seems probable that Soul Surfer's God-bothering will not play well here.

Fresh faced Robb is well cast as Hamilton – she brings an innocent determination to the role and does a good job conveying the fear and doubt that must have consumed the surfer post attack. Quaid slips into the role of cool surfing dad very naturally – one suspects it wasn’t much of a stretch – and where film really works is in the relationship between Bethany and Tom.

Helen Hunt - the world's most brittle woman - seems a curious choice to play a surfer chick mom. I'd have pegged her for a croquet fan. American Idol winner Carrie Underwood makes her film debut as a preacher so sickeningly saccharine that dentures may be required for the Soul Surfer audience further down the line.

Soul Surfer lacks subtlety and nuance but, to be fair, it has no pretensions to greatness. It tells an inspiring story well enough. It’s just a real shame that it comes with a belt from the crozier.

Stars: **

30 Minutes or Less

2011-09-16T12:22:00.000+01:00

Jesse Eisenberg treads water in this underwhelming attempt at a heist comedy. A shame really because 30 Minutes or Less has all the ingredients to make an excellent movie but, while it is moderately entertaining, it just falls short.

Eisenberg plays slacker pizza boy Nick whose only real ambition in life is to make sure that he delivers within the 30 minute window lest he end up having to pay for pies himself. The rest of the time he just watches terrible action films or plays X-Box with his flatmate and childhood friend Chet (Aziz Ansari). Across town, another feckless slacker called Dwayne (Danny McBride) is working out his rich Daddy issues with his best mate Travis (Nick Swardson) by blowing stuff up and going to strip clubs. When kindly stripper Juicy (Bianca Kajlich) suggests that he can gets his hands on Daddy’s money by having him killed for just $100,000, Dwayne decides to rob a bank. Not one to do things that involve personal effort though, he comes up with a plan to use a patsy to do the dirty work. Together with Travis, he orders a pizza and kidnaps Nick, straps a bomb to his body and forces him to carry out the bank robbery. Enlisting Chet’s help, Nick sets about doing just that.

30 Minutes or Less has great potential but it is too busy trying to be all things to all men to really excel at one. It’s trying to be a smart, funny Zombieland-like comedy but at the same time it’s an in your face assault on political correctness. They don’t mesh together particularly well so you are left with half measures of each and it just doesn’t work. There are some undeniably amusing moments – the bank heist itself is brilliantly done and feels very fresh and original – and it is hard to put your finger on what’s gone wrong with it but ultimately 30 Minutes or Less fails to match the sum of its parts.

It doesn’t help, of course, that it is riddled with gaping plot holes. At one point a character is shot and we never hear from them again – they aren’t actually dead as far as we can tell but no effort is made to follow up. While Nick’s decision not to go to the police is understandable at first, it becomes less so as things go on. Why, for instance, doesn’t he go into the bank and explain that he is being forced to rob it rather than suit up with a balaclava and start shouting at people? How is it that he and Chet roam freely around town when the police have clearly seen their faces? Why doesn’t Dwayne just drown his father in the pool? That would have circumvented all of this nonsense.

This is no challenge for Eisenberg - he has played this role a couple of times before – and it does slightly feel like he phones it in on this one. Nick is a horrible person and feel zero sympathy for him which is a major problem because you can’t invest in the film and it’s not funny enough to get away with that. That said, the film is at its best when Eisenberg and Ansari are sparking off each other – particularly during the heist sequence – and it’s a pity that they couldn’t have expanded that a bit more. Less successful is McBride’s character, who is responsible for much of the politically incorrect stuff which just isn’t funny. It is not McBride’s finest hour, it must be said.

On the plus side, it is incredibly short at just 83 minutes – that’s the running length of an average animated film – so it doesn’t outstay its welcome. Whether you will leave the cinema feeling like you have got your money’s worth is another matter entirely.

Stars: **

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

2011-09-16T12:21:00.000+01:00

Reviewing Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a difficult task. At its heart is a mystery and the beauty of this film is watching that mystery slowly unravel so that mere seconds before the final reveal you are still questioning yourself. Even the smallest detail, however, could act as a tip off and it would be desperately unfair of me to ruin what really is one of the best films you are likely to see this year.

Based on the book by John le Carre which was itself turned into a much loved mini-series in the early 80s, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is steeped in the paranoia of the cold war. Inside MI6, there is a mole and John Hurt’s Control is determined to find him. He sends spy Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) to Hungary to liaise with a general who may have some relevant information but the mission goes awry and Jim ends up dead. Control and his right hand man Smiley (Gary Oldman) are subsequently forced out of MI6 to make way for fellow spies Percy Allenine (Toby Jones); Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), Roy Bland (Ciaran Hinds) and Toby Esterhase (David Dencik). The problem is that one of these men may be the mole and it falls to Smiley to pick over what little evidence he and his team can secure – largely through nefarious means – to determine who the traitor is. For the audience, however, the difficulty is greater because Smiley himself could be the double agent and there are distracting tangents everywhere.

Not a minute is wasted in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Writers Peter Straughan and Bridget O’Connor have whittled down the extensive source material to create an incredibly tight and tense thriller. It is a complicated and smart script that doesn’t pander to the audience and keeps you guessing right to the end. It sucks you in and, even though it is meticulous on detail, feels like it whips along.

Director Tomas Alfredson, who so impressed with Let The Right One In, does a wonderful job recreating the dour 70s and a chilling atmosphere in which anything can happen and anyone can betray their friends. He is blessed with his cast all of whom deliver note-perfect performances. To say anything about individual cast members is to risk revealing who our spy is but credit must go to Oldman who dominates proceedings with a career-defining performance. If he isn’t there or thereabouts when Oscar time comes around, it will be a travesty.

Enough though! I have already said too much. Classy, smart and elegantly done, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is a must see.

Stars: *****

The Change Up

2011-09-16T12:19:00.000+01:00

Here we have yet another body swap comedy from Hollywood, this time with gratuitous nudity and an over-reliance on toilet humour. Tediously executed and desperately unfunny, The Change-Up is one to avoid.

Jason Bateman plays father of three and corporate lawyer Dave, who is bored with his suburban lifestyle and unaware that he and his wife (Leslie Mann) are in the midst of a very rocky patch. On a night out with his best friend Mitch (Ryan Reynolds) – a feckless article and male slapper who wallows in his own filth at his apartment in between acting jobs – they go for an al-fresco pee at a fountain and declare that they wish they had each other’s lives. Hey presto, they wake up the next day and they have swapped bodies and all sorts of utterly boring complications ensue.

It is hard to believe that nobody stood back from things while they were filming The Change-Up and thought ‘Jaysus, this is terrible, lazy, humourless tosh”. Given the comedic pedigree of those involved – the writers of the admittedly grossly over-rated The Hangover and director of Wedding Crashers as well as two of the better comedy actors working in film today – the fact that have produced this rotten and sleazy mess is all the more galling.

They can’t even get the simple things right. A key component of any body swap comedy is seeing the two actors involved adopt each other's mannerisms. This is done to great effect by Lindsey Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis in the Freaky Friday remake, for instance. But The Change-Up is too busy shoe-horning in horrible jokes about infant faecal matter that we never get to see what makes Dave and Mitch different and, therefore, what a swap around would look like. Bateman and Reynolds could actually be imitating Lohan and Curtis for all we’d know about it. As it goes, Reynolds seems strangely deflated throughout while Bateman, who takes the lion’s share of the screen-time, makes an attempt at breaking out of his usual persona but ultimately fails.

They aren’t helped by a truly appalling script – these writers never met a poo joke that they didn’t want to smear all over the faces of the viewing public. Watching a baby defecate into a man’s mouth is not my idea of a good evening’s entertainment and if it’s yours then you should have a serious think about how depressed you are. I’m sure they think it’s very raunchy as well but there’s a difference between being raunchy and producing a sub-Porkys-style boob-fest.

Crass, uninspired and, ultimately, very dull, The Change-Up is a disaster from start to finish.

Stars: *

Friends With Benefits

2011-09-09T12:04:00.001+01:00

A comedy about a pair of impossibly cool and good-looking friends who decide to become what Oprah might call “fun buddies”, Friends with Benefits starts off well but succumbs to predictable cliché as it hurtles toward its inevitable conclusion. Nevertheless, anyone familiar with the horror that was the similarly themed No Strings Attached earlier this year will be heartened to learn that by comparison, this film is a masterpiece.

Hipster journalist Dylan (Justin Timberlake) is headhunted by hipster recruiter Jamie (Mila Kunis) to work as art director at GQ in New York. At first reluctant to move from his home in LA, a break up with his girlfriend and Jamie-lead tour around the quirkier parts of the Big Apple convince him to take the job. Shortly after he settles in, the two meet up again and become good friends. With both of them on the rebound from horrible break-ups and enduring a sex drought (this seems highly unlikely but just go with it), they decide to scratch their respective itches with each other safe in the knowledge that neither of them is interested in a relationship. Having embarked on a series of energetic couplings, however, feelings begin to develop for one of our intrepid pair. The only question is: when will the other one catch up?

Having endured No Strings Attached, the only way was up for Friends with Benefits. Happily, it is a far better film and is actually funny. The cynical edge that was so badly handled in No Strings Attached is easily navigated. That is no surprise given that the man behind the brilliant Easy A, Will Gluck, is at the helm and had a hand in the script. While it is certainly no Bridesmaids-style laugh-a-thon, it is plenty amusing and a very easy watch.

That said, a promising start – with jokes about Katharine Heigl comedies and the always brilliant Patricia Clarkson as Jamie’s woefully bad mother indulging in some extraordinary coitus interuptus – gives way to the standard romantic comedy narrative. They may start off in an unconventional manner – for a Hollywood romantic comedy, at least – but it isn’t long before they are walking Heigl’s tried and tested path. It also shoe-horns in a sub-plot about Dylan’s father (Richard Jenkins) and Alzheimer’s which feels superfluous and inappropriate given the wider context of the film. While the marketing might tell you that this is edgy, it is nothing of the sort really. It’s just a standard rom-com with added sex scenes. So long as you know that, however, there’s nothing wrong with Friends with Benefits and it is undeniably funny.

Much of the film’s success hinges on the relationship between Timberlake and Kunis. They have excellent chemistry and, in direct contrast to Kutcher and Portman who looked awkward and uncomfortable, they are totally at ease with each other. Of course, it helps that they achieve that rarest of things in a Hollywood rom-com – a couple who actually look like they should be together rather than some auld fella trying it on with a young one.

This is probably the first film where Timberlake proves that he has what it takes to be a real film actor and not a novelty addition to the cast. He, unsurprisingly for anyone who has seen his contributions to Saturday Night Live, demonstrates a keen comic sensibility and a willingness to poke fun at himself. For Kunis, this is the kind of edgy, sexy, quirky and funny role that has become her stock in trade. That is not to say that she sleep walks it – far from it – but this is very much in her comfort zone. Woody Harrelson, as a gay sports writer who befriends Dylan on his arrival in New York, delivers the broader comic element but the character isn’t given enough room to grow and doesn’t work as a result.

Despite its descent into rom-com cliché, Friend with Benefits is a surprisingly refreshing take on a thoroughly modern relationship. Attractive leads and a witty script combine to make it a cut above its contemporaries.

Stars: ***

Jane Eyre

2011-09-09T12:03:00.001+01:00

This incredibly dour take on Charlotte Bronte’s novel feels like you are being dragged through a swamp composed entirely of misery for an eternity. But, then, it would – it’s Jane sodding Eyre.

Mia Wasikowska plays our heroine, all wan in the face and self-righteous indignation, who is found unconscious on the moors by a clergyman (Jamie Bell) and his two sisters (Holliday Grainger and Tamzin Merchant). As they nurse her back to health, her story is revealed. An orphan who is treated abominably by her aunt (Sally Hawkins) before being sent to a charity boarding school, Jane grows into a feisty, determined young woman having endured further unnecessary hardship while there. At the first opportunity she leaves the school to become governess for the ward of Mr. Rochester (Michael Fassbender), a rich man who only occasionally visits the ancestral family home, Thornfield, kept in order by his faithful housekeeper Mrs. Fairfax (Judi Dench). There is something awry at Thornfield with all sorts of strange goings-on in the night. These incidents throw Jane and the boorish Mr. Rochester together and they exchange the usual furtive looks before falling in love after five minutes. All is not as it seems, however, and much heartache awaits poor Jane.

