Author Archives: The Red Dragon

Evil Dead  (2013)    17/100

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Rating :   17/100                                                                       91 Min        18

This remake of Sam Raimi’s classic 1981 film of the same name manages to exist as boring, grotesque and irritating in pretty much equal measure, and has kept the basic idea of its progenitor but excoriated all of the darkly comedic aspects, quirks and playful horror that made the original such a cult favourite, a film that became so revered there is even a musical based on it (see below for a short excerpt). Oddly, production credits here find Raimi alongside Bruce Campbell and Robert G. Tapert, all of whom worked on the original trilogy (‘Evil Dead II’ arrived in 1987, and then ‘Army of Darkness’ followed in 92) and it seems the idea for this film is for it to act as both a reboot and a continuation of the original three, with an ‘Army of Darkness 2’ to follow, then a sequel to this one, and finally a third film to tie together the two separate story arcs. An interesting plan, but with the final product here, one could be forgiven for starting to think Raimi has lost his touch, especially on the back of his previous film ‘Oz The Great and Powerful’, as although he is not on directing duties (that dubious honour belonging to Uruguayan Fede Alvarez, handpicked by Raimi) this is ultimately badly shot, conceptualised, written, cast and staged.

It also suffers from the very, very familiar set up that takes place – a bunch of teens go to a cabin in the woods, seemingly fully intent on tempting the dark arts and getting themselves mutilated in a series of ever more bloody ways. Ironically, the success of the original has helped saturate the horror spectrum with this same concept, so much so, of course, it was satirised in the grand homage that was 2011’s ‘The Cabin in the Woods’. Here, the stage is set by the main character Mia, played by Jane Levy, wanting to kick her drug habit and thus isolating herself in her family retreat with some trusted friends and her brother, but this entire plot element is left dangling limply by the narrative and gets in the way of things more than anything else. Pretty soon they happen upon a cursed ancient tome, and one of them very cleverly works out what the words they should never ever utter are, and unleashes some kind of evil demon, one that ends up having no more scripted structure than a serious of exploding blood bags. It’s simply revolting, and fits right into the stratum of modern horror films that want to cerebrally butcher the audience as much as possible rather than thrill, scare, reward, or entertain them.

Unless you really want to see young girls wearing bright yellow contacts, cutting their tongues in half and flaring their nostrils so wide the camera could practically fit up them, then give this one a very wide berth.

Olympus Has Fallen  (2013)    70/100

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Rating :   70/100                                                                     120 Min        15

For what this is, it’s actually pretty good. ‘Olympus Has Fallen’ marks the first film since 9/11 to show a terrorist attack on the White House. With that premise, it doesn’t sound great, The Red Dragon does not recall many of the old ‘The President is in danger!’ films being particularly enthralling, however, it is delivered via a fairly no nonsense approach here, and the orchestration of the attack itself is reasonably believable given events in the real world a decade ago, although the same cannot truly be said of its execution. It does also suffer from an inevitable cheese factor, but it’s at least cut and fed to us in thin slices, not detracting from the film as much as some of its predecessors.

Gerard Butler plays the secret service agent who must don his John McClane cap (lots of strong parallels with the original ‘Die Hard’ (88), and one can’t help but feel this could have served as a much better version of the fifth instalment, ‘A Good Day to Die Hard’) in order to try and save the beleaguered President, played by Aaron Eckhart, whilst Morgan Freeman, who of course played the President in ‘Deep Impact’ (98), also appears as the member of the White House staff who must take on the reins of power in light of his commander in chief’s compromised position. Also with another good turn from Melissa Leo, who certainly gains the audience’s sympathy by essentially being used as a punchbag at one point. From director Antoine Fuqua, who helmed the much maligned but really not that bad ‘King Arthur’ in 2004 (with the enchanting Miss Knightley of course) as well as ‘Training Day’ (01) and ‘Brooklyn’s Finest’ (09). Expect strong violence, explosions, bullets, and, well, death, throughout.

