Star Trek – Into Darkness (2013) 79/100

Posted on May 17, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 79/100 132 Min

The follow up to J.J.Abrams’ bold forage into the Star Trek universe continues where the first film (‘Star Trek’ 09) left off, with the crew of the Enterprise a couple of years farther down their alternative timeline to the original series, and The Federation trying to come to terms with the rather brutal and abrupt events of the last film. It bears a lot in common with its successful predecessor, and it fulfils its mission statement perfectly: remaining true to the essence of Gene Roddenberry’s creation (replete with the music from the sixties playing at the end, mention of Tribbles, Mudd, and Christine Chapel – a.k.a. Nurse Chapel, one of the most commonly recurring secondary members of the original crew) whilst still standing on its own two feet as something creative in its own right and encapsulating the blockbuster outlook the new films have been conceived with.

It’s immensely entertaining, looks fantastic, and is filled with the prerequisite spirit of camaraderie that all great adventure films have in common. Indeed, it is certainly one film to see on the big-screen, and the bigger the better (some scenes were shot on IMAX), and there are relatively few sci-fi films nowadays that display the ‘final frontier’ of space in such an awe inspiring cinematic way, in fact I’d like to see more time spent on this in the third instalment which must surely follow on from the immediate success of this one, and there are a lot of appreciable nice touches, like the flair added to the warp trail effect from the Enterprise. Michael Giacchino returns once more for the score, his music fitting perfectly into the list of memorable and atmospheric Star Trek themes, as does Leonard Nimoy for another brief cameo, his character surely busily preparing New Vulcan and her allies for the arrival of a certain none too friendly cybernetic race in circa one hundred years or so….

The story is captivating, but is also one given to debate afterwards as to whether or not several plot elements hold up under scrutiny. This is exactly the same as ‘Star Trek’ which seen bad guy Nero witness his home planet being destroyed and then going back in time, which would have allowed him to forewarn said planet and possibly prevent its annihilation, or at least evacuate everyone, but instead he decided to go on a mass genocidal killing spree with his advanced ship, for no logical purpose other than to create drama on a suitable scale. The story here riffs very heavily off several elements from its canon of Star Trek source material, and also fits in a sizeable nod to The Godfather part III in the process.

It would perhaps be wise to have Abram’s flair for action and entertainment combined with a bit more of the Star Trek ethos in the next one, but there is no doubt he has injected new life back into the wonderful characters that helped create one of the most enduring legacies in the history of the big and small screen, and the future for this incarnation is wide open, in fact it was a stroke of unfettering genius to break the timeline and take us back to where it all began. Performances are good all round, including from new cast members Alice Eve, Benedict Cumberbatch and Peter Weller (most famous previously for playing Robocop), Simon Pegg has also largely improved his Scottish accent. If you enjoy this, most certainly watch the second of the original series of films, which was arguably the best of the bunch.

Scary Movie V (2013) 3/100

Posted on April 13, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 3/100 86 Min

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

Spring Breakers (2012) 23/100

Posted on April 7, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 23/100 94 Min

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

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

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

Stolen (2012) 65/100

Posted on March 20, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 65/100 96 Min

The latest film from Nicolas Cage in a very familiar action role, reuniting with ‘Con Air’ director Simon West, who also directed last year’s ‘Expendables 2’ and the remake of ‘The Mechanic’ the year before that. This is one of Cage’s better films of late – better than the likes of ‘Drive Angry’, ‘Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance’ and ‘Bangkok Dangerous’, but not in the same league as ‘Face-Off’, nor ‘Con Air’ for that matter. Our sympathies lie with his very traditional thief with a moral code, as he tries to evade the attentions of Danny Huston’s FBI agent. It’s quite good fun, and although they have made no effort to disguise its similarities to a certain Liam Neeson flick, and it does run out of steam toward the end, it doesn’t take itself too seriously either. There are a few nods to other films as well, most noticeably ‘Con Air’, but also the likes of Ang Lee’s ‘Hulk’ (a massively underrated film) as the camera switches from a balloon of the superhero in the New Orleans Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras) celebrations to Josh Lucas’ character, who played the villain in Lee’s film. Also with the ever delectable Malin Akerman, pictured above, in support.

