Tag Archives: Movies

Diary of the Dead  (2007)    3/100

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Rating :   3/100                                                                         95 Min        18

Tragically terrible and one of the worst examples of the handheld genre, featuring people being attacked by zombies whilst their camera wielding buddies stand by and do precious little to help. The fact that there’s a thread of satire, and it’s written and directed by legendary zombie master George A. Romero, does not save it from being less worthy of your time than sipping on a two-day old tea of salty dog’s bollocks.

Red Lights  (2012)    58/100

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Rating : 58/100                                                                       114 Min        15

In Brief : Interesting, with strong performances all round by the cast, but ultimately let down by a screenplay with more than a few oversights.

Contents :
Mini Review
Plot
Full Review

Mini Review : ‘Red Lights’ is a film that needed enigmatic performances from its lead cast and an intelligent, intriguing screenplay in order to succeed. It definitely scores a thumbs up in the first category, but is left lacking in the second with a less than polished final product. The whole has a sort of early eighties feel to it, and the tension mounts as we follow the main characters on their crusade to explore and disprove the paranormal. But then it kind of stutters along, and delivers a less than awe inspiring finale. Although the main story arc looses momentum and is at times a little dubious there are still a few nice touches to enjoy here, but on the whole it feels like it’s ambling in the footsteps of similar fiction before it rather than portraying a bold vision of its own.

Plot : Margaret Matheson and Tom Buckley are two university colleagues who have a mandate to debunk supernatural phenomena. Their work progresses successfully until the return to the scene of one of the world’s most high profile claimants of supernatural gifts. For one, he is a spectre of the past, and one that should be left there; for the other, he represents the ultimate challenge.

Full Review (Contains spoilers) : Robert De Niro, Cillian Murphy, and Sigourney Weaver star in this tale of fraud and supernatural realisation from Spanish writer and director Rodrigo Cortes, following on from the success of his ‘Buried’ with Ryan Reynolds in 2010 (not on writing duty in that instance). The story begins with Murphy and Weaver’s characters (Tom Buckley and Margaret Matheson respectively) exposing a séance and incumbent medium as bunk. Initially, we the audience are unsure as to what we are about to be treated to, whether or not Sigourney Weaver may be playing a sort of ‘super psychic’, as becoming of her acting calibre, brought in to help with this super scary, difficult case. It becomes apparent after this séance that she, and her physics graduate-sidekick Tom, work in academia exposing such hocussing professionally. It allows the director to play with familiar horror film techniques, something which he continues to do in parallel with the story; playing it off against Robert De Niro’s Simon Silver and whether or not he has real psychic abilities, and is thus the exception to the rule. Indeed, in this sense the beginning, and to a lesser extent the whole, is very similar to ‘The Awakening’ released last year (with a wonderful turn by the rising star that is Rebecca Hall).

This question regarding Silver’s legitimacy forms then the crux of the piece. The two protagonists are given a little more depth, mostly via relation to their profession. We learn Tom’s mother may have been given a bogus medical diagnosis from a psychic and died from it, but then later he refers to his mother, to someone else, in the present tense. Matheson’s back story gives the plot a little more meaning, as we see her son lying in a vegetative state in hospital and she tells us the nature of her work doesn’t allow her to give up hope and turn off the machine as she has no evidence or faith that anything awaits us in the afterlife. We also learn she has met Silver in a televised interview thirty years ago and during it he made reference to her hospitalised son, making even her want to believe for a moment. She uses this anecdote to emphasise how dangerous he is to Tom, who seems to be becoming obsessed with exposing Silva as a fraud to the world.

This back story proves interesting, as even though De Niro and Weaver never meet onscreen we are given the distinct impression that their characters’ pasts are a little more involved than we are being told. Perhaps Matheson witnessed something so awesome at the hands of Silver, that she felt compelled to begin a saga to disprove every seemingly supernatural phenomenon, unable to come to terms with what she witnessed. Or perhaps Silver met his match with Matheson, fell in love with her, or even sensed some latent dangerous talent in her akin to his own. It is even possible that he is Buckley’s father, or there is a much more sinister and earthly secret between them. The final answer comes as a misdirected mixture of some of these things, but the acting talents of Weaver and De Niro make the dynamic compelling.

For Tom, he is set up as the naïve headstrong apprentice heading for disaster, a concept not particularly original but nevertheless a wonderfully compelling artifice of storytelling. He is given a love interest in the form of Elizabeth Olsen, a young undergrad in Matheson’s class. It’s unfortunately a completely frivolous and pointless role whose only purpose is to provide a sounding board for some background conversation and, perhaps, a pretty young girl for male members of the audience to look at. Doubly unfortunate for Miss Olsen as this follows directly on from ‘Silent House’ (11), a bad remake of an already terrible Spanish film ‘La Casa Muda’ (10), where the audience were invited to look down her top and nowhere else for pretty much the entirety of the film. Her breasts did perform their role quite admirably, and here she herself does likewise so expect to see more from her in the future, though hopefully with more of an involving role next time.

Further support is given from Toby Jones, a research scientist at the university whose department gets way more funding than Matheson’s and is placed as countermeasure to herself, trying to scientifically prove supernaturalism rather than disprove it. Toby Jones is an incredibly prolific, diverse actor (see his own take on Capote in ‘Infamous’ 06) and he is as usual good here, though again the role is solely in service of the narrative. Cillian Murphy himself gives a convincing performance throughout, complete with what looks a pretty skilful coin flourish, although, thanks to poor camera direction, his magic tricks look less than convincing. Joely Richardson also makes an appearance as Silver’s PA, infusing the role with sex appeal as she does so well, but again, despite adding a little more glamour, the role is entirely 2D and very short (The Red Dragon would like to personally confirm that Joely Richardson is as alluring in real life as she is onscreen).

Before the Silver story really gets going we see the myth busting duo expose a would be psychic in a theatre full of people – breaking into the blacked out box next to theirs where radio messages were being sent to the performer below, who had been busy achieving the seemingly impossible task of knowing private information about random people in the audience. Earlier in the car park outside they pilfer the notebook of one of the performer’s accomplices who seemed to be taking down registration numbers, no doubt to look up information about the vehicles owners and cross reference it with ticket sales. It’s interesting, because although here it is in the context of fake faith healers, and results in criminal prosecution for the perpetrators, this doubtless has parallels with how many perform stage magic today. Derren Brown, for example, commonly seems to pull information from random audience members’ heads, and also mysteriously matches seat numbers to the same people as their introduction. It would be interesting to take a good, close look at the legal context of purchasing a theatre ticket, and the information you give out at the time …

In any event it’s a good scene for the film. When in jail, the con artist tells the zealous Tom to beware of Silver, his mentor, as he has no idea what he is meddling with, increasing the sense of danger and power that De Niro’s character is given to exude; a sense that De Niro is expertly able to deliver. From here we are led to the most interesting part of the film, when the headstrong Mr Buckley decides to go it alone and head back to what appears to be the same box in the same theatre in order to hopefully expose Silver as an artful deceiver. Though this does seem to be a rather dubious theatrical booking, given his understudy was arrested on the very same stage for falsely doing pretty much exactly what Silver is proffering to do mere days/weeks previously.

During this particular performance all eyes are on Silver on centre stage, as an overweight patient is wheeled out on a small operating table, fleshy belly and midriff exposed, and he seems to achieve a small miracle – reaching into the flesh of the man before him and pulling out the bloodied, diseased tissue inside, then somehow closing the wound with his powers and leaving the prone body cured and healthy. When performed on stage this trick almost certainly makes use of a false stomach. Here the audience is wowed, but the scene continually cuts to an increasingly desperate Tom, who is beavering away with his radio equipment as it randomly begins to explode in bursts around him, as if Silver’s cognitive special powers can sense the attempt and they take action. Though the fact real psychic abilities would not need to protect themselves leads us to think it is simply sabotage. All of this though, is not what makes it so interesting. What makes it worthy of special note, is that The Red Dragon has seen this before.

Bizarrely, almost this entire, complete scene appears in an old issue of Spiderman. Now, exactly what issue, or indeed exactly which comic, The Red Dragon isn’t sure, and can’t be without going on a particularly involved search … actually the wonders of the web (no pun intended) have revealed it was in fact ‘Web of Spiderman’ issue 41, ‘The Cult of Love part 2’, if anyone wants to check it out and test my hypothesis then please do, as The Red Dragon freely admits he is working on a many years old memory here. This issue was part two of a four part story that seen Peter Parker, a.k.a. Spiderman, join a cult in order to try and rescue a girl who had become indoctrinated by them. I never got hold of the subsequent edition so never found out how it ended, but during the story Parker is seated in an auditorium watching the exact same procedure being carried out.

The panels of the story clearly show the performer’s hands going into the flesh, coming out bloodied, and then the same flesh washed and mysteriously healed, with fresh water on it just as in the film. In the comic Parker begins to doubt himself as a narrative voice-over tells us such shows are how cults groom their members, daring even the inquisitive and intelligent to believe. Although in the film Tom appears to be preoccupied, the suggestion is still that the performance and the increasingly paranormal activity surrounding it (the whole building begins to tremble) are sucking him in and begin to take a noticeable toll on his mental health, as what his eyes witness clashes so dramatically with the faith he has instilled in his career proving such things to be false. Although this is purely working from memory, the images of the comic and the film are graphically so similar in my mind it seems difficult to imagine one was not influenced by the other.

Interestingly, in each of the three interviews The Red Dragon has seen with Cillian Murphy and Rodrigo Cortes together, Cortes makes mention of the fact he spent a year and a half doing research for the film. Every time he says this, there is a noticeable shift in the expression of Cillian Murphy – is this because he’s slightly bored? Or because he knows this is somewhat misleading or bombastic? Did Cortes simply spend a year and a half reading Spiderman comics and watching spooky films? It’s not plagiarism per se, and certainly such shows in real life no doubt look very similar to the ones depicted in the comic and film, but it is perhaps a little too similar to the inspirational material for its own good, just as the beginning is too close to that of ‘The Awakening’.

From this point on the supernatural element of the film intensifies dramatically. Tom ends up in hospital after the show, then discovers that mysteriously Matheson has died whilst he was there. We learn that the rational explanation for this is a pre-existing medical condition, and indeed we have seen her taking some form of medication throughout. All manner of strange things occur around Buckley, including semi-explosive birds and bodily ceiling suspension. Beginning to lose the plot, his determination to find the truth deepens and he even attempts to confront Silver at one of his secret one-to-one sessions. Cue another nice scene where Tom is separated from Silver by what appears to be a line of salt on the floor, and he sits in awe of the mystic, afraid to speak out lest he give his identity away, and yet the enigmatic Silver seems to know anyway. The finale ensues with Silver undergoing a series of scientific tests and then putting on his last show in the city, and a desperate Tom adamant to prove fraud in the former as he heads for a showdown in the latter.

