The Red Dragon’s baleful gaze happened upon this by chance, and it was indeed a happy discovery – a short, low budget production from some budding filmmakers in Louisiana and their friends, who have done quite a remarkable job of presenting a very polished and eminently fun final film, one that manages the difficult task of staying interesting with just the right level of understated comedy running through the veins of the performances and story.
That story sees the Earth accidentally smacked by the Moon one day in the 1920’s, sending us on a relentless trajectory toward Mars and allowing spiritual mediums to become the new opiate of the masses. All of the performances here are good, especially so from Maureen Iverson who plays the beautifully sardonic, and sardonically beautiful, Margery, and overall writer/director Ashley Brett Chipman has sculpted a rich, enjoyable period oddity that suggests a lot of promise for her future career in film.
Entertaining in a way that a lot of big budget productions could learn from.
Disney’s latest live-action take on the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale sees much more made of the villain they themselves created for their 1959 animated version, the eponymous Maleficent (the definition of whose name is the very embodiment of evil), played in a truly wonderful performance here by Angelina Jolie. It’s possible to take the various myriad renditions of the tale in all sorts of directions – I was always told the version where Prince Charming kisses the princess and nothing happens, then a few weeks later she wakes up pregnant (dragon fairy tales do not paint a favourable picture of mankind – although see the 2011 Australian ‘Sleeping Beauty’ for more on this particular theme), oddly Disney decided not to run with that one, and instead we open with a charming back story for Maleficent, the soon to be powerful fairy ruler of the enchanted moorland realm which borders the human kingdom, and the two often being at odds with one another doesn’t deter the protagonist from falling in love with a young, Scottish I might add, boy who has wandered into fairy land intent on nicking something, the little urchin – suffice to say, things do not work out as hoped.
Time passes and we are introduced to Aurora (aka, Sleeping Beauty) and what unfolds is actually quite a touching and emotive drama about love, betrayal, hatred, rage, faeries, and yes, even dragons, all the good stuff really, and bar a couple of iffy moments near the beginning it manages to be entertaining throughout. It’s directed by special effects wizard Robert Stromberg (who won the Oscar for art direction twice, for 2009’s ‘Avatar’ and 2010’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’) in his directorial debut and he has done a great job overall, with the attention and dedication given to the effects and the art, make-up, and costume departments really paying dividends – in fact it looks pretty wonderful from start to finish.
I viewed this in 2D but you can tell from the way some scenes have been layered that a lot of thought has been given to the 3D production, so it could be that this is one of those rare films that are worth actually watching in 3D. All the performances are good – Sharlto Copley plays the grown version of Maleficent’s teenage beau, sporting a pretty decent Scottish accent, Elle Fanning plays Aurora with the perfect amount of youthful zest for life, Sam Riley is a henchman, and a raven, also with a convincing accent (Irish this time), with even the leading lady’s own daughter Vivienne playing one of the very young versions of Aurora, but this is ultimately Jolie’s show, and her full commitment to the role really shines through, winningly delivering the emotional resonance needed for it to work. A pretty great film, and a perfect one for families to go and watch together.
This is perhaps not only the best of the X-Men films, but I’d definitely consider putting it into my top ten superhero films in general, a success that has to be accredited to the wonderful ensemble cast, an exciting story with a lot of soul searching for many of the characters, and the return of director Bryan Singer to the franchise, who helmed 2000’s ‘X-Men’ and ‘X2’ (03) but then dropped out to concentrate on his Superman reboot (which has since been rebooted), with Brett Ratner taking the reigns for ‘X-Men : The Last Stand’ (06).
Following the original trilogy came ‘X-Men Origins : Wolverine’ (09), ‘The Wolverine‘ (13) and ‘X-Men : First Class’ (11), and here we find a story that interweaves the threads of all the films thus far, as we see a glimpse of what the Earth looks like in 2023 with war raging between mankind and mutants, together with those who took up arms to defend them – a war that ravages the whole of humanity and yields scenes not dissimilar to James Cameron’s Judgement Day. Mechanoid hunters called sentinels, that can detect the mutant gene (a version of one of them appears in the training room in The Last Stand), have proven decisive in the conflict and the last remaining X-Men plot one final desperate attempt to avoid annihilation, by sending Wolverine back in time to 1973 to the very point of the sentinel’s deadly inception of power in an effort to change history and create a better future for all.
