Monthly Archives: November 2015

The Walk  (2015)    72/100

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Rating :   72/100                                                                     123 Min        PG

Robert Zemeckis takes us on another technological cinematic leap by recreating the Twin Towers in New York City, as he dramatises the story of Frenchman Philippe Petit’s 1974 attempt to put a high-wire between the buildings and walk along it unaided at a height of some 412m. One imagines it may have been the challenges involved that peaked the director’s interest, having embraced technical frontiers before with the likes of ‘Back to the Future’ (85), ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ (88), ‘The Polar Express’ (04) and ‘Beowulf‘, but the story in itself wonderfully captures the human spirit for adventure and the desire to challenge oneself in spite of the odds, and indeed the naysayers.

The events have already been famously filmed of course as part of the Oscar winning documentary ‘Man on Wire’ (08), and to be honest I wasn’t convinced dramatising it was necessary. Initially, these thoughts were echoed throughout the first half of the movie, which plays out as a dreamy fairytale; whimsical, loose, cheesy and not really leading anyplace worthwhile – all with a disembodied Petit (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) occasionally interjecting his own backstory from no less than astride the top of the statue of liberty, itself of course a gift from France.

Here is where a major pitfall, ahem, of the film lies – trying to walk the narrative tightrope between an appropriate homage to the Twin Towers via Petit’s endeavours without becoming jingoistic, and it doesn’t always succeed – perhaps most tellingly when the plot completely omits a major event in the story, which in effect there wasn’t really any need to bring up, but they actually go so far as to fudge central character reactions to mask the truth, ironically bringing attention to the fault. I won’t ruin what it is that’s missing, but suffice to say it’s been done in a typically Hollywood way and obliterated one of the most interesting moments and talking points of ‘Man on Wire’.

Had they not done this, then I would have loved to give the movie a higher grade as when it finally gets going, the high-wire scenes are fantastically breathtaking, with Zemeckis very much pulling off a coup-de-grace to completely salvage the film. Based on my recollection of the documentary, Gordon-Levitt similarly gives a memorably enthusiastic and believable imitation of Petit, although in such instances I think you really have to be French in order to tell if his accent sounds authentic (he studied French literature at university, and was aided by the French cast so it seems likely), or more like someone’s taking the piss. A real shame they played games with the truth but a strong Oscar contender nonetheless. With Charlotte Le Bon and Ben Kingsley in support.

Pan  (2015)    57/100

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Rating :   57/100                                                                     111 Min        PG

The latest reimagining of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan operates as a prequel, with Peter (Levi Miller) abducted from his London orphanage during a WWII blitz raid by a flying pirate ship belonging to the dreaded Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman), a slaver frigate that whisks him off to Neverland and the servitude that awaits him; hard labour digging in the mines for the life giving elixir that is fairy dust, wherein he will meet and befriend none other than fellow slave James Hook (Garrett Hedlund), ultimately taking the two on an adventure that will bring them, along with Smee (Adeel Akhtar), into the sphere of influence of the colourfully kick-ass Tiger Lily (Rooney Mara) as they attempt not only to escape Blackbeard’s clutches, but also to discover what happened to Peter’s parents, who left him naught but a silver pendant of some panpipes that he has worn religiously around his neck ever since.

Written by Jason Fuchs and directed by Joe Wright (‘Pride and Prejudice’ 05, ‘Atonement’ 07, ‘Anna Karenina’ 12), the film is notable for its unique visuals where the emphasis of the movie has really been placed, but to be honest, they sent me to sleep the first time around. Thinking this was probably due to torturing foolhardy rubes all night rather than the movie, I watched it again and on 3D this time as it very much looked like it was meant to be viewed that way – alas, it actually looks much worse on 3D with large sections appearing too unreal and layered, to the extent that the flashy sequences matched with a whimsical story and a lack of any real depth to the thing does indeed make it quite soporific.