Scary Movie V  (2013)    3/100

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Rating :   3/100                                                                         86 Min        15

Easily the worst of the Scary Movie films. It opens with Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan in a bed together, which is surely the definition of a scary movie, but unlike it’s predecessors, Anna Faris turned down the opportunity to reprise her role as central character Cindy, and given the dark depths her career has often been plunged into, that really says something. Instead, the central plot follows the characters of Dan and Jody, pictured above and played by Simon Rex (who appeared in a couple of the others) and Ashley Tisdale respectively, as it proceeds to spoof some of the more famous horror and sci-fi film releases of the last couple of years. Using ‘Mama’ as the core concept, some of its other cinematic references are the Paranormal Activity franchise, especially numbers three and four, ‘The Cabin in the Woods’, ‘Evil Dead’, ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’, ‘Black Swan’, and ‘Inception’. It’s mostly devoid of laughs, with a surprisingly long list of famous names like Usher and Snoop Dogg (in fact, in this sense it’s like an American version of ‘Keith Lemon – The Movie’), though it does feature an especially long outtakes section during the credits, which was actually more entertaining than the movie proper.

The Place Beyond the Pines  (2012)    76/100

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Rating :   76/100                                                                     140 Min        15

The third dramatic feature from ‘Blue Valentine’ writer/director Derek Cianfrance, which again sees him reunite with Ryan Gosling, who is this time joined by another (to ape Will Ferrell’s Mugatu in ‘Zoolander’) ‘so hot right now’ Oscar nominee in the guise of Bradley Cooper, along with the combined talents of Eva Mendes, Ray Liotta, Ben Mendelsohn, Rose Byrne, Dane DeHaan, Bruce Greenwood, and Emory Cohen. The strong cast have been assembled by the success of ‘Blue Valentine’ and the involving script here, which spent several years gestating and who’s founding concept was a triptych exploring the notion of legacy, and the consequences of ones actions for years to come.

It opens with Gosling’s character Luke, a biker performing stunts in a travelling show, finding out he is actually the father of Mendez’ one year old child, leading him to quit in order to stay in town and try to provide for his new, unheralded son. The child turns out to be an unnatural devourer of enormous amounts of money, and so pretty soon he decides the only way he can possibly meet the demands of baby is to rob banks, several in fact, the money from which he finds he is just able to buy the would be new Citizen Kane of the world a cot with. This cot actually ends up as the centre of the entire universe of the film. Enter a spanner in the works, Cooper’s greenhorn cop, and the director’s intended consequences begin to be unveiled.

The film has been shot with a lot of fairly modern styles, close up camera work at times and shaky cam for example, but here they work pretty well for the most part, helping to give a feel for the adrenaline fuelled, hell for leather ride on a motorcycle after a bank robbery, and so forth, although the mix of these techniques and the fading in and out of music with diegetic sound, I think could have used a bit of tweaking. Slight plot issues aside, the story is good, but it’s really brought to life by the cast and crew – indeed I’d put this down as the first early awards contender of the year, although I wonder if it wouldn’t have been a little more effective with a truncation around twenty five minutes before the end, the completion of the third act feels a little too long and a little over the top.

Everyone is good in this, including newcomer Emory Cohen who comes across as a young Tom Hardy in many ways, there may even be a nod in that direction and Nolan’s Batman trilogy with Cohen saying ‘Why so serious?’ in a rather creepy way at one point, and the naming of Ben Mendelsohn’s character, who played Daggett in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, as Robin. Dane DeHaan may have been miscast a little, as here his character is almost identical to the one he played in ‘Chronicle’, probably also why he was offered the role in the first place though, and the appearance of Ray Liotta onscreen is a bit of a giveaway that murkier territory is about to be entered …

Incidentally, the title of the film is a translation of the Mohawk name of the city that provides the setting – Schenectady in New York state, near the capital, Albany.

Oblivion  (2013)    15/100

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Rating :   15/100                                                                     124 Min        12A

This film suffers from, at least, three major problems: the trailer spoils the entire first half of it, giving away critical elements, the screenplay is full of holes and so cheesy there were audible gasps of exasperation and laughs of derision in the cinema, I felt like applauding the couple of people who left at one particularly bad moment, though it is at least matched by lacklustre acting overall, and thirdly it lifts a lot from multiple other sci-fi sources, combining to produce a pallid shell, from which any talent and creativity long since departed.