There are a couple of fairly unexplained and egregious continuity errors (unless we are dealing with alternative universes, which remains a possibility), most notably following on from events in The Last Stand and The Wolverine, but they can pretty much get away with it because in the former something was hinted at (not explained in that movie was the fact that the comatose patient we at one point see being cared for by Moira MacTaggert {played by Olivia Williams, and then Rose Byrne in ‘X-Men : First Class’} is in fact professor X’s twin brother who was born brain dead, prof X having no doubt devoured his mind in the womb) and, well, they’re X-Men, and in the latter what they changed was rubbish to begin with so it was a good idea to ditch it. Despite the time travelling shenanigans the story holds its own really well, with only the occasional bit of dialogue that could have done with a few tweaks, and the various character arcs at play are all pretty satisfying and should all resonate with audiences despite their variety and the extreme scenarios, as with a lot of sci-fi and fantasy it is after all the human weaknesses, problems, relationships and fragility that ultimately determines whether or not it finds a place in the viewer’s heart.
The special effects look great, as too do the real props made for the film, with the costume and makeup department really outdoing themselves. The score fits the film well, and Peter Dinklage provides just the right amount of screen presence and gravitas as the primary villain Bolivar Trask (an interesting choice of name, given it is most famously attached to Simón Bolívar who liberated much of Latin America from imperial rule – also relating to the story, in The Last Stand Bill Duke’s character is defined as Secretary Trask). Some of the enormous cast are as follows: Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Ellen Page, Halle Berry, Bingbing Fan, Shawn Ashmore, Daniel Cudmore and Booboo Stewart, with Bryan Singer making at least two cameo appearances in the background.
There’s one post credits scene right at the end, and for a bit of trivia this is reputedly the second most expensive film from 20th Century Fox after ‘Avatar’ (09) and one of the primary producers is Lauren Shuler Donner – wife of Hollywood legend Richard Donner, who of course directed the original ‘Superman’ in 78. There is an episode of Star Trek the Original Series on TV in one of the scenes, which no doubt plays on the fact the comics did on occasion interlink the worlds of Star Trek and the X-Men and interestingly a book exists, ‘Planet X’ (98), that crosses over their universe with the Next Generation’s, and when Xavier and Captain Picard meet one another they remark how much they look alike, but it was published before Patrick Stewart was signed on to play Xavier (he, of course, also played Picard in the Next Generation and its subsequent films).
Speaking of crossovers, there is now a link between the films of all three different companies making major adaptations based on Marvel characters, with this being advertised at the end of Sony’s ‘The Amazing Spiderman 2‘ (reportedly as a condition of Fox freeing up director Marc Webb to work on his second Spiderman film, but oddly Josh Helman, who plays William Striker here, also has an uncredited appearance as Striker in the movie) and here we are introduced to the character of Quicksilver, called Peter Maximoff in the film, who can also be seen in one of the post credits scenes of ‘Captain America : The Winter Soldier‘ (here he’s played by Evan Peters, but in the Winter Soldier he’s played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, ironically the two played close school pals in superhero flick ‘Kick-Ass’ 2010, whose director Matthew Vaughn helmed First Class and helped write the story for this … so many connections), although that isn’t quite the whole story with that character ….
(note the remarkable correlation between the advertising poster for the film shown above, and the national flags of Scotland and England, especially with the blue cross over Scotsman James McAvoy’s face as it is – is there a hidden referendum agenda within X-Men? If so, are we, the Scots, the mutants? I quite like that idea – possible weak but nevertheless useful powers to have: Johnny Five’s ability to read entire books in two seconds and remember everything, the ability to tell that human females are diseased by their eyes glowing red and also knowing what part of their cycle they’re on, perfect control lucid dreaming with real-time special features, being able to breath fire … )
P.S. Having watched this more than once now, I can’t be sure but I think Mystique at one point actually turns into Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. Also, curiously, in ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ (98) Johnny Depp has the line “Both Kennedys murdered by mutants”, something briefly alluded to in the film …
The second instalment in Sony’s Spider-man reboot, one of the most pointless restarts in the history of cinema after the hugely successful Sam Raimi Spider-man films which have hardly faded from the public consciousness at all. One possible reason for the decision may be the limited number of Marvel characters that Sony have the rights to, and if that’s so we can expect to see another reboot in four or five years time, but they most certainly based much of their premise with the first film on the success of Christopher Nolan’s Batman films. Here, once again, we see echoes of that trilogy, but with another action orientated and largely forgettable storyline (as I was watching this I was surprised how difficult it was to remember what happened in the previous one).