Fans of the book are likely to embrace Cary Fukunaga’s gothic interpretation of Bronte’s text. He, probably more than most who have adapted this story before, seems to have understood that there is something more to Jane Eyre than a sweeping romance and he glosses over the novel’s more ridiculous foibles to create something that feels much more grounded. The cinematography is beautiful though the colour palette is a little too brown at times. Nevertheless, if you do not buy into Bronte’s story – I cannot abide it myself - then this will feel every bit as tedious as wading through the book.

Wasikowska broke through with a tepid performance in the hugely over-rated Alice in Wonderland but gives a much better account of herself this time around. She delivers an understated but steely Jane and is a perfect conduit for the film’s sombre tone. The casting of Fassbender is questionable, however. He is much more suited to the swarthy, brooding intensity of Wuthering Heights’ Heathcliff than the stilted, reserved and rather dull Rochester. He somehow manages to make Rochester seem likeable and, while that is ordinarily a good thing, I am not so sure if he is not being too kind in reinterpreting what should be an objectionable character. The supporting cast get short shrift but both Dench and Bell deliver memorable performances even though they are working with very little.

A perfectly serviceable adaptation of Bronte’s novel that is probably more faithful to the novel’s intention than most, Jane Eyre wasn't for me but if you are better disposed toward the story, it will probably float your boat.

Stars: ***

The Troll Hunter

2011-09-09T12:01:00.001+01:00

This Norwegian film pokes some gentle fun at “found footage” horrors but is let down by “monsters” who are more pathetic than threatening. Rather than scare the bejaysus out of you like the Blair Witch Project, Troll Hunter is pure entertainment and it just about delivers.

Starting with a message that the footage we are watching has been edited down from some tapes recovered following an incident in the Norwegian woods, Troll Hunter features an amateur news team – Thomas (Glenn Urland Tosterud), Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen) and Johanna (Joanna Mork) - on the trail of a suspected bear poacher. When they finally track him down, it turns out that Hans (Otto Jespersen) is really a troll hunter, employed in secret by the Norwegian government to hunt down and neutralise the beasts. Peeved at his long working hours and tired of killing, Hans agrees to take the film crew along with him as he tries to figure out why the trolls are suddenly starting to lose the run of themselves. Given that this is “found footage”, there’s no prizes for guessing how that turns out.

It takes a while for Troll Hunter to find its groove but once it does it is very enjoyable. Although it is ostensibly a horror film, it delivers next to no scares so it’s best to see this as a mildly amusing comedy that makes the most of a small budget. Unfortunately, the film assumes a certain level of prior knowledge of Norwegian troll folklore and gets bogged down in detail so some of the humour fails to translate. Even so, there is plenty to enjoy.

Much of this is due to the cast who find humour in a script that is occasionally too straight laced for its own good. Jespersen, in particular, does a good job with the jaded and misunderstood Hans, doing a nice line in deadpan humour. The younger members of the cast are called on to scream and shout a lot and this they do well but their comedy chops need some honing.

Having accepted that this is not a horror, it is easy to forgive the rather feeble attempt at creating a scary monster. While the trolls themselves – on the rare occasion that you see them – are impressive creations, they are far from frightening. In fact, they look like all they need is a good hug. It can be patchy but there is something very beguiling about Troll Hunter. A very droll take on a tired genre that proves quite entertaining.

Stars: ***

Fright Night

2011-09-02T11:27:00.000+01:00

This remake of the moderately successful 1980s horror film plays it far too straight. Had writer and director approached this with tongue firmly in cheek it would have faired much better than the pedestrian and benign film they have actually produced.

Anton Yelchin plays Charley, a former geek who has somehow worked his way into the cool clique at High School and is now dating perky cheerleader Amy (Imogen Poots). Charley lives with his mother in a hideously uniform suburb on the outskirts of Las Vegas (the kind of gridded nightmare that you only ever see in America) and rides a dilapidated motorbike as a shorthand for how quirky and cool he is. His mother (Toni Collette) is making eyes at Jerry (Colin Farrell), the next door neighbour who seems to be doing an awful lot of building work for a house that came in flatpack. When Charley’s former geek buddie Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) tells him that Jerry is a vampire, he is sceptical at first but, after a brief interlude where he is presented with conclusive proof, sets about protecting his home and his loved ones. It is not long, however, before Jerry comes after him.

Fright Night feels weirdly flat for most of its running time and it is extremely light on scares. I say that as a man of a nervous disposition who has been known to literally jump at the sight of his own shadow - I am easily scared even by dreck like Final Destination 5 - but Fright Night feels like a pleasant walk in the park by comparison to even the mildest of horror films. It must also be said that as 3D treatments go, this is one of the poorest you will ever see. One of the great joys about horror films in 3D is that directors can get inventive with objects flying at the audience but Fright Night makes zero effort in this regard. Some splattering blood does not justify the extra shekels you have to pay out to secure those bloody annoying glasses.

Farrell should be genius casting for a film like this. If anyone can pull off charming and dangerous it is surely him but it feels like he is beamed in from another film where his sole responsibility is to walk around looking vaguely like a more menacing Kevin Webster off of Coronation Street. It feels like Farrell wanted to play this one for laughs and he just isn't given the opportunity. As a result, he looks almost vacant most of the time - this is certainly not his finest hour.

If Farrell had the potential to be genius casting, one really has to question why no-one spotted the disaster that loomed when they plumped for Yelchin in the lead role. Don't get me wrong, Yelchin is not a bad actor, though his turn in the Star Trek reboot was a little jarring thanks to his faintly ridiculous Russian accent, but he looks about 40 and cannot pass for a teenager. I don't care that he's actually only 20 something in real life, he's no Jason Priestley when it comes to passing for someone in their teens. He looks like a wizened old man who should be married to Collette, not playing her son. For her part, and it is woefully underwritten, Collette manages to eek a bit of humour out of the thing but she disappears about half way through because the writers clearly couldn't be bothered fleshing out the peripherals. All that said, the whole enterprise livens up considerably when David Tennant enters the scene as a sham Vegas entertainer with a large collection of nonsense artefacts - he gets the funniest lines - and it is a shame that they couldn't have shoe-horned him into proceedings far earlier. Mintz-Plasse, who impressed in Kick Ass last year, is also good value but, again, he disappears early on and we are left with Yelchin looking like he's just chewed a wasp all the time.

Then there’s the very odd conclusion which feels like they are setting you up for another scare but ends up just petering out. It’s almost appropriate given the rather tepid experience of the previous 90 minutes.

This could have worked so much better but, instead, it is poorly executed, ill thought out and wastes the talents of a very good cast. Very much a miss.

Stars: **

Poetry

2011-09-02T11:26:00.000+01:00

This rather slow moving Korean drama will not be to everyone’s taste but for those who stick with it, the experience will be rewarding.

Treading similar ground to last year’s Mother, Poetry features a pensioner whose grandson has been accused of a heinous crime. The difference here is that grandmother Mija (Yoon Jeong-Hee) is absolutely certain that her grandson and his friends are guilty of repeatedly raping a teenage girl at their school who then went on to kill herself. The film isn’t about her attempting to clear his name, it’s about others around her who try to buy off the family and suppress the scandal that it will cause. She is also coping with secret diagnosis of Alzheimer’s and decides to retreat into the world of poetry as a coping mechanism, taking a class at the local college. It is this class which helps her to find clarity while all around her are trying to muddy the waters. Can the old woman who finds herself being patronised by the fathers of the other five boys involved finds the steely determination she needs to put matters right?

Unusually for a film where Alzheimer’s features heavily, there is no room for sentimentality in Poetry. Indeed, throughout it seems like there is no room for any kind of emotion at all throughout much of the piece. The brutality of the reaction from the boy’s parents is the particularly interesting – they are more concerned with making the problem go away than punishing their sons for their vile behaviour. As they meet to discuss the issues, they never once consider what it must be like for the girl’s family or that their children deserve to be hauled over the coals. They are only interested in buying her family off and hoping that the situation goes away.

Watching Poetry is a frustrating experience. While it is elegantly done and beautifully filmed, it is extraordinarily slow to make its point and there are far too many poetry interludes when the really interesting story – the reaction to the girl’s suicide – takes a backseat.

Nevertheless, it features a stunning central performance from Yoon and while it may take its time getting there, it delivers in the end.

Stars: ***

Kill List

2011-09-02T11:24:00.000+01:00

Sometimes bad endings happen to good films and so it is with Kill List, an unsettling British thriller that could have been brilliant but for the fact that it goes spectacularly off the rails toward the end.

We start with a couple, Jay (Neil Maskell) and Shel (MyAnna Buring), fighting about money. Jay doesn’t appear to work and the £40,000 they had stashed up has disappeared. There is more to this than meets the eye, however, when Jay’s friend Gal (Michael Smiley) turns up for dinner and offers him new work. Jay is a hitman and together with Gal, he is going to work his way through a kill list. This turns out to be a series of paedophiles which tips Jay over the edge but there is much more madness to come.

Kill List spends a considerable amount of time brilliantly building tension only to squander it all with a final third that veers way too far into Wicker Man territory. By the final scene - which is a headscratcher, I'll give them that - they have nearly entirely undone the good work that went into establishing these characters and the unnerving tone. It is horribly derivative and entirely devalues the whole enterprise.

Even so, there is much to like here and if you can stare past the gaping plot holes and ignore the ludicrous conclusion, much to enjoy. Director Ben Wheatley starts building the tension from the very first second - a creepier title board you are never likelier to see - but does so slowly so that by the time the killing begins in earnest, you feel like a tightly wound coil ready to flip out. Maskell delivers a brilliant performance as the troubled sociopath just barely managing to contain his rage. He is ably supported by Buring, who brings steel to a role that could easily have been whiny and irritating. The relationship between Jay and Gal, who is bemused by his friend’s crazy behaviour, works very well. The killings - and there are many - are well handled, gory enough to horrify but not in a prurient way. They feel integral to the plot which is not often something you can say about films that revel in gruesome dispatches.

Fine performances from everyone in the cast, a judicious use of music and clever pacing to slowly build tension and a story that really pulls you in for the first hour mean that this is far from a disaster. Ultimately though, Kill List will be judged by its final third and, I suspect that for many people it may be found wanting.

Stars: ***

Conan the Barbarian

2011-09-02T11:23:00.000+01:00

Dear reader, it is with the utmost regret that I must now inform you that the end of the world is nigh. Popular culture, which began eating itself some time back and is now a bloated mess with only the Kardashian twins and the ugly Irish guy from One Direction assured of survival, has reached its peak. Yes, I am sorry to tell you that Hollywood has used up all its reserves and is now resorting to cannibalising the back catalogue of Arnold Schwarzenegger. And doing it badly.

Who amongst us was calling for a remake of Conan the Barbarian? Who thought it would be a good idea to revisit a film whose chief selling point appears to have been Schwarzenegger’s resemblance to a condom stuffed with watermelons? Why in the world would somebody shell out $90 million – yes, you heard me right $90 MILLION – on a remake of a film that was very much of its time.

To be fair to the makers of Conan the Barbarian: This Time S*** Just Gots Real (I jest), they know their market and they aren’t ashamed to pander to it. There’s a pair of bare breasts within seconds of the opening sequence and the rest of the female cast display similar allergies to clothing for the upper half throughout. Teenage boys will rejoice. Well, they would if they could tear themselves away from the free boobage on the Internet for five minutes. Even star turn Jason Momoa looks like he’s in need of a bit of chest upholstery such was his commitment to the role that he turned himself into pure muscle, at the expense of his vocal chords which appear to be stuck in a toneless baritone and, presumably, his facial expressions. He needn’t worry though because Rose McGowan is expressing herself enough for everybody as nasty witch Marique who is helping daddy Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang) try to resurrect her mother so that they can all take over the world and play happy families again. McGowan delivers a performance so off the mark and over the top, that it makes you glad she has all that Charmed money to fall back on. At least she’s trying though, which is more than can be said for Rachel Nichols playing Conan’s love interest (cue overwrought lovemaking scene) and crucial pawn in Khalar’s attempt at necrophilia. She tries to do feisty but she’s so insipid she has all the spark of Tara Reid on a Celebrity Big Brother launch night.