Light hearted family adventure was clearly the aim, and whilst it may please some youngsters and the wardrobe department have outdone themselves (with clear inspiration from Spielberg’s far superior ‘Hook’ 91) the final result is an ungrounded mess; half-realised ideas with committed performances that are drowned by a visual aesthetic that was way too experimental and ultimately fails. Rooney Mara is as radiant onscreen as she always is, just as Garrett Hedlund continues his growling acting career where he tries way too hard to be hard – this time attempting to be Indiana Jones for most of the film, although to be fair his style isn’t completely out of place with the movie here and he along with the rest of the cast are charming enough.

Ironically, the best moments in 3D are actually the stars twinkling through the credits at the end, credits that state ‘characters introduced by J.M. Barrie’ – ‘created by’ surely? As if the film is trying to take some sort of ownership over the much beloved inhabitants of Neverland, tsk tsk.

Myst V : End of Ages   (PC Game)    55/100

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Rating :   55/100

Aaaargh, and not in the kind of way that you expect to experience at some point with the puzzle based Myst series of games, that began with the seminal Myst in 1993, but rather aaaargh in the sense that this installment, despite being released a decade ago in 2005, has a game destroying bug in it that all but ruins what otherwise would have been a pretty strong addition to the canon.

This was the last of the official series, and was only followed by the online multiplayer game (currently titled ‘Uru Live Again‘ and free to play). I finished, and loved, the first three games but missed the fourth – happily there is a sort of recap with this one via collecting various journal entries (everyone in the Myst universe has inherited patriarch Atrus’s less than desirable calligraphy skills) and it looks like part four essentially involved you arriving to save the day as usual.

The premise of all the games is that you are in a mysterious land that you know nothing about and you must solve, via a point-and-click style of interface (basically you can see the mouse pointer in first person, like in the header pic above, and the only button you have to worry about is the click on the mouse as you hover the cursor over objects), various puzzles to work out what’s going on. For example, you’ll encounter a machine that lacks power and then have to find a way to start it up, then work out how to operate it, and then work out how to use it to decent purpose – all with an overarching storyline involving a family that have the power to create these lands, or ages, by writing them into books, but it’s a lost art relating to a lost civilisation, the D’ni, and the power can corrupt – leading to some pretty serious familial disputes which you land slap bang in the middle of.

A major plus for the series was the atmosphere of each game, with lots of natural diegetic sound and lustrous graphic visuals giving each age a very distinct feel – and indeed making each a joy to wander around as you continually push and pull levers this way and that hoping the fucking things will finally do something. Here, there is a new concept – a race of beings, the Bahro, who are somehow enslaved by magical tablets, tablets you must take and write on in order to have the Bahro perform physical and mystical duties to help you solve the puzzles in four main ages. It’s not a bad core dynamic, but alas it is here that the flaw lies – in the first place the intrepid among you will immediately begin trying to guess the symbols you are supposed to find through effort, and you’ll likely have some success, and secondly the game can get into a state where it won’t recognise the correct symbol, leaving you with an insurmountable problem.

The first issue isn’t so bad, it is after all player choice and doesn’t necessarily break the concept nor prevent a replay to do all the puzzles, indeed I’m all for trying to break games in a fair way – here I think there is a very common way to guess one symbol to skip an entire age and in the fourth I managed to skip to the second last point. To be fair, my guesses didn’t really look that similar to what they were imitating, but after the second correct guess I was thinking to myself ‘Ha! In your face Myst!’ as I casually opened the door beside me and stepped into a dark passageway, humming to myself victoriously until, to my horror, I watched as the door clanked shut behind me and wouldn’t open again, and then I realised not only was I trapped inside having walked backwards into some kind of puzzle, but it was also a COLOUR BASED LABYRINTH – eliciting a shrewd observation of ‘Fuck. Fuck! FUCK NO! NO Nooooooooooooooo…….!