The bad guys are Electro and the Green Goblin, played by Jamie Foxx and Dane DeHaan respectively, with a little extra help from Paul Giamatti having a lot of fun as Rhino, and Emma Stone reprises her role as love interest Gwen Stacy, Spidey’s occasional bit of stuff when MJ wasn’t around. Helming the web slinging hero himself is, once again, Andrew Garfield who looks the part of the geek but who has all the charisma of a brick swinging its way through the streets wrapped in spandex, even his jokes leave you feeling embarrassed for the criminals that have to suffer them. Spider-man was my favourite comic growing up, but even though I read it as a child the Peter Parker it featured was in his twenties, more grown up and masculine (and he actually was funny) and it still worked, I really wish they’d ditch this coming of age hopeless geek routine that was already plotted across Spider-man 1-3 with Tobey Maguire, they should simply have carried on where they left off and made it ten times more interesting.
One of the film’s biggest selling points is the technology behind it. As one would expect from Sony, the picture quality is great and in fact it might be one of those rare cases when it is slightly better to view it in 3D (this is conjecture rather than a comparative suggestion) with fairly inspiring visuals of Spider-man flitting and diving between buildings. The rest of the acting is fine, and the special effects are pretty good. Essentially it’s a polished superhero film that although lacking anything distinctive or special, it does do the basics well enough to be worthwhile, and although it is a little corny to say it, I think you do always get something out of almost any film in the genre. It also sets up the ‘Sinister Six’ – a collective of various supervillains which were great in the comics, something which has no doubt been inspired by the success of the Avengers film, much like the upcoming Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman flick from Zack Snyder. Interestingly, there is a post credits scene that is actually from the upcoming X-Men film – could a cross company collaboration be on the cards … ?
The latest film from Terry Gilliam is entirely autorepresentative even if one was initially unaware he was at the helm, set as it is in a dystopian Blade Runner-esque future on Earth and replete with the sort of cynical corporate outlook and the many imaginative, varied and urban physical props that consistently appear in his work, ‘Brazil’ (85) and ’12 Monkeys’ (95) in particular, and also his sense of humour (we see posters reading ‘The church of Batman the Redeemer needs You!’). Here, the story focuses on a social outsider, Qohen Leth (Christoph Waltz), who lives alone in an abandoned church in the heart of town, and the film opens with him begging the management at his work (some kind of mass processing plant of intellectual/virtual goods) to allow him to work from home which, he argues, would be much more productive for the company as there would be no time lost in transit etc. and he would prefer it as he wouldn’t have to be surrounded by people he doesn’t want anything to do with. At least, that is the assumption as we see him suffer great difficulty under normal social conditions and continually use ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ in conversation. The head of the company (Matt Damon, who last worked with Gilliam on ‘The Brothers Grimm’ 05) comes to the conclusion that he is borderline insane and so consents to his wish, so long as he works on ‘The Zero Theorem’, a project which is notorious for driving people bonkers and so he figures Qohen has nothing to lose anyway.
The opening third of the film is a little too ungrounded to work properly – we see Qohen at a party, for example, where the socialites there are dressed in what passes for fashionable garb, each holding modern tablets while they dance as if they’re sending out some social signal trending in the future, whether it be simply an alternative statement or some kind of status symbol, relationship or otherwise, we don’t know, and that’s the problem – it’s too loose, an attempted commentary on the dominance of technology and perhaps social media in our lives at the expense of human interaction, but it’s too vague to have any real meaning.
Eventually though, the film settles and finds more resonance with modernity and physics, in particular the ‘big crunch’ theory which would see the universe eventually contract and end with the opposite of a big bang (the universe is currently expanding, but different, conflicting ideas about its future abound). Qohen, we learn, has been waiting all his life for the one call that will explain the meaning of his life to him, but is ironically forced to work obsessively on the imposed Zero Theorem, which attempts to prove that the sum total of everything, all knowledge, matter and experience, amounts to absolutely and figuratively nothing, and thus everything is pointless.
