Snow White And The Huntsman

Summer 2012

Fantasy Adventure

Starring: Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Sam Claflin, Rachel Stirling, Sam Spruell, Lily Cole, Ray Winstone, Ian McShane, Toby Jones and Bob Hoskins.

Certificate: 12A.

Running Time: 127 Mins Approx.

Seen At: Stockport’s Cineworld Cinemas.

On: Thursday, 14^th June, 2012.

As early as April, we had the first of two early-summer cinematic Snow White’s. Julia Roberts’ return to the mainstream, relishing in fun menace in Mirror Mirror.  I haven’t seen it yet, but, judging from the trailer, was defiantly the more fun - child-friendly, sugary, frothier and lighthearted, aimed squarely at youngsters compared to this supposedly more ‘epic’ adaptation. I suspect, that the former would have been the one which I personally would have enjoyed far more though.

  The intention presumably was to re-imagine the classic Disney fairytale for the teen-angst-fuelled target audiences of today, their fanatically populist choice being the moody, pale-faced vampires of the Twilight phenomenon (surely it’s not just coincidental that the female lead here is the same as the heroine for so-dubbed ‘Twi-hards’ - but is it as cynical a ploy as just being a shrewd case of shoo-in casting to ensure successful box-office takings?

  Maybe, but by opting for a decidedly darker tone, the result is mixed to say the least. Far too long, far too slow, and taking an absolute age to go anywhere, it takes on too many ideas for its own good.

  Kristen Stewart’s demeanor is as miserable, stilted and inexpressive as ever, and even when she’s supposed to be the flourishing flower, she’s forever dressed in pauper’s rags.

Chris Hemsworth, a great actor, very popular with the mighty success of Thor, is here completely wasted on a vastly underwritten, cardboard-template of a role, and a terrible Scottish accent. Considering the title, you’d have also thought that his Huntsman would be the predominant love interest, but instead, that is Sam Claflin, fairing much better as William, a suitably heroic Prince Charming.

  Thank goodness mainly though for Charlize Theron, completely stealing the show, fantastic and superbly evil in the simplest sense as Ravenna, (so named due to her recurring affinity with a motif of magically swirling ravens under her control – rather similar to Oz’s Wicked Witch of The West and her infamous flying monkeys). She’s the classic queen terrified of aging, who scarily enough, temporarily regains youth by sucking it out of her captured victims.

The sword-and-sorcery action set-pieces and climactic battles are visually impressive, as are some innovatively lavish visual effects and ideas, such as a spooling, liquid-gold mirror, and Ravenna’s bath, a literal metaphor for retaining the ‘milk of youth’ – she literally bathes in the lucid, white liquid in a desperate attempt to cling to her younger self. (We first see her in saucy seductress mode, stabbing her unsuspecting men in the heart – quite literally - in a vengeful rage). Her aging make-up is also terrific, as she transforms from spikily elegant, beautifully costumed queen into haggard harridan.

  Whist cleverly retaining many staple elements (the mirror, with it’s famous ‘On the Wall’ speech, the poisoned apple, the huntsman’s plot thread), it just diverts too far from the filmic source material - Disney’s groundbreaking, first ever full-length animated feature, from 1937. I always welcome new re-envisionings of much revered classics – but only once or twice does it take memorable sequences and apply them to the new approach. This fails to capitalize on some original’s most startlingly effective moments, such as Lucille La Verne, inimitably voicing both the Wicked Queen (as she was known in fairytale) and horrible Witch, by drinking a lethal potion, putting her terrifying panoramically-photographed transformation into a dizzying spin.

  As a consequence, tonally, it’s extremely muddled throughout, switching between languidly slow, overlong and serious, and then suddenly remembering the very young children’s audience, and their partiality towards humour that’s just far too infantile.

  The latter is due mainly to the dwarfs, who, despite the starry cast they’re made up of (including wise leader Bob Hoskins), not only don’t put in an appearance until well after the first hour, but, curiously there’s eight of them.

  One of the best scenes, at last adds some much-needed colour, as they lead our moping heroine into an evergreen glade, complete with toadstools, cute-faced pixies and fluorescent, camouflaged tortoises. It’s a beautifully designed, quiet sequence.

  The most memorable supporting role is that of the Queen’s brother, played with dripping malevolence by Sam Spruell, very much in the similar cannon of The Mask of Zorro’s deceptively-named Captain Love, David Thewlis’s Northern antagonist King Einon in DragonHeart, or even Rocky Horror’s Richard O’Brien’s Pierre Le Pieu, in a fellow fairytale adaptation: Ever After: A Cinderella Story. These are wonderfully slimy supporting characters, irredeemably evil, and every bit as impactful, if not even more so, in the role of sometimes the secondary villain, as Theron is as his dominant, more intellectual sibling.

  The film’s most disappointing element is the screenplay, struggling under the weight of its own flat dialogue and seemingly endless exposition.

In the accompanying trailers, as well as gigantic pop-out billboard posters adorning the multiplexes of shopping centres, presumably because filmmakers were all too aware of the recent competition of Mirror Mirror, I feel the marketing campaign made this out to be the far more epic option of the two, on a more ambitious scale. So I wonder why it feels quite small compared with its contemporary blockbusters such as the Narnia films for instance.

Perhaps it’s the choice not to venture into the utilization of 3D, apparently less popular with audiences, who in the main prefer 2D, but to me, a third dimension always adds to a certain immersive quality to the entire cinematic experience. The decision then to not choose 3D for a project that would seem to suit it ideally, is a missed opportunity, often counting against the film, meaning that a swish of a sword, slow-motion drips of blood, or the breaking of the mirror’s shards of glass, could have been made far more tactile for the audience.