Anyway, there’s plenty of gore in this, though it gets rather tedious after a while and I do question whether someone would actually die from being slashed on the back once by a sword. The story is offensively dumb. Hard to know what it has going for it. Did I mention the bare chested ladies?

Stars: *

Final Destination 5

2011-09-02T11:21:00.001+01:00

Once more around the merry-go-round for this tired and boring but money-spinning horror franchise.

This time around death is coming for a group of co-workers who, lead by administrator/chef Sam (Nick D’Agosto), cheat the Grim Reaper when they get off their bus earlier than planned and escape a massive bridge collapse. As with all previous instalments of Final Destination, death comes a-knocking for each escapee in the other order that they should have died. Their only chance of redemption is to take the life – and therefore the remaining lifetime – of another. This, understandably, leads to all kinds of difficulties.

The benchmark was set pretty low by last instalment in the franchise – laughably called The Final Destination – so the only way was up for this fifth trip into the ludicrous. Director Steven Quale makes an admirable effort to inject a bit of life into the series with a spectacular opening sequence that is more than a match for the excellent pile-up that started off Final Destination 2. Much more so than the rest of the film, this sequence takes full advantage of 3D to deliver gore and laughs in equal measure. Indeed, this is one of the few films where I would advise you to see it in 3D, so you can fully appreciate the humour.

Unfortunately, having made a splash with the opening scene, it goes downhill for quite a while. Sure, some of the deaths are inventive – one involving laser eye surgery is particularly good – but it’s the rest of the film that really tries your patience. There isn’t a single character in here for which you aren’t wishing a horrible death. This is due both to the patchy script which is riddled with clichés despite the occasional flash of good humour and the atrocious acting. Everyone in the cast - with the exception, perhaps, of D’Agosto who does a good line on conveying sheer terror – is truly terrible delivering wooden performances that feel like they came straight from the Jack McFarland School of Acting.

In its favour, there’s a nifty twist at the end which suggests that this may really be the final destination. It’s nicely done and came as quite the surprise for me at least. Whether that’s enough to make up for the appalling acting and horribly flat bridging scenes between deaths is another matter entirely.

Stars: **

One Day

2011-09-02T11:21:00.000+01:00

Oh bitter disappointment. I had such high hopes for this adaptation of the much loved book by former Cold Feet writer David Nicholls but, alas, it wasn’t to be. A botched first half hampers it significantly and it only barely recovers by its end. Proof again that some things are better left on the page.

One Day tells the story of Emma Morley (Anne Hathaway) and Dexter Mayhew, who spent a passionless night together and how this leads to a long and enduring friendship over the next twenty years. It is the tale of two people who are destined to be together but who, whether through fear or circumstance, can never quite get their houses in order and make a go of it.

This is the bit where I must trot out the hoary old cliché and say that this film, serviceable as it may be, is not a patch on the book. A structure – dropping in on these two characters on the exact same date over the course of 20 years – that worked well in print, is confusing and rushed on the big screen.

Anyone who has read Nicholls’ novel – and I would highly recommend it – will know that for One Day to really work, it is absolutely crucial that you fall in love with Emma. She is the glue that holds this story together. Dexter is an ass and remains so almost to the very end but his character achieves redemption by dint of his proximity to Emma. Nicholls, who wrote the screenplay too, must surely know this and, yet, he spends far too long establishing Dexter’s character and background to Emma’s detriment.

This is very much the wrong way around. The first few scenes should have focussed more on her to ensure that the audience understands where this friendship springs from and why she persists with it despite Dexter’s very obvious flaws. By rushing the first hour or so, they lose the essence of what made the book such a phenomenon. It’s extraordinarily frustrating because the last third of the film, and especially the final scene, is beautifully realised and very moving. I dare say that a few tears will be shed but there’d have been a run on Kleenex if they’d gotten it right from the start.

Much has been made of Hathaway’s casting. Does she do a Renee Zellwegger and give the finger to the naysayers who balked at an American being cast in what must have been a coveted role? Not really. She delivers the kind of quirky, charming performance that she’s known for and she is likeable enough but there’s nothing special about it. The best you can say is that is nicely done.

She will be slated for her accent and rightly so. It is terrible. She sounds like a character from Pride and Prejudice who accidentally time travels to the set of Emmerdale every five words or so. Emma is from “ooop north” and she should speak as such. By failing to nail that accent, Hathaway fundamentally undermines the character – instead of being a strong-minded, independent working class woman, you cannot help but think that she’s a whiny social climber who does an unfortunate line in very unflattering clothing. When Emma finally grows into herself and becomes fabulous, Hathaway does very well and rescues the whole enterprise from oblivion but, then, The Devil Wears Prada showed that she can glam it up with the best of them.

She’s not the only one who struggles, however. Sturgess, who never struck me as the public school type, seems enormously uncomfortable delivering his lines in Dexter’s upper class intonations. Even so, he delivers a decent performance – it’s not that hard to play a self-regarding fool like Dexter but that he manages to make you empathise with him by the end is a testament to the man’s skills. And, to be fair, he and Hathaway do have some chemistry. In support, Patricia Clarkson’s appearance is all too brief while Ken Stott gives the film an extra bit of heart with his grounded performance.

In all honesty, adapting this book for the big screen was a thankless task. So many people loved Nicholls’ novel that he was onto a loser from the moment he took pen to paper. For the uninitiated, there is much to enjoy here but for lovers of the book, it will feel like a bit of a let down.

Stars: ***

Glee: The 3D Concert Movie

2011-08-19T14:00:00.001+01:00

I would hazard a guess that the following is probably the most redundant review that I will ever write. You either get Glee or you don’t. If you get Glee – and I am a proud Gleek myself – then you’ll be dying to see the New Directions on a giant screen in patchy 3D. If you don’t get Glee, well, you’re dead to me.

Filmed over two nights during their recent tour – which saw them finish up with four shows in Dublin – this film mixes backstage and concert footage. Backstage, the actors remain in character to mixed effect. Heather Morris features heavily, making her usual off the wall comments as ditzy Britney before burning up the stage in a surprisingly raunchy version of her namesake’s “I’m A Slave 4 U”; Chris Colfer’s out and proud Kurt lords it over everyone before delivering a haunting version of “I Want To Your Hand”; and Darren Criss as Blaine almost steals the show leading The Warblers through three of the film’s best numbers but he’s definitely outshone by cool mini-Warbler, Kellan Sarmiento, made famous by YouTube and now starring alongside his heroes. Best of all is Lea Michele, belting through Don’t Rain On My Parade and Firework as Glee’s vocal powerhouse Rachel and drawing laughs at the mention of Barbra Streisand. The unfortunately brief running time means that the rest of the cast take a back seat. Hipsters who like Glee for ironic reasons will be disappointed to note the absence of Jane Lynch’s Sue Sylvester but everyone will be delight by Mr Schuester’s non-appearance.

It is a shame that this film will largely be preaching to the converted because it goes some way to explaining why Glee is the phenomenon that it is and why those who dismiss it as a Fame rip-off are demonstrating their own ignorance. People connect with Glee because it’s funny, the music can be great and it’s rare to see a mainstream TV show that unashamedly celebrates outsiders. To drive home that point here, the focus is on three Gleeks who have seen their lot in life improve as a result of that inclusiveness. Their stories, which are interspersed throughout the film, are quite moving and serve as a reminder that for all the derision and snide remarks the show invites, it has had a really positive effect on those who love it.

Still and all, the naysayers are unlikely to see it. What harm, they’d only suck the joy out of it anyway.

Gleeks be warned: for some reason - to do with a Christmas DVD release, I suspect – Fox have decided that the movie is restricted to two weeks on the big screen, so, get in quick if you don’t want to miss it.

Stars: *** (**** if you're a Gleek)

The Inbetweeners Movie

2011-08-19T13:58:00.001+01:00

The pathway from small to big screen is littered with car crashes - Ali G Indahouse; Kevin and Perry Go Large; S Club: Seeing Double – so the road ahead for The Inbetweeners Movie was always going to be rocky. While they have emerged the other side intact, they are certainly not unscathed. Judged against the sometimes excruciatingly funny E4 sitcom on which it is based, this must be considered something of a let down.

With school finished for good, annoying Will (Simon Bird), gormless Simon (Joe Thomas), vulgar Jay (James Buckley) and moronic Neil (Blake Harrison) decide to have one final hurrah together by booking a package holiday in Malia. Expecting an orgy of girls, booze and sun, they get a dilapidated apartment block, too much attention from horny grannies and a pointlessly aggressive local lothario on their case. I imagine this is what all package holidays are like.

Taking the lads out of their suburban London setting was not a good idea. It means we only get a tiny helping of Neil’s gay Dad and Simon’s fit mum jokes and, save a woefully inappropriate if desperately obvious farewell speech, no Mr. Gilbert. They have difficulty re-establishing their outsider status – after all every 17 year old on a lads holiday is a bit of a tool. The beauty of The Inbetweeners is that you were watching them getting into these horrible, cringe-inducing situations knowing that they would have to live with the consequences. At home, they have no choice but to stick it out; on holiday, they can just walk away. It’s just not as amusing.

Even so, there are some very funny moments in The Inbetweeners and they have, largely, avoided over-egging the vulgarity - the noose which hung Kevin and Perry. The humour is puerile and not to everyone’s taste but the converted will know what to expect and will, for the most part, enjoy it. Of the four lads, it is Buckley and Bird who acquit themselves best but this is largely because they are given the better storylines – Thomas begins to wear you out very quickly and he can’t cry for toffee and Harrison, who always feels like an afterthought in the TV show, is somehow given even less to do here.

There’s a lot of love out there for The Inbetweeners and a lot of people willing this to succeed. It is a shame that they only get half way toward replicating the brilliance of the television show. In truth, they might have been better off using their time to persuade Channel 4 to invest in another series rather than make a film but make a film they did and it is, by no means, a disaster.

Stars: ***

Cowboys & Aliens

2011-08-19T13:56:00.001+01:00

There are some films that get the greenlight from studio execs because a big name star has signed on or a director, hot off a surprise hit, expresses an interest. There are films given the go-ahead because their predecessors have been so successful that sending cast and crew back into the breach makes sense for the wallet.

And then there are films that win approval because their name sounds cool. Let there be no doubt, despite the fact that it stars Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig, Cowboys and Aliens – like Snakes on a Plane - is such a film. And much like the Samuel L Jackson flop, Cowboys and Aliens fails to deliver on the promise of its title. This mash-up of the western and sci-fi genres takes it self far too seriously and is hindered by a plot contrivance so ludicrous that you may want to commit hari-kari at Paramount headquarters.

Craig plays Jake, a cowboy suffering from amnesia and sporting a pretty nifty looking bracelet who arrives in a small cattle town just as things are about to kick off. Local cattle baron Colonol Woodrow Dolarhyde (Ford) loses some of his herd and men in a mysterious event but he’s more concerned with springing his town-bully son (Paul Dano) from prison. Just as he is about to do so, the town comes under attack from alien forces who not only set the place ablaze but kidnap many of the townsfolk as well. Jake and Dolarhyde round up a posse including Ella (Olivia Wilde), a tough local woman who seems to know more than she is letting on, and they go hunting for aliens. Things, as you might expect, do not turn out as planned.

Cowboys and Aliens is a brave attempt to merge two distinct genres but it fails. Director Jon Favreau (Iron Man), does well enough with the Western side of things, paying homage to a genre that gets little love these days despite the success of the True Grit remake, but the Sci-Fi element is hammy and looks cheap even though they burned through a bucketload of cash to make this. The aliens are unoriginal and feel like they were designed as an afterthought with their weakness – as exposed by a child – defying all logic. The alien ship is so poorly rendered it wouldn’t look amiss on an episode of a 1980s Doctor Who when the BBC’s budget stretched to two toilet rolls and a few pipe cleaners. I exaggerate but it’s pretty poor for a film that cost $163 million to make.