Here all the big revelations are unveiled, as Tom is beaten up by a paid heavy in the toilets at the show, proving to us that Silver is a fake (and prompting us to wonder if the untimely death of his main public enemy years ago was in fact murder), just as his friends at the university uncover falsity in the earlier experiment. The main aspect of this is that Silver is in fact not blind, something the characters have taken for granted but we have been invited to question early on when the camera gives us a close-up of his eyes and, given the whole thing is a question over his legitimacy, the obvious thing to ask is, well how do we know he is actually blind to begin with? The narrative offers us no hardcore evidence, he certainly appears to be, but then he is a showman. This revelation may also seem a bit of a let down not just because of its set up and delivery, but also because of the success of ‘The Prestige’ back in 2006, replete as it was with such disguises and showmanship. When Tom flicks a coin at him on stage to test him and he catches it, revealing his normal ability to see to the world, it’s a little too easy, surely he would have had the wherewithal to simply ignore it and let it sail past him?

Having said that, he is distracted at the time by the complimentary revelation of Tom’s actual supernatural powers as the whole place begins to shake, much as it did the last time around. Silver shouts repeatedly ‘How are you doing this?’ but surely a professional supernatural fraud such as himself would simply run with it? It could well be a trick not too dissimilar to one of his own. We come to learn the real story has been that of Tom, who has long suspected there was something different about himself, but who was unwilling to accept it, and instead devoted his life to disproving such fantasies. The anecdote he told about his mother, may or may not have something to do with himself, just as Matheson’s death and illness may similarly have something to do with him.

Indeed, his power seems to be haphazardly destructive, increasing when he’s under stress. One of the most curious incidents of its manifestation happens when news of Silver’s return to the scene has been announced and Matheson answers the phone. No one seems to be on the other end, and when she returns to the mug she’d left to take the call, the spoon in it is bent. She doesn’t seem too fussed by this. So we know very early on supernatural forces are at work and from this it points to either Silver, Matheson, or both. But Tom? Why the spoon? It’s nowhere near the phone and nothing else seems affected – does Matheson not react because she’s used to spoons randomly bending and thinks it’s normal? It works for the story at that point, but, well it’s a bit too silly and random.

Similarly, early on Matheson is questioned during a lecture on her beliefs and the possibility of real psychic phenomenon. She replies with the very sound point that real life and nature can often be fantastical enough. She uses the case of Beethoven composing whilst deaf as one example, but it’s interesting when we consider the wealth of information that science is now uncovering about ourselves and the universe we live in. Biologists have come to realise that an organism can evolve significantly within its own lifetime but are only just beginning to unravel the secrets of the human genome and all its potential. Physicists have discovered the best evidence yet to prove the existence of the Higgs-Boson particle, showing we’re making huge leaps forward in terms of understanding our world, yet also illustrating just how much we still don’t know and just how much we are intimately connected to the micro and macro world around us. After all, atoms in our bodies were once at the hearts of stars burning away, stars which themselves came from one infinitesimally small point in existence, or perhaps, more correctly, non-existence. Put in this context, the spooky goings on in Red Lights are pretty lame.

It is perhaps worthy to note on the fact that filmmakers invariably portray the supernatural as a dark and sinister force, partly the essence of horror films, partly maybe our natural fear of the unknown. Yet, we as a species floating in space are so fragile that it would hardly take anything at all to wipe us out. Alien virus. Dead. Asteroid. Dead. Alien invasion by pretty much any alien species capable of space travel we can think of. Dead. Ghosts that can hurt people. Dead. (Like the ghosts in ‘The Lord of the Rings’ – why didn’t they just recruit them in the beginning? They’re indestructible! ‘Hmm, what do we have to bargain with… I suppose we have the only living being that can free them from eternal slavery. Hmm… or we could give the ring to two hobbits, take an enormous gamble, and sacrifice half of the population of Middle Earth. Decisions, decisions…’).

It might not be ridiculous to draw a conclusion from this that the universe is actually a fairly benevolent place for life, and that rather than waste time worrying about all the ways it could end, we should simply enjoy it. I suppose you could argue if it was really looking out for us we’d be impervious to disease and fire etc. but perhaps it likes us needing to look out for one another. To bring us back to the point, mental trickery of the sort going on here still very much remains science fiction to us, but who knows, in the future perhaps there will be a quantum understanding of the likes of deja vu as we unlock the mysteries of the mind, and just as once upon a time seeing a rainbow must have felt like seeing a snapshot of some godly realm, and we can now produce the same effect from a simple prism, perhaps one day seemingly improbable tricks of the mind will be child’s play.

The director has stated he wants ‘Red Lights’ to ask questions, and it does stay with you afterward quite well and linger on. However, this has more to do with the cast and the cinematography which succeed in creating a distinctive sense of something, but a something that is ultimately hollow and too ill defined by a randomly whimsical screenplay that is creative on its surface only. A film like this should have people wanting to see it again, armed with full knowledge of the story, but it’s let down by an underlying structure simply not crafted well enough to ever allow it to work on the grand scale it aims at. Decent, but a shame it isn’t better.

The Five-Year Engagement  (2012)    72/100

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Rating 72/100                                                                         124 Min        15

In Brief : Well worth going to see.

Contents :
Mini Review
Plot
Full Review

Mini Review : ‘The Five-Year Engagement’ is a well rounded piece that sees both the main and the supporting cast deliver throughout. It follows in a similar vein to producer Judd Apatow’s previous work, romantic comedies with drama as subterfuge and a free rein on the actors to improvise. This, together with the familiarity of some of the cast and co-writer/director/producer Nicholas Stoller (Segel also co-wrote the script), has a telling effect on the production which gels together nicely. The film cleverly has at its core something everyone in a long term relationship can probably relate to, and yet despite the fact it plays out over the length of the film it never feels overstated or forced. Segel and Blunt combine to make a realistic and engaging (no pun intended) couple and a film that all involved with can be justifiably proud of.

Plot : Tom and Violet are madly in love with each other and decide to embark upon the adventure of marriage. Before they can set a date for the wedding though life interferes, and an extended period of postponement forces them to re-evaluate what they mean to each other.

Full Review (contains spoilers) : ‘The Five-Year Engagement’ opens with Jason Segel’s Tom fumbling his proposal of marriage to Emily Blunt’s Violet. She drags his plan out of him and they follow it through anyway, culminating in a rooftop restaurant scene with a New Year’s eve fireworks display over the Golden Gates Bridge as a backdrop. It’s a lovely scene, and it sets the tone for the entire film which in its entirety is well shot, edited, acted and written, with the gags shared between the leads and support in fairly equal measure.

We get some more of their back story – how they met exactly one year ago at a New Year’s eve party whilst Van Morrison’s ‘Sweet Thing’ played around them (which is from his very excellent second solo album ‘Astral Weeks’ – you can listen to the song here…)

 

Everything starts with them on a high after the marriage proposal is accepted. Tom works directly under the head chef in a swanky restaurant, whilst Violet is hopeful of getting into Berkeley to begin postdoc work in her field of psychology. Then of course things become more difficult. Violet is offered a position at the University of Michigan, the wedding is continually postponed, and their relationship is tested as Tom spirals downward, forced to endure work he feels is beneath him, whilst his friend Alex (played by Chris Pratt) back home takes the job of head chef at a new clam shell restaurant that otherwise would have been his. This allows the real centre of the film to play out, a drawn out examination of the realities of choosing a lifelong partner.

Judd Apatow has said of the moment Tom decides to go to Michigan for the sake of Violet’s career that it’s like he does it to score points for later, as if by doing so he gains ‘relationship chips’ that can be traded in at a later date, and that he himself, and probably lots of other people, has done the same thing, but that it’s a fantasy and there are no ‘chips’ – once it’s done you’ve agreed to it and that’s that. The assumption being if it then eats away at you then it’s your own fault. It’s a very interesting point, and one that will probably be familiar to anyone in a relationship, one half has accepted the decision and then largely forgotten about it, whilst the other is still expecting some sort of continual reward having made a sacrifice for the other’s benefit, perhaps sewing the seeds of resentment… It is true that because of this the audience do sympathise with Tom as we see him lose himself to a large degree over the years, becoming almost feral in a situation and place that he hates and, as he puts it, working at something he isn’t proud of. This is especially true when we are introduced to the suave university lecturer of Winton Childs played by Rhys Ifans. His introduction as the ultra cool psychology professor is very good, replete with pyrotechnics, but we know instantly he is going to be the contesting love interest for Violet. We the audience want him to fail because we feel what’s happening to Tom is pretty unfair and Childs seems somewhat insincere from the beginning (even his name suggests he might be praying on a younger generation). Rhys Ifans has said himself he was attracted to the character because he loves to see the ‘cool’ guy fall from grace, and that’s exactly what we are hoping for here. One can easily imagine a lonely life of academia leading to its abuse or payoff, depending on which way you see it, with attractive and impressionable young graduates/undergrads. The character then feels predictable but realistic, at one end of the scale of debonair cinematic professors perhaps, with Indiana Jones winning hearts and treasure at the other. The script is careful though not to alienate Violet in the process, which it manages to successfully avoid.