If I were to add a fourth thing, it would have to be Tom Cruise’s hair, which seems to have a life of its own, appearing down one moment, and then ridiculously erect the next – usually when he mounts his wee desert bike as if this suddenly activates ‘Mad Max Desert Bike Cruise’. Speaking of which, there’s no reason for the bike to even exist other than to have the hero ride off on one; the hero who decides finding something lost in the desert will be easier on bike rather than from the air, hmmm…

The Red Dragon actually rates Cruise generally, but there is only so much he can do when everything else around him is crumbling. Fans of the hugely popular Bethesda Game Studios roleplay game ‘Oblivion’ should be aware there is no connection to this film, instead here Tom Cruise plays Jack Harper, hot on the heels of him playing ‘Jack Reacher’, who together with Victoria (Andrea Riseborough) are the last two humans assigned to the dying planet of Earth, who must protect, with the help of armed drones, huge automated machines which are to transport the planet’s water supply to humanity’s new home on Saturn’s moon, Titan. This has all come to pass after war with an alien race, a war which we won, but our own planet, and indeed our moon, was the price that had to be paid. Despite victory, remnants of the alien task force remain and attempt to interfere with the human plans…

In the course of telling their story, here is a not entirely inclusive list of the other films that are defiled in the process; ‘Wall-E’, ‘Star Trek: Generations’, ‘Terminator’, ‘Independence Day’, ‘The Matrix’, all to greater or lesser degrees, but their biggest art theft is also a massive spoiler, and so appears after the end of this review. Some of these similarities it could get away with easily, such as the drones with red ‘Terminator’ esque eyes and their screens that have ‘terminate’ on them, commonplace in sci-fi now really, but as they mount up it becomes more difficult. Cruise collects and cares for a small plant, the only thing alive he’s found in the dead lands he patrols – ‘Wall-E’. He has a hidden away, idealised cabin in a somehow fertile woods – ‘Generations’. I’ll stop there before I give too much away.

The film is written and directed by Joseph Kosinski (‘Tron Legacy’ 2010) who based this on his, unpublished (early warning sign right there), graphic novel, and he has claimed it pays homage to films from the 70’s, which may be true, but for the rest of it that fine line between homage and stealing is not tread carefully. Just as with his ‘Tron Legacy’, the visuals are the film’s only saving grace (many of the location shoots took place in Iceland), which paint a grand vista of cinematic grandeur, but are ultimately just the icing on a poorly baked cake.

SPOILER ALERT

Ok, this is basically the American version of Duncan Jones’s (son of David Bowie) ‘Moon’ (09), and, unfortunately, it’s cheesy and rubbish, whereas ‘Moon’ became a well deserved indie hit. Even though Kosinski’s graphic novel was begun in 2005, the similarities here are too great to ignore, and the screenplay underwent several rewrites over the years via several different people, had the graphic novel been published one could say for sure which came first. Strangely Jones is planning to write a graphic novel as a sequel to ‘Moon’ which he may then turn into a film – perhaps he nicked Kosinski’s idea? In any case ‘Moon’ was released first, and is ten times better, so it would have been wise to significantly alter the script to make sure no one could accuse it of plagiarism. Not the first time Cruise has been involved in an American remake – see his ‘Vanilla Sky’ as opposed to Alejandro Amenábar’s ‘Open Your Eyes’. If you are a big fan of sci-fi then please watch ‘Moon’ before you see this, as one will probably ruin the other for you and ‘Oblivion’ is bad in enough other ways to not really care about spoiling.

Princess Mononoke / Mononoke-hime  (1997)    75/100

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Rating :   75/100                       Treasure Chest                  134 Min        PG

‘The Last of the Mohicans’ meets ‘Star Wars’ meets ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ in this, the film that really put Studio Ghibli on the map internationally and was, upon its release in 1997, the most financially successful theatrical anime in Japan’s history, indeed becoming the highest grossing Japanese film of the year. It’s set centuries past in feudal Japan, and mixes strands of history with Japanese mythology in a tale of the perversive power of hatred, anger and fear, and the dangers of throwing nature out of balance. Princess Mononoke herself has a wonderful introduction, and indeed the entirety of her first major scene I would without hesitation enter into my list of all time favourite film moments, with her charging into an enemy fort quite determined to take on everyone in it single-handedly. One of The Red Dragon’s biggest criticisms of the film is simply that she does not feature enough. In fact, the main character is actually Ashitaka, who exists as our hero, advocating reason and diplomacy as he is abruptly sent on a quest to the heart of the forest, wherein he will encounter mankind mining the earth for iron, and in doing so waging war on the spirits of the forest – some of whom have raised Mononoke (whose name is actually a general term for spirit or monster in Japanese) since she was a mere baby.