Casting Craig and Ford together was a major mistake. One or the other would have done fine but to cast two of the most po-faced actors working in Hollywood today to head up a film about cowboys fighting aliens is just about the dumbest casting decision all year. I know Ford has a reputation for delivering pithy one-liners but he hasn’t exercised his funny bone effectively since Indian Jones and the Last Cruisade, more than 20 years ago. I’m not sure if Craig can actually smile let alone crack a joke. Both approach Cowboys and Aliens with the grim determination of the perennially constipated. With the exception of Wilde who does a decent enough job as the strong willed Ella, the rest of the cast get short shrift – a pity because they might have livened things up a bit given half the chance.

Then there is that twist about two thirds of the way through which is just lazy and insulting. I won’t bother hinting at what it is but suffice to say, you will recognise it immediately for the folly that it is. This utterly ridiculous plot development is, in truth, inspired by something that happens in the graphic novel on which Cowboys and Aliens is based but there’s a big difference between what will wash with comic book geeks and what you can get away with on the big screen. The result is that you spend the last third of the film scoffing at the preposterousness of it all and, then, to vigorously rub salt into the gaping wound, Favreau and his five screenwriters (five!) finish with an entirely stupid attempt to add pathos to proceedings with a noble self-sacrifice that’s laughable.

To be fair to Favreau, Cowboys and Aliens with its uncomfortable blend of Western and Sci-Fi was always going to be a tough gig and there are even moments where you are deceived into thinking that this just might work but it’s a mediocre effort at best. By and large, this is a miss.

Stars: **

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

2011-08-12T11:21:00.002+01:00

Closing off a decidedly patchy blockbuster season, Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a surprisingly shrewd and entertaining film that will rank among the best of the year. It dispels all memories of that godawful Tim Burton reboot from ten years back and nicely re-establishes the franchise at the better end of the scale.

San Francisco scientist Will (James Franco) is frantically trying to develop a cure for Alzheimer’s in time to help his deteriorating father Charles (John Lithgow). Experimenting on chimps, he lands on a formula that seems, at first, to be the answer to his prayers but the project is shut down when one of the chimps goes on the rampage while protecting her newborn. Like any good movie scientist, Will ignores all protocols and ethics when he brings this newborn home along with a secret stash of his now discredited formula. The chimp – ominously christened Caesar – has inherited his mother’s drug induced intelligence and he is raised like a child by Will and the temporarily cured Charles. However, when the drug begins to wear off and Charles deteriorates further leading to an unfortunate incident with a neighbour, the State steps in and Will is forced to place Caesar (played by Andy Serkis using motion capture technology) in Brian Cox’s questionable ape sanctuary. Faced with cruel treatment from caretaker Dodge (Tom Felton), Caesar begins to foment a rebellion amongst his fellow apes. The moral of the story here is don’t leave your chimpanzee with Draco Malfoy. The consequences will be enormous.

This is a real surprise. If you had said to me six months ago that a reboot of Planet of the Apes was going to be one of the best big budget films of the year, I’d have spat my tea all over you. This was a franchise that became a parody of itself following a fine debut in the 60s and one which had been done a grave disservice by Burton's 2001 film with its smart-arse B-movie feel and inexplicable inter-species love story. This should have been a disaster but it is far from it. There’s nothing terribly new about Rise of the Planet of the Apes – tales about scientists taking risks that spiral out of control are as old as film itself – but as an origins story it is smartly done.

It is Caesar, however, that is the film’s real triumph and the special effects involved in bringing him to the screen are worth the ticket price alone. He is a stunning creation with a truly expressive face – if you thought Serkis did a good job with Gollum and King Kong, he handsomely outdoes himself here - and it is a rare moment where you are jarred back into the reality that this is a computer generated image. As he and his mates rampage through San Francisco, the film could easily have degenerated into a series of blurry images of apes racing by but, to its credit, special effects studio WETA Digital (the people behind Lord of the Rings) has delivered extraordinary detail in every frame. What’s more, they have managed to create a troop of apes who invite your sympathy across the board because they feel almost human. It is a fantastic achievement. Fair play to Fox too for, mercifully, not bothering to ruin the whole experience by pointlessly transferring it to 3D.

It is in the human side of things that the film slightly falls down. With so much time spent on developing Caesar, the human cast are almost wasted with even leading man Franco taking a back seat, particularly in the final sequences. A little more time given over to establishing Will and Charles’ relationship would have helped explain his actions a bit better. Frieda Pinto is totally lost playing Will’s veterinarian girlfriend – she’s an afterthought drafted in to look pretty and supportive but given nothing to do. That said, the human story is not really what’s interesting about Rise of the Planet of the Apes so even though it could have done with a bit of fleshing out, they get away it.

An intelligent, thoughtful and really quite affecting reboot of a tired franchise, Rise of the Planet of the Apes is one of the highlights of the summer.

Stars: ****

The Smurfs

2011-08-12T11:20:00.001+01:00

A live action update of the much loved children’s classic, The Smurfs widens its appeal with a nifty balancing act.

In a magical world, far, far away, the Smurfs live happily under an invisibility shield protecting them from the clutches of their arch enemy, the evil wizard Gargamel (Hank Azaria). He is intent on capturing Smurf essence in the belief that it will help him take over the world. One day Clumsy (voiced by Anton Yelchin) accidentally leads Gargamel into the Smurf's village and Papa Smurf (Jonathan Winters), Clumsy, Smurfette (Katy Perry) along with a couple of other also-rans end up in New York and ultimately the apartment of young married couple Patrick (Neil Patrick Harris) and Grace (Jayma Mays). With Gargamel in hot pursuit, Papa Smurf must find a way to make it back to the other side while negotiating the perils of a modern city.

On face value, this would seem to be a cash-grab designed to take full advantage of pester power and, undoubtedly the target market will lap it up, but they have had the good grace to put a bit of effort into the whole enterprise. This is clear from the moment that Azaria's Gargamel makes a joke about the incongruity of Smurfette's existence given that she is the sole female among 100 little blue men. Little nods like this are peppered throughout. Be not afraid, this is not some horrible post-post-modern tongue-in-cheek reinvention of The Smurfs aimed at insufferable hipsters - it is still very much a family orientated film - but if you have an 8 year old who wants to see this, rest assured that it will not melt your head.

The story is surprisingly engaging and there's a nice little tribute to Smurf creator Peyo that forms an important plot development. The live cast do a good job interacting with the computer generated Smurfs and Harris and Mays make for a likeable and believable pairing. It is Azaria who gets the showiest role though and he has good fun with the demented wizard only occasionally crossing the line into ridiculously cringe worthy.

Where it really does excel is in its use of 3D. Like most animated films, the colour palette here is bright and garish and this makes for a far better 3D experience than, for instance, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. I'm not suggesting that the film is enhanced by the 3D - though a spectacular flying sequence at the start is a good showcase for it - but, at least, it's not irritating.

An entertaining if unchallenging take on a much loved classic, this is nowhere near the disaster it should have been.

Stars: ***

Countdown To Zero

2011-08-12T11:17:00.001+01:00

There's nothing like a bit of 50s scaremongering to pull in the punters and Countdown to Zero goes for the grandaddy of them all: nuclear war. Dust off those out of date the iodine tablets, kids, we may need them one day.

This compelling documentary takes you through the history of the atomic bomb and how it essentially became a pawn in a game of "mine is bigger than yours" between two superpowers before other countries started getting notions above their station. Taking us right up to the US and Russia's agreement to start reducing their nuclear arsenals, Countdown to Zero presents a pretty convincing case for the decommissioning of every single nuke on earth.

This is an excellently researched and well structured documentary that doesn't indulge in histrionics to make its point. Crucially it does a good job driving home the message that this problem hasn't gone away and that it should be of concern to us all. At first, there is an uncomfortable focus on the possibility that the fundamentalist nutjobs in Al Qaeda will get their hands on a nuclear bomb and attack one of the world's major cities. It is, it turns out, incredibly easy to get your hands on some weapons grade uranium - all you need is a Russian factory worker in need of a new stove who's willing to nick some from the office. As scary as that is, it feels like the chances of that happening are rather remote and, while it is an issue that might be understandably high on the agenda for Americans, it's hard to relate to when you live in a country which chooses to antagonise others by borrowing their money and setting fire to it. Nobody's wasting a nuke on us anytime soon.

Worry not though for according to Countdown to Zero there's plenty to fear outside the terrorist threat. The US and Russia own somewhere north of 20,000 nukes between them. You would think that every effort would be made to ensure that nothing goes accidentally awry with them. You'd be wrong. There has been a disconcertingly high number of near misses over the years. In one instance, nuclear war was narrowly averted because Boris Yeltsin hadn't had time to mix up his morning jug of gin yet.

If this doesn't full you with fear, you are made of much harder stuff than I. Highly illuminating and a nice little reminder that while we get ourselves into a tizzy decanting shampoo into tiny bottles and arguing with security staff over sharp objects, it won't matter a jot if someone with questionable sanity hooks up with a Russian on his uppers. The scariest threats are those that lurk quietly in the background.

Stars: ****

Super 8

2011-08-05T09:09:00.001+01:00

Anyone in their 30s looking for the warm and fuzzy buzz of nostalgia should check out this science fiction film from Lost creator JJ Abrams. A paean to the 80s films that defined a generation this story of a bunch of kids fighting The Man, will strike a cord with anyone who fondly remembers ET or The Goonies or even Stand By Me.

Set in the late 70s when parents were more inclined to kick their kids out of the house for the day rather than worry about whether the local paedophile was stalking about, Super 8 starts with 13 year old Joe (Joel Courtney) suddenly forced to bond with his father Jackson (Kyle Chandler) following the untimely death of his mother in a factory accident. Although Jackson tries to send him away to summer camp, Joel insists on staying at home so he can help his best friend Charles (Riley Griffiths) finish filming his zombie movie. One night, Charles and his crew are joined by Alice (Elle Fanning) – daughter of a local man with whom Joel’s father has some beef – and they drive out to an abandoned station house to film a scene. In the midst of filming, however, a train travelling at great speed is derailed by a pick up truck deliberately driven onto the tracks a local science teacher (Glynn Turman). The Air Force arrive and it becomes clear that something very sinister is afoot. Strange phenomena start to happen around town – people disappearing, dogs running away – and the military begins to close in on Joel and his mates.

There is a lot of heart in Super 8. Abrams has an obvious affection for the films of his youth and he does an excellent job recreating the feel of those films. It should be noted that Stephen Spielberg is listed as a producer so he presumably had a strong influence in how the film turned out. The alien invader as a benevolent being is classic Spielberg for a start. There is also an admirable focus on story and character development – something that is absent from a lot of similarly themed movies these days where special effects and product placement are paramount. The sense of camaraderie between Joel and his friends hails from another time as does their naivety.

It is not without its problems, however. The action sequences would have benefitted from a little restraint on Abrams’ part. This is particularly so at the start with the train crash that starts the whole thing off – it is ludicrously over the top with carriages flying everywhere and drags on for ages when in reality it would have taken 30 seconds. It is also fair to say that the alien invader storyline doesn’t gel quite as well as it should – it can feel like you are watching two separate films at times – and while ET was cute, this thing is a genuine monster looks like Predator crossed with Alien. It’s hard to feel affronted on its behalf. You could also very credibly accuse Abrams of being, at the very least, derivative – one man’s tribute is another man’s plagiarism.

All that said, there is plenty to like. The young cast do a brilliant job – they work really well as a unit and Fanning in particular delivers the kind of heartfelt performance that a film like this needs. The adults take a back seat but Chandler is as reliable as ever. A great soundtrack and a healthy dose of good humour also go a long way.

Make sure to stick around for the closing credits when we get to see how Charles’ film turns out. If you were in two minds about Super 8, this five minutes of grainy footage charms the pants off you and you find yourself forgiving whatever flaws have gone before.

