A New York Winter’s Tale / Winter’s Tale (2014) 53/100

Posted on February 24, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 53/100 118 Min

What a strange film. I don’t think I’ve found myself rolling my eyes in pained disbelief quite so many times in all the movies I’ve reviewed thus far, and yet the schmaltzy over indulgence did kind of get me interested toward the end, despite the protestations of my brain. I went into this with no prior knowledge of what it was about, but if you watch it, you must be prepared for a fairytale story defined by mystical notions, such as the biblical tussle of angels and demons for the souls of mankind and the concepts of miracles, fate and those worthy enough becoming stars in the heavens once they die. What happens once these stars go supernova, is not discussed.

The central character is Irish-American Peter Lake, played by Colin Farrell, whose parents set him adrift in a toy boat in New York harbour whilst they leave for presumably a better life elsewhere (the parents are displayed as caring ones, so this is not exactly a deed that will see many audience members warm to the start of the film). As luck would have it, the young child is picked up by Russell Crowe who seems to be playing an Irish Fagan, except that he’s also a demon, and his initial over acting and accent borders on the derogatory (he gets a little more palatable toward the end). In adulthood Lake rebels against his thieving foster father and this is where most of the story takes place, as he soon encounters a guardian spirit in the form of a flying white stallion (not in any way inspired by Pegasus you understand) and then breaks into a house for his last robbery in town, but then decides to steal the heart of the young lass he finds there instead using his Irish brogue and his horse (yes, it is that cheesy, though one suspects she had been fantasising about a burly Irishman breaking into to her private chambers for quite some time) although, tragically, she is dying of the consumption (that’s tuberculosis to you and I, although this particular victim appears to be in every visible way the picture of health) and thus destiny and fate become intertwined, together with their loins.

I won’t ruin the surprise of who turns up playing Lucifer. It’s Will Smith. Oops, well, it wasn’t really all that exciting, just like the movie. Truly, the first entire two thirds of this film should be eviscerated from existence, but even the black heart of I, The Red Dragon, was slightly moved by parts of the ending (I still wanted to gag at some bits here too though), due in part to me having already written it off and then finding the film had a few surprises in store. It’s the directorial debut of screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, who wrote the screenplay for ‘A Beautiful Mind’ (01), ‘A Time to Kill’ (96) and … ‘Batman & Robin’ (97), and it’s based on the novel ‘Winter’s Tale’ (1983) by Mark Helprin (the film title outside of the UK and Ireland is the same as the book, it seems possible confusion with Shakespeare is confined to the British Isles). Downtown Abbey’s Jessica Brown Findlay plays the object of Lake’s affections, Jennifer Connoly and William Hurt make brief appearances, and happily so does Eva Marie Saint – best supporting actress Oscar winner for 1954’s ‘On the Waterfront’.

Jack Ryan : Shadow Recruit (2014) 73/100

Posted on February 14, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 73/100 105 Min

Finally – a new Keira Knightley film woohoo! No doubt everyone was as distraught as I was when last year didn’t feature miss Knightley in any film on general release, but here she is back on fine form as Cathy, the wife of the late Tom Clancy’s long running fictional character Jack Ryan, with Chris Pine filling in his shoes – he has been previously played by Alec Baldwin (‘The Hunt for Red October’ 90), Harrison Ford (‘Patriot Games’ 92, ‘Clear and Present Danger’ 94) and Ben Affleck (‘The Sum of All Fears’ 02). The role of his wife was a fairly small one in the previous films, and screenwriters Adam Cozad and David Koepp have done a good job of writing her a larger part whilst managing the difficult task of avoiding it becoming too cheesy or predictable, although despite the end of the cold war, the Russians are still the bad guys.

Clancy passed away last October (the film is dedicated to him), and this is the first movie to feature his characters but to not be based on one of his novels, and one does wonder what he would make of it. It’s a series reboot, with Ryan initially an economics student in London who becomes galvanised to join the Marines after the 9/11 attacks on New York. He receives a crippling back injury and is close to despair when he is recruited as an analyst for the CIA but also meets Cathy as the undergrad doctor who promises to go to dinner with him if he dedicates himself to his physical recovery. If only Keira had won the role of Catwoman in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, poor old Bruce Wayne wouldn’t have had to get punched in the back and thrown down into a grotty hole to recover from his spinal fracture. Indeed, pretty sure if she went around the NHS wards and made similar propositions we might see a remarkable recovery rate in patients ….