  The result, unfortunately feels considerably less ‘epic’ than was first intended, at least promotionally. This is partly due to the omission from the theatrical trailer, of Theron’s deeply sinister narration, a much more threatening version of the mirror’s simile-laden poem. Instead of the supposed innocence of the animated original’s: ‘Skin white as snow’ etc, Ravenna’s decidedly darker declaration of jealousy at her rival reads: ‘Lips red as blood…hair black as night…bring me your heart…my dear, dear Snow White’… It’s such an effectively unsettling speech, delivered with all the appropriate relish by Theron, I don’t know why they didn’t use it at all in the actual film.

  It’s mildly enjoyable enough, but a wonderful central performance from Theron, don’t change this from being a case of individual scenes being stronger than the muddled whole. Here’s hoping, that if this is a relative success, and distributors Universal Studios do decide to cash-in on an inevitable sequel, as much effort is put into improving this labored screenplay’s pacing, character development and dialogue, as it does into its far more successful take on its cinematic technique; of effects, villainy and visuals.

Rating: * * 

Prometheus

Summer 2012

Genre: Sci-Fi/ Horror / Prequel.

Starring: Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron, Logan Marshall-Green,Micheal Fassbender, Idris Elba, Rafe Spall and Guy Pierce.

Running Time: 124 mins. approx.

Certificate: 15

Seen At: Didsbury.

On: Saturday, 9^th June, 2012.

In 1979, director Ridley Scott made audiences around the globe scream in the isles, with Alien, a worldwide blockbusting phenomenon, that has now become an absolute staple classic. At the time, it distinguished itself as breaking new cinematic ground, as being the very first film of its kind to mix the genres of science-fiction and horror together – with simple, terrifying results. It made a star of Sigourney Weaver, as the heroic protagonist Ripley, one of the first examples of a strong female in the lead, as opposed to the ‘damsel in distress’ figure.

Scott ‘gave birth to’ this genre, as do, in this movie’s case, his characters too - quite literally - in some of the most shocking, horrific and memorable sequences in modern cinema that have ever been committed to celluloid. Of course, it was John Hurt who appeared in: ‘the scene’ as the doomed Kane. His face-hugging, chest-bursting fate is in the same category as Janet Leigh’s dice with death in a motel shower in Hitchcock’s unbeatable slasher Psycho, The Exorcist’s Linda Blair’s three-hundred-and-sixty degree, head-spinning projectile vomit, Jack Nicholson’s maniacal axe-weilding in Kubrick’s The Shining, Clarice’s introduction to Dr. Lector in The Silence of The Lambs, Jamie Lee-Curtis’s babysitting job from hell in John Carpenter’s Halloween in 1978, and of course, Glenn Close’s crazed Alex Forrest putting the bunny in the pot in 1987’s Fatal Attraction, all going down as just some of the most iconic images not only in horror, but also in cinematic history. In celebration of the upcoming release of Prometheus, Channel 4 have been showing three of the original quadology, and while the first three sequels had, shall we say, varying amounts of success, I assure you that as is also the case with Ridley’s return with this film, the original hasn’t lost a single ounce of its impact to absolutely petrify…

 Returning to the genre of sci-fi for the first time in twenty years since Blade Runner in 1982 (which he is soon to remake), the visionary director insists that this is not a straightforward prequel to Alien, being instead very much it’s own ‘beast’, but it’s impossible not to see the parallels. 

  Set before the events of the original, the premise sees a group of explores land on an abandoned planet, in the spaceship of the film’s title, millions of miles from earth. Its stunning opening shot consists of a gigantic waterfall, with a mysterious, sinister figure standing on top.

   This installment attempts to answer the ultimate in existential questions: where do we come from? Our heroine this time round is Elizabeth Shaw (played by the first Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Noomi Rapace), a scientist who believes that what remains of an ancient civilization, could hold the key to our very existence. In turn, this opens up all kinds of infinitely ongoing debates such as nature versus nurture, evolution verses godly creation, and science verses religion.

  The archetypal icy blonde with a heart of glass is also on board, in the shape of the enigmatic and skeptical Meredith Vickers, (Charlize Theron on cool, detached form), a woman shrouded in complete mystery, who might just have her own top secret ‘agenda’ for being there…

  As was the case with Ian Holm’s head-twirling, white-foaming Ash and Lance Henriksen’s Bishop before (or rather, after) him, David is the ship’s cyborg, a robot in human form (a polished-speaking but morally ambiguous Micheal Fassbender).There’s a brilliantly eerie, ominous early sequence which sees him silently stalk the otherwise deserted, pristine quarters of the ship to deceptively contrapuntal, lulling classical strings,  while all the other crew are experiencing hyper-sleep inside those infamous pods. It’s a scene which sets the very specific tone throughout: as with all effective horror films, it should unfold slowly, ramping up the tension before an explosive finale.

  Much of those ingredients do indeed translate terrifyingly well here, Dariusz Wolski’s cinematographic, wonderfully snaking, voyeuristic quality of the camera, creeping around the interiors endless corridors from the alien’s perspective. What set the original apart, providing it with an even more palpable level of suspense, is the fact that neither you, nor the characters, ever quite knew where the elusive creature was.