A warm-hearted adventure, Super 8 may not achieve the same classic status that ET or The Goonies enjoy but it is a great watch nonetheless.

Stars: ****

Knuckle

2011-08-05T09:07:00.001+01:00

This documentary about bare-knuckle boxing in the travelling community fools itself that it is providing some valuable insight into a little know world. In truth, it is just as prurient, exploitative and voyeuristic as My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and every bit as tedious.

Director Ian Palmer spent 12 years filming bare-knuckle bouts during a period when two traveller families – the Quinn McDonaghs of Louth and the Joyces of Westmeath – engaged in a series of battles which owed their genesis to an incident in the early 90s (it takes quite a while to shake out the details). He closely follows James Quinn-McDonagh, a strong challenger for Joe Joyce’s King of the Travellers title who is blue in the face telling people that he doesn’t want to fight anymore but keeps getting dragged back into the fued. It doesn’t help that every time he wins a fight James starts bad mouthing his opponent and their family nor that his brother is busy making videos doing the same. In a film, this would all come to a head in a climactic battle with a clear winner and loser. In Knuckle, nothing is concluded and everyone is the loser, viewer included.

For something that purports to be an insight into a little known underworld, it manages to tell you remarkably little. It’s a series of fights interspersed with footage of traveller men making eejits of themselves delivering hollow threats on VHS. Some of these fights last for two hours or more. I say fights but, having once watched an entire DVD of these bouts for work, I can tell you that they are anything but. Largely, they consist of two generally unfit men walking around in circles and throwing half hearted punches at each other while other men surrounding them goad them along. They are boring beyond belief. I’ve seen better and more efficient fights at a 4-year-old’s birthday party. Knuckle is no different. Some of the bouts lasted two hours and more according to Palmer but anyone who has ever been to a real boxing match knows that if these had been real fights, some serious damage would have been done in that time. Mercifully, he has edited them down but even then they are dull. Palmer’s narration is self-indulgent, wandering off at one point into a tangent about the ethics of his decision to continue filming the fights and his motivation for doing so. When the documentary maker is involving themselves in the narrative, they are losing.

A hit at Sundance, Knuckle has already been earmarked for a HBO series starring Eastbound and Down’s Danny McBride. Hopefully they’ll manage to produce something more interesting.

Stars: **

Mr. Popper's Penguins

2011-08-05T09:05:00.001+01:00

Just when you thought that the whole penguin craze was done and dusted, we have one last go round the merry-go-round with this family film starring Jim Carrey. Bland and inoffensive, Mr. Popper's Penguins should entertain younger viewers but given the pedigree of those involved, it must be considered a disappointment.

Carrey plays Thomas Popper Jr, a high flying real estate developer whose troubled relationship with his largely absent father has left him an emotionally stunted control freak. When his father passes away, he leaves Popper nothing but a penguin, improbably transported over from Antarctica in an ice-box. This first penguin is soon joined by five more and when Popper’s son mistakes them for a birthday present from his weekend dad, he finds himself in a pickle. He ends up turning his plush loft apartment into a winter wonderland habitat for the penguins and sets about rebuilding his relationships with both his kids and his ex-wife. This is all to the detriment of his job and while a sinister zookeeper is stalking about trying to take the penguins with mildly nefarious intent.

This is a passable family film that could have been better. Director Mark Waters has good form having helmed the rather good Freaky Friday remake and the truly excellent Mean Girls (the less said about Ghosts of Girlfriends Past the better). However, he has brought none of the spark that made those films work to this effort. It’s flat and, given that we know where this is going from the first five minutes, it really needed that extra edge to make it work.

Problematically, Carrey feels unusually subdued. The manic energy that he brought to Ace Ventura: Pet Detective is a distant memory now but even so this is a curiously restrained performance for one of his family films. For some, that will be a blessed relief because Carrey’s propensity for gurning is certainly polarising but, to be honest, it feels like something is missing here. He is being upstaged by a bunch of penguins and you can almost see the disillusionment on his face.

On the plus side, the computer generated penguins are undeniably cute and blend impressively with the live action. There are also a couple of very good visual jokes (a bathroom scene early on is well thought out). The film also has a nice old-fashioned feel to it – hardly surprising given that it is based on a children’s book from the 1930s – and with a little more care it could have been a classy affair. Instead, it relies far too much on gags about penguin poo. Not Carrey’s finest hour.

Stars: **

The Zookeeper

2011-07-28T23:33:00.001+01:00

Kevin James should rue the day that he met Adam Sandler. Having built up considerable goodwill playing Doug in the long running sitcom King of Queens, he launched onto the film scene with a winning turn in the Will Smith starrer Hitch. Then he somehow stumbled into Sandler’s snare and now finds himself stuck in a succession of offensively bad films. He is pissing his career up the wall.

James takes the lead in The Zookeeper, another ill-conceived comedy steeped in misogyny produced by Sandler. He plays zookeeper, Griffin Keyes, who has devoted himself to his work after being dumped by girlfriend Stephanie (Leslie Bibb) when he proposed. Thanks to his ridiculously insensitive brother, she comes back into his life and he sets about trying to woo her again. His attempts are poor so his animal friends step in and start talking to him, advising him on how to be an alpha male and win his mate. All the while, Rosario Dawson’s super-hot vet is developing feelings for him but he’s too blinkered to notice.

The most ludicrous thing about The Zookeeper is not that the animals start talking nor is it that when they do, they turn out to be Cher, Sylvester Stallone and Nick Nolte. No, it’s that James, charming and all as he is, would be in a position to bag not one but two women so far out of his league. Here’s a way to find love, Kev: lower your standards. Of course, this being Hollywood, beautiful young women are falling over themselves to hang out with balding, middle-aged men whose bellies are almost as big as their wallets.

James is charming enough – he managed to make Paul Blart: Mall Cop just about bearable – but he is overpowered by how staggeringly poor the script is. Sandler taints proceedings even further by voicing a monkey and delivering the film’s crudest and least amusing lines. As with all of these films, the women are criminally underwritten – Dawson should really consider sacking her agent if her career has been reduced to this.

If that wasn’t bad enough, it also features some of the most blatant product placement in a film since ET started knocking back the Coca-Cola. I’ve been to TGI Fridays and, frankly, the experience is feck all like the ten minutes spent advertising it here.

Really, this is another excruciating collaboration between James and Sandler that proves that as film duos go they are more Ant and Dec than Lemmon and Matthau. Avoid.

Stars: *

Horrid Henry

2011-07-28T23:33:00.000+01:00

Aimed squarely at kids, this British comedy is a riot of noise and colour. It’s also, in parts, the trippiest children’s movie since Willy Wonka started drugging Charlie and his mates. Fun for all the family, so.

Based on a series of children’s books and an animated television series, Horrid Henry stars Theo Stevenson as a rambunctious young boy more interested in causing mischief than learning. He and his mates – the Purple Hand gang – spend their time locking horns with Moody Margaret (Scarlett Stitt) and frustrating the efforts of their teacher Miss Battle-Axe (Anjelica Huston) to drill some decent spelling into them.

When a couple of school inspectors witness one of Moody Margaret’s retaliation pranks go drastically wrong, the school finds itself in danger of being closed down. I don’t know about you but when I was at primary school the threat of a visit from the inspector was omnipresent and used as a weapon to control the feral classes. We never saw them once. The inspector was a myth. Here they are twins who linger around looking ominous and taking bribes from Vic Van Wrinkle, headmaster of the local posh school who wants to dominate the local education scene. Middle England will be horrified. Anyway, as you might expect, it’s up to the kids to rescue the situation.

I must confess that I went into this one with dread in my heart. It looked precisely like the kind of zany kid’s film that makes me yearn for a lobotomy. I must admit though, I was pleasantly surprised. It’s not brilliant but it is definitely entertaining. Crucially, while it is very much aimed at the pre-teen market, it’s not dumb or obnoxious in the way that Diary of Wimpy Kid 2 was. There are a couple of decent jokes in there too that will satisfy child and adult alike.

The cast are all pretty good. Stevenson is charismatic and his Henry is more endearing than irritating. Huston delivers a performance that verges on insane but somehow gets away with – she’s game for a laugh, that’s for sure. Bizarrely though it’s British children’s television stars Dick and Dom (Richard McCourt and Dominic Wood to give them their proper names) who steal the show playing a pair of utterly demented presenters on the rather unnerving and very trippy Too Cool for School. Really, one has to question whether there was something funny in the water when director Nick Moore and writer Lucinda Whitely came up with it. Indeed, it might be a little bit scary for younger viewers. Still, it really lifts what was looking like a so-so film.

All in all, Horrid Henry is surprisingly good fun in an off the wall kind of way.

Stars: ***

Captain America: The First Avenger

2011-07-28T23:32:00.000+01:00

The final superhero film of the summer is a good, old-fashioned blockbuster which shares more in common with Raiders of the Lost Ark than Green Lantern. Unfortunately, it fails to match the standard set by its sister film Thor back in May but with its nostalgic feel and a couple of excellent performances from a strong supporting cast, it is an enjoyable enough distraction.

The original Captain America comic books appeared in the early 1940s and the character was politically motivated – he was job was to kick some Nazi ass while gussied up in a stars and stripes outfit that Geri Halliwell would have rejected for being a bit too nationalistic. It’s not a character that sits well with a world that suffered through George W. Bush. Wisely, the people behind Captain America: The First Avenger haven’t tried to shoe-horn the action into the present day so we are left with a cool, retro war film and some thoroughly nasty Nazi villains.

Chris Evans plays Steve Rogers, a skinny, tiny, asthmatic man who repeatedly tries but fails to enlist for the US army. When his best mate – the brilliantly named Bucky (Sebastian Stan) – goes off to war, he tries one last time and meets Stanley Tucci’s German scientist who signs him up for a top secret experiment. Steve is going to be transformed into the ultimate soldier using a super-serum. In other words, they pump him full of super-strong steroids not seen since East Germany disappeared from women’s weight lifting and he’s suddenly super-tall, super-buff and super-attractive to the ladieeez. Wait until they hear the effect that steroids have on the nether region. That’s the only action that Steve’s seeing though because with the project unable to replicate his transformation in other soldiers, he’s relegated to being a PR puppet for the US government’s bond-raising operation. However, in a mountain lair somewhere in the Alps, Hugo Weaving’s evil Nazi has also been through a similar steroid infusion and turned into the Red Skull. He is, naturally, hell bent on destroying the world. It is up to Captain America to stop him. So, Steve gathers together a crew specifically chosen for their diverse ethnic orientation just in case you thought this was just another jingoistic story about a white American man saving the world and they set about doing just that.

There is plenty to like about Captain America. It looks great – director Joe Johnston does a good job recreating the look and feel of a 1940s war/adventure movie. The action, once it gets going, is very full on and well choreographed. As with almost everything he is in, Stanley Tucci delivers a memorable performance even if his sojourn is relatively brief. Tommy Lee Jones is also good value as the cynical, wisecracking colonel in charge of the initial project but, again, he’s not given a lot of screen time.

Leading man Evans, however, struggles to really sell Steve’s transformation from weedy whipping boy to a muscle-man capable of taking down hundreds of men using a rather handy shield. He is much better as the scrawny Steve (excellent special effects have been employed to skinny him down) and it takes him quite a while to break into his stride once the transformation is made. His lack of chemistry with romantic interest Hayley Atwell is also problematic.

The release of Captain America is the last Marvel related superhero to hit the big screen before next year’s The Avengers. That film is set in the future. This is most unfortunate because it forces them to do something at the end of Captain America that pretty much precludes any further action from him in World War II or any other subsequent war. That’s a lost opportunity because a standalone sequel would have been welcome enough and really established the character. Needs must, however, and if Marvel see big money in bringing together four of its most famous superheros – The Avengers will also feature Ironman’s Tony Stark; The Incredible Hulk and Thor – then they were always going to go with the cash bonanza. At least, they only bothered to reference their pet project in the last five minutes rather than pepper the film with teasers as they did with Thor (a pointless appearance by Jeremy Renner, for instance) or turn it into an extended trailer like Iron Man 2.