Side by Side (2012) 85/100

Posted on March 13, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 85/100 99 Min

This is a fascinating and topical documentary delivered via interviews with a large smorgasbord of film industry professionals, Martin Scorsese, Danny Boyle, Richard Linklater, David Lynch to name but a few, all talking about the transition from traditional film to digital. The interviewer and narrator is a perhaps not so neutral Keanu Reeves, with the footage consisting of lots and lots of clips and different viewpoints edited into the one narrative. As well as the history and pros and cons of digital, and the possibilities for the future, it gives a behind the scenes look at who does what on a movie set – what the work of the cinematographer, colourist, and editor entails, which arises as a natural part of putting the main debate and the protagonists into context. There is, I believe, a very positive conclusion too – with modern technology anyone can go out and make a film armed with nothing more than their camera, and their imagination. Different opinions on that are given, but The Red Dragon thinks the gift of filmmaking to the wider world is a tremendous one indeed.

For an experimental documentary created as a direct result of available digital technology, see ‘We Are Northern Lights’.

Side Effects (2013) 74/100

Posted on March 9, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 74/100 106 Min

Rooney Mara stars as Emily Taylor, a sufferer of depression after husband Martin, played by Channing Tatum, is sent to jail for insider trading. The film opens with his release and we see Emily dealing with the consequences of the whole ordeal, and also the possible side effects of the anti-depressant drugs she has been prescribed with as increasingly erratic behaviour develops. Jude Law and Catherine Zeta-Jones play her current and former psychiatrists respectively, and we are treated to a developing mystery and an insight into the pharmaceutical industry. Compelling, well paced and well acted, ‘Side Effects’ is a pleasure to watch.

Sadly it is set to be the last film from director Steven Soderbergh (‘Traffic’, ‘Oceans 11-13’, ‘Haywire’) as he has stated he has had enough of studio interference with his work and is switching to television instead. Given most of his films remain very good, it would be interesting to see what they may have been like without this suggested creative meddling. Far from the first director to bemoan the power of producers, surely he has had enough success and made enough high profile friends, George Clooney for example, that he could afford to finance a film or two of his own, even if they were smaller scale ones? Woody Allen famously was so irate at the direction the producers took with his first movie that he vowed to never again work on anything where he didn’t have complete creative control, and he has since enjoyed decades of critical and commercial success doing just that. Come on Soderbergh, don’t give in just yet…..

See the TED talk below and the following link for some topical, and very important, insights on the potential dangers of prescription drugs.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20497086

Safe Haven (2013) 53/100

Posted on March 4, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 53/100 115 Min

This is the latest film adaptation of one of Nicholas Sparks’ novels, which will justifiably see many self respecting men, and women, avoiding it like the plague. Like all his previous adaptations, this follows an identical template – the young lovers who could be together were it not for some exterior threat which gets in the way and leads to a confrontation at the end. Ever since ‘The Notebook’ (04), which was actually quite good, the stories have been going steadily downhill, but this isn’t too bad, with both leads, played by Josh Duhamel and Julianne Hough (‘Footloose’ {11}, ‘Rock of Ages’ {12}) proving likeable enough to at least hold some interest. Sparks now has his own production company which appears on the credits here, so we can look forward to seeing all of his stories turned into films with the same predictably nice locations, nice music, good looking actors and hollow drama for the perfection of his feel good, but largely flimsy, fare. Disappointingly, Lasse Hallstrom (‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape’) directs – his work generally carries a lot of respect, but since this is his second Sparks adaptation (the other being ‘Dear John’{10}) one can’t help but feel they function as mere potboilers between his other projects. A sudden plot twist at the end also reveals Sparks has largely been taking the piss all the way through.

Stoker (2013) 7/100

Posted on March 2, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 7/100 99 Min

Nothing about this film makes any sense. It’s trying to be a Hitchcockian version of Lolita, with some disgracefully gratuitous and out of place nods to that director so we get the point. India Stoker’s (Mia Wasikowska) father has just died under mysterious circumstances, enter the hitherto unmentioned uncle (Matthew Goode) who comes to stay with her and her mother (Nicole Kidman). We can tell instantly exactly what will unfold, and as it does there is little to no reaction from Stoker as events occur that would have anyone in their right minds dialling for the emergency services. What supposedly stops her, the charismatic allure of her uncle (the expected Dracula reference), doesn’t work as it hasn’t been justified at all by that point and Matthew Goode’s character is about as charismatic as a gangrenous ulcer. ‘Watchmen’ (09) is to date his only role that springs to mind as memorable, and here he manages to be both creepily omnipresent, and yet still entirely wooden.