   Newcomer on the block, Logan Marshall-Green, gives one of the film’s best performances playing Elizabeth’s boyfriend, Charlie Holloway, who you think will be the male lead, but is actually, mid-way through, the catalyst of two of the movie’s biggest scares. First, David sneakily takes a sapling of the species’ malleable, kinesthetic, viscous alien gloop from one of the hundreds of vases which carry their eggs, and drops it into Charlie’s drink. The next morning, he finds his eye bloodshot, almost as if a poisonous contact lens has been planted. He soon becomes a lot worse, with his face a mass of throbbing veins as the alien persona slowly takes over him. I was surprised his grizly fate happened quite so early on, but it’s one of the best sequences. It’s the gradual, worsening deterioration that’s so scary.

  As if that weren’t shocking enough, Elizabeth herself is suffering from severe stomach cramps, only to next find herself waking up in the medical bay, being told quite calmly by David that she’s been impregnated, similarly to John Hurt in the original. When told that is categorically impossible, he chillingly replies: ‘Well Doctor Shaw, I’m afraid it’s not exactly a traditional fetus...’. What follows is the film at it’s most squeamish, shocking and harrowing as Elizabeth must endure a gruesome, alarm-ringing, surgical ‘procedure’ (without giving too much away), as the miniature monster rears it’s ugly ‘head’ – in an homage to that inimitable scene…

  It’s one of several jumpy, highly clever echoes to the original, another being when Rafe Spall’s character falls foolish victim to the movie’s first extra-terrestrial encounter with a small, long-necked ‘being’ that sticks itself to his arm, and wraps around it, before eating its way into his high-visibility hood…

   In terms of the alien effects themselves, they’re achieved predominantly through anamatronic puppetry, seamlessly combined with astonishing computer-generated flourishes. Scott obtains the perfect balance of never showing too much of the creatures so that the audience are no longer shocked, but always showing us just enough of a suggestion of them to keep us tantalized. Keep you’re eyes peeled behind those ever-so-stylish 3D glasses though, as towards the end, when it’s the showdown between Elizabeth with an axe and the snarling, tentacled monstrosity, we finally see exactly where the legendarily slimy Alien from the original actually came from. It shows just how far visual effects have come in the thirty-three years since the first film. Stay through the credits to see just how many people are listed under: ‘Digital Artists’. It should surely win the Best Visual Effects Oscar next year, and more hopefully.

  Speaking of 3D, those fantastic effects are even further enhanced by superb utilization of the tool. The sheer scale of the rocky, baron landscapes is visually stunning. There’s an exhilarating sandstorm sequence, whereby as paraclastic storm-clouds are approaching, the body count is also rising, with helpless crew members being sucked out the back of the ship, as just another  innumerable piece of debris…

    In the sequence whereby the characters first discover the cavernous remains of a deserted civilation, with these enormous stone idols carved in the shape of the heads of the gods (which feature in a lot of the poster art),  the choice of digital gradient which colours these scenes, are an immersive jade-green sheen, with this gloss acting as a slowly emerging manifestation, a visual metaphor for the texture of the alien itself.

  In moments of true peril, Marc Streitenfeld’s understated, synthesized, droning score, puts you directly in the heart of the tension.

    In the absolutely huge anticipation surrounding this film, the trailers have been so clever in not revealing all that much, with an editing style that's all flashes and bursts. What’s most memorable from it, is the desperate wail of the ship’s alarm that accompanies it…

  What lets the film down the most is its screenplay. The dialogue is often too on-the-nose, and the supporting characters aren’t well enough drawn.

  In terms of the cast, the best performance is from Charlize Theron as Meredith Vickers – clearly reveling in a perfect opportunity to be so spiky and authouratative. It’s the first of her two blockbusting ‘evil queen’ figures this summer, as in fact released in multiplexes on the very same day as this, she’s also the famous villainess in the latest re-envisioning of the classic fairytale of Snow White – Snow White and the Huntsman.

  Luther star Idris Elba is suitably patriotic and gung-ho as Janek, the ship’s captain, and Guy Pearce is unrecognizable, under the layers of prosthetics as the aged Peter Weyland, the franchise’s founder of Weyland Corporations, the organization who fund the crew’s fateful expeditions…

  Tense,terrific and absolutely terrifying, whether you think it reaches the heights of the original is an open question, but for me it is certainly just as heart-pumpingly entertaining, and it is left open for, hopefully, a sequel.  The more horribly extreme it is, the more you can’t help but delight in watching through your fingers!

Rating: * * * *

Men In Black 3

Summer 2012

Science Fiction Comedy/Action-Adventure.

Starring: Will Smith, Tommy Lee-Jones, Josh Brolin, Jermaine Clement, Michael Stuhlbarg, Alice Eve, Nicole Scherzinger and Emma Thompson.

Certificate: PG.

Running Time: 106 mins. approx.

Seen At: The Heritage Centre’s Cinema, Macclesfield.

On: Friday, 8^th June, 2012.

It’s Danny Elfman’s score that immediately grips you into Barry Sonnenfeld’s third outing for the stylishly-shaded, sharp-suited defenders of the universe. As soon as you hear the classically inimitable throng of four ominous notes on a violin, followed this time by the larger-scale thud of a base drum, it’s a solid basis for be swept along on a special-effects laden action-adventure.

In the film’s inventive opening scene, a glamorous vixen (played by none other than The Pussycat Dolls’s Nicole Scherzinger) delivers what appears to be a pink-iced, wobbly, strawberry-topped cake into an intergalactic lunar prison, for the aptly named Boris The Animal. Needless to say, looks are as deceptive as ever, and a sequence ensues which employs one of this franchises defining qualities: the balanced antithesis in tone, between crowd-pleasing laughs, frequently juxstaposed with appropriately squirm-inducing (but always of the family-friendly variety), creature-based shocks.