Stars: *** (and a half)

Cars 2

2011-07-22T05:47:00.000+01:00

Behold that rarest of things – a bad Pixar movie. This sequel to a film that was already something of a black spot on the studio’s almost flawless record feels like the kind of smash and grab, soulless, cash generating operation that you expect from other more jaded organisations.

This time around Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson who manages to be as insufferably irritating as usual) takes a backseat with much of the action focussing on his best friend Mater (Larry The Cable Guy – that’s his name, no word of lie). He’s a backward rust-bucket who leads a relatively simple life, occasionally enlivened by McQueen’s occasional visits to Radiator Springs. When McQueen is invited by environmentalist Miles Axelrod (Eddie Izzard) to take part in a global grand prix using All-In-One, a new energy efficient form of fuel, Mater tags along and makes a nuisance of himself. Through a convoluted series of coincidences he is mistaken for a US spy by British intelligence officers Finn (Michael Caine) and Holley (Emily Mortimer) and embroiled in a mission to derail a plan to pull the rug from under All-In-One.

You may well ask yourself why, in the name of Jeebus, Pixar decided to make a sequel to a film that was met with a rather lukewarm critically and commercial reception. The answer is pretty simple: merchandising. For some reason, kids go mad for any old tat with Lightning McQueen splashed across the front of the box. There’s big money in merchandising – it can often be the saviour of a film that doesn’t connect with a wider audience – and Pixar and Disney have clearly made the cynical decision to exploit the Cars brand a bit further to add to their already bulging pot of gold.

Which is all fair enough if they’d made a real effort to try and improve on the first film. One of the reasons Cars didn’t go down as well with foreign audiences as other Pixar efforts was that it felt too American. NASCAR racing has limited appeal beyond US borders and that was reflected in Cars’ box office receipts. They have tried to overcome this issue by transferring the action to races in Japan, Italy and the UK as well as introducing the British spy angle and John Turturro’s Formula One (doing his most appalling Italian accent) car as McQueen’s main rival. It doesn’t work. The script is sub-Johnny English nonsense and it is far, far too long. Centring the action on the very annoying Mater is a major mistake.

Ultimately, Cars 2 suffers from the very same problem that dogged its predecessor – cars are just not cute. It’s not like you can’t bring yourself to care for a lump of metal – Wall-E proved otherwise – but they have done a very poor job of conjuring up the cars. It’s the eyes really. They have these weird eyes that move across their windscreens like extremely odd wipers and it feels like there’s no life there. That might sound odd given that we are talking about an animated film where, obviously, nothing is alive but think back on Pixar’s back catalogue and you’ll realise that they’ve managed fashion endearing characters from the most unlikely of things. Having failed before with Cars, they should have known better than to go back there.

As if to rub salt in the wound, Cars 2 is preceded by a short film involving the Toy Story 3 crew. It is only a few minutes long but everything about it is infinitely better than anything Cars 2 can muster up in its near two hour running time.

A real shame. Pixar will have to up its game considerably next time around if it is to make up for this tosh.

Stars: **

Beginners

2011-07-22T05:44:00.001+01:00

This slow paced and overly sentimental story of a man inspired by his father’s courage to make a life for himself is lacking crucial charm. The big name cast does its best but even an Oscar baiting performance from Christopher Plummer cannot rescue Beginners from mediocrity.

Ewan McGregor plays Oliver, an artist drifting through life who finds his life turned upside down when his elderly father Hal (Plummer) announces that he is gay despite having been married to his late wife for 50 years. He also has cancer. And a boyfriend called Andy (Goran Visnjic) who is half his age and no fan of monogamy. It’s a lot to take in. We meet Oliver as he is packing up Hal’s stuff up – the old man has died – but over the course of the film we learn that in his final years, he lived his life the way he had always wanted and found true love. This is not the best time for Oliver to bump into Melanie Laurent’s bored actress Anna. They meet at a fancy dress party – he’s dressed as Freud, she’s suffering with laryngitis – and immediately connect. Still grieving, he finds solace in the relationship but it is not long before he gets the jitters.

This is a very personal film for director Mike Mills – it is based on his own experiences with his father who came out late in life – and it shows. He is far too involved to step back and see its flaws and, as a result, what could have been a lovely, life affirming story becomes a bit tedious and self-involved. It is also a bit too cutesy at times – Hal has a Jack Russell who refuses to leave Oliver’s side and whose thoughts are shown in subtitles. The party scene where Oliver plays Freud for a series of horribly quirky friends is just excruciating to watch. It is trying far too hard to ingratiate itself and, as a result, is utterly devoid of the kind of charm that makes indy films like this tick.

It is not a total disaster. The relationship between Oliver and Hal can be very touching at times and the film is at its strongest when McGregor and Plummer are quietly sharing the screen together. Plummer does a great job conveying Hal’s all encompassing joy at finally being able to embrace his true self. If Mills had had the good sense to concentrate on that, then he would have had an excellent film. Instead, he is distracted by other, much weaker characters.

A misfire that will occasionally feel like it is sucking the life out of you.

Stars: **

Horrible Bosses

2011-07-22T05:34:00.001+01:00

One of the great injustices of life is that, very often, you are forced to work for other people to make ends meet. And those other people are, more often than not, utterly unpleasant individuals who inspire superhuman bouts of rage in their underlings. We have all been there. The world is full of little Hitlers, taking out their frustrations on the staff.

Horrible Bosses is a comedy about three men whose bosses redefine vile. Nick (Jason Bateman) is saddled with Kevin Spacey’s megalomaniac who refuses to promote him or let him leave the company. Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) finds himself at the mercy of Colin Farrell’s coke fiend when his kindly old boss (Donald Sutherland) suddenly passes away. And Dale (Charlie Day) is subjected to sexual harassment on an epic scale by his dentist boss (Jennifer Aniston) who is now demanding that he sleep with her before he and his fiance marry. After taking a mountain of crap, the three lads decide that the best thing to do is to kill their respective bosses. Who can blame them really? However, as you might expect, this is not as easy at it first appears.

This is a bit of a mixed bag. There are some very, very funny scenes – particularly those involving the three stars graciously taking supporting roles – and Jason Bateman’s deadpan humour is always fun to watch. The three lads have great chemistry together and though the humour is excessively crude at times, they have some good material to work with.
However, it falls down – and does so spectacularly – when it comes to wrapping everything up. An utterly ridiculous plot contrivance gets the police involved and it descends into farce from there. It is at this point that the comedy takes a back seat and it isn’t really until the epilogue that it starts being genuinely funny again.

It’s a pity because that first hour or so is totally on the money, making the most of Spacey, Farrell and Aniston and delivering consistent laughs. Farrell, in particular, demonstrates an admirable lack of vanity sporting an impressive comb-over and delivering a couple of the film’s better jokes. He leaves you wishing that it was his character – rather than Spacey’s – who had been fleshed out a bit more. It is Aniston, however, who truly steals the show though as the foul mouthed dentist – she is playing totally against type and the stuff that they get her to say is really quite astonishing. She carries it off brilliantly and this is by far the best thing she’s done since Friends.

Infinitely better than The Hangover Part 2 but not as funny as Bridesmaids, this is a pretty good way of letting off steam after a tough day fantasising about stabbing your boss in the eye.

Stars: ***

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part II

2011-07-15T09:43:00.002+01:00

It all ends. So goes the tagline for this, the final instalment in the world's biggest movie franchise. For those of us who have stuck with Harry Potter through the best of times and the worst of times (see anything to do with films one and two), it is time to say goodbye. It'll be hard but comfort yourself with this: the best has been saved until last. As goodbyes go, Deathly Hallows Part II feels like a very fitting farewell.

Picking things up immediately following the death of Dobby the House Elf, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) must go once more into the breach as they search for the horcruxes that have to be destroyed if Lord Voldemort is to be dispatched forever. For those of you living under a Whomping Willow for the last decade, these horcruxes are shards of Voldemort's soul created when he murdered others. Four remain. One is very close to home but our intrepid trio haven't quite realised that yet.

First stop is the impenetrable Gringotts bank. Run by trolls, it is the financial institution favoured by the who's who of the wizarding world and they store their eye of newt, golden goblets and secret spousal life assurance policies in its vaults. Harry, Ron and Hermione must break into the vault of the maniacal Bellatrix LeStrange (Helena Bonham Carter) - killer of Harry's beloved Godfather and personal threat to the Ozone layer such is her love of hairspray - to retrieve and dispose of Horcrux One. To do this, Hermione must swallow a polyjuice potion and become Bellatrix giving Bonham Carter the chance to ham it up and this she does beautifully. It would be a pretty short film if they didn't manage it so I'm giving nothing away when I say that they succeed. This is really when Deathly Hallows gets going – it’s quite slow up until this point – but from here on in it moves at a blistering pace. Even though it’s the shortest film in the franchise, director David Yates has packed masses into its two hour running time.

Onwards then to Hogwarts, the heart of the Harry Potter franchise and place where the final remaining horcruxes are conveniently located. With the help of Aberforth Dumbledore (an almost unrecognisable Ciaran Hinds), the trio return to the bosomy comfort of Hogwarts’ grounds. The stage us now set for the mother of all battles as the students of Hogwarts - past and present - their parents and teachers prepare to battle to the death as Lord Voldemort's forces approach. Not everyone will survive this night. Let the murdering rampage commence!

Splitting JK Rowling's final book into two made commercial sense, for sure, but it has paid off in spades with this second film. While Part I was thoroughly entertaining, it did manage to address most of the really boring parts of the book (the interminable rows as they tour the countryside, for instance) without too much trouble, thus, clearing the way for a final film that’s all about that last engagement.

And what an exhilarating final battle it is. This is film making on a grand scale with Yates going all out as Hogwarts falls down around our ears. The action, once it starts, is relentless and yet, despite all the crash-bang-wallop stuff going on, the film keeps that connection with its audience intact. This is not a film for newbies – you need to have seen the previous instalments to really get it – but for those who have grown to care about these characters, watching them literally fight for their lives is heart stopping stuff. Hankies may be required by some.

We have watched Radcliffe, Watson and Grint grow up on screen. We have seen them gradually developed from the horribly stilted performances if Philosopher’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets, to fine young actors who can carry off the heavy emotional stuff just as well as they can wave their wands and shout “Expecto Patronum”. It is telling that as they have matured as actors, the big names like Robbie Coltrane and Maggie Smith have shrunk further into the background. They all get a look in here but it is those three along with Ralph Fiennes brilliantly malevolent Lord Voldemort who really carry the whole enterprise.

Indeed, with the focus very much on Harry for a good portion of Deathly Hallows – this after all a story that comes down to one good wizard versus one demented maniac – some of the more peripheral characters who have featured more prominently in the previous instalments are slightly forgotten. Where it matters though, Yates makes sure that fans get what they want – the battle pauses to allow character and audience alike grieve for the death of a Weasley along with two other significant characters. One of the most satisfying moments in the book – all I need to say here is “Not my daughter, you bitch” – remains intact. A more callous person might question make-up jobs in the epilogue – it was always going to be a difficult one to film – but that’s pure pedantry, if you ask me.

The last film earned bonus points for not being released in 3D. Alas, we are not so lucky this time with Warner Brothers shaking those last few shekels out of Potter fan’s pockets. As with all movies that are filmed in murky surroundings – as much of Potter inevitably is given the ominous tone of the proceedings – the 3D is difficult to make out and, actually, a bit of a hindrance given that it dulls the print making it harder to see. That said, some cinemas are giving out special Harry Potter shaped 3D glasses. I won’t lie – I’d be torn.

Someone trite once said that all good things must come to an end (it may have been Chaucer or, perhaps, Nelly Furtado) and so it proves with Harry Potter. The chapter is now closed, we will all eventually move on to the next big thing, but, at least, we can have the pleasure of knowing that Harry Potter went out on a massive high.