Plot holes continue to open their cavernous mouths as the film progresses, and sadly I can’t go into any of them without giving things away, but look out for the freezer that is a country mile away from any sensible location, what’s in the freezer and the distinct lack of reaction to it, and, well, pretty much everything in the second half of the movie. It’s a massive disappointment as it is the first English language film from the South Korean director of ‘Oldboy’ (03), Park Chan-wook, who frenetically cuts out of sequence shots together and uses various camera tricks to try and keep us interested, but ultimately it comes as no surprise that he’s working with a debut script – one from ‘Prison Break’ actor Wentworth Miller, no doubt deciding to exorcise his sexual frustrations by putting them down on paper. Though Stoker is older (she has just turned eighteen) than the eponymous character in Nabokov’s classic novel, there are many parallels, with the onset of her sexual awakening being central to the story, partly represented by a CGI spider that can be seen crawling up her leg at one point. There was a study done years ago that found there was a huge rise in the fear of spiders in young girls at the onset of puberty. The theory to explain this was that there was a subconscious psychological match between the strange and perhaps disconcerting bodily change of hair appearing where once there had been none before, and the hair of the spider (this study was presumably not undertaken in Britain). Now, whether or not that conclusion was far fetched, I wonder if Mr Miller did not also come across it whilst writing his script.

It gets a rating of seven purely for the good performances of Kidman, Jacki Weaver in support, and, particularly, Wasikowska. As a sad afternote, the film was produced by Scott Free Films, and as such is the final film to have been produced by the veteran, and much loved, director Tony Scott, who took his own life by jumping off the Vincent Thomas Bridge in Los Angeles during the film’s production.

Song for Marion (2012) 63/100

Posted on February 22, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 63/100 93 Min

Nice little film. Cancer patient Marion (Vanessa Redgrave) cajoles her moody husband Arthur (Terence Stamp) to allow her to indulge in a local singing group for retirees, taught by buoyant girl next door Elizabeth (Gemma Arterton). It starts off shakily, especially with the direction, but when the group performs outdoors and we hear the obviously pre-recorded sound of the backing choir play, suddenly Vanessa Redgrave takes the mike and performs a heart felt solo, live, and with no accompaniment. It’s a very brave move, and it lifts the tone of the whole film, with the two central performances (and good support from Arterton and Christopher Eccleston as their son) moulding what could have been humdrum into something more meaningful. Stamp has such an expressive face, he can go from growling thunder in one second to playful innocence in the next, it’s a shame that here more originality wasn’t put into the screenplay as, good performances aside, there’s nothing we haven’t seen many times before.

Sammy’s Great Escape / Sammy 2 (2012) 67/100

Posted on February 9, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 67/100 92 Min

This is the sequel to 2010’s ‘A Turtle’s Tale: Sammy’s Adventures’, an English language Belgian production aimed at younger children. It’s pretty good all in all, with a vibrant and colourful underwater world where the scene stealing characters are, as always, the penguin chicks, although they don’t feature very much. Surprisingly, this is one of the best uses of 3D I’ve seen, and although it still lacks a bit of visual clarity (always difficult to tell if that is the result of post-production work, or an inherent problem with the technology) the swirling environment with characters floating around everywhere lends itself very well to the medium. The story follows Sammy and Ray, now grandfathers, and two of their grandchildren as they try to get back to their home, having been ousted from it by a gang of evil human fishermen.

There is a nod to ‘The Little Mermaid’ (89) with two of the bad guy’s ‘heavies’ appearing in the guise of eels, but here rather than having everyone erupt happily into song, Jimi Hendrix’s version of ‘All Along the Watchtower’ rings out as the captured fish start to fight each other over the food the humans give to them, aiding the message of the film that keeping any creature in captivity is a bad thing. More effort and thought has been put into this than a lot of the 3D fare that is being churned out of Hollywood at the moment, though some young children may find some of the less aesthetically appealing sea creatures a little frightening – there were a few squeals as the protagonists’ friend to be, a schizophrenic lobster, is introduced, replete with eyes rolling in different directions and claws clamping out of the screen toward the audience, though eventually everyone settled down, having seemingly gotten used to the weird variety. Seeing as the heroes of the tale are turtles, I guess there’s no reason they can’t have a third film with their next generation of offspring…

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