One of the worthiest moments comes at the dinner scene with Tom and his parents, who are still married to one another and seem pretty happy together. Tom has split from Violet and is seeing a young girl in her early twenties (the actress who plays her, Dakota Johnson, is the granddaughter of Tippi Hedren {‘The Birds’ 63, ‘Marnie’ 64} no less) and they rather directly tell him to get his act together and get back with Violet as he clearly loves her. When he says they aren’t one hundred percent right for each other, they reply that they themselves aren’t even sixty percent right for one another, but they are still the loves of each other’s lives. And this is essentially the main message behind the film – that if you find someone you really like, accepting they are never going to be perfect is paramount and once you’ve accepted that your responsibility to one another is to simply get on with enjoying yourselves. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward were one of Hollywood’s couples that stood the test of time, happily married for fifty years right until his passing in 2008, and one of the reasons he gave for it was that they had some things they only ever did independently of one another. He loved racing cars, she couldn’t stand the sport, for example, but that was fine, the only thing that mattered was that they loved each other (I suppose having a legitimate break from each other with your separate hobbies also has a lot going for it. When asked about his devotion to his wife he famously once remarked “Why go out for a hamburger when you have steak at home?”). In the film, this concept is mirrored in sharp contrast with the deliberately accentuated coupling of Violet’s sister Suzie (played by Alison Brie) and Tom’s friend Alex, neither of whom seem right for each other but after an accidental pregnancy everything changes. They end up happy as can be, despite their lives having gone in the polar opposite direction from where they had each planned. We don’t see any of the interim period between the revealing of the pregnancy and their wedding, so the realities of their particular scenario are ignored in order to provide a counter point to the main couple. This is hammered home during the wonderful scene where, doing Elmo and Cookie Monster impressions respectively for the sake of the listening children, Suzie and Violet have their own version of the dinner table conversation, with the former suggesting it’s best to just pick a cookie and take a bite. It was actually Brie’s ability to impersonate Elmo that apparently may have landed her the part in the first place, despite the fact she is also the only cast member who had to learn an accent for her role. Full credit is due to her, not only for a very good Elmo impersonation but also for a convincing English accent to boot.

The film works so well because all of the constituent parts are good in their own right, and come together almost seamlessly. All of the support is good and Blunt and Segel are a joy to watch together. Segel in particular delivers the goods here and co-wrote the script along with director Nicholas Stoller (‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ 08, ‘Get him to the Greek’ 10). This is the third outing for the main stars together, after ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ (10) and ‘The Muppets’ (11), with Stoller taking writing credits on both of these films too, and their familiarity with one another doubtless helped things along. For Emily Blunt it’s one of three very good releases in a short space of time (the others being ‘Salmon fishing in the Yemen’ 11 and ‘Your Sister’s Sister’ 11), indeed it’s difficult to think of many other performers with a similarly good back to back trio. It’s great to see after the misfires and waste of her talent in the aforementioned ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ and ‘Wild Target’ (10). Red Dragon did notice the one gratuitous shot of her in this film, as she mounts Tom after he has agreed to go to Michigan and the camera pans around the back of her body as she does so, almost as if the director had decided ‘Right, I’m going to show off Emily Blunt’s figure at least once in the film no matter what!’. The two of them sell the story of their characters perfectly, and it wouldn’t be at all surprising to see them collaborate together again in the future.

As with other Apatow productions the comedy is set against the backdrop of the emotional journey of the characters, and on set a lot of leeway was given for improv. It’s good to see a filmmaker who’s not afraid of the costs running over in favour of the actors and crew enjoying themselves with improvisation. After all, as John Rhys-Davies says on the special features of ‘The Return of the King’ (03), a high percentage of improvisation is probably going to be bollocks, and thereby result in extended shooting times and the use of more film. It may be that it’s one of the fundamental reasons his films do so well, and there is doubtless a lot to be said for a shoot that is constantly fresh and exciting, where the fun the actors have transfers to the screen and the audience. Much like when you see a comedy play on stage where the actors have delivered the lines a hundred times before – as the saying goes, it’s not just what you say but how you say it, so when suddenly one of them decides to mix it up a little and throw a bit of a curve ball delivery to their co-thesps, the obvious pleasure they get from doing so, and of course the enlivened retorts, makes it so much more engaging and pleasurable to watch.

The worst thing about the film would actually have to be the poster chosen for the main advertising campaign as it doesn’t bear witness to any scene in the film. In fact, it’s almost certainly been chosen to play off of the success of ‘Bridesmaids’ (11), something made all the more obvious by the ‘from the producer of Bridesmaids’ that’s splattered over the top of it. Perhaps understandable given its success, though with Bridesmaids the focus was on the comedy first and story second and here the story takes more of a precedence. The film could also have done without the scene which has Violet’s mother scolding and shouting at her whilst holding her sister’s new born baby – not a very nice introduction to the world that, it could easily have been filmed without the child, or they start bickering after they leave the room etc. The situation by the end of the film has also been reversed with Violet seemingly giving up her career in the immediate future in order to be with Tom, but the difference is made by the fact it’s her choice rather than a suggestion from Tom (even though he was also going to propose to her) and the progression of the film suggests both parties will now be happy and move on together, though it would be interesting to see if Violet was so happy with this a few years down the line…

Throughout the narrative periodic funerals of grandparents are edited in, which works well as a sort of pressure gauge on the main relationship but also to subtly and darkly make a deeper point from the stance of the usually neglected or trivialised romcom elderlies. Another constant theme, that of the doughnuts, is interesting – the premise of Violet’s experiment being to say to people in a waiting room there is a box of one day old doughnuts, which she apologises for, but that they will be replaced with new ones shortly; and to see who just eats the old ones, findings from which suggest a direct correlation between people eating the old ones and being ‘screw ups’ in their everyday lives. It’s used as a direct metaphor for relationships throughout, enjoying what’s in front of you instead of waiting for what might never arrive (as Tom points out, quite correctly). But are one day old doughnuts really that bad? What if someone thought ‘you know what, I’ll eat some of these ones now because they’re still pretty much fine, and then there’ll be more to go around for everyone else later’, in a sort of form of self sacrifice. Although this is based on real psychological tests used, both Tom and Violet end up eating stale doughnuts, uniting them forever via sugary bakery products. Red Dragon recently received a bundle of bakery goods that were otherwise going in the bin and neither he nor his friends thought twice before devouring them, admittedly there was no ‘better quality ones will arrive soon’ option in this scenario. Many eateries dispose of perfectly good produce each day because they have to by law, but most of them also forbid their staff from taking them home for fear of someone getting ill and it leading back to them. Red Dragon would like to suggest caveat emptor would be a more sensible approach in these situations, and would lead to less food being wasted, and more doughnuts for all.

Anyone really taken with the film might want to have a look at their blog – tomandviolet.com

iLL Manors  (2012)    52/100

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Rating 52/100                                                                         121 Min        18

iN Brief : A pretty decent addition to the canon of modern British gangster films, but one massively let down by a false premise and a sickeningly ludicrous plot decision towards the end.

Contents:
mINI Review
pLOT
fULL Review (contains spoilers)

mINI Review : iLL Manors appears in cinemas as the days count down to the London Olympic games. Set in Forest Gate, the Olympic park looms in the distance as we follow the story of multiple characters in the area through their dark world of narcotics and gangland culture. In true modern gangster film style, all of their stories begin to interlink and though some of the story is engaging, there is the distinct feeling of seeing exactly what we expected to before going in. It fails spectacularly to raise any sort of agenda. With even people in good jobs being forced out of areas like Forest Gate, as their rent is increased astronomically for the games, and no mention of this or any other socio-economic factor relating to the underprivileged of today, it’s an opportunity missed. If you have enjoyed British gangster films in the past, there is no reason you won’t like this. Nevertheless, Ben Drew has to have a very deep rethink of his strategy if he wants to adhere to his mission statement, and use the art form of film to redefine the class system in Britain. If anything, such fare can only entrench it further.

pLOT : People holding various positions in the London criminal fraternity go about their daily business. Meanwhile, some of the local youngsters are trying to break into the gangs, whilst others are trying to leave them.

fULL Review (contains spoilers) : iLL Manors is Ben Drew’s directorial debut. Who is Ben Drew, I hear you ask? He also goes by the professional moniker of Plan B. Who is Plan B? I hear most of you still cry. He is a rapper who has been on the circuit for a few years now and who has enjoyed limited chart success, having occasionally strayed into the UK top ten. The I.M.D.B. also reliably states he played one of the main hooligans in ‘Harry Brown’ (09) pitted against Michael Caine’s housing estate pensioner, and also had bit parts in both Noel Clarks ‘Adulthood’ (08) and ‘4..3..2..1’ (10) (if memory serves he was a jealous ex-lover in the latter who made comment regarding his successor having a larger male appendage than himself, perhaps indicating he’s OK with not taking himself too seriously).

Most movie goers will probably recognise him from the irritating Hewlett-Packard ads that have been playing before the trailers in cinemas. In these ads we are to believe Plan B is already highly successful, and it feels a little forced. Similarly the trailer for his first film at the helm describes him as a ‘visionary’, and herein lies the most immediate problem with iLL Manors. A gangster film, set in London, written and directed by a London rapper. Hmm. Is this really going to appeal to a wide audience? The British cinema viewing public will be pretty familiar with the regular appearance of British gangster films, invariably set in London, previously normally featuring Danny Dyer until he suggested it’s a good idea to scar the face of your ex-girlfriend so that no one else will want her (though his publisher Bauer Media did admit ‘an extremely regrettable production error’ had taken place and Dyer was adamant he had been misquoted, the damage was nevertheless done), and now quite often with Adam Deacon in the credits somewhere instead. These films will feature hip hop/rap music, a high percentage of black cast members, an abundance of swearing, drugs, and a reasonably high mortality rate. This is the modern template for the British gangster film, perhaps worryingly almost a cult genre in its own right.

There are exceptions of course, films that belong to the group but that add a little more originality to it, such as the aforementioned ‘Harry Brown’, the ending of ‘The Veteran’ (11) with Toby Kebbell, Dexter Fletcher’s recent ‘Wild Bill’ (11), but your average punter could well be forgiven for thinking this particular outing into the field will simply yield more of the same, with the only exception being it will also act as a vehicle for Plan B’s music. However, armed with the knowledge that Plan B released the single iLL Manors prior to the film, with the subject matter of the English riots of 2011 and, as he puts it, “society’s failure to nurture its disadvantaged youth/yoof,” we already have this set out to be a little different from the normal gangster fare. Especially since Drew has suggested the film and the single are the beginnings of a movement, led by himself, to address the class system in Britain. How then does the film actually bear up?

Not terribly well. Certainly not for the first third or so, where we are flung into the world of drug dealing gangsters, pretty much all of whom seem to be black, in what appears to be Drew’s own home turf of Forest Gate in London. We are introduced to a variety of characters, all different facets of the same prism, and some of the narrative is told via rap by Plan B, effectively rendering much of this dialogue indecipherable. Eventually there is a mention of ‘David Cameron’s Britain’. This is the first and last attempted link to any kind of social agenda, other than showing a fictional snapshot of what it might be like to be a drug dealing scumbag. And let’s be honest, the vast majority of the characters here are scumbags, with little to no room for sympathy or empathy from the audience. This, together with the soundtrack and story told via the director’s own rap, has the effect of suggesting this is more about the career of Plan B than anything else, of giving the appearance he is trying to appeal and ‘look cool’ to his target audience rather than comment on a larger social agenda, and that he is quite willing to use the banner of a social crusader for a misunderstood demographic to further entrench the music-culture-stereotypes-money in his pocket symbiotic relationship, feeding the loop whilst attempting to be a self professed hero to a generation of people that probably take a good deal of their vocabulary and mannerisms from music and film.