As we watch him work at his computer we see him trying to fit endless arrays of boxes with formulae written on them into structures comprised of many such boxes – when he puts the right one into the right place he ‘solves’ that part, bringing order to chaos, but when he makes a mistake entropy ensues and that structure collapses, causing much mental anguish to the would be mathematician, compounded by his exponentially increasing workload, all of which threatens his already dubious mental stability.
Interestingly, this could be read in a number of ways. It will certainly seem familiar to the many programmers out there who work under such infuriating circumstance all the time, but there is also a connection to the modern rise of ultra cynical computer games, usually found online or available as apps, that are designed with the sole purpose of tying people into them, forcing them to invest more and more of, not just their time, but also their money into the game and for no real gain in terms of enjoyment or any satisfaction to be gleamed from the gameplay, simply to keep consumers using their product as much as possible. The ‘grind’ as gamers will often refer to some instances of this phenomenon. All of these games are a complete waste of time, and the creator’s main job is to dress it up as something rewarding so that you don’t realise just how bad it is until you’ve already been playing for a while, and they quite often target a younger market that are easier to hook. At the same time, it also has echoes of the drive in modern physics to search for a ‘unified theory’ of everything, as currently two of our major understandings of the universe, namely relativity and quantum theory, do not match up with one another, meaning something is wrong with at least one of them somewhere.
Thus, the film becomes more relevant and more interesting as it progresses. Matt Damon hires a digital prostitute Bainsley (Mélanie Thierry) to keep Qohen interested in the project, presumably also to relieve some of his pent up rage, but the two develop real feelings for one another, throwing the unstable variables of love and desire into the equation. Here too the science fiction aspect really works, as Bainsley explains she doesn’t actually engage in any physical intercourse because it isn’t safe but focuses instead on the cerebral, and eventually we see the pair of them connect themselves to the internet where they can experience the real thing in virtual reality – something which could become available in the not too distant future with current technology able to ‘read thoughts’ (electrical impulses, see below) and deliver an element of tactile sensation, and with experiments to link this to cybersex and the adult entertainment industry being conducted by various interested parties.
A delightfully dark and yet hopeful film in some ways, as we at least see Qohen’s passion for something compel him to strive ever forward, all counterbalanced by the warmth Bainsley provides, and so long as you can live with its flirtation with whimsy, there are a lot of nice touches to appreciate too. Well acted throughout, also with David Thewlis, Tilda Swinton and Lucas Hedges in support.
The sequel to 2006’s phenomenally successful ‘300’, this time with director Noam Murro replacing Zack Snyder (who acts as producer and writer here) and focusing on the Athenian’s story, in particular their leader Themistocles (Sullivan Stapleton), during the Greco-Persian wars in ancient Greece, with events primarily unfolding both during those of ‘300’ as well as immediately afterward. The story is burdened somewhat by an untruth told in the first instalment where Leonidas is shown to be more or less acting of his own accord when he marches 300 Spartan hoplites (soldiers) to the ‘hot gates’ of Thermopylae. In reality, a confederation of Greek city states had selected Leonidas to lead the ground forces in defence against Xerxes’ invasion, and in unison with the army a Greek fleet (of which Athenian ships were to form the bulk of) would engage the vast Persian navy at the pass around the cape of Artemisium, preventing Leonidas’ troops from being flanked.
After the infamous deeds at Thermopylae and the battle of Artemisium, there was to be a third conflict around the isle of Salamis near the Isthmus of Corinth, which forms the climax of the movie and was to prove one of the most important battles in the history of western civilisation. Technically, Themistocles wasn’t actually in charge of the Greek navy – for diplomatic reasons a Spartan, Eurybiades, had been elected overall commander as Sparta had but a handful of ships and Corinth, another seafaring city, did not want to see her Athenian rivals in charge, but in reality Themistocles seems to have called all the shots.