  It’s been a full fifteen years since the innovative 1997 original, and a decade since the even more enjoyable sequel in 2002. Will Smith certainly doesn’t look any older,(despite J saying to K after another mission: ‘I am getting too old for this – I can only imagine how you feel!’). He can defiantly still deliver a plethora of quick-fire wisecracks that characterized, and made us root for, Agent J right from the first movie.

  Will Smith is always such a charismatic, relatable presence on screen, and here brings his trademark wit, charm and facial expressions that makes him both such a reliable and popular Hollywood A-Lister in terms of box-office power, but much more importantly, a supremely gifted actor across any genre, with a superb sense of comic timing.

  When we first meet him here for instance, he puts on his trademark glasses, flashes the memory-erasing de-nuralizer in front of an unsuspecting audience, wiping away their recollections of a giant, lime-coloured satellite in the middle of the street, with a warning that this was the result of signal interference from using mobile phones on airplanes. Another example sees him in combat with a slimy sea-creature, warning the dumbfounded onlookers about the perils of disposing of unwanted goldfish.

  Emma Thompson makes a brilliant addition to the cast as Agent O, the head of the Men In Black division, providing a feel of measured wisdom. The infamous giant screens in the headquarters, which monitor aliens disguised as humans, now feature Lady Gaga among them if you look closely!

  The predominant plot device involves Tommy Lee-Jones’s Agent K being killed in the present day. So it’s up to J, to literally ‘jump’ back in time to 1969 in order to stop the event from ever occurring. As such, the fact that the wonderful Lee-Jones is only on-screen for the first fifteen minutes, consequently means that the connection between the two leads with which the series has now become synonymous - is lost. The screenplay simply isn’t as funny as the other two films, mainly because there are very few scenes with the two of them.

  Once back in the sixties, the production design is suitably indulged in lots of retro touches.

  Josh Brolin, as the younger version of Lee-Jones, gives the best performance in the movie, capturing the Southern-American drawl, look and mannerisms of him to an absolute tee.

It’s once they run into psychic Griffin that the film feels rather flat. Griffin is quite an inconsequential character, it would have been better if the script had generated some funnier dialogue instead, as opposed to creating a flimsy supporting character.

Also, the villain this time round (Jermaine Clement’s Boris The Animal) wears goggles throughout which detracts him from having any expression, which means he’s never as effective as the previous adversaries, lacking the downright nastiness of the original’s Edgar the cockroach, or the fun of Lara Flynn-Boyle’s Serleena from the second film.

  Stylistically, the nightscapes are impressive, particularly when utilizing the clever editing technique of speed-ramping (that is, rapidly zooming in on a shot of J, before slowing it down).

The score is full of the tiniest, clever little musical cues, such as when J is chasing one nemesis through a fairground, pointing his gun left and right, accompanied by the impact of a high-pitched flute at the same time.

  The vehicle designs are especially extravagant, my favourite being the ironically futuristic, loop-the-loop cycles – used during a fast-paced chase.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t see this film in 3D – (I would always choose to, it’s a brilliant tool that can only ever add to the cinematic experience in my opinion), but I was able to estimate where the 3D flourishes would have been punctuated from (namely that very chase, or the moment when the older K zaps an alien with his blue-beamed laser gun).

  The most disappointing element though, is that there’s no Frank the pug dog – (apart from his face appearing on a billboard very briefly). He had such a prominent role in the previous one, a big reason why Men In Black II appealed to me, and is my favourite of the three).

Also, towards the end, this film makes the slight mistake of choosing emotion over comedy, a bold choice, but something a family-targeted fantasy adventure shouldn’t do.

  However, it’s always great to have the Men in Black back. It’s fun, Smith, Lee-Jones, Brolin and Thompson are all on top comic form, and it’s a summer blockbuster that’s not only a real hit at the box-office, but also fizzing to the top with visual innovation.

Rating: * * *

Dark Shadows!

Spring 2012

Supernatural/Fantasy Comedy-Horror.

Starring: Johnny Depp, Eva Green, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham-Carter, Jonny Lee-Miller,Jackie Earle-Haley, Chloe Graze-Moretz and Christopher Lee.

Certificate: 12A.

Running Time: 113mins. approx.

Seen At: Didsbury.

On: Saturday, 26^thMay, 2012.

The unique pairing of director Tim Burton and Hollywood A-Lister Johnny Depp, has always made for gold-standard cinematic magic moments over the years. In 1990, Depp landed his breakthrough role in Edward Scissorhands,a classic stylized fable. They followed this up with the similarly-titled Ed Wood in 1994, charting the chronicles of an ambitious Los Angeles filmmaker at the heart of the forties studio-system.

  1999 saw them venture into the murky, yet tongue-in-cheek world of mythical horror in Sleepy Hollow, Burton then ventured into The Nightmare Before Christmas territory, returning to ingenious stop-motion animation with 2005’s Corpse Bride (to which Depp provided the voice of the pint-sized hero), while in the same year, to duo turned their attention to the first of several adaptations, beginning with the Depp as the eccentric chocolatier Willy Wonka in the wonderful re-imagining of Roald Dahl’s Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, then the ‘cutting-edge’ Stephen Sondheim musical Sweeney Todd in 2007, and most recently, Depp donned a fluorescent orange wig, and lime-green eyes to play none other than The Mad Hatter in Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland – in 3D. These were all huge hits at the box office, as well as prime examples of bringing the offbeat into the umbrella of the mainstream populist summer blockbuster at its most prolific, expertly marketed, lucrative and crowd-pleasing.