It’s a massive wasted opportunity. J.K.Rowling has made comment that she is always amazed at someone who cannot see the relationship between crime and poverty. With a view to the upcoming climax of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, in ‘Batman Begins’ (05) this theme is completely central to the story, and Bruce Wayne himself admits to losing many preconceptions about criminals when he is forced to steal food to survive after abandoning his name and fortune for a time. The current ruling political coalition of the United Kingdom have introduced changes to the welfare state, as part of their ‘austerity’ measures, that have seen the poorest and most vulnerable people in society left with nothing. Those without any other support network are increasingly being left with little choice other than to turn to crime, or beg, in order to survive. Mostly this will lead to a criminal record, making it increasingly unlikely to find normal employment and encouraging an endlessly downward spiral. On the back of these changes, England last year experienced the worst rioting of the modern era. The government backlash was to hit the perpetrators hard, someone who stole a pack of cigarettes received a lengthy custodial sentence for example, circa nine months, and a big deal was made in the media that the majority of the people involved had previous convictions. No doubt there were a great many opportunists and ‘hoodlums’, but equally there were probably those who were simply sick of being treated like animals and of having no democratic voice or, as far as they are concerned, choice. The driving force for these changes is the Conservative party who have effectively silenced their politically weak partners the Liberal Democrats for the time being, and who are doing a very impressive job of conforming to their centuries old stigma of being a party for the rich. There may be a sinister undertow to all of this, in that in the minds of the wealthy if you are poor, then you are a criminal, or at the least you soon will be. Indeed, the case has been made that if you are in jail you in many ways actually have more rights than if you are unemployed.

Indeed, job seekers currently have the pleasure of watching their section of the welfare state being privatised. Meaning that they have to deal with private companies who are being paid tax payers money to effectively cheapen the lives of the poor, forcing them to do demeaning and often pointless tasks in order to receive state benefits and commonly forcing them to work for the equivalent of two pounds something an hour. The thinking behind this is that’s it’s good for the poor to be told what to do as they wouldn’t know what to do with themselves otherwise. In reality an unworkable and corrupt environment is created that sees agencies profit, while thousands of people fall through the cracks and become destitute, and for the ones that don’t they have to endure the humility of being denigrated to nothing more than slave labour as there are aren’t enough jobs to go around, while the government continues to make it easier and easier for employers to lay off staff. Indeed, one of the private companies used in these schemes, A4e, are themselves being investigated under charges of fraud by the police, their head having resigned over the charges but not before netting herself a bonus of millions. This individual, prior to disgrace, was the government’s top advisor on unemployment. By the same token people put under the cosh by the state have to watch as bankers and the heads of other big businesses award themselves personal bonuses of millions, even though it was their own greed that caused the world recession in the first place. On a similar vein, there has been a particularly vehement attack on disability benefit that seems to have been started with the premise that most people on it are fraudsters. The end result is a huge backlog of complaints and appeals that the medical profession are expecting to be largely upheld, after many of society’s most vulnerable have been harassed and labelled as criminals. iLL Manors then could have been a double reference to the harsh realities of poverty stricken disadvantaged housing estates, together with the political ignorance and indifference of the actual manors of the richest in society.

Despite this heavy, target rich backdrop, iLL Manors has the one line with the mention of David Cameron, and that’s the full extend of its political content. The rest is just another gangster film. The bulk of the narrative follows the parallel between two characters. One, a youngster looking to score some weed and perhaps break into the social network of the area’s resident gang, but who is quickly used and led down a spiral of increasing violence, and another young man (Rhiz Ahmed) who is already a part of the local criminal fraternity, but who appears to be of a generally kind nature and who eventually tries, and succeeds, to get away from the lifestyle he was born into. The message of the film from this point of view is at least very clear.

Also to the film’s credit, is the introduction of characters suffering from forced prostitution. Sex grooming and slavery has been a huge problem in Europe’s biggest cities for a long time, and it is good to see a film reflecting this as British law also begins to buck a trend that previously seen seventy five percent of police forces around the country effectively turn a blind eye to the problem, their cited difficulty often being convincing the abused women, commonly girls, to testify. Similarly, showing two young kids from the neighbourhood lured into a dealer’s flat under promise of a ‘modelling’ prospect, and then being introduced to crack, highlights an all too common criminal problem. After about forty minutes or so these elements creep in and begin to make the film more interesting, though this does also coincide with less story telling rap. As a stand alone gangster film the whole then shapes up nicely, nicely that is until a certain incident. Red Dragon would like to categorically state that it is never acceptable to drop a baby out of a second story window. Especially when you then have someone catch it in a towel on the ground below and it’s completely fine. It’s pretty horrific to watch. Not to mention completely unbelievable, filmed as it is. Thrown from a room filled with smoke, but not yet with fire, could the perpetrator not have perhaps sat on the window ledge and waited for help instead? Surely there would have been enough air? The perps subsequent fall from the ledge and death would seem to paint him as a hero in the end, as if underneath he’s actually alright, but this is entirely at odds with every single other aspect of his character leading right up to that point.

The direction overall is fine, with some experimental elements creeping in, such as splitting the frame into multiple views. ‘Hulk’ (03) was slated for this, but the practise goes back much further, Peckinpah’s ‘The Ballad of Cable Hogue’ (70), as one example. Similarly the ensemble cast do a convincing job of playing heavies and dealers, though more than a few pieces of dialogue could have done with being re-recorded. There is a consistent message of violence begetting violence, which is to the film’s credit, and similarly characters straying into the underworld of gangs and drugs do end up being hurt. With possibly the most immediate example in film history when one of the young innocent girls decides to try crack, then receives a fatal bullet to the chest seconds later.

Not bad, but the potential to make a bold statement and stand out from the crowd has been wasted completely.

The Dictator  (2012)    37/100

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Rating 37/100                                                                           83 Min        15

In Brief : Sacha Baron Cohen falls foul of success with ‘The Dictator’. Heavy on production costs, but light on satire and comedy alike.

Contents :
Mini review
Plot
Full review {contains spoilers}
Quotes

Mini Review : Even die hard fans of Sacha Baron Cohen will probably admit he got the script wrong on this one. It may be that a couple of changes to the writing group he worked with on ‘Borat’ (06) and ‘Bruno’ (09), have made all the difference. However, with the same director, Larry Charles, on board as for those two successful films, it seems the most important change was that of the narrative. Here we see the mix of the archetypal modern romantic comedy, one designed to leave a smile on your face at the end and so distract you from the fact you didn’t really laugh much during the film, and a familiar type of character from Cohen, a despotic African dictator replete with toilet gags galore. All of the candid camera reality show intrigue of his previous work is gone, and what’s left simply isn’t witty, funny, or interesting enough to be particularly worthwhile watching. Unless of course a missile being called ‘The Beard of Doom’ has you rolling around in stitches, in which case you will LOVE this film. A successful PR campaign involving Cohen appearing in character along with his female virgin model bodyguards on numerous talk shows, admittedly using the same jokes most of the time, has ensured an overly long run for ‘The Dictator’ in movie theatres. On the strength of the final material, it is likely he will find that a bit more difficult to repeat in the future.

Plot : Admiral general Aladeen, dictator of the African nation of Wadiya, rules his country with an iron fist. He has all that money can buy, including Megan Fox, but secretly he is lonely, and longs for some higher meaning in his life, along with the destruction of Israel. The double crossing of his right hand man and procurer of women, Tamir, proves serendipitous, as he is put on the path of true love on the streets of New York City. But will he embrace this new opportunity, or will he reclaim his rightful throne in time to prevent Wadiya adopting a new democratic constitution?

Full Review (Contains spoilers) : Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest cinematic effort falls flat right from the word go. Well, almost from the word go. The very first thing the audience sees is a dedication to the late Kim Jong-il, suggesting that maybe what follows will be a biting political satire interfused with Cohen’s very particular style of comedy and perhaps moments where we once again find ourselves cringing at the plight of his onscreen victims, both wanting to turn away but also unwilling to miss what their reaction is going to be. This time, however, the famed for controversy Cohen has gone for a much more mainstream style of film, one in which he simply plays a character in a story full of actors rather than a mixture of thespians and chosen public targets. The result is a pretty formulaic romcom, with Anna Faris providing the rom, and racist toilet humour filling in for the latter.

Red Dragon likes the premise. The idea of sending-up the archetypal dictator, which still describes many autocrats around the globe, has a lot going for it. Imagine if you will, young members of the North Korean military watching their late leader on parade, humming ‘I’m So Ronery’ behind his back, under their breath, having gotten hold of an illegal copy of ‘Team America’ (04). It’s a wonderful image, but fantasy or not, that film produced a lasting legacy of jokes and caricatures, accidentally as much of Matt Damon as of Kim Jong-il. The titular character in this case proves to be someone we’d probably quite like to forget, and quite quickly too. His only real attempt at satire comes from a speech at the end, where he states if only America was a dictatorship then the majority of wealth could be distributed to one percent of the population, the rich could get tax cuts and be bailed out when they gamble and lose etc etc. It’s not bad, albeit a little obvious.

Cohen plays Aladeen, from the fictional north-east Africa country of Wadiya (wadi is the traditional Arabic word for valley). Wadiya encompasses parts of the real countries of Eritrea and Ethiopia, neither of which are actual dictatorships, though both are very far from what anyone in the West would consider democracies. The concept for the project was apparently thought of before the Arab spring took place. Perhaps not so fortuitous with much of the source material being deposed from power, but Wadiya is nevertheless well placed to ape parties from both North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. The film’s biggest problem is that once you remove the scathing realist element from Cohen’s work, that which was so prevalent in ‘Borat’ and ‘Bruno’, what’s left behind is pretty crass. We see, for example, Aladeen relieving himself whilst suspended over a New York street and the ensuing excrement knocking a lady beneath him unconscious. The lady in question had just been robbed of her handbag and was shouting for help, as if Cohen is now literally going to poo on the stereotypes of cinema, and shortly afterward he just can’t resist showing his privates to the world once more, though in a much less confrontational way than in ‘Bruno’.