Stars: *****

Harry Potter - A Look Back

2011-07-15T09:42:00.001+01:00

When the final box office for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II is totted up, the series will have racked up sales in excess of $7.5 billion. Whether you like them or not, you have to admit that that is an impressive haul for a film about a socially awkward ne’er do well coming into money and magic. When the first film was announced in 2001, many - including this critic - groaned but from inauspicious beginnings has blossomed a truly great franchise. It will be sorely missed. Well, until someone remakes them at least.

Harry Potter... and the Philosopher's Stone

Harry Potter's first outing sticks too rigidly to JK Rowling's text. Director Chris Columbus was clearly terrified of incurring the wrath of the Potter Purists so a relatively simple story becomes a mammoth two and a half hour marathon. The treatment is childish, the colour pallete garish and the Quidditch totally botched. All three stars feel entirely out of their depth but Daniel Radcliffe (Harry), in particular, seems hewn from wood. This film is the stick the haters use to beat Potter fans.
Stars: **

... and the Chamber of Secrets

Another infantile effort from Columbus, Chamber of Secrets shares many of its predecessor's problems. It feels like the man is literally filming page by page of Rowling's book. Radcliffe, Rupert Grint (Ron) and Emma Watson (Hermione) still look incredibly nervous and ill at ease with each other. The special effects show significant improvement especially in the opening sequence when Harry and Ron traverse the country in a flying car and Kenneth Branagh is good value as all-mouth-and-no-trousers Gilderoy Lockhart. Nevertheless, this film was evidence, if it were needed, that the series needed a serious kick up the behind.
Stars: **

...and the Prisoner of Azkaban

A kick that was handsomely delivered by Children of Men director Alfonso Cuaron. Like a prepubescent boy who wakes up one morning to find his voice has broken and he's feeling a bit funny down below, the Harry Potter series matured overnight. The story gets darker, the tone more ominous and Cuaron isn't afraid to respectfully deviate from JK Rowling's text. While Radcliffe still looks a little like he's accidentally stumbled onto set, Watson begins to show real promise. The least commercially successful of the Potter franchise, Azkaban is the film that saved the series from eating itself.
0Stars: ****

...and the Goblet of Fire

Mike Newell was always going to struggle to film Rowling's sprawling fourth book - the best before Deathly Hallows - but he pulls it off with admirable gusto. The book is action packed and so is the film with Harry and his co-horts fighting murderous mermaids and fire snorting dragons before the brilliant final sequence where Ralph Fiennes makes his first appearance as Lord Voldemort. Radcliffe is out on his own in this one and he finally steps up to the mark. A pity that they couldn't excise the irritating Cho Chang from proceedings. The final scene, in which Cedric Diggory's father lets out a primal scream on seeing his son's lifeless body, is as heartbreaking a moment as you will ever see on the big screen.
Stars: *****

... and the Order of the Phoenix

The least inspiring book of the series begets the most boring big screen adaptation. New director David Yates - who will go on to direct the remaining films - gets the tone just right with an opening sequence that feels like Ken Loach got his hands on the script. Potter's gone gritty. This is a bridging book, however, in which the only noteworthy plot development happens right at the end. The film suffers as a result. Still Imelda Staunton is deliciously evil as the masochistic Delores
Stars: ***

... and the Half Blood Prince

The film that strays most from Rowling's vision is also one of the best. As we hurtle toward a conclusion that will leave the hardest film fan feeling a bit dewy eyed, Yates fashions the kind of teen angst romance that wouldn’t seem out of place in a ridiculously expensive episode of Gossip Girl. All three leads handle it brilliantly but Grint does a nifty bit of scene stealing as Ron gormlessly navigates the first rush of teen coupling. Tom Felton's Draco Malfoy finally gets the prominence he deserves. A significant change to the climax will have been off putting - quite rightly - for die-hards but Yates gets away with it.
Stars: *****

...and the Deathly Hallows Part I

The decision to split the final book into two films may have seemed like a cynical ploy to squeeze as much cash out of the franchise as possible, but it proved very necessary and worked brilliantly. Rowling's book is full of brilliantly conceived sequences and, with extra time on his hands, Yates gives each its full due. Ending with the sucker punch that was Dobby's death - who knew that grown men would weep for a mini-Vladimir Putin - is a masterstroke, setting you up nicely for the final instalment.
Stars: *****

The Guard

2011-07-08T05:35:00.003+01:00

Sharp and funny, this black comedy from John Michael McDonagh is a fabulous piece of work made all the better by an absolutely blistering performance from its leading man. If this doesn’t float your boat, then your boat is sunk. It is, frankly, hilarious and an irrefutable must see.

Brendan Gleeson – if ever a man was born to play an Irish guard it is he – plays Sergeant Gerry Boyle, a maverick who has a rather unique approach to law enforcement that involves the copious use of drugs and hookers. He makes Charlie Buckton in Home and Away – the measure by which all bad cops should be judged - look like Inspector Morse. His cosy little number in Connemara is rudely interrupted by a group of drugs smugglers (Liam Cunningham and Mark Strong) who have drawn the attention of FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle). Confronted with Gerry’s lack of professionalism – and casual racism – Wendell is at first appalled but develops a grudging respect for the Irish man and when the proverbial hits the fan for real, the two have each other’s back.

There must have been something in the water when the McDonagh’s were growing up. While John’s film it doesn’t quite reach the dark heights of his brother Martin’s In Bruges, it is incredibly funny. Despite fairly conventional foundations – mismatched cops partnering up to bring down a sinister drugs cartel – he has come up with something that feels fresh, original and very smart. It is incredibly near the knuckle at times – indeed, the humour might be a bit too robust for more sensitive Mary Whitehouse types – but it works to great effect. His finest achievement thought is the creation of Gerry Boyle – a brilliantly off-kilter character that will linger long in the memories of anyone who sees the The Guard.

This film, brilliant and all as the script is, would not have worked without Gleeson. He absolutely nails the feckless and foulmouthed Gerry, in a performance that ranks amongst his best and should, if there is any justice, win him some silverware later in the year. He is ably supported by Don Cheadle who has the good sense to sit back and let Gleeson do his thing. Elsewhere Mark Strong is slightly lost in the mix though does sold work as does Liam Cunningham with the rather hackneyed role of the Dub-a-lin gangster.

We have had false dawns in Irish film before but this year is shaping up to be one of the industry’s best and when it comes time to tally up the successes, The Guard will be front and centre. Seek it out as soon as you can.

Stars: ****

The Tree of Life

2011-07-08T05:35:00.001+01:00

Man, there are going to be a lot of disappointed Brad Pitt fans out there. The Tree of Life is just about the most inaccessible film the man has ever made and I wager that there will be plenty of people drawn to it by his star power who will find themselves bored silly and scratching their heads. This enormously ambitious film about life and loss from the far from prolific director Terrence Malick is simultaneously crazy and painfully dull. It is a polarising film – I have no doubt that there are some who will absolutely love it – but for this film reviewer it was a chore to watch and an experience which I hope to never repeat.

Starting with news of the death of their 19 year old son, we see Mr. O’Brien (Pitt – delivering a fine, nuanced performance) and his wife (Jessica Chaistain) suffer with unbearable grief. Then we switch to Sean Penn in the present day, their middle son, who is still coming to terms with and trying to make sense of his brother’s death while surrounded by the kind of architecture that makes you feel like an ant. From here, we go to a lengthy sequence about the creation of the world before rolling back again to the O’Brien’s and their family life with the father beginning to increasingly clash with doomed eldest son Jack (Hunter McCracken). Interspersed throughout are poetic meditations on the meaning of life delivered to a mysterious moving light which, presumably, represents God.

And that’s all there is to it really. Nothing much happens over a very long two hours and twenty minutes. While Malick’s vision is admirable, he is out of control here with a narrative that jumps all over the shop and a story that really can’t match up to the scale of his ambitions.

It is, it has to be said, beautifully shot. This should be no surprise to anyone who has ever seen one of Malick’s films. The man is gifted at the visuals and given that he is tackling the creation of the world here, he has plenty to work with. This takes up a massive twenty minute chunk at the start of the film and involves flights through space, crashing waves and molten lava all set to an ethereal and nigh on impossible to follow narration. It is very much like a video installation that you might stumble across in a darkened room at a contemporary art museum and spend five minutes watching before you get bored. There is no denying that it is quite lovely to watch, however, it all seems a bit 1970s Stanley Kubrick to me. Some will see that as a good thing, of course, and each to their own but to me it feels very dated and it drags. Oh, how it drags.

The rest of the film is no different. Even when he isn’t off on flights of fancy – the rather surprising inclusion of a dinosaur sequence, for instance – Malick moves his story along with all the pace of an asthmathic octogenarian. Having started off with the monumental news of a death in the family, he then starts to construct the story of their small and pointless life in excruciating detail. After about an hour or so of all this, all we have learned is that Pitt’s Mr. O’Brien is a bit of a meanie who takes his frustrations out on his family and that his sons both admire him for this and fear the consequences. This is hardly earth shattering stuff. Juxtaposing this against the beginning of the world to make a point about our insignificance in the grand scheme of things is very heavy handed and, dare I say it, condescending.

If you are a patient person who likes to ponder the meaning of life, this might be for you. Perhaps I am just a troglodyte but The Tree of Life passed me by. I suspect that I won’t be alone in that.

Stars: **

Holy Rollers

2011-07-08T05:33:00.002+01:00

Drug dealing on film is either really glamorous or really grim. This is a fundamental truth of movie making. It is never boring. At least, it wasn’t until Kevin Asch made Holy Rollers.

Taking inspiration from a true story, Holy Rollers tells the story a group of Hasidic Jews living in a deprived area of Brooklyn who stumble into smuggling ecstasy with dramatic consequences for both the individuals involved and their community. Jesse Eisenberg plays Sam Gold, an eager young man who is stuck working in the family business but is desperate to advance himself so that he can secure a good marriage. His neighbour Yosef (Justin Bartha) seems to offer a way out when he gives Sam the opportunity to earn good money transporting “medicines for rich people” from Amsterdam to New York via Canada. They are able to get away with this because customs officials have no idea that Hasidic Jews are involved in drug smuggling so pass them through without much difficulty. However, as Sam gets pulled into the drugs world, his head is turned by his boss’s girlfriend (Ari Graynor) and the possibilities that access to a never ending stream of cash presents. His local community, however, are all too aware of what he is up to and Sam finds himself being ostracised. As he struggles with his faith and his new life, things start to come crumbling down.

There’s the kernel of an interesting story in Holy Rollers but writer Antonio Macia and Asch fail to draw it out. This is a hideously dreary and despite being a mere 89 minutes, feels as long as The Tree of Life. Eisenberg adds a steeliness to his usually nerdy shtick that works well but Sam is a little too whiny for comfort and you do wish that he would just grow a pair sometimes. Bartha does the better job with Yosef who teeters on the edge indulging too much in his own product and unravelling at far greater speed.

At best Holy Rollers provides an insight into a religion that’s alien to most people in this country but aside from that there is little of interest here.

Stars: **

Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon

2011-07-01T08:28:00.001+01:00

Welcome to the third Transformers movie in which Michael Bay and Shia LaBeouf valiantly pretend that there was nothing wrong with the abominable Revenge of the Fallen and end up making a film that is very definitely an improvement on its predecessor. This, in case you hadn’t guessed, is faint praise because Revenge… is up there with mass cattle slaughter and documentaries showing John Waters naked in the category of “things that make me sorry I was born”. Dark of the Moon (how stupid is that title by the way?) is better but only marginally so.

We have moved on a few years and Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf) finds himself unemployed and sponging off his new girlfriend Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley). Cut off from his Autobot friends, he takes a job in the mailroom of a random firm at the behest of his girlfriend’s slimy boss (Patrick Dempsey) but it is not long before the Decepticons are getting up to their old tricks and he is back battling rogue robots. The scale of this particular salvo is much bigger than any of their previous attempts to take over the world.

I won’t lie. The first hour and a half of Dark of the Moon is passable enough. Sure, it has none of the wit or energy of the first in the series but it does have an actually storyline which is a bonus after the squalid mess that was Revenge…. Equally, there is no denying that it starts off well with a clever prologue that reinterprets the moon landings as a search and rescue mission for a crashed autobot spaceship. Then improbable complication is thrown on top of improbable complication as more and more people come into the mix to confuse things further and, before you know it, you have another almighty mess on your hands.