   The two are my personal favourite collaborative team in today’s cinema. It’s the combination of Burton’s faultless eye for capturing such a particular zeitgeist with a highly specific aesthetic - (a world inhabited by gloomy cinematographic nightscapes, moonlit, twisty tree-branches and the trademark of Danny Elfman’s woozy, dreamlike score, to which we as the viewer are immediately plunged into.

Technologically and visually too, we’re always looking through Burton’s highly stylized vision, always rendered with rich, glossy flourishes of Computer-Generated Imagery. The sense is always present that these magical fables could be set anywhere, at any time – which naturally, again, increases their appeal for universality.

  Couple this with Johnny Depp’s masterful talent at literally becoming a vast, colourful array of any character imaginable – and, more importantly they’re always so diversely different from the last (from Wonka, to Ed Wood  to Dillinger, The Mad Hatter to Captain Jack Sparrow, J.M. Barrie, Paul Kemp, and Sweeney Todd), he never ceases to amaze me.

  Never more so in fact than in this latest, his eighth collaboration with Burton, to play the eloquent neighborhood vampire Barnabus Collins, in Dark Shadows, based on the sixties American television soap-opera of the same name.

  This is quite simply the best character he’s ever played. Hilarious without knowing it, articulate and sincere. This is clearly a project that both Depp and Burton are very passionate about – and it shows.

  This is visually sumptuous, endlessly inventive filmmaking with a very funny, diamond-sharp screenplay, state-of-the-art visual effects and perfect performances.

  In a classically cinematic, lavish opening sequence of misty ports, crashing waves and high-octane score, the well-to-do Barnabus of Collinswood, is suddenly cursed by Angelique, and buried for a hundred years. Of course, he’s resurrected a century later, waking up in a retro nineteen seventy-two…

  After what is actually a moderately gruesome killing spree for a comedy, an inevitable misfit culture-clash ensues, as Barnabus attempts to move back into his mansion, now taken up by his deeply dysfunctional relatives…

  It’s in the scenes whereby our friendly vampire is first coming to terms with adapting to his new environment, where the film is at its most purely cinematic. These are scenes with a very distinct immersion, which can only be described in the form of what harks back to the great, mainstream powerhouse films of the nineties such as: Hook, Goldeneye, Jumangi, Batman Forever,  – memorable, huge scale score, elaborate, economic swooping cinematography, vivid, block use of colour,and no expense spared on production values.

The films it most closely resembles tonally, are the two early nineties big-screen Addams Family pictures, balancing the difficult mix of humour and the occasionally mild scare perfectly – but always playing for laughs more than screams.

  The world now to Barnabus seems strange – giant yellow fluorescent letter M’s adorning the streets, lava lamps, cars whizzing past as he stops in the road and yells: ‘Take me Satan!’ or singers inside televisions as he asks incredulously: ‘What sorcery is this? Reveal yourself – tiny songstress!’.

  Depp is clearly having the time of his life, he really has never been better – as facially-expressive as ever - particularly with his eyes - accentuating every nuance of sparkling dialogue - his make-up’s amazing too – classic Burton-esque ghostly white face and his hair smoothed right down.

  Michelle Pfeiffer – working with Burton for the first time in twenty years since 1992’s Batman Returns – plays the archetypal matriarch of the family, while Helena Bonham-Carter takes the role of the family’s resident alcoholic physiatrist Dr. Julia Hoffman – always tipsy, in need of dark glasses at breakfast, and never without a glass in her hand.

  One of the other great performances comes from Eva Green as the villainous witch Angelique. Her characterization of the stereotypical femme fatale, the ultimate seductress, is a prime example of exactly how the best screen nemises should be – empowered, and enjoying every minute of it. Unable to resist her wicked charms, after getting steamy, Barnabus can only remark: ‘That was a regrettable turn of events’…

  She struts around in her sparkly red dress and lethal lipstick,  putting poetic spells on anyone that stands in her way, including several buildings, as she evilly whispers: ‘Burn Baby, Burn!’. It shows Green, as a highly talented comedic actress.

 When challenged on the fact that she is bloodsucking; she sultrily replies: ‘Aren’t we being a touch hypocritical? Sucking people’s blood seems to be something you’re rather familiar with’.

  It is. After springing back to life after a hundred years, his justification to his victims is simply: ‘You cannot imagine how thirsty I am’…

 But it’s certainly not too scary. There are a few moments, such as a ghostly apparition living in the floor, that are appropriately spooky, but it’s definitely on the side of humour, arising predominantly from either Barnabus’s misadventures, or, cleverly, from an ancient old housekeeper, who remains completely silent throughout, lugging around coffins, cleaning cutlery or dusting candelabras.

  As with any family, there’s the rebellious teenager, asking Barnabus sulkily: ‘Are you stoned or something?’ His unknowing reply is: ‘They tried stoning me my dear – it did not work!’.

As utilized to great effect in the terrific trailers, a wise choice of songs also accompany the soundtrack, including Knights in White Satin, Bang A Gong-Get It On, My First, My Last, My Everything, and On Top Of the World by Carol Carpenter – as well as Barnabus himself, arm outstretched, emotionally reciting lyrics of a well-known song at the time, as if they were from a Shakespearian play: ‘I’m a winner, I’m a sinner, I play my music…in the sun’. Only for him to look out to the sun and start catching fire!