“Keira Knightley says she’ll go on a date with you if you get better.”
“…what?”
“Yeah, she said she wanted to give sick people something to live for.”
“Are you fucking shitting me?! Quick, cancel all my visits – give me that fucking water {stands} I’m better! {vomits} Get off me! I’ll be fine!”

The film has almost certainly been inspired by the reboot to the Bond franchise, and there are possibly a few nods in its direction, with an inaugural fight in a toilet and a few camera shots of glass elevators similar to the ones in both ‘Casino Royale’ (06) and ‘Skyfall’ (12) as well as a set up not too dissimilar to the one in Skyfall’s Shanghai skyscraper scene, not to mention putting the character name in the title of course. Kenneth Branagh directs and stars as the Russian bad guy, with the trailer making his accent sound a little ropey (the trailer and marketing for the film was not great in general) but its actually pretty good, and Keira sports a new American one (she has several – she is very talented), the two of them, Pine, and Kevin Costner as Ryan’s CIA contact all sell the film well with their combined talents and, together with tight direction, it all comes together nicely as a good, fun, spy thriller. It amply supplies the base for a new franchise and although it’s not quite in the same league as ‘Casino Royale’, there are plenty of good things to build on for the next one …

Irresistible (2006) 65/100

Posted on January 31, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 65/100 103 Min

A fairly intricate psychological drama but one that’s hindered by slightly odd editing choices, though it is still worth a look and features strong central performances from Susan Sarandon, Sam Neill and Emily Blunt – for whom this was her third feature film, billed just before her appearance in ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ the same year, though you would never guess she was new to big-screen productions based on her onscreen confidence here. Blunt plays the ‘irresistible’ bait, the attractive young woman Sarandon’s husband, played by Neill, is working with who is seemingly obsessed with their relationship and seems to have taken to sneaking into their home and stealing items on a regular basis, but is this really the case – or is it just a series of strange coincidences, or indeed has the stress of the wife’s pressing artwork and the recent loss of her mother taken too much of a mental toll on her?

The sympathetic and involving performances certainly hold attention throughout, and ultimately it’s a decent film, it just lacks anything to elevate it beyond that, other than an abundance, or a parliament if you prefer, of owl related things which the central character has a thing for – in fact in a dream sequence a deck of owl themed playing cards can be seen. I WISH TO POSSESS THESE ARTEFACTS.

To date the most recent film to have been written and directed by Australian filmmaker Ann Turner.

Oldboy (2013) 55/100

Posted on December 24, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 55/100 104 Min

This is director Spike Lee’s remake of Park Chan-Wook’s South Korean film ‘Old Boy’. Given the original only came out in 2003, and if you are into film then you have almost certainly heard of it and probably at least thought about trying to watch it at some point, the question has to be asked, why remake it now? Especially since it’s a mystery, one who’s story has not been changed very much here, so if you know the outcome there is precious little reason to watch this version, and given that it’s a pretty flimsy attempt at a remake there is then no reason whatsoever to do so. So it seems this was either made for people who don’t like to watch films with subtitles, or was simply the inflection of Lee’s own ego – although to be fair, reportedly the producers did somewhat take the project away from Lee when it came to the final cut, much to the chagrin of director and leading man Josh Brolin alike.

The story revolves around Joe Doucett (Brolin) who is, for reasons unknown, locked up in a room for twenty years and then one random day released, and is then left to find out what on Earth happened to him and why. One of the first problems is that Joe does not look a day older when this two decade period elapses – initially we are shown his overweight gut and then a montage of him working out whilst interred, suggesting a level of commitment from Brolin, but still hardly accounting for the physical changes twenty years would bring. The all important story elements around the time of his release are simply delivered in a very weak way – in fact, judging by the random fight he gets into with some jocks immediately upon release, for no real reason, and his ability to contort their limbs at will, it seems twenty years of constant body building is enough to also grant one super powers to boot.