Should you be thinking of showing this to your children, there is bloody violence, including decapitations, but it is of the sort more likely to have your kids thinking ‘cooool’ rather than being disturbed by it, worth bearing in mind nonetheless, otherwise this presents an exciting and memorable parable. It features another good score from the wonderful Joe Hisaishi, who does many of Ghibli’s films, though the colour scheme is a little less vibrant than elsewhere in their collection. Ghibli itself (pronounced Gee-Bow-Lee in Japanese, Jibly in the west) comes from the Arabic word for the Sirocco, a Mediterranean wind, with the idea being their work would come as a dramatic wind of change in the industry; which indeed has been borne out as true. Here we see perhaps the studio fully establishing their voice, and yet still retaining some traditions of Japanese anime – a young female still manages to get herself covered in writhing tentacles, for example, although here they represent subversion due to hatred, rather than sexual desire.

The hand drawn style of animation is very easy to love, and in many ways it is the product of the drive and doting attention of director and Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki. In fact, he invested so much in this film he decided to retire once it was finished, although he couldn’t resist coming back to do ‘Spirited Away’ (and then several others) years later, whose success would eclipse even that of Mononoke. Due to time constraints this was the first film from the studio to introduce the partial use of computers, via the technique of ‘digital paint’, since then a practical balance was sought between traditional methods and new technology, that ultimately ended with a complete return to hand craft for all elements of animation (currently the only major studio to be doing so), beginning with ‘Ponyo’ in 2008. Also a signature imprint of Miyazaki are his strong, independent, loveable, and interesting female characters, from Mononoke to fort and iron works commander in chief Lady Eboshi, and the former prostitutes she has cheerfully working the bellows of her smelting forge. Reputedly, this stems from his seeing the animated film ‘Hakujaden’ (‘The Tale of the White Serpent’) in his youth and very much falling in love with the female protagonist.

Comparing the Japanese version with English subtitles, to the English language version with a host of big name actors doing the voice overs, the overall acting is better in the Japanese one (although Minnie Driver is great as Lady Eboshi in the other), however the audio translation (scripted by author Neil Gaiman) is better and makes more sense of the story, especially for non-Japanese audiences, than the subtitled translation, so that overall the English language version is to be recommended. It’s a little on the long side (when Harvey Weinstein, co-founder of Miramax, suggested it be abridged for release in the States, Miyazaki sent him a Katana blade with a note saying ‘No Cuts’, which simply underscores the awesomeness of Miyazaki) but this is animation with a real story and real point to make, one without any traditional ‘bad guy’, and some blood, the occasional ‘bitch’, and ex prostitutes aside, it aptly demonstrates how animation can be made to appeal to both young and old audiences alike.

Rec 2  (2009)    67/100

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Rating :   67/100                                                                       85 Min        18

The 2009 sequel to 07’s wonderful Spanish handheld horror film ‘Rec’ (which was given an American makeover in 2008 with ‘Quarantine’, which was also very good). The original featured a documentary crew embedding themselves in a Barcelona fire station and tagging along with the response to an emergency call. Little did they know they would be entombed within a building whose inhabitants were all turning into flesh eating zombies….

Rec 2 picks up exactly where the first one ended, with the camera inside a vehicle taking a military Swat Team to the cordoned off infested building. They haven’t been fully briefed on exactly what they can expect to be confronted by, so the film does suffer a little from the inevitable, ‘What the fuck? What the fucking fuck? You mean they’re freaking zombies?! Like brain eating freaking fracking zombies?!’, ‘Yup’, ‘Fucking shit man!! Wait, what’s tha…Aaaaaargh!’, ‘Well now that was pointless explaining to you, wasn’t it.’

The story behind what’s going on is expanded upon a little, and the unholy nature of the zombification process, or rather the prospect that there may be a cure or reversal, genuinely makes some of the brutality a little difficult to watch. Not as taught as the original, but still pretty good and justifying the making of a third released in 2012, and the announcement of a fourth and concluding chapter, expected toward the end of this year. The original writing/directing team of Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza returned to helm the sequel, this time joined by Manu Díez for the screenplay instead of Luiso Berdejo.