   It’s towards the end that a thrilling use of CGI really comes to fruition, when the many wonderful carvings and statues which adorn the exquisitely designed mansion start to come to life. Snakes from the fireplace, and a certain werewolf, only cease to make Angelique even more vengeful, as she projectile-vomits lime green slime, and rotates her head a hundred-and-sixty-degrees as cracks literally appear in that ever-so youthful complexion. Whether you’re a fan of such sequences which use a lot of state-of-the-art effects in a rather purposely overblown fashion is an open question, but personally, cinema is at its best for me when it’s at its most adrenaline-pumping, fast and consequently – fun, all of which this is, especially in the last half-hour.

  This is one of both Burton and Depp’s very finest films to me, funny, clever, sharp, a technical master-class and the most fun I’ve had in the multiplex since my favourite-ever film – Inception. It’s certainly in my top three movies of 2012 – surely a likely early contender for next year’s Oscars. The only way it could be made better in my opinion would have been the tool of 3D. However, perhaps on this occasion, when the design and cinematography are this immersive on their own, maybe it wasn’t needed. A golden statue is so long overdue for Depp - my favourite actor – and this is the best role he’s ever played!

  Outstanding –an absolute joy!

Rating: * * * * *

The Avengers Assemble

Spring2012

Action-Adventure/Blockbuster.

Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, ChrisHemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Renner,Gwyneth Paltrow, Clark Gregg, Jenny Agutter and Samuel L. Jackson.

Certificate 12A.

Running Time: 152 mins. approx.

Seen At: Didsbury.

On: Saturday, 28^th April, 2012.

Over the summer months, multiplexes nationwide will play dramatic, huge-scale host to the now customary summer blockbuster, this year in strong comic-book mode. Our very own Andrew Garfield will take over from Tobey Maguire as the web-slinging Spiderman in August, and of course, the outstanding Christopher Nolan has the epic swansong to his faultless vision of the Batman franchise.

  Before that double-whammy however, we have a comic-book culmination, with Iron Man, Captain America,Thor – and perhaps most anticipated of all – a new interpretation of The Incredible Hulk.

Certainly the cinematic event of the year so far in terms of scale – this is hugely colossal, blockbusting cinema at it’s most elaborate – bombastic action sequences, with absolutely state-of-the-art effects further enhanced by stunning 3D technology.

But equally interestingly, this seems to be a further example in a canon of the gradually rising trend of how today’s blockbuster is judged by the major awards bodies.

 The genius of a filmmaker such as Christopher Nolan, who’s spectacularly taking the modern blockbuster into a stratosphere of epic proportions with the likes of Inception in particular, and his vision of the Batman movies, are a cinematic movement of their very own, combining breathtaking effects-laden visuals with mind-bendingly intelligent conceits. With their cyclically-structured twists and outstandingly clever cinematography, these are filmic experiences that require suitable application of brains as well as widening your eyes in amazement.

  Other notable examples include the wonderfully unique and distinct works of Tim Burton, Gore Verbinski’s Pirates of the Caribbean series and The Watchowski Brothers The Matrix franchise. All of these are examples of mainstream films that broke through, and received awards-season accolades other than being exclusive to the so-called ‘technical categories’ namely effects or production design - which now included not only acting plaudits but also recognition of their intelligent screenplays. Happily, this is also increasingly the case for several recent comedies, such as the recent works of Woody Allen.

  This combination of huge-scale visuals and increasingly intelligent screenplays and performances in the phenomenally popular studio-based summer blockbuster, complete with a built-in audience, certainly continues here.

It skillfully encapsulates all the knowing witticism of Iron Man, the great propaganda element that made last summer’s adaptation of Captain America so refreshing, as well as the emotional core of Thor. Director Joss Weadon, set for a powerhouse of a year already thanks to the clever, amusing shocker The Cabin In The Woods - knows exactly how to obtain a pitch-perfect balance, mixing humour, action and an emotional pathos.

  It opens witha breakneck set-piece involving Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury zooming into his headquarters just in time for a sneering Loki, to wreck mayhem of megalomaniac proportions (some of the set-pieces are actually quite gruesome throughout). Much car-chasing and gun-toting ensues.

  One of the films standout performances comes from Tom Hiddleston, reprising, and clearly relishing his role as the gleeful, infinitely articulate, slippery antagonist – he’s all green, ultra-modern suit and sly smile, a characterization made all the more effective by the simple fact he’s so self-assured. ‘How desperate are you… (he enquires to an equally intense Fury), ‘…that you call on such lost creatures to defend you?’

  For me, Loki is right up there with the likes of both portrayals of The Joker, Willem Dafoe and Alfred Molina’s Spiderman villains of The Green Goblin and Dr. Octopus, and Tommy-Lee Jones’s Two Face, just for the sheer magnetic power of all their performances.

The other highlight has to be Mark Ruffalo as The Incredible Hulk. After two previously – shall we say – middling cinematic interpretations – he’s back, possibly played by the most relaxed actor in the business, which also presents the opportunity of exploring a far more easygoing, almost lighter element of the personality of its genesis, Dr. Bruce Banner, who here seems much more used to his alter-ego – thankfully we don’t have to stumble over the dark, troubled back-story of his past – and can instead have both sides of him fully established very quickly. Ruffalo brilliantly allows the much more humorous side of him to emerge, and balances the duality perfectly. A Best Supporting Actor nomination on the way? I hope so. He's definitely the best, most fully-fledged Hulk we’ve had by a mile – aside from also being the best character in the heroic hexagon of Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Hawkeye and The Black Widow.