Even worse than the infantile nature of a lot of the humour is the fact that some of it is downright sick. Racist comments appear every now and then, some of which can be carried by the nature of Cohen’s character, and some of which don’t come off so well, but by far the worst offence is when we watch the dictator playing a video game based on the Munich Olympics, in which we see him first person shooter style bursting into the contenders homes and gunning down the Jewish Olympians. The fact that Sacha Baron Cohen is Jewish probably means that in his own mind anything anti-Semitic in his work is fine, with his character out to destroy Israel anyway, but I think it’s fair to say that for the average viewer this is probably going a little too far.

It’s not that the whole is completely devoid of laughs, it’s just that they’re few and far between. When they do come they are pretty predictable, and most of them were in the trailer anyway. The decision to have a romantic undertow, which eventually redeems the dictator to a large extent and makes him see the error of his ways, is instigated in such a plain and blasé manner that it’s impossible not to see it in many ways as a U-turn on Cohen’s previous hell raiser antics. Has he now received one too many lawsuits? Though, with Anna Faris in the love interest role it is kind of a package deal, with a similarly lacklustre romcom adventure in her back catalogue for every other film of value. The idea of a ruthless dictator being seduced and softened is not without merit, it’s a valid point of theological debate whether or not the despots of the world have ever known love in their lives to be capable of the things they do, or if they ever suffer from nightmarish regret when they have a family and children of their own. Here though, with the one exception of a scene where Aladeen helps birth a child, it’s simply a very dull plot device.

There are a number of big name stars who make an appearance throughout the piece – the most frequent of them being sir Ben Kingsley, who plays his duplicitous role of Aladeen’s top general very well, but for whom this will rank just above ‘The Love Guru’ (08) on his CV. John C Reilly delivers a couple of choice lines and proves the best of the supports before making an impromptu exit from the film. That is, of course, unless you include the support given by Megan Fox’s bra, as she slips out of Aladeen’s bed looking sleek and resplendent, having been paid to spend the night with him and stating she’s off to see the Italian Prime Minister but complaining her ‘goody bag’ doesn’t contain as much as Katy Perry’s did. Is someone on the production good friends with Russell Brand? Bizarrely Edward Norton also appears briefly, having similarly prostituted himself to a Chinese man in a toilet – a lineless cameo even shorter than that of his in ‘The Invention of Lying’ (09). Is he simply embracing those shunned by the Hollywood establishment after the troubles he had on ‘The Incredible Hulk’ (08)?

This is Sacha Baron Cohen’s most expensive outing yet and you might be slightly entertained by it, but unfortunately it’s much more likely you’ll simply be disappointed. Give this one a miss, go and see the Avengers again instead.

The Red Dragon

Quotes

“Listen, while you’re here, I highly recommend a visit to the Empire State building. Before you, or one of your sand monkey cousins, takes it down.”   John C Reilly/Clayton

“Why are you guys so anti-dictators? Imagine if America was a dictatorship. You could let one percent of the people, have all the nation’s wealth. You could help your rich friends get richer by cutting their taxes, and bailing them out when they gamble and lose. You could ignore the needs of the poor for health care and education. Your media would appear free but would secretly be controlled by one person and his family. You could wire tap phones, you could torture foreign prisoners, you could have rigged elections, you could lie about why you go to war. You could fill your prisons with one particular racial group, and no one would complain! You could use the media to scare the people into supporting policies that are against their interests!”   Admiral General Aladeen/Sacha Baron Cohen

The Adventures of Tintin : The Secret of the Unicorn  (2011)    0/100

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Rating :   0/100            COMPLETE INCINERATION            105 Min      PG   

In brief : This would be a woeful and badly misjudged film if it were an amateur production. As it is, with the wealth of experience and talent behind it, it is simply unforgivable.

Contents:
Mini review
Plot
As seen through the eyes of The Red Dragon (Contains spoilers)
Full review (Contains spoilers)
Quotes

Mini Review : Expectations were high for this adaptation of a much loved classic comic book of the 20th century. Unfortunately, a true dearth of genuine thought in any major part of the production has created a hollow, slightly sinister shell, whose only real success in recreating the comics comes from literally reproducing some of their drawings in the opening sequence.

The pace of the film is frantic, leaving scant space for any characterisation and what little there is would have us believe Tintin to be a frenzied capitalist, child minded by his intellectually superior dog and happy to put up with the vagaries of an old drunkard so long as he has a purpose to serve. That purpose being the acquisition of treasure. A hearty attempt by the actors, but a shameful one by the filmmakers, leaving the film’s rating PG in order to make as much money as possible whilst fitting in a reference to bestiality, and flirting dangerously with the promotion of alcohol abuse.

Plot : Upon discovering an old antique model ship of the Unicorn, the young reporter Tintin is led on an adventure that sees him kidnapped aboard a mysterious ship, wherein he meets his co-adventurer Captain Haddock. The two discover that the ancestors of the captain and their captor fought over a horde of treasure, a now lost treasure which the pair must race to find before their dastardly competitor.

The Adventures of Tintin as seen through the eyes of The Red Dragon (Contains spoilers)

INTRO SEQUENCE : A creepy, dark, boyish character with no face descends into a nightmarish world of swivelling cameras and elevator musak. The audience discerns from the cinema ticket they have bought that this is probably Tintin. The length of this surreal haunted house ride, which rivals that of the five minute aired episodes of the 50’s TV series, together with a brief rip off of ‘Vertigo’, begets CONFUSION and DISSAPOINTMENT in the audience, themes which will become important as the film progresses.

STREET ARTIST : You look familiar, have I drawn you before?
TINTIN : Yes, many times.
STREET ARTIST : Of course! I have seen you in the newspaper!

The seeming incongruity of the opening dialogue is quickly washed away with the establishment of TINTIN as a slightly chubby journalist who is partnered with a small, white, wire fox terrier called SNOWY. SNOWY is then established as the more competent of the two as, whilst TINTIN panders to his ego, SNOWY notices and tracks several incidences of crime happening in the area.

TINTIN : Woah, I look great in this! Snowy come and look! What the devil have you been up to? Stop wasting time. Chasing cats again no doubt?
SNOWY : Woof. Nope. My job. Woof.
TINTIN : Woooooo look at this model ship! I want it!
SELLER : Two pounds for that young sir.
TINTIN : Darn it, I only have one pound left – I spent the rest on portraits and chips.
SELLER : Never mind, half price is still a pretty good deal, here you go.

Enter MYSTERIOUS AMERICAN immediately followed by DANIEL CRAIG. Both try to buy the model ship from SELLER, despite the fact TINTIN is now holding it. TINTIN’s determination to keep his hard earned bric-a-brac results is multiple accent fluctuations from DANIEL CRAIG.

MYSTERIOUS AMERICAN : Hey bud, you’ll give me that ship if you know what’s best for you, trust me. O shit it’s DANIEL CRAIG, I’m off, I remember what he did to that guy he just went to talk to in ‘Quantum of Solace’.

DANIEL CRAIG : Ah marvellous! It’s just what I’ve been looking for, no need to wrap it boy. What’s that? Yours you say, very well I’ll pay you anything you want for it, after all I strongly suspect it cost you your last pound. Still no! Look, this belongs to the house I just bought and as such generations of driiinking and irrrrational behaviour.

TINTIN : As strong a selling point as that is, I’m afraid the answer is still no. Though if you have money to burn, how about purchasing a wonderful portrait of yours truly?

TINTIN returns home, eager to investigate this ship, the Unicorn, further but is hindered by his inability to remember where anything is; in this case a magnifying glass. Luckily SNOWY is used to child minding his slightly slow friend and finds it for him. Use of the magnifying glass reveals the presence of SHAMEFUL EXCUSE FOR 3D ACTION CAT, which SNOWY dutifully chases, inaugurating the first of many such nausea inducing mini-adventures. The model gets broken and a clue falls out, which TINTIN then clods under the cabinet, despite SNOWY’S desperate attempts to catch it and his equally unsuccessful attempts to draw attention to it. The scene changes to the library, where we learn some semi-interesting things about the eponymous ship and are also given the line that sums up the whole film ‘Only a true Haddock will discover the secret of the Unicorn’. The audience are invited to insert a word of their choice in place of Haddock.

Upon finding the Unicorn model has been taken, the protagonist speaks for the audience..

TINTIN : Of course it’s gone! How could I have been so stupid! {Cue dramatic stare into space with lightning, as if Tintin’s stupidity is of monstrous proportions } Quick Snowy, let’s break into DANIEL CRAIG’s mansion and get it back by golly, as surely this screenplay cannot have left room for anyone else to have taken it!

* * *

TINTIN : Damn, grrrr, these .. gates, grrrr – it’s like they’re made of iron! Wait, Snowy, how did you get inside? Did you go through that hole in the wall that’s right beside me? You know, if I just followed you most of the time everything really would be a lot quicker. Why does that symbol look familiar? Why, why, why? Hmm do you know snowy? O that’s right you can’t talk. Darn it, wait, that fish – it’s a Haddock! I knew it looked familiar. Of course!! This is the Haddock mansion! What’s that snowy, I alluded to knowing this less than ten minutes ago? Well, I FORGET THINGS, OK?! Hmm that Haddock is making me think of chips …What’s that noi – eek a huge dog! Run for it snowy!!

SNOWY : Woof. Look, I know my master is a dullard, but could you not eat him please? I tell you what, let’s play a game of tickles instead, fair enough? Woof

The dogs play with each other whilst TINTIN breaks in through a window and finds another model of a ship.

TINTIN : Well, well, well. It seems we’ve caught our thief. {Ironically, Tintin is referring to himself }

TINTIN’s alertness proves incapable of detecting the old butler moving in behind him. TINTIN is then knocked unconscious for an indeterminate amount of time.

TINTIN : Ow.
DANIEL CRAIG : I see you let yourself in.
TINTIN : I came to retrieve my property! This ship belongs to me.
DANIEL CRAIG : Are you sure?
TINTIN : Yes! It’s mine! Mine, mine, mine!

Tick… Tock…

O.

Erm, it seems .. I… may have made a mistake. Snowy broke the mast on my ship, not my fault because my place is a mess you understand, and this one appears to be, well, not broken.
DANIEL CRAIG : Indeed, well appearances can be deceiving.
TINTIN : Ahem, yes, indeed. But wait, it still doesn’t make any sense God damn it! Why are there two models of the same ship? Such a thing must surely be unknown in the history of model ship making. And you have one already! Why could you possibly want another one? I demand to know! Answer me!!
DANIEL CRAIG : Look you impertinent little imp, might I point out that you have just committed at least two felonies, and yet you somehow have the gall to demand information on something as petty as model ships whilst still in my home? I could also remind you that I’ve already said I wish to recover the property of this house, or indeed suggest that I am simply a collector, and I should most certainly call the police.