Elizabeth Olson turns up in what for her is not the first bad and unnecessary remake she’s appeared in (see 2011’s ‘Silent House’), Samuel L. Jackson has a brief role, and Sharlto Copley has another good turn after his memorable performance in ‘Elysium’. One of the biggest set pieces and most iconic scenes from the original is recreated – and from the point of view of the crew it’s a difficult scene all filmed in one continuous shot over multiple levels of the same building. Unfortunately, it looks completely ridiculous with stunt men throwing themselves all over the place willy-nilly, looking more like the WWE Royal Rumble on a bad year than a well rehearsed big budget action scene. That kind of sums up the whole thing – I did begin to get into the story again toward the final third, but overall it just feels like an ill conceived attempt to steal someone else’s thunder – the production team should really have just orchestrated the wider rerelease of the original if they were so taken with it. DEFINITELY watch the South Korean version, not this.

Closed Circuit (2013) 63/100

Posted on October 31, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 63/100 96 Min

A thriller based around two lawyers assigned to a high profile terrorism trial in London. The lawyers in question are played by Rebecca Hall and Eric Bana – with Julia Stiles, Riz Ahmed, Ciarán Hinds, Jim Broadbent and Anne-Marie Duff rounding out an impressive cast list as the various journalists, MI5 agents and other interested parties that get involved. It’s a jittery start with somewhat ropey editing attempting to set the scene as the legal team are given separate investigations to follow in order to represent their client. A client who stands accused of helping to orchestrate a suicide bombing in the city, but his defense are legally bound to keep their investigations secret from one another when the trial is separated into a public hearing and one behind closed doors – all in the interests of national security.

To be honest, whenever I watch a film with Rebecca Hall it takes me a while to get over just how strikingly beautiful she is and actually pay attention to what’s going on, and here she displays a certain vulnerability – a subtle nervousness that suits her character well as she tries to confront the difficult scenario she is faced with. The acting all round is fine, and the middle of the film does generate some real tension, it’s just not quite skillful enough to make it anything special in the end.

Escape Plan (2013) 70/100

Posted on October 30, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 70/100 115 Min

Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger once again put their decades old rivalry behind them and team up for their first non Expendables film together – and their powers combined have produced, for each, one of their better films. Stallone plays Ray Breslin, a security specialist who inters himself in maximum security prisons in order to then try and break out, thus testing their security. It all goes wrong, however, when the CIA ask him to test their not so legal prison for those the government would like to disappear, wherein he meets fellow inmate and soon to be buddy Emil Rottmayer, played by Arnold.

There are elements of both a really good prison break film and the sort of slightly cheesy action we would expect from the two powerhouses, combining to produce a really enjoyable film. The actual escape techniques run the gamut in terms of plausibility, and although some of them may not hold up so well under scrutiny they are at least sold to us in a believable fashion, and at times they are indeed quite clever. It’s always good to see these guys onscreen, and their camaraderie now compared to their rivalry before, which they admit helped drive both of them forward in their careers, is worthy of a film in itself. Jim Caviezel (‘The Thin Red Line’ 98) also appears in support, doing a very good job as the villainous head warden.

Now You See Me (2013) 69/100

Posted on July 6, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 69/100 115 Min

This film is a lot of fun, but it is let down by the trailer to a large degree, and the suspense it successfully builds begins to decidedly peter out toward the final act. Dave Franco (younger brother of James Franco), Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher and Woody Harrelson all play magicians who come together to form an ensemble act, cumulatively, and bombastically, calling themselves the Four Horsemen. After one of their shows sees them use their powers to commit theft on a grand scale, the authorities are called in (here in the guise of Mark Ruffalo, joined by the sultry Melanie Laurent), but who is behind the group and what is their ultimate goal? Equally, how real, or how magic, is the magic? Well, I won’t ruin that element, but the film doesn’t take itself too seriously, and the twists and turns aren’t all that hidden – we’re given hints to what’s coming all the way through, but we’re also told that most magic is simply misdirection …. (also with Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman in support).