  Technically, Hulk’s a triumph, intricate, expressive and just the correct shade of lime.

 I hadn’t actually seen Kenneth Branagh’s Thor before seeing this, but, it actually doesn’t matter – this stands up perfectly well as a standalone film. Chris Hemsworth, this year’s most popular new star, plays the Greek God of Thunder with strength, depth and humility.

  The screenplay maximizes its great amount of humour the most with the interplay between the group of very different personalities. For instance, during a long-awaited stand-off between Robert Downey Jr.’s wonderfully self-deprecating Iron Man and the no-nonsense Thor, observing his Shakespearian-like attire, he asks: ‘Doth Mother know, you weareth her drapes?!’.

  Scarlett Johanssonis suitably sassy as the raven-bobbed Black Widow, and Chris Evans is great, returning as the shield-wheedling Captain America – also one of my favourite characters.

 The 3D flourishes are at as blistering a standard as ever, whether it is the throw of Captain America’s shield, a speed-ramped shot of Hawkeye’s (Jeremy Renner’s) arrow, or the exhilarating panoramic rocket-deflection of Iron Man’s flight.

This film has performed a staggering achievement at every corner of the Box Office. In America, having been released more than a fortnight after the U.K., it’s Hulk-smashed numerous records well past the $552million-dollar mark, while within just days of opening over here, it goes down in cinematic history as becoming the third highest-grossing movie of all time, putting it behind only Harry Potter andthe Order of the Phoenix and Titanic in terms of takings.

  Isn’t it funny how with the correct mixture of timing (directly at the start of the summer months), an extremely loyal, massive built-in fan-base,  and a clever marketing campaign, it can easily take $552 million, as well as well over £4.5 million pounds over here, whereas the recent John Carter was a well-documented flop.

  As a studio, Marvel have made such a huge amount of money with this, as well as Captain America, Iron Man and Thor sequels, and another Hulk picture for Ruffalo hopefully in the pipeline, that it now comes as no surprise that fellow comic-book company, DC Comics, are soon to follow suit, hoping to repeat the success with Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and all their respective villains –to name just a few  – along for the ride. Expect plenty more bombastic comic-book movie conversions for a fair few years!

  Delightfully entertaining, and truly epic. Certainly one of the highlights of the year!

Rating: * * * *

American Pie: Reunion

Summer 2012

Genre: Comedy Sequel.

Starring: Jason Biggs, Alyson Hannigan, Chris Klein, Thomas Ian-Nicholas, Tara Reid, Mena Suvari, Seann William-Scott, Natasha Lyonne, Shannon Elizabeth, Jon Chow. With Eugene Levy, Jennifer Coolidge and Rebecca de Mornay.

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 113 mins. approx.

Seen At: ADVANCED SCREENING: PrintWorks Odeon. Manchester – Tuesday, 24^th April 2012.

When the original American Pie was released back in 1999, is was the prominent leader in a cluster of high-school, so-called ‘sex-comedies’ – raunchier materiel than the same year’s milder modern reworking of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew – 10 Things I Hate About You. Critics also dubbed this now classic series for a whole generation, as a continuation of the distinctly nineties flurry of ‘gross-out’ comedies, notably started by the Farrelly Brothers with the likes of There’s Something About Mary in 1998, Never Been Kissed, 2000’s Dude, Where’s My Car?, and even Scary Movie - the popular spoof series of another definitively American cinematic cult- product of the nineties – Scream. Such was the sudden demand, a spoof of its own – 2002’s Not Another Teen Movie mercilessly sent-up the conventions of what was by now a tried-and tested genre.

   Nine year’s since ‘The Wedding’ – each of the character’s arcs have moved on considerably. Jim and Michelle now have a toddler, Oz is now a popular Sports News presenter while Heather has a new boyfriend, and Kevin’s now married. Ironically, the most successful is Steve Stifler – played by the scene-stealing Seann William Scott. He now works for an investment firm, but that has done nothing to dampen his, shall we say, ‘unique’ opinions.

 I think the enduring appeal of these films is the combination of a definitive generational demographic – a target market within the thirteen to thirty bracket, who grew up with the series, and wanting to see how the characters have changed. It feels like they’ve never been away, a very naturalistic recalibration of sorts, at the same time exaggerated just enough for comic effect, but the ensemble’s fun at being back together off-screen, translates well on-screen.

  I’m so delighted and refreshed to say that this is the funniest of the four – taking the levels of its comedy to new heights, really drawing on the same tone and pacing of the original, both in terms of the many scenarios very much accentuating their visual humour without ever descending into gratuity or slapstick, but also letting the audience be in on the joke ahead of the characters. It’s this dramatic irony which I think works brilliantly well, that keeps teenagers in their many numbers coming back.  I should say that I was lucky enough to see this at an advancing screening, almost two weeks ahead of its general release, with the cinema almost two-thirds full of people of exactly the intended age-range.

  Visually, the usual, many uncomfortable misunderstandings occur, involving ablutions in ice-boxes, incidents with dominatrix attire, cinema-shenanigans, saucepan-lids and the misuse of various gels...

  Screenplay-wise, the one-liners are as sharp as the ever were, mainly thanks to William-Scott who completely steals the show, but it’s great to see Chris Klein back as Oz as well, gleefully sending up the fact that his character was the victim of a shock axing from a Dancing With The Stars-like reality-show. Eugene Levy is pitch-perfect as ever as Jim’s Dad - with those inimitable eyebrows - and we mustn’t forget the sassy Jennifer Coolidge as of course – Stifler’s Mom (!) – but be prepared for a brand new spin on that great tradition...