Instead DANIEL CRAIG taps TINTIN on both sides with his stick, in another SHAMEFUL EXCUSE FOR 3D ACTION. TINTIN is ushered out by the BUTLER.

BUTLER : It’s a pity sir – that the mast broke on your model ship sir … I hope you found all the pieces … (Whisper)… things are so easily lost (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).
TINTIN : ?

TINTIN repeats this line to himself over and over again until he reaches the borstal he calls home.

TINTIN : ‘Some things are easily lost’ what does it meeeeeean snowy?! What in the name of all that is holy was he trying to tell me? O why is everything so complicated. It isn’t like the good old days when my stories had depth and meaning to them. Hmm. Some things are easily lost…

TINTIN finds his apartment has been ransacked

TINTIN : Great Snakes!!! What is it Snowy? What’s this…… Aha! This was in the mast!

SNOWY : Woof. Yes, if you’d ignored me a second time I would have left you, along with the audience. Woof

TINTIN finds a secret note, which he will later erroneously refer to as being written in Old English. His musings over the latest event in the day to be confused by are interrupted by a knock at the door. Thinking whoever robbed the place is quite likely to come back and knock at the front door, our young hero pulls out a pistol from the secret pistol carrying pouch in his trousers, quite at the ready to pump whoever it might be full of lead, in keeping with his growing persona of cat burglar/assassin. MRS FINCH answers the door in a nonsensical zombie like fashion, not being long out of her pod from ‘Invasion of the Bodysnatchers’.

MRS FINCH : Mr Tintin is very particular about who he admits after bedtime. I have to go back to my cocoa. I’ve got a very good book and a cup of cocoa. It’s really lovely.
MYSTERIOUS AMERICAN : I’m trying to tell you Tintin (again) your life is in danger!
TINTIN : From who? Answer me!!

Thankfully for the MYSTERIOUS AMERICAN at the door it’s not Tintin’s pistol that shoots him, but the much more fast acting, rapid gunfire of the bad guys behind him in the most unsubtle, sure to evoke witnesses, execution ever. Whilst in his death throes, the MYSTERIOUS AMERICAN manages to point to, most of, the letters on a newspaper that spell ‘Karaboudjan’, a word that TINTIN will erroneously refer to as being Armenian {it is actually a fictitious word, being a combination of the large lagoon Kara-Bogaz-Gol on the East of the Caspian sea, and the name of Armenia’s neighbour, Azerbaijan/Azerbaidjan}

The lackadaisical arrival of the police investigators THOMPSON and THOMSON the next day, reveals the unlikely truth that the recently deceased was a member of Interpol.

THOMSON : I’m incompetent.
THOMPSON : Really? I’m incompetent too!
THOMSON : Not nearly as much as I am. Here, let me show you by tripping over this cat and falling down the stairs. Owe.
THOMPSON : Oh really Thomson. I swear you put that cat there just to prove your point!
THOMSON : Well, we may be incompetent, but our plan to catch the pickpocket in the area is somehow almost about to work. Cheerio Tintin!

The inspectors leave, followed closely by SNOWY who has spotted a familiar figure..

TINTIN : Snowy?
SNOWY : Woof. It’s the pickpocket from the opening scene! Woof.
TINTIN : Snowy, what is it?
SNOWY : Woof. Oh seriously!! I’m a DOG and I can understand you! Woof.

Unfortunately for the intrepid fox terrier, TINTIN and SNOWY are then caught in a space-time continuum flux and, having been directly behind the others, are then transported some 200 metres further down the road. This effect is accentuated by eerie fog and what appears to be a Frenchified version of the Darth Vadar theme tune. It also allows for another pointless chase sequence wherein the pickpocket fails to steal the investigator’s wallet, and then legs it – although he does succeed in stealing TINTIN’S containing the note not written in Old English. TINTIN then runs into the middle of the road, where he is profoundly CONFUSED by the moving traffic. Luckily, the universe decides to make up for it’s previous transgression by having several men bundle TINTIN into a wooden crate marked ‘Karaboudjan’; thus saving our hero the headache of trying to work out what the word meant, and also the embarrassment of finding out it is not Armenian. SNOWY’s true identity of Indiana Jones in dog form is then revealed, as he enjoys another 3D escapade to catch up with the crate as it’s loaded onto a ship with the not Armenian name, helped on by a familiar sounding John William’s theme.

Upon regaining consciousness TINTIN discovers he has been probed by several men, locked in a cage, and is presently being confronted by DANIEL CRAIG, who at least offers him the comfort that he is not the only character who only has one set of clothes. TINTIN learns that there is a second riddle, though he considers them to be poems, and that DANIEL CRAIG is willing to go to great lengths to own both of them. After considerable mental stress he concludes that there is still more to discover about the story. SNOWY releases him from his bonds, allowing him to successfully achieve something for the first time in the film so far by escaping to the cabin above via the outside of the ship, albeit not before smacking himself and one incumbent CAPTAIN HADDOCK in the head with his makeshift grappling hook.

Meanwhile the resident seafaring goons, upon discovering the door to where they left him is either stuck or barred, and having been told to extract information from the unarmed TINTIN using whatever means necessary, decide the best way to do this is to blow the door off with TNT and then spray the interior with bullets. Then proceeding to not search the room, they decide he must have escaped.

CAPTAIN HADDOCK : So you thought you’d sneak in behind me and catch me with my trousers down!!!

The captain has been drinking heavily, and thus assumes he is now confronted by one of the young boys at port.

TINTIN : Hmm, I’d rather you kept them on.
CAPTAIN HADDOCK : O so that’s how he intends to finish me off, at the hands of a baby faced assassin!
TITIN : Assassin? How do you know I’ve killed people with my secret gun from it’s secret pouch? Who have you been talking to? Answer me!!
CAPTAIN HADDOCK : Argh what’s the use?! He’s turned the whole ship against me! NOBODY takes my ship!
TINTIN : Except him? Wait, you’re the … Captain?
CAPTAIN HADDOCK : Aye, I’ve been locked in this room with nothing but whiskey to sustain my mortal soul for days.

TINTIN opens the unlocked door, establishing the captain as an incompetent drunk and quite possibly the most hopeless character we have met so far, which is quite an achievement.

TINTIN : You are a drunk sir, I’m even more glad than I was before that you kept your trousers on. Now, if you’ll excuse me, several men with machine guns are trying to find me.

TITTIN and CAPTAIN HADDOCK bond whilst beating up a guard, whereafter formal introductions are made and TINTIN takes a large five second pause to process the importance of the captain’s surname. Meanwhile DANIEL CRAIG forgets he needs TINTIN alive and issues orders to kill him, and lets the audience know that both he as well as TINTIN intend to use the captain to uncover the secret of the Unicorn. The captain reveals that he did in fact learn the secret, but he then immediately got wasted and forgot it. He also reveals information that suggests there were three model ships made, TINTIN’s face glints evilly as he realises this.

For no apparent reason the captain then breathes a concentrated blast of rotten air from his lungs onto TINTIN’s face, revealing his alcohol abuse has at least granted him a sonic close-range weapon. Desperate to secure entry into the liqueur store rather than escape, the captain sends TINTIN to retrieve the key from the sleeping crew hands. One of whom, he tells him, lost his eyelids in a game of cards – TINTIN believes this – and another he suggests is a convicted sheep shagger, confirming this present incarnation may in fact have more in common with Captain Pugwash than Captain Haddock. Indeed, so demonically possessed is he in his craving for alcohol, he proceeds to snatch a bottle from TINTIN’s hands just as he is about to apply it to the back of a stooges head, potentially resulting in immediate capture and death.

They escape on a lifeboat (after some more Indiana Jones esque 3D fare, and finding out the Karaboudjan’s destination – the fictional Moroccan port of Bagghar, where the third model ship is to be found). Meanwhile THOMSON and THOMPSON accidentally apprehend the pickpocket and recover TINTIN’S wallet.

TINTIN : Can you get us to Bagghar?
CAPTAIN HADDOCK : Of course I can! Who do you think you’re talking to?! Only, don’t leave me alone with this here bottle. Seriously. I mean it. If I drink this, I will literally set fire to this boat whilst we’re in it.

CAPTAIN HADDOCK accidentally knocks TINTIN and SNOWY unconscious and proceeds to set fire to the boat, oars included, before pouring the rest of the alcohol onto the fire and causing a small explosion. Thankfully the hull of the small lifeboat proves to be mostly fire resistant and the trio are able to sit on the upturned, ruined boat.

CAPTAIN HADDOCK : Don’t blame me laddie, it should be bloody obvious by now I can’t be trusted in any way shape or form. It’s all my ancestor’s fault you see – Sir Frances Haddock, Captain of the Unicorn, was so very successful that I decided the only way I could compete with him was to become a drunkard. Which, by the way, I have been enormously successful at.

Fearing his actions may not have alienated the audience enough, CAPTAIN HADDOCK then tries to commit suicide. Right on cue a small plane sent from the Karaboudjan descends on them and completely ignores the previous order not to kill CAPTAIN HADDOCK. It is possible DANIEL CRAIG forgot to mention this to them. TINTIN proves his marksmanship skills honed from his days as a trained child assassin by shooting down the plane with one bullet. He also takes a moment to fire off some cheese at the same time.

The intrepid trio apprehend the plane, with TINTIN flying it directly into a severe electrical storm. This allows for a specific mini-adventure entitled ‘Fear and Loathing in an Aeroplane’, wherein SNOWY and CAPTAIN HADDOCK duel it out to see who can suck the most globules of surgical spirit, in no way, shape or form promoting and trivialising competitive alcohol abuse to the films primary younger audience. CAPTAIN HADDOCK is able to use the results of this via his sonic breath weapon to climb on to the front of the plane and blast enough vapour into the fuel tank to keep the vehicle in the air, proving being an alcoholic is not only funny, but can also save your life if stuck in a small plane during an electrical storm. TINTIN offers the disclaimer that the bottle is for medical emergencies only. Audience members are invited to question whether or not it would’ve been a good idea to add that surgical spirit is usually at least 70% proof, and as such completely lethal. Especially for all the children in the audience with access to medicine cabinets.

‘Fear and Loathing in an Aeroplane’ ends with a particularly violent crash that sees TINTIN smashed through the windscreen and all three of the intrepid adventurers nearly diced by the propellers. The wind largely prevents any bloodshed, gracefully maintaining the parental guidance certificate.