Yes, I became one of the characters I make fun of all the time in films. Of course, I could have reloaded to another save point but I was suitably amused by my own stupidity and so I decided, using my favourite catchphrase at the moment, to ‘science the shit out of it’, and it was entertaining enough in the end, if somewhat unnecessarily protracted. However, not being able to correctly input what I was sure must be the final symbol was not in the least bit fun, as of course you waste several hours trying different things and reloads before eventually having to check your hypothesis on the web. Restarting the game several times and going through various save points I managed to get the thing to work – but then there were problems with one of the symbols that previously had worked fine, thankfully it eventually succeeded but you really get the feeling you could get stuck at any point with them and not have the apparent good fortune for it to work properly – and given this was a download in 2015 and the problem was flagged by people a decade ago it really should have been debugged by now.

There may of course be suitable patches available online, and if you can find and are willing to trust them and give the game a go then probably two or three lengthy casual sittings will see you through the game – minus the bug I could see it as being satisfying, and would probably have rated it at around seventy percent. It hasn’t put me off giving the spin-off instalment, ‘Uru, the Complete Chronicles’, a try at some point in the future …

Sicario  (2015)    72/100

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Rating :   72/100                                                                     121 Min        15

Emily Blunt flees to Mexico after insulting the Republican presidential candidates in the States – not really (Blunt did recently commit this faux pas after becoming a U.S. citizen but has not, as yet, had to flee south of the border) rather she plays F.B.I. agent Kate Macer who is recruited by other intelligence officials to facilitate further strikes against the major Mexican drug cartels that had begun to make heavy inroads into her locale of Arizona. Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve, of ‘Prisoners‘ fame, directs and Taylor Sheridan pens his screenwriting debut (he is better known for acting in TV series ‘Veronica Mars’ and ‘Sons of Anarchy’) to create a tense and beautifully shot thriller, with a level of realism on a par with ‘The Counsellor‘.

Villeneuve is one of the hottest rising stars behind the camera in Hollywood and here many of the early sections work really well, feeling immersive, real and exciting – but he’s not quite there yet, the good work begins to peter out a little as the movie goes on, largely due to a change in dynamic with the character interplay, a shift in focus away from the central character, Macer, may have helped allay that but as it is the film is still successful. In support are Josh Brolin, Benicio del Toro and Daniel Kaluuya – the acting is unwavering throughout and as with ‘Prisoners’ you do think there may be Oscar calls involved, although it’s a bit early to say for sure.

Sometimes if you follow up a really good film, that probably deserved a mention, with another solid one then that’s when the Academy pays attention (kind of like Michael Fassbender missing out for ‘Shame’ {11} and then getting nominated the year after for ‘12 Years a Slave‘, and indeed he’ll almost certainly get another nod this year too). Blunt is the strongest candidate for awards glory and she is long overdue more recognition. Her role may indeed come to be packaged as a strong female one, but in reality she’s really playing an overly headstrong character out of her depth, it’s not a particularly great endorsement of feminism even though it may end up being championed as just that. Cinematographer Roger Deakins also adds a great deal of expertise that allows many of the desert shots, both aerial and of the horizon, to really stand out, rounding off a grittily memorable film.

Macbeth  (2015)    61/100

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Rating :   61/100                                                                     113 Min        15

A little bit of a disappointment I have to say. Director Justin Kurzel’s interpretation of Shakespeare’s Scottish play is very memorable for its bloody, bleak and beautiful visuals of the Isle of Skye and Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland, but throughout almost the entirety of the film it fails to be very engaging. Too many moments feel like actors reading Shakespeare rather than living their parts or vocalising the minds and emotions of their characters, and the darkness, particularly the central character’s decent into it, isn’t offset against anything – it all goes pear shaped too quickly for us to care particularly about the unfolding tragedy.