Bay is, of course, largely responsible for this. His grandiose style of direction leaves no room for twee nonsense like logic. All he appears to be concerned with is blowing stuff up and lingering over shots of Huntington-Whiteley’s enhanced bosom. Fair enough, the man is known for his action films not his slow moving dramas, but the action here is as muddled as it was in the last film – at one point there is a Mexican stand-off and I couldn’t, for the life of me, identify who the bad guys were supposed to be – and the sequences are far, far too long. The film has one truly spectacular sequence where a building half topples over but it is ruined because it drags on and on and you end up wishing it would just fall to the ground and kill everyone involved – cast and crew – to spare you any more tedium.

LeBoeuf looks like a broken man in this. He does his absolute best to recapture the spirit of the original film but the material just isn’t there and by the time it all comes to a head, you get the sense that he wants it to be over just as much as you do. The best that can be said for the vacant Huntington-Whitely is that she emerges from this with more dignity than Fox managed in Revenge… - largely because Bay doesn’t make her contort herself like Bangkok ping-pong lady.

There is a simple solution to all of this which will make the fourth film – and unless the general public break the habit of a lifetime and start paying attention to film critics, there will be another. Sack the writer. The script for the first Transformers film had a lightness of touch that couldn’t be derailed by Bay’s orange filters and his obsession with Megan Fox’s behind. Ehren Kruger, the man behind Dark…, had no hand in that script because he was too busy killing off franchises like The Ring and Scream. He’s a terrible writer with no feel for a funny line and who bloats his scripts with superfluous characters that go nowhere and achieve nothing. Dark Side of the Moon is no different to any other film he has written. I can’t think of a single witty line in it and he creates characters for actors with serious acting chops like Frances McDormand and John Malkovich that make them look like they’ve stepped in from a particularly bad 70s porno. He is inept and must be stopped.

I have no doubt that Dark… will find favour with hormonal teenage boys but everybody else would do well to give it a wide swerve.

Stars: **

The Conspirator

2011-07-01T08:26:00.001+01:00

Worthy but dull. That’s the best thing you can say about Robert Redford’s latest directorial effort. His films have never been a barrel of laughs but The Conspirator, like his last film Lion for Lambs, is an especially joyless affair that is too busy getting on its soapbox to care about a trifling thing like being entertaining.

If you ask the average Irish person, I’d wager that they might be able – at a stretch – to tell you that John Wilkes Booth killed Abraham Lincoln. They would be right. What most of them – and certainly this includes me – probably do not know is that Wilkes Booth did not act alone. Following Lincoln’s assassination at a Washington theatre, the US government engaged in something of a witchhunt, rounding up friends of Wilkes Booth and accusing them of conspiring to kill the president. One of those rounded up was boarding house owner Mary Surratt whose son was very much involved in the assassin. She, along with her co-accused, was put to a military tribunal despite the evidence against her appearing to be very tenuous.

The Conspirator sees James McAvoy play former soldier Frederick Aiken drafted in to defend Surratt (Robin Wright). Despite initially believing that she is guilty and should be put to justice swiftly, Aiken begins to realise that Surratt herself is the victim of a high level conspiracy to deliver heads – no matter whose head it is – for the baying mob. He sets about trying to establish the truth of what happened in the conspiracy to murder Lincoln while being thwarted at every turn by a dodgy prosecutor (Danny Huston) and corrupt politician (Kevin Kline).

Watching The Conspirator, you can’t help but wonder if Redford will ever lighten the hell up. At best, it shines a light on a tawdry episode in American history that will be unfamiliar to most of us outside the US. However, it is far too preachy for its own good and the very blatant attempts to draw parallels between the moral bankruptcy of the US administration post-Lincoln and post-9/11 feel trite.

There is no denying that it is competently directed and Redford has drawn out some very fine performances from his cast with McAvoy on especially good form. However, the story is very heavy handed and it ends up feeling like a very long and dreary lecture. The kind of lecture that you would have happily skipped in favour of watching re-runs of Judge Judy. Which I suggest you do, if you are tempted to see this one.

Stars: **

Larry Crowne

2011-07-01T08:24:00.001+01:00

It must be hard for a big star in Hollywood not to get notions about themselves and doubly so if they are as big a draw as Tom Hanks. Everybody’s favourite everyman seems too nice to lose the run of himself and, so it proves, with Larry Crowne. As vanity projects go, it is no John Travolta decimating his career in Battlefield Earth, but a vanity project it very much is.

Here is a film that would never have been made were it not for Hanks' star power. Having co-written the script with My Big Fat Greek Wedding scribe Nia Vardalos and taken on directing duties himself, this is quite literally the case. However, it is fair to say that without Hanks’ involvement Larry Crowne would never have seen the light of day. It is a slight, uninteresting and sometimes very dull, almost entirely life- and laugh-less comedy.

Having been sacked from his retail job because his lack of education is stunting his chances of advancement, Larry (Hanks) struggles to find a new position and is forced to go back to college. There he meets the irritatingly perky Alavarez (Roxana Ortega) who takes him on as a personal project and changes him (this chiefly done by getting him to wear a woman’s scarf but never-mind). His transformation attracts the attention of jaded teacher Mercedes (Julia Roberts) as she breaks up with her feckless husband Dean (Bryan Cranston).

Larry Crowne shows some promise at the start when he is summarily sacked in a most flippant manner but there it peaks and that’s in the first minute or so. There’s another hour and a half of tedium to go. The challenges that Larry faces aren’t particularly difficult – to be fair, they should given that his life is going to pot but they are presented as mere bumps in the road. I suppose it’s too much to expect multi-millionaires Hanks and Vardalos to properly empathise with someone who loses their home.

It is impossible to dislike Hanks – he plays Larry with a kind of aw-shucks wide eyed naivety that wins you over despite the fact that there are points where you wish that he would grow a pair. Presumably, he called in a favour to get Roberts involved and, a good job he did, because she is easily the best thing about Larry Crowne. Personally, I find Roberts insufferably smug, but there’s no denying that she makes a big impression as the bitter, cynical Mercedes.

Ultimately, the best thing that you can say about Larry Crowne is that it is nowhere near the car crash that was Vardalos’ last film, My Life in Ruins. Inoffensive but exceptionally dull stuff.

Stars: **

Bridesmaids

2011-06-24T15:02:00.001+01:00

The funniest film of the year, by some distance, Bridesmaids is belly-achingly brilliant. A female centred comedy that combines the best of a bawdy comedy normally associated with men and the genteel humour of a traditional rom-com, Bridesmaids is a perfectly pitched laugh-riot that should appeal to everyone.

Kristen Wiig plays Annie, a flaky thirtysomething phoning her life in following the recession-led demise of her beloved bakery and the subsequent failure of her relationship. Her chief ambition now seems to be persuading the obnoxious Ted (John Hamm) to be more than friends with benefits. Her stagnation is rudely disturbed when her best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) announces that she is getting married and appoints Annie as chief bridesmaid. A rival emerges, however, in the form of Rose Byrne’s Helen – a new friend with incredible organisation skills who seems intent on sidelining Annie from day one. It’s not long before things start to go horribly awry and Annie’s downward spiral hits full throttle even as a happy ending seems to be hovering in sight when she meets an impossibly sensitive cop Rhodes (Chris O’Dowd). He is everything that Ted is not and his presence proves a significant challenge to Annie’s self-pity party.

Bridesmaids has done incredibly well in the US – deservedly so – which in turn has prompted lots of tedious pieces hailing it as proof, finally, that women can be funny. This is a nonsense. Of course, women can be funny. The only difference here is that they are given free reign to be funny. They aren’t – as they would be in most American films – mere window dressing for their male counterparts. Wiig and her co-writer Annie Mumolo have delivered a ballsy comedy that makes the most of its leading lady’s considerably comedy chops while giving everyone else ample chance to win a few laughs.

Wiig, who is probably best known on this side of the Atlantic for her role in the underwhelming Paul despite being a major star on US television, grabs the opportunity to claw her way onto the A-list and makes the most of it. She does a brilliant job not just with the comedy but by making Annie a fully rounded character – she’s the sweet-natured gal that you’re used to in American movies; she’s as much a pain in the ass as she is endearing. She also delivers one of the best drunk-on-film performances that you will ever see during a particularly well-judged flight sequence.

While Wiig takes the majority of screen-time, she is much more democratic when it comes to the jokes. Co-stars Rudolph and Melissa McCarthy – playing the Alan from The Hangover role – are given room to shine and Byrne does great work as the incredibly passive aggressive Helen. It is O’Dowd, however, who almost runs away with the film. Simply an appearance on screen was enough to elicit “aws” from the largely female audience at my screening and judging by the reaction to this, Brendan from The Clinic has a decent shot at a career in the States.

It is not without its problems. Annie needs a good kick up the ass alright but when it comes, the source is a bit left of field and makes no real sense in the wider context of the film. O’Dowd’s Nathan seems to start out American but switches to Irish about 20 minutes in – this is explained with a throwaway line designed to make you think that this was the intention in the first place but it seems pretty obvious to me that they changed tack when it became clear that his accent wasn’t up to much. It is also a tad too long and while I wouldn’t want to excise too much, the presence of 90s soft rock troubadours Wilson Phillips would seem somewhat superfluous to me. There’s no denying that it is formulaic as well.

Bridesmaids transcends these flaws though by being ridiculously funny. Whether the comedy is broad – and it gets incredibly broad with one excruciating gross out scene at a bridal shop – or more subtle, it delivers consistent laughs throughout. This is not, as has been suggested The Hangover for girls - it is much, much better than that.

Stars: **** (& a 1/2)

Viva Riva!

2011-06-24T14:59:00.001+01:00

The first ever Congolese film to achieve a release in the US, Viva Riva! has caused a bit of a splash on the arthouse circuit but, in truth, it is just an over-praised gangster film that doesn’t stray too far from a tired formula.

Charismatic gangster Riva (Patsha Bay) arrives back in home town of Kinshasa with a boat load of stolen gas just as the city is running out of fuel. While he and his boss wait for the optimum moment to sell, he does a little advance spending, hitting the brothel with his mate JM (Alex Herabo) and splashing the cash in the local nightclub. While’s he’s busy trying to get his end away with gangster’s moll Nora (Manie Malone), some very peeved Angolan men are tearing up the town looking for him and their stolen gas.

Incredibly, for a film that comes in at just over an hour and a half and which throws in more than its fair share of gratuitous sex and violence, I found myself stifling the odd yawn of boredom watching Viva Riva! Perhaps, it’s because we have all been here many times before with everything from Eastenders’ neverending gangster period to anything starring Michael Madsen. Or, God forbid, Michael Madsen and Vinny Jones. The only thing that’s really changed is the scenery.

By the by, I’ve never been to the Congo, so, this may just be my ignorance, but the economics of Viva Riva! make absolutely no sense. When Viva arrives back with his stolen gas, his boss hands him an envelope full of $100 dollar bills to see him through the weekend. There’s enough money there to buy you a sizeable portion of the unsavoury side of Detroit. You find yourself wondering why they don’t just take the money and run.

What made me really uncomfortable, however, was the rather disgusting streak of misogyny that rarely takes a backseat. Writer-director Djo Tunda wa Munga doesn’t seem all that concerned with fleshing out his female characters – the women are there to be screwed or beaten, that’s all. It may contribute to shock value but there is no defence for it. This is not a do-gooder super-worthy film made by people who want to highlight issues – it’s an action film that takes its cue from countless Hollywood B-movies – and it should be judged as such and Viva Riva! revels a bit too much in violence toward women for my liking.

The film does deserve some kudos for how it looks – filmed on a shoestring budget using digital cameras, it is very slickly done and vividly conjures up the atmosphere of a crowded, sweaty city. That’s about as much praise as it is getting from me, however, because the mundane plotting combines with the repugnant attitude toward women to make this a rather unpleasant experience.

Stars: **