The Closed Circuit / Uklad Zamkniety  (2013)    67/100

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Rating :   67/100                                                                                     100 Min

The story behind this really makes it work. It’s a Polish language dramatisation about the true tale of three friends who set up a successful multi-million Euro company in Poland, but were then hounded by serious bribery and corruption charges. It begins painfully slowly, with many imperfections and an all too grey blueish texture that never leaves the film, a common complaint for the Polish film industry, and it would be tempting to label it a remnant of the soviet era if it were not also commonly found in the mainstream cinema of the west. Despite these faults (the grammar used in the English subtitles could also use a bit of work) the events are compelling and the performances for the most part are pretty good. In fact, in many ways the drama is underplayed – what unfolds deserved to be much more tense and harrowing for the viewer than it is.

It would be interesting to know just how close to the bone the film runs – the director Ryszard Bugajski struggled for many years to have his 1982 film ‘Interrogation’ about Stalinist repression released, and was finally able to do so with the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc, seeing it nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1990 and Krystyna Janda take home the best actress award. Given that level of commitment to voicing the truth, The Red Dragon is hopeful that Uklad Zamkniety sticks largely to the facts.

The Odd life of Timothy Green  (2012)    59/100

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Rating :   59/100                                                                     105 Min        U

There is a wonderful heart to this film, in that it focuses on a young family who find out they will never be able to have children and so, in an evening of cathartic desperation, they decide to write out all the things they imagine their child would have been, kind, ‘honest to a fault’ etc. and then they bury the list in an old wooden box in the back garden. A mysterious rain falls and up springs Timothy Green, their fully fledged nine or so years old son from the back garden, replete with leaves genetically attached to his calves.

It’s a nice idea, and the film from there on deals with issues of early, and abrupt, parenthood, and family relations and expectations. Unfortunately, it does so in an all too breezy way, and for the most part the story doesn’t prove engaging. The final third does deliver more on the emotional side of things and it is a spirited performance from the family members – Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Garner as the parents, and CJ Adams as Green, with a host of other recognisable faces appearing throughout, including David Morse and Dianne Wiest. Overall a nice, simple film, if a little flimsy – fine for young family viewing.

Spring Breakers  (2012)    23/100

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Rating :   23/100                                                                       94 Min        18

The premise of this film seems to be the following; four dehumanised, sun blasted sluts decide they absolutely have to get to spring break in Florida to ‘find themselves’. They don’t have enough money to get there, so naturally they rob a local diner with a sledgehammer and a water pistol. Arriving at their would be nirvana, what they actually find are lots of soft and hard drugs, and lots of guns. For the most past they decide this qualifies as finding themselves and they get stuck in, with the exception of Selena Gomez who has her nice girl image to think about, and so backs out in tears after showing off her body for about forty five minutes, but before her character actually really does anything else. Not that any of the girls really have much character. James Franco makes a surprisingly good appearance as a local drug dealing gangster, who takes centre stage in one of the few decent scenes by playing the piano and singing Brittany Spears whilst the girls, sporting guns and pink balaclavas with unicorns on them, join in around him.

Style has been given the priority here, with everything feeling very dark and grimy, the music is consistent in tone from start to finish, telling us this is not going to be a happy film. It doesn’t particularly glorify the drugs or the violence, at least not overall, but it doesn’t exactly condemn them either. There are a million shots of bare breasts and the girls teasing one another suggestively in skimpy, often neon coloured, underwear, but it really isn’t sexy at all. I assume that was the idea, to present them as darker beings, stylised as a priority, but perhaps with analogies to the kind of desperate, and desperately naïve, young girls who may hedonistically put their priorities in the wrong place and delve a little too deeply into the dark places of the earth, on spring break. If it was supposed to be sexy, then a Presbyterian nun could have done a better job.

There’s no particular story here, just girls, guns and a creative overwhelming darkness that makes everything about the film unappealing, the Brittany moment aside. There is constant overuse of the sound of a gun reloading loudly between scenes too, which is incredibly grating, as is the similarly irritating repeated voiceover from Franco saying ‘Spring break, forever’. Unless you have a particular craving for the flesh of Franco, Gomez, or Vanessa Hudgens who is unrecognisable as one of the girls (the other two are played by Ashley Benson and Rachel Korine – wife of the film’s writer and director Harmony Korine), avoid this one like the plague.