If we compare this to one of the most famous examples of the protagonist going through a violent metamorphoses, Michael Corleone in ‘The Godfather’ (72), there we like Michael, we see him at the wedding with his girlfriend, we learn he’s a good guy, a strong character – and indeed it’s primarily the bond for his family that begins the corruption of his soul, so we understand it and care about him as a character. Macbeth generally, and particularly here, is much more difficult to invest in, as are all of the characters. In real life he was considered to be quite a benevolent king, and in the play he begins as someone who commanded the loyalty of those around him – the film needed much more of this. As it is, we just have stylised bloodletting before his woman finds it a little too easy to sex him into devilry.

Michael Fassbender takes centre stage as the titular devil and he fits the role like a glove, although his portrayal is curtailed by the shortcomings of the film and doesn’t shine quite as brightly as it could have done. Almost none of the main cast are Scottish but all attempt very reasonable accents, with Fassbender and then Englishman Sean Harris in support as Macduff doing the best of the bunch. French actress Marion Cotillard as Lady Macbeth does stand out a little as the only one not attempting the accent and unfortunately it does jar with the others and the setting, and despite her being a great actress it nevertheless adds to the imprint of hollow characterisation. Critically, a lot of the dialogue is muffled and difficult to make out – it’s fine not understanding the, in parts, antiquated language Shakespeare wrote in, or getting confused by the poetry and its references, but one should at least be able to make out the words themselves.

To be fair to the film I did just watch Kurosawa’s version of the play, ‘Throne of Blood’ (57), a few months ago so I wasn’t really in the mood for the same story again so soon, but if you are similarly overly familiar with the play then visuals aside I don’t think you’re going to really gain anything from this retelling. Also with David Thewlis as Duncan, Paddy Considine as Banquo and Jack Reynor as Malcolm.

The Martian  (2015)    73/100

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Rating :   73/100                                                                     141 Min        12A

Ridley Scott’s latest returns to space for a film steeped in science, and one which sees explorer Mark Watney (Matt Damon) left behind on Mars after the rest of his team (sent from NASA to establish a base on the planet) leave him behind when a storm forces them to abort and they assume him to be toast. Possibly sending into the popular domain phrases such as ‘I’m going to have to science the shit out of this’, and, ‘Nobody gets left behind, except Matt Damon’, the film begins sloooowly as we’re mostly dealing with Mark by himself wondering how to survive and indeed we’re greeted by multiple moments from the trailer, but at least that gets them out of the way and it’s not too long before the story flits between ground control on Earth and the other crew on the Ares III who are on their way home, which finally brings us back onboard as an audience (interesting if they had found life on the planet and had to explain coming in peace and yet naming their mission after the Greek god of war {Mars is the Roman equivalent of Ares}).

The science doesn’t always hold up; it’s been said the atmosphere wouldn’t actually be able to generate the initial storm, for example, and we see a manual docking procedure in space which is unlikely (after the collapse of the USSR the Russian space agency decided to save money by not paying for the now Ukrainian automated guidance system for supplying the Mir Space Station, with the resultant manual attempt a devastating crash that shut down half of the power to the station and left the Spektr module inoperable), but all these things are minor details and don’t ultimately matter – the science critical to the plot, especially relating to survival, is often both sound and interesting, although certain characters do seem to keep ideas to themselves for a questionable amount of time.

Adapted from Andy Weir’s 2011 novel by screenwriter Drew Goddard (‘World War Z‘, ‘The Cabin in the Woods’ 12) and with several big names in support: Jessica Chastain (who actually gets to go into space this time after ‘Interstellar‘), Kate Mara, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sean Bean and Benedict Wong as the head of the Jet Propulsion Lab (not wise – apparently no one remembers Danny Boyle’s ‘Sunshine’ {07} come the 2030s) and they, together with Damon and great visuals of Mars (Martian scenes were filmed in Jordan, and visors were commonly omitted for the astronauts – they had to be made digitally afterward replete with reflections which is no mean feat) all create an involving human drama on a par with the memorable ‘Apollo 13′ (95). Look out for the bit with the sticky-tape, so annoying.