Oblivion (2013) 15/100

Posted on April 10, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 15/100 124 Min

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

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

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

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

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

SPOILER ALERT

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

Trance (2013) 70/100

Posted on April 3, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 70/100 101 Min

The first film from director Danny Boyle since his success with the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games, although principal photography actually wrapped before the games took place. It’s a somewhat low key affair compared to the grandeur and spectacle of the ceremony – a taught psychological mystery revolving around James McAvoy trying to remember where he hid an extremely valuable piece of art, having received an unplanned blow to the head whilst stealing it. Something his partners in crime, Vincent Cassel amongst them (and if you’ve seen him as the titular criminal in ‘Mesrine: Killer Instinct’, this is certainly cause for concern), are none too happy about, thus they enlist the services of hypnotherapist Elizabeth, played by Rosario Dawson.

Boyle uses a lot of his trademark stylistics to just pull this film off, including apt use of techno music from Underworld’s Rick Smith (a long time collaborator of Boyle’s), off level camera angles, and a warm and somewhat unique orange hue to the cinematography, with some modern day industry standard blues thrown in there too. This artificial edginess, together with good acting, does keep it interesting, and there are enough clues along the way as to what’s going on to hold interest without completely spoiling the ending. The film also highlights a peculiarity in British and American cinema. The performance from Dawson is very committed, featuring as it does a moment of brazen full frontal nudity, which is immediately followed by a nude McAvoy sitting on a bed awaiting the libidinous attentions of Dawson’s character, and yet he has his hand covering his manhood. By comparison it seems a little ridiculous, not to mention somewhat unfair on Dawson, and, perhaps, female viewers. Surely one either has to show a similar state of vulnerability, or simply cut to the sex scene or afterwards?

With this in mind it occurred to The Red Dragon just how rare it is to see male genitalia on film outside of the arthouse realm, notwithstanding Michael Fassbender who breaks the rules by being so well endowed it is actually visible from behind in ‘Shame’. Indeed, the only incidences which come to mind at present are the very memorable scene with Harvey Keitel in the original ‘Bad Lieutenant’ and Sacha Baron Cohen in ‘Bruno’, although in that instance it was more like a covert penile assault on the audience. If female actors are going to have to do so many sex scenes, with arguably most offering nothing to the story other than visual appeal, who also have more bits per capita to want to keep private anyway, then surely more men should ‘man up’ and put it out there for public consumption too? I’m sure all the poor women who have had their private photos hacked into and then blasted over the internet, or have had a zillion cameras pointed at their legs as they get out of cars all literally hoping for the money shot, would appreciate a little more solidarity and support from their industry. Although, it would mean potentially featuring in a dire song from Seth MacFarlane at the Oscars. Ironically, both Fassbender and Scarlett Johansson (recent victim of phone hacking) were actually considered for roles in this film, with the former being offered and accepting one, but having to pull out due to scheduling conflicts.

In the House / Dans la Maison (2012) 59/100

Posted on April 2, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 59/100 105 Min

Arriving on the back of 2010’s ‘Potiche’, this is the latest French language film from director Francois Ozon, based on the play ‘The Boy in the Last Row’, by Juan Mayorga. It stars Fabrice Luchini as Germain, a slightly jaded failed novelist, now appropriately teaching English at the ‘Gustave Flaubert High School’, wherein he encounters a promising young student, Claude (Ernst Umhauer), whose potential gift reawakens a kind of hopeful excitement in his teacher, as he effectively takes him on as his protégé. The only problem is, his writing is a little subversive, and concerns the family of another pupil, creating a story within a story with the viewer not always sure what is real and what is fiction.

Unfortunately, the prose about this family, updates from which Claude continually hands to his teacher for feedback, which is supposed to draw the audience in, much as it is doing to the onscreen readers (Germain’s wife, played by Kristin Scott Thomas, also partakes), simply isn’t that interesting. The unfolding melodrama unconvincingly overstates both the skill of Claude, and the susceptibility of the adults around him so that, ultimately, it just becomes a little silly, a little hollow, and ironically, as Germain goes to greater and greater lengths to explain what makes a good story to his eager pupil, the characters onscreen become increasingly two dimensional.

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