Now stranded in the Sahara desert, the captain looks at his empty bottle and delivers the only hint of pathos in the film so far.

CAPTAIN HADDOCK : You don’t understand! I’ve run out – I’ve run out! You don’t know what that means.

Whilst dying of thirst, the captain sobers up and begins to remember the tale his grandfather told him of the Unicorn. Exhaustion kicks in before the memory fully returns. Before the three are vulture food, they are found and taken to a French outpost to convalesce. TINTIN is told the captain is suffering from dehydration and as such is delirious. Despite sobering up being the catalyst for the return of his memory, SNOWY decides to switch his drinking water for some more surgical spirit, perhaps hoping to continue their previous game. After consuming a potentially lethal dose of ethanol, for some reason the captain’s memory does come back and the audience are able to continue the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ esque reimagining of his tale.

We see Sir Francis Haddock battle with the pirate Red Rackham for control of the Unicorn, and also learn of the secret hoard of gold hidden on the ship. Both the audience and the captain realise Red Rackam is the ancestor of DANIEL CRAIG, as they have exactly the same face. Sir Frances scuttles his own ship to prevent the gold from falling into the hands of Rackam, who issues forth a curse on the Haddock line (not at all like the cursed gold in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’) shortly before he explodes. The captain concludes DANIEL CRAIG is looking for revenge and the gold, and TINTIN reasons the captain is himself integral to solving the riddles hidden in the model ships. They resolve to beat him to it, and trek across the Sahara to Bagghar.

THOMSON and THOMPSON also decide to travel all the way to Bagghar to return TINTIN’s wallet, reuniting him with the first clue. Meanwhile DANIEL CRAIG is undercover as Mr Sugar Additive, and he unleashes his secret weapon of the Milanese Nightingale, an opera singer whose voice will resonate with, and then smash, the bullet proof glass protecting the third model ship. Clearly this was a back up choice instead of using the captain’s sonic breath weapon. During the Nightingale’s performance, the owner of the third ship is revealed to be none other than STEVEN SPIELBERG, who giggles inanely at the show. The captain’s permanently hungover mind can’t take the sound of opera and he leaves, considers taking a drink, but thinks better of it. His reward for this is to have the bottle smashed over his head by his ex first mate. The fact that he has the first clue then taken off him, leads TINTIN to almost confront him over his alcoholism for the first effective time.

DANIEL CRAIG’s devilish plan succeeds and so begins another 3D mini adventure as everyone chases the new clue and each other, during which they destroy several parts of the town’s infrastructure, and induce motion sickness once more in the audience. At the end of this DANIEL CRAIG is successful, leading TINTIN to despair. CAPTAIN HADDOCK suggests that there will be plenty of people that will call you all sorts of things, but you must never call yourself them; pay attention to the signal you give out to others, and if you believe in something fight for it, find a way to push through any obstacles that stand in your way.

This is interpreted literally as the protagonists corner DANIEL CRAIG at his next berth, and proceed to destroy several millions of pounds worth of dock land property trying to catch him. A police car is also violently crushed, with the fate of its occupants unknown. CAPTAIN HADDOCK’s old friend the bottle comes in handy once more as a weapon, until DANIEL CRAIG suggests he would be better served simply drinking it. CAPTAIN HADDOCK is in the process of agreeing with this before the surprise intervention of TINTIN. The captain then throws the villain overboard, and adds a final flourish by kicking the bottle which then lands on DANIEL CRAIG’s head, who is promptly arrested. The audience is pithily, and falsely, led to believe he has ‘kicked the habit’.

After all the excitement the scrolls combine to reveal latitude and longitude co-ordinates, which lead them right back to where it began, the Haddock mansion. Finding a walled-off part of the cellar, the final part of the riddle is solved as the captain’s knowledge of the seas allows him to find an island on an ornate globe that doesn’t exist. An island that, once pressed, reveals a hidden stash of treasure and Sir Frances’ hat.

CAPTAIN HADDOCK : WOOHOO! This calls for a celebration! Just a wee tipple you understand…

CAPTAIN HADDOCK downs two glasses of champagne.

CAPTAIN HADDOCK : I’m surprised there’s not more. I mean, you said Red Rackam had raided most of the South American coast.
TINTIN : Actually I never said that, but there is another clue here under the treasure pointing to the rest of it lying at the bottom of the sea. Screw journalism, how’s your thirst for money captain?
CAPTAIN HADDOCK : Unquenchable.

Thus the film ends cyclically, with CAPTAIN HADDOCK remaining an alcoholic, and TINTIN stroking his ego as he was at the film’s beginning, consumed by the desire for yet more unnecessary wealth. Perhaps he ought to have just accepted the blank cheque offered him for the original model Unicorn. A fitting tale of greed and folly for our financially tumultuous times.

CAPTAIN HADDOCK : TEN THOUSAND THUNDERING TYPHOONS!!!

 

Full Review (Contains spoilers) : From the befuddling bore fest that is the opening credits, to the stupefying heights of Captain Haddocks terminal alcoholism, this film fails dramatically at every turn.

‘The Adventures of Tintin’ were a hugely successful series of comic books by Belgian artist Georges Prosper Remi, better known by his penname Herge. Their publication began in the late 1920’s and continued right up until the mid 1980’s (Herge passed away in 1983). They have previously been converted into live action films, computer games and two separate TV cartoon series. Needless to say, expectations were high for a Spielberg production (his first animated film) in collaboration with Peter Jackson on production credits, Michael Kahn the Oscar winning editor, and the combined writing talents of Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright, and Joe Cornish. They, just as their predecessors, must have had to address the two fold challenge of adapting the comics; firstly how to bring the adventures to the big screen whilst maintaining their spirit, and secondly how to deal with the thorny issue of Captain Haddock’s very adult alcohol problem in a child orientated film. Their response seems to have been to fudge the former and bolster to excess the later.

The film opens with an excessively long intro sequence. The silhouette of Tintin jumps to and fro on the screen as familiar images from the comics pass by around him. Dull black, green and yellow colours permeate everything as eerie disembodied music plays. The filmmakers seem to forget that this is the intro to their much anticipated film, and as such the first line of the story, in effect a statement of intent. Though, at least in its pallor they are consistent. Indeed, extremely poor music is a constant in the film, though it does markedly improve when the intrepid Tintin meets Haddock about one third of the way through. The music aids in giving the whole a hollow inauthentic feel, with French influences that would be more at home inside a desperate Pigalle café than here. To make matters worse, the score in several places sounds reminiscent of some of John Williams’ earlier work, in particular that of Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

After the intro we become party to the fully fleshed out world of Speilberg’s Tintin universe. Or rather, what should be a fully fleshed out world. The backgrounds and props all look detailed and well done, but the human characters look more like pallid, ghostly, plasticine shells of people than anything else. Tintin’s face first greets us with a slightly manic grin, appearing with significantly more podge on it than its 2D counterpart. So much so it’s impossible not to see shades of a modern day ned menacing around with bottles of Buckfast and Iron Bru hidden under a creepy, overly long raincoat. This image is strengthened early on when he breaks into the mansion of one Sakharine (played by Daniel Craig), thinking he may have stolen something from his apartment. In the comic he knocks on Sakharine’s door and asks him. Indeed, the character of Sakharine in the film is a merging of several from the comics, as is the whole story of the film; mashed together from ‘The Crab with the Golden Claws’, ‘The Secret of the Unicorn’, and ‘Red Rackham’s Treasure’, with some things distinct from any of the comics. Most notably the majority of the action in the fictional Moroccan port of Bagghar, and the ensuing climatic dockland fight scene.

It’s not just the look of the characters that seems unfinished and unreal, but also their movements and their machinations. At times it’s almost like watching stop motion animation with a couple of frames missing, and the decisions of mostly everyone onscreen seem insanely dumb to say the least – such as the goons sent to extract information from Tintin who decide to burst in spraying the room with bullets, a room they believe to contain an unarmed boy, admittedly one who had managed to free himself and jam the door, but still! In fact it is Tintin himself who often seems to be the most devoid of intellect as he stumbles inanely along, merely an increasingly irritating device for forwarding the story than anything reminiscent of the hero many know and love from the comics. It is Snowy that proves the more capable of the two; a promise which is drowned out by the focus on alcohol in the second half of the film.

Throughout the viewer is constantly bombarded with all manner of excuses for chase sequences in order to try and justify the production being released in 3D. This includes a short one with the pickpocket, Aristides Silk, only made possible by inventing several score yards of pavement between Tintin and the Thom(p)sons where there were none before. This all gets very repetitive, very quickly. Red Dragon did in fact go to see the film in both 3D and 2D and can confirm if anything it’s actually a little worse in 3D. Certainly some of the sequences were nauseating enough without a third dimension being added to them. This effect also adds to the general sense of everything moving too quickly, with pointless and silly action replacing any form of characterisation. Things continue in this fashion from start to end, until the bombshell drops that is Captain Haddock.

In the comics the captain is first introduced in ‘The Crab with the Golden Claws’, which is also the first adventure that was published during the Nazi occupation of Belgium, and as such the first written for a paper under German control. Herge was forced to abandon the Tintin story he had been working on and was put under strict censorship, ending the possibility of any more politically charged storylines. Indeed, after the war he faced charges of collaboration and anti-Semitism, partly for working for the German newspaper, but also for certain character depictions, such as seemingly portraying the bad guys in ‘The Shooting Star’ as decidedly Jewish. He always denied the charges, but admitted in later years that at the time he did think that perhaps the ‘new order’ may be the way forward for the world, but that this thought was hideously misplaced given the revelations of the aftermath of World War Two. ‘The Shooting Star’, together with the three comics used as material for the making of this film, were the only fully completed Tintin stories released during the German occupation. It is perhaps both slightly odd and ironic that Spielberg, having not only made the haunting ‘Schindler’s List’ (93) but also having fired Megan Fox from the ‘Transformers’ series for saying working for Michael Bay was like working for Hitler, should choose as the basis for his film the very stories which only exist as a direct result of Nazi intervention. Perhaps, had the filmmakers chosen some of the stories with a little more political intrigue in them the film would have had a lot more substance to it. There were no shortage of ‘banker’ like bad guys in the series, for example, that no doubt would find a lot of resonance with audiences today.