The film misses the chance to put all of these events into the proper context, and instead we end up with a much more contemporary action orientated, attempted spectacle. Although a lot of the details do fit into the real story somewhere, just not necessarily in the order or way that they are presented to us. One of the most egregious inventions is when we are shown the battle of Marathon, 490BC (Thermopylae, Artemisium & Salamis took place in 480BC), which is where the Athenians triumphed against the odds to defeat the first attempted Persian incursion into Attica (and of course where our modern day Marathon run originates as Pheidippides supposedly ran from Marathon to Athens to tell the people of the victory {having just ran to Sparta and back}. Admittedly, he collapsed dead from exhaustion immediately afterwards) and we see Themistocles kill the Persian king Darius I, who was in fact not even present for the battle. It is, however, true that after this Darius planned a full scale invasion before an Egyptian revolt prevented it, and that his son Xerxes would fulfil his plans after his death due to ill health, whilst Themistocles would climb ever higher within the political structure of Athen’s greatest gift to the world, its democracy, to convince the people that the city needed a navy to better protect itself from the Persians he was sure would return. Interestingly, their democracy was a direct one, wherein the people did not elect representatives to vote on their behalf, but rather voted on each issue themselves – sadly the renaissance does not seem to have reinstated this virtue in the west.
A fascinating and exciting backdrop for the film then, but unfortunately its biggest problem is the fairly childish overuse of blood effects which splatter over the screen in ever increasing amounts, which is bad enough, but what they have used looks absolutely nothing like blood and more like some sort of purple, thick, goo that splurges out of bodies over the screen constantly, more akin to raspberry jam than someone’s insides. An element of this would be ok, and fitting with ‘300’, but its obvious some scenes have been orchestrated purely with this effect in mind, rather than any focus on tension or the audience’s suspension of disbelief.
The same cinematography and stylisation from its predecessor is used once again, and it mostly looks as good as before, although there are a number of scenes with ropey CGI soldiers milling about – some of the action is reasonably satisfying, but then other elements are far too over the top. ‘300’ was the perfect blend of stylised filmmaking with a story based on truth, but here there are a lot of moments where you can say with certainty that never in a million years would what we’re watching be feasible. Stapleton has a difficult job to do, following in the footsteps of Gerard Butler’s iconic turn as Leonidas, but he does quite well overall, though it is difficult to fully get behind him, partly due to the obvious character conflict with his Australian accent (much like Sam Worthington’s as Perseus in ‘Clash of the Titans’ 2010 and its sequel) and partly because unlike in 300, we never really see the protagonist not in ‘battle mode’ as he is effectively waging war from start to finish and, ultimately, it is a bit tiring to watch someone constantly trying to look stressed, shouting and giving rousing battle speeches. In terms of Greek history he is one of the most important characters, and more of a back story and characterisation would have been much better, perhaps focusing on his rise from the poor quarter to the heights of Athenian society.
The naval battles are once again a mixture of real tactics thought to have been used on both sides (not always the correct ones though) and pure invention. Estimates for the forces involved put the Persians setting sail with 1200 ships versus the Greek navy of about one third of that, and the scale in itself is fascinating, with the film exhibiting both great artistic detail and yet tactical execution that is at once enthralling but also dubious. One of the best aspects, which the film actually gets correct, is that the Persian fleet was commanded by a female, somewhat ironically named Artemisia, the Queen of Halicarnassus. Played onscreen by the wonderful Eva Green, she was held in high esteem by Xerxes and by generals on both sides, indeed the film sees her challenge the other commanders under her to impress her and in real life the legend is that during Salamis she was being chased down by a Greek vessel and so hoisted the Greek flag and rammed into one of her own general’s ships (one she had recently disagreed with) shaking off her pursuer having convinced him she was a defector, and apparently watching from above Xerxes and his generals were equally convinced that she had just sunk an enemy ship causing the ‘god king’ to infamously comment “My men have become women, and my women men”.
The movie plays with the rivalry between Themistocles and Artemisia turning it into sexual tension – perhaps not so unmerited given the Greeks had put a high price on her head for a live capture, ostensibly, history argues, because they were so offended at being outmatched by a female, but in reality what could possibly make a greater prize and conquest for a male general? Sadly, she is treated with perhaps the greatest historical disdain with what occurs at the climatic battle.
Returning to reprise her role as Gorgo, queen of Sparta, is Lena Headey, who incredibly looks EVEN BETTER than she did in the first one, and she sizzles onscreen with a reinforced confidence that success with ‘Game of Thrones’ has no doubt brought her. Another strong and wonderful character from antiquity, she delivers lines like the one below with such relish that it is impossible not to love her.