The Intern  (2015)    66/100

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Rating :   66/100                                                                     121 Min        12A

From writer and director Nancy Meyers (‘Something’s Got to Give’ 03, ‘The Holiday’ 06, ‘It’s Complicated’ 09), ‘The Intern’ sees Ben Whittaker (Robert de Niro) becoming increasingly fed up and bored with retirement, leading him to apply for an internship within a new and quickly expanding business – office positions specifically aimed at those in or near retirement as part of a sort of public outreach program. The only problem is Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway), the boss of this company, hasn’t been informed and isn’t especially interested in it – but since one of the new recruits is de Niro she quickly warms to him and the pair start to become close friends as a result.

It’s a little wishy-washy – especially with the writing of Jules’s husband Matt (Anders Holm) who comes across more like a closet serial killer than a house husband, in fact he’s been neutered by screenplay design to a rather extreme degree and even Holm doesn’t know how to play it (look out for Hathaway greeting at the bad acting she’s confronted with). Some of the emotional scenes do still manage to hit the mark though, as the experienced Ben helps Jules through her uncertainties and marital problems, and even though it’s all a bit loose and moody the characters do espouse the sort of ineloquent dialogues that tend to accompany such moments in real life, and indeed when Jules remarks she’s part of the generation that taught women they could do anything and should always go for it and she reckons men got left behind along the way she raises a very salient point –it seems to me that more and more these days men are criticised simply for being men, or, perhaps, not being women. Sometimes I’m amazed the human race survives.

Funny in places and likeable throughout – de Niro is dependable and charming and Hathaway is as good at appearing stressed and vulnerable here as she was at portraying strength in ‘The Dark Knight Rises‘ (she also fits in a reference or two to another of her films, ‘Rachel Getting Married’ 08). Look out for the moment that ought to reward anyone with a not-so-supportive parent ….

Miss You Already  (2015)    70/100

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Rating :   70/100                                                                     112 Min        12A

Cancer drama that sees best friends Jess (Drew Barrymore) and Milly (Toni Collette) go through the lengthy horror of Milly being diagnosed with breast cancer and undergoing chemo. We see their individual family lives – Milly with husband Kit (Dominic Cooper) and their two children, Jess with lover Jago (Paddy Considine) who begin to consider having a child of their own, but Jess’s devotion to the more narcissistic Milly in her time of need begins to interfere with their private life as well. The two leads are fantastic (and as they remark in the film, Collette actually really suits being bald) which is why the films works as well as it does in its guise of dramatic, and perhaps cathartic, tearjerker.

At one point Milly desperately considers doing something rash, partially out of despair and misery but also partly to hurt her rather insensitive husband (whose behaviour is never properly explained), by travelling to Yorkshire from the film’s setting of London – the fact that she goes through with it is one thing, the fact that she gets there by taxi on their credit card is quite another and surely grounds for divorce alone never mind what she is contemplating doing once there. There is a link made with ‘Wuthering Heights’ which the pair of them love (it’s set on the Yorkshire moors) and indeed Kate Bush’s memorable 1978 song based on the novel (see below) – all I can say is beware following classic romantic literature too closely, it doesn’t exactly set many good examples – the Red Dragon still remembers the slew of youngsters shedding themselves of their mortality after publication of Goethe’s 1774 ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’, wherein the protagonist kills himself over unrequited love, although ironically Goethe wrote it to successfully purge his own dangerously morbid obsession with a young woman.

Penned by actress and writer Morwenna Banks and directed by Catherine Hardwicke (‘Twilight’ 08, ‘Red Riding Hood’ 11) it comes as no surprise that the material, whilst fictional, is based on Banks’s memories of her friends going through similar events, and the film very much has that appeal of detailing something most people can relate to on some level, but it remains Barrymore and Collette’s performances that really anchor and sell the whole thing.