There is a strong theory that Captain Haddock is the legacy of this censorship, a creation in its maker’s image, representing the anger, despair, and frustration that Herge himself felt in the situation he found himself in. ‘The Crab with the Golden Claws’ has Tintin meet him for the first time aboard his ship, the Karaboudjan, a hopeless drunk maintained in a state of inebriation by his treacherous crew as they use the ship to smuggle opium. As the story progresses he then gets drunk and sets fire to their escape lifeboat, smashes a bottle over the back of Tintin’s head whilst he’s flying the plane they’re in, and tries to rip Tintin’s head off when he hallucinates the young reporter is a bottle of champagne. This is tempered though, by Tintin saying he needs the captain’s help but that he must promise to stop drinking, asking him to think of his reputation and what his poor old mother would think. At the end of the comic Haddock is seen to be giving an address against the demon of alcohol, seemingly reformed. Red Dragon’s own personal view is that this hypothesis is probably correct, and that Herge perhaps may have thought ‘OK, so I can’t do this, this, and this right? Well fine, let’s make a character who shouldn’t normally ever be a part of a children’s comic series and see if you bother to censor him.’ The ensuing character not being censored, went on to become the series’ most popular, not withstanding the eponymous hero. In ‘The Shooting Star’ the captain also holds the dignified position of the head of the S.S.S. (a society against drinking), but then abandons it with abandon, a thinly veiled dig at the S.S.?

It does, however, have to be remembered too that this was a very, very different time from now. Everyone the world over had more important things to worry about than whether or not Captain Haddock was a good or bad influence on their children. Most of the people in Europe, where the limited readership was, were more concerned with whether or not they and their children would be alive in a day/month/year’s time. Also, the captain is essentially initially portrayed as a monster, not someone anyone would want to be like. Tintin is always trying to reform him and is largely successful, as is the voice of authorship, such as when Haddock is given a very austere note from his doctor saying he absolutely must abstain from any more drinking. It is true that Snowy also seemed to get drunk on a regular basis, and even Tintin on occasion, but it also has to be factored in that this was, after all, a comic and the drunkenness was usually of a comic nature. Neither did the world then have the wide spread problem of cheap, easily available, alcohol, leading to abuse by minors and vulnerable people that plagues many a modern day society. The two cartoon series produced based on the comics, one in the late 50’s (which often departed from the original stories, and also contained some horrific racial stereotypes, but which is still fairly well known) and one in the early 90’s (which was much more faithful to the comics), both interpreted Haddock through this lens. The result was that the 50’s show essentially removed the drinking problem altogether, and the 90’s one toned it down into a caricature of the rum loving sea dog, primarily for comic effect (Snowy is also shown to turn his nose up at the smell of whiskey). These decisions make sense for more modern shows aimed at children.

How, then, did Spielberg and co decide to handle Haddock for their aimed at children adventure story? Why, they decide to make Haddock even worse than he was in the comics of course! His adventures with the bottle go as follows…

He is initially found drunk on the Karaboudjan, just as in every other retelling, but this time his mental health is so hideously deteriorated that he almost literally doesn’t remember anything about anything, and considers himself kept prisoner, despite the fact the door to the room is unlocked. Upon the promise of escape with Tintin, he decides to first put both their lives in danger by having Tintin steal the key to the drinks locker. During this theft he warns him to beware of one of the sleeping sailors, saying that the fellow was once fired as a shepherd on account of his ‘animal husbandry’. He might as well have just said he’s a sheep shagger. Tintin’s response upon finding his endeavours were to procure more alcohol is to look dumbfounded, compared to telling Haddock he should be ashamed of himself in the comics and cartoons. Perhaps it is the real Tintin who would feel ashamed upon watching this. Finally, trying to leave the boat the captain is so desperate for a drink that he snatches a bottle from Tintin’s hands just before he can knock out one of the guards with it, endangering them all once again.

Straight afterwards he sets fire to their lifeboat, essentially killing them but true to the comic. Then, in a major departure from the original material, we learn he drinks due to the fact that his ancestor of some three centuries ago was so successful that he feels he can’t compare, which must be the worst, most unbelievable excuse for being a drunk ever. As if that weren’t bad enough, he then tries to kill himself via drowning, but changes his mind when he espies a plane, showing he was quite happy to leave Tintin to his own fate and it was indeed the fact that they seemed doomed to thirst and starvation, and not regret over his drinking or misdeeds, that had prompted the suicide bid.

Perhaps the worst example of them all occurs when they are in peril in their small plane flying through a lightning storm. Cowardice strikes him and he reaches for no less than a bottle of surgical spirits to console himself. He and Snowy then have a contest to see how much they can drink as bubbles of it float around the plane, seeming to defy the laws of physics. Surgical spirits are 70-100% pure ethanol. But hey, that’s all right kids because Snowy and Captain Haddock had a fun drinking contest with it so you go right ahead to the first aid box/medicine cabinet and try some. Never mind the fact this will result in severe burns to your mouth and insides, and potential death. Or, why not give some to your dog? In the comic it’s a bottle of whiskey that resides in the plane, but the whole episode seems to have been inspired by the 50’s cartoon series, which was so dire in general that it should never have been counted on as a good source for anything. Haddock manages to save the day by breathing fumes from his breath into their fuel deprived plane. In fact, it is only through his alcoholism that any of them survive at all. So that’s all right then.

Upon sobering up in the desert, Haddock starts to remember elements of the story of the Unicorn. For some reason, upon later finding out he’s suffering from the effects of dehydration, the filmmaker’s way to get him to remember the rest of the story, via the previously precocious Snowy, is to get him drunk again. And on surgical spirits. Without his consent. Nuff said.

Running away from some live opera Haddock is tempted by some booze, and for the first time refuses. His reward for this is to have the bottle smashed over his head by one of the bad guys.

The main bad guy taunts Haddock at the end, suggesting he should just drink from the bottle he’s holding in his hand, as he isn’t good for anything else. We are led to believe he will actually resort to doing just that, and it is only the timely intervention of Tintin that stops him. He then kicks the bottle and it lands on the defeated villain’s head – has he then ‘kicked the habit’?

No. The last scene has Haddock guzzling two glasses of champagne.

He does have a moment of character, when he tells Tintin not to despair and though there will always be people who put you down and who will be ready to label you, you must never do it to yourself – that you must fight for what you want and push through any obstacles. It’s a nice speech for the film. It is nevertheless far too little, far too late. As is Tintin’s only real condemnation of his habit, that comes only when it looks like it’s cost him one of the clues he needs.

Haddock then becomes both a condition and character treated with irreverence. We are supposed to warm to him despite his faults and as such his actions are open and encouraged to be aped by the PG audience. Yet, his actions and persona are those of a dangerous madman, only still breathing through the luck of the gods. Indeed, they are all only still breathing because he is an alcoholic. The hiring of Andy Serkis for the role seems apt as the character has an awful lot in common with Gollum; consumed by his precious alcohol, constantly at war with himself and screwing the party over for his obsession, and yet, like Gollum, this mysteriously ends up helping everyone.

Tintin fares little better with his thieving activities, his seeming stupefaction at everything from the storyline to moving traffic, the rather sinister and all too ready way he pulls out a hitherto unseen pistol, and the way his driving motivation seems to be wealth. Wealth turned to greed as in the final scene the duo, despite having found a small hoard of riches, are preparing to set out for some more. His attention to detail is also in serious question, as he erroneously refers to the first clue he finds as being written in Old English. Fitting, perhaps, that the Golden Globes should choose to play this particular clip shortly before it somehow won in the best animated feature category. Thankfully the Oscars this year have snubbed the film almost completely. Steven Moffat, when asked in an interview, denied that as a reporter Tintin would have partaken in the modern day scandal of phone hacking. Based on the evidence of this film it seems entirely likely he wouldn’t have thought twice about it.

Red Rackham, the pirate whom Herge based on real life pirate Calico Jack (John Rackham), whilst watching his treasure being sunk into his soon to be grave, issues a curse on the Haddock line. This curse doesn’t appear in the comics, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ (03) anyone? Bizarrely, the character of Omar Ben Salaad, seems to be moulded in the image of no less than Steven Spielberg himself, unless the animators have made a very unfortunate error. One hopes that the original character’s occupation of opium trafficker has been written out of any backstory or possible sequels (the plan is to make two more, with Peter Jackson directing the next one). Unless when Ben Salaad titters away at the opera singing he is actually laughing at the audience.

The voice work is in general OK; Andy Serkis is quite good, Daniel Craig isn’t too bad, Jamie Bell isn’t too good, but there are a couple of poor films now mounting in the director’s recent backlog, namely ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ (08) and his version of ‘War of the Worlds’ (05). Spielberg has himself described this project as an unashamed and unapologetic adventure, one guided by his instinct rather than by thought. The old artistic debate of heart versus head. His next release, ‘War Horse’, will be a good test of whether or not he is back on form. Also, not enough was made of Thomson and Thompson, the blundering police inspectors who were a constant entertaining presence in the comics, and who barely make an appearance here, though when they do they are well voiced by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.

It’s a fast moving film with no backbone that completely and utterly fails at an entertaining adventure story, especially one aimed at kids. It does however, accidentally succeed at belonging to another genre – the stoner movie. With it’s eeriness, quick pace, nonsensicality, manic music, and the voice of Haddock and other sound effects occasionally booming way out of proportion to anything else going on, it could play quite well as a centrepiece of the genre; ridiculing the script and construction of the first third, getting high upon the arrival of Haddock and the escapades in the plane, then the challenge of not vomiting or falling asleep during the water cascade scene.

For those of us not on drugs, watching this film may well leave you feeling a little light headed or in need of a nap. Rest assured, should you decide to take one you won’t really miss anything.

The Red Dragon

Quotes

“Great snakes!”   Jamie Bell/Tintin

“Thundering Typhoons!”   Andy Serkis/Captain Haddock

“Ten thousand thundering typhoons!”   Andy Serkis/Captain Haddock

“Billions of blue blistering barnacles”   Andy Serkis/Captain Haddock

“I don’t remember anything about anything.”   Andy Serkis/Captain Haddock

“I know these waters better than the warts on my mother’s face”   Andy Serkis/Captain Haddock

“And, and, and, stay clear of Mr Gitch. Sacked as a Shepherd on account of his … animal husbandry.”   Andy Serkis/Captain Haddock

“By Jupiter I have a beard! Since when did I have a beard!”   Andy Serkis/Captain Haddock

“Failed? There are plenty of others willing to call you a failure, a fool, a loser, a hopeless souse, don’t you EVER say it of yourself. You send out the wrong signal, that is what people pick up, do you understand? You care about something, you fight for it. You hit a wall, you push through it. There’s something you need to know about failure Tintin. You can never let it defeat you.”   Andy Serkis/Captain Haddock