Overall, it is a little disappointing but still reasonably fun, and it does inspire interest in the subject matter, perhaps even more so than the already well known story displayed in ‘300’. If you don’t mind much of it being ruined to some extent by self indulgent and silly effects then it might still be worth a look in, and the story is yet to be completed with the events of the following year, 479 BC, required to conclude everything. They will need a better team to helm the project if they take it that far though.
“Themistocles. You’ve come a long way to stroke your cock whilst watching real men train.” Lena Headey/Queen Gorgo
“Artemisia whispered the seed of madness that would consume him … He surrendered himself completely, to power so evil and perverse, that as he emerged no part of a human man survived… Artemisia watched her flawless manipulation take shape.” Lena Headey/Queen Gorgo
“Only the gods can defeat the Greeks. You will be a god king.” Eva Green/Artemisia
“Today we will dance across the backs of dead Greeks.” Eva Green/Artemisia
“SEIZE YOUR GLORY!” Sullivan Stapleton/Themistocles
“Let it be shown, that we chose to die on our feet rather than live on our knees!” Sullivan Stapleton/Themistocles
There were a good many sheepish adults trying to melt into the shadows of the auditorium at the screening for this, and although their uneasiness is merited since this is aimed primarily at eleven year old girls, so too is their bravery to watch it as it’s actually a lot of fun. This is the continuation of the Disney fairy line with Tinker Bell (curiously, her name is often misspelled as Tinkerbell, the ‘Tinker’ part denotes her skills and place within fairy society, as a tinker, as well as the way her voice, and that of all the fairies, is heard as the tinkling sound of a bell to those not fluent in their language) as the central anchor, with ‘The Secret of the Wings’ being the last instalment.
This is actually an improvement on the last film, which was also pretty good, as here the focus is on a group of friends on a traditional adventure with themes of inclusion and the freedom to be creative, all beginning when Zarina (Christina Hendricks), operating as the fairy equivalent of Antoine Lavoisier, does the unthinkable and EXPERIMENTS WITH FAIRY DUST (actual fairy dust that is, not meth), resulting in her being ostracised by her peers when one of her experiments goes awry and she creates a FUSION BOMB (no, not really). Her response to this? She goes off and becomes a pirate, which, admittedly, is an impressive response.
The animation as you would expect from Disney is very good (although, oddly, Tinker Bell’s face doesn’t look quite right), there are a few songs in there, one of which is very catchy, the spirit of the film is completely perfect for the target audience (despite the lack of male characters to relate to even boys should enjoy it {the fairies are quite fit} unlikely they would admit to it though), the timeline within this particular universe is set, and there are some good laughs with a lot of nice touches to appreciate, such as when Zarina orders “Earl Grey. Hot” à la Captain Picard from Star Trek and when, despite the size of the fairies, a bee tries to buzz into the ear of one of them. I HATE THAT. Despite the secondary nature of the Tinker Bell line of films compared to Disney’s official feature animations, this holds its own very well. Also with Tom Hiddleston, Lucy Liu and Angelica Huston as some of the more recognisable voices in the ensemble cast.
What a strange film. I don’t think I’ve found myself rolling my eyes in pained disbelief quite so many times in all the movies I’ve reviewed thus far, and yet the schmaltzy over indulgence did kind of get me interested toward the end, despite the protestations of my brain. I went into this with no prior knowledge of what it was about, but if you watch it, you must be prepared for a fairytale story defined by mystical notions, such as the biblical tussle of angels and demons for the souls of mankind and the concepts of miracles, fate and those worthy enough becoming stars in the heavens once they die. What happens once these stars go supernova, is not discussed.
The central character is Irish-American Peter Lake, played by Colin Farrell, whose parents set him adrift in a toy boat in New York harbour whilst they leave for presumably a better life elsewhere (the parents are displayed as caring ones, so this is not exactly a deed that will see many audience members warm to the start of the film). As luck would have it, the young child is picked up by Russell Crowe who seems to be playing an Irish Fagan, except that he’s also a demon, and his initial over acting and accent borders on the derogatory (he gets a little more palatable toward the end). In adulthood Lake rebels against his thieving foster father and this is where most of the story takes place, as he soon encounters a guardian spirit in the form of a flying white stallion (not in any way inspired by Pegasus you understand) and then breaks into a house for his last robbery in town, but then decides to steal the heart of the young lass he finds there instead using his Irish brogue and his horse (yes, it is that cheesy, though one suspects she had been fantasising about a burly Irishman breaking into to her private chambers for quite some time) although, tragically, she is dying of the consumption (that’s tuberculosis to you and I, although this particular victim appears to be in every visible way the picture of health) and thus destiny and fate become intertwined, together with their loins.