   I’m hoping they’ll be a fifth installment, but it does seem to draw to rather a neat conclusion. That said, it’s great that every cast member from the original is back (including the supporting roles such as the hilarious Jon Chow) and they’re certainly not afraid of sending themselves up, for what is a very funny, almost boundary-pushing chapter, in a hugely populist audience favourite... 

Rating: * * *

The Cabin In The Woods

Spring 2012

HORROR-Comedy SPOOF

Starring: Chris HEMSWORTH, BRADLEY Whitford, Richard Jenkins and SIGOURNEY WEAVER.

Certificate: 15.

Running Time: 95 mins.

Seen at: Didsbury

On: Saturday, 14^th APRIL 2012.

Over the last fifteen years or so, with the cracking, clever but bloody subversion of Wes Craven’s Scream in 1996, it was made clear that the horror genre of the nineties, with it’s teenage students, lavish fraternity houses and usurping of convention, was never again going to consist of  the realistic collection of Carpenter-lead, slow burning shockers it once was. Instead, we had glossy, creeping cinematographic photography, knowing dialogue, an instantly iconic figure in Ghostface, and enough ingeniously enveloped filmic references to keep both a new generational demographic, and even the most revered movie fans astutely happy.

  Now, Buffy creator Joss Weadon produces this highly intelligent spin on the much tried-and-tested scenario of: ‘teenagers holiday in a secluded location and become viciously murdered by utilizing increasingly gruesome methods’.

  Intriguingly however, it doesn’t start that way at all. Rather, it appears  initially as quite a different film altogether. Two disgruntled, ageing television controllers talk of technical glitches and declining ratings, before being freeze-framed by the screech of a crescendo. It’s a highly unique, mis-directional technique, purposely designed to catch the audience on absolutely the wrong foot, thus hooking us in and piquing our interest every perilous, as well as often oddly funny trudge of its subversive way.      Four intentionally artificial, once again glossily attractive teenagers, lead by Chris Hemsworth’s charming athlete (before he was Thor, turning in a brilliantly likeable performance as always), along with a fifth friend, load up a camper-van on their way to that most archetypal of horror-movie clichés, the deserted log-cabin retreat for the weekend, on the edge of a cliff. But not before running into another Eli Roth-inspired sterotype, the unsettlingly sinister redneck who, spitting blood – warns ominously in ambiguous, Southern-American tones: ‘I’ll get you there, getting back – that’s your concern’…

    Of course, it isn’t long before mysterious events begin to occur: double-sided mirrors, peculiarly life-like taxidermy and a family of roaming, relentless zombies, keen to reclaim an ancient diary…

   This though, is just a tiny part of the artifice designed by those same television controllers. The axel upon which the film’s entire premise is constructed. The ‘cabin’ of the title is, in actuality, an elaborate set for a reality-based television series watched by the whole world, with its four inhabitants as their unsuspecting and unaware contestants, as the order of: ‘lets begin’ is enthusiastically trilled, and a joystick locked into place…

 The brilliant and rare conceit, is actually revealed relatively earlier on, with a vulture perishing while flying into the honeycombed electric dome that protects the entire complex. Before its release it was widely reported to avoid the trailer, which did really give away too much.

  Bradley Whitford, along with the always-brilliant Richard Jenkins, are the executives who happily take bets on who’ll die next, as they gradually meet their maker one by one at the entertaining hands of a disguised mix of  smoke-and mirrors machinery, numerously hidden homage-reference and environmentally manipulated aesthetic – which includes deliberately controlled gasses that increase our protagonist’s romances, only to lure them out, into shocking deaths…

  The film really gains momentum halfway through, once those remaining cotton-on to the fact that they’ve fallen victim to superficiality, and attempt to escape off the cliff-face, only to again meet violent consequence.

  The final segment, where the last two delve deep into the actual inner-workings of the studio’s trade secrets, is where the monsters, ghosts and stock characters kick in, thanks to an ebullient indulgence in an emphasis on impressive, computer-generated visuals, travelling through the many lift-shafts, each containing a new relic character of the genre.

  The best of these however has to be a knowing nod to that genres first, most pioneering heroine, due to the actress who plays her, making a gleefully memorable cameo as the show’s unnamed director, who’s previously only hinted at through the fateful ring of an infamous red telephone. Without giving too much away, it’s a wonderful characterization and an  excitedly unexpected performance, as well as another prime example that both Weadon, and director Drew Goddard both know their genre and every meticulous detail of it, inside out. Horror fans will delight in countless references.

Thankfully, it’s not actually scary, trading true horror for tongue-in-cheek, not so serious humour and occasional jumpy shock. As I’ve repeated, I judge comedy-horror to be the most difficult genre, and like the Screams before it, it succeeds in such a cleverly cinematic, triumphant way. It’s been dubbed as: ‘a groundbreaking game-changer’ on the poster – and it truly is. An impossibly clever concept, with endlessly exciting, stylishly shot surprises around every impeccably constructed turn. In years to come, it’ll be a niche-turned-mainstream classic. 

  With a sharply written screenplay adrenaline-pumping blockbuster thrills and funny dialogue, this is the most surprising hit of the year, with it’s appeal rooted in the very foundations of the staple conventions of the horror genre, its many subsequent incarnations, and the medium of cinema itself!

Rating: * * * *