I won’t ruin the surprise of who turns up playing Lucifer. It’s Will Smith. Oops, well, it wasn’t really all that exciting, just like the movie. Truly, the first entire two thirds of this film should be eviscerated from existence, but even the black heart of I, The Red Dragon, was slightly moved by parts of the ending (I still wanted to gag at some bits here too though), due in part to me having already written it off and then finding the film had a few surprises in store. It’s the directorial debut of screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, who wrote the screenplay for ‘A Beautiful Mind’ (01), ‘A Time to Kill’ (96) and … ‘Batman & Robin’ (97), and it’s based on the novel ‘Winter’s Tale’ (1983) by Mark Helprin (the film title outside of the UK and Ireland is the same as the book, it seems possible confusion with Shakespeare is confined to the British Isles). Downtown Abbey’s Jessica Brown Findlay plays the object of Lake’s affections, Jennifer Connoly and William Hurt make brief appearances, and happily so does Eva Marie Saint – best supporting actress Oscar winner for 1954’s ‘On the Waterfront’.
Richard Thorpe’s Cinemascope (MGM’s first),Technicolor and somewhat over the top and fanciful take on the myriad legends of King Arthur takes the story in his own direction, as is tradition, and does likewise with history in the process. Despite Arthur Pendragon sporting various images of yours truly throughout, the entire first half of the movie is entirely woeful, with horrid set design even for the era, lacklustre action and swordplay sequences, corny pious dialogue and strikingly bright costumes that begin as eye catching but eventually become lurid, as the somewhat irritating music plays throughout with barely a pause for breath. The action picks up in places, only to be swiftly let down again – such as when some of the knights casually push over one of the stones at Stonehenge and a fairly convincing cavalry charge sees their efforts rewarded by an accompanying volley of arrows from their own troops. Groan.
Only when the saucy gaze of Ava Gardner, playing Guinevere, finally appears and espies the gallant Lancelot, Robert Taylor, do things get more interesting, but even then the pace continues to rise and fall. Lancelot is essentially the main character here as he befriends Mel Ferrer’s King Arthur, and then uses his strong commanding American accent to woo every maiden in his path. Uninventive and probably best left for fans of the principal leads or the genre.
This is a pretty awesome, bad film. Given the concept is that Frankenstein’s monster has not only robbed his creator of his name, but has also managed to survive until the present day and get himself involved in an eternal battle between demons and gargoyles (yes, that’s right, gargoyles – but ones that can transform into attractive humans and which serve the powers of good) that, naturally, humans are blissfully unaware of, the discovery that this is a bit rough around the edges with bad dialogue and a fair amount of ropey acting, isn’t really an astonishing surprise.
In the beginning we see Mr F dealing with a few family issues, and his voiceover comes to us ‘I though it was the end ..(long pause).. But ..(long pause).. It was just the beginning’ and we very quickly assume this is going to be a nightmare to sit through. Responsible for the somewhat lacking screenplay is Stuart Beattie, but credit where credit’s due – in his dual role as the director he has also created some pretty cool action sequences and somehow gelled everything into a very flawed, and yet very likeable film. Aaron Eckhart can take a lot of credit for anchoring the piece as Frankenstein, getting the tone spot on in what can’t have been an easy role to play, and Yvonne Strahovski as the hot blonde scientist in tight jeans adds the right touch of schlock sex appeal and the two of them, as well as the rest of the cast (Miranda Otto, Jai Courtney and Bill Nighy are in support – with the latter of those gleefully delivering his cheesy lines), with the direction, weave the right threads of ridiculousness and entertainment unashamedly together.
Not sure if this would work as well on the small screen, but I went into this in a foul and vituperative state of mind, and I left in a good mood. I’d recommend it if you’re feeling the same way.
