I Kill Giants (2017)

24 Saturday Mar 2018

Tags

Anders Walter, Bullying, Drama, Fantasy, Giants, Graphic novel, Imogen Poots, Madison Wolfe, Review, Thriller, Zoe Saldana

D: Anders Walter / 106m

Cast: Madison Wolfe, Zoe Saldana, Imogen Poots, Sydney Wade, Rory Jackson, Art Parkinson, Jennifer Ehle

For Barbara Thorson (Wolfe), the existence of giants is a given, as much a part of the fabric of her daily life as brushing her teeth or riding the bus to school. Barbara is an expert on giants, she knows their origins and their proclivities, but worse still, she’s seen one in the forests outside the town where she lives. Knowing their destructive power, she determines to save the town, and constructs elaborate traps designed to kill the giant. Of course, no one else believes her when she talks about these terrible creatures, not her adult sister, Karen (Poots), or her older brother, Dave (Parkinson). At school she’s treated like the outsider she’s happy to be, and is regularly targeted by the school bully, Taylor (Jackson). The arrival of Sophia (Wade) from England gives her a chance to make both a friend and an ally in her fight against the giants, but with the omens and portents pointing toward a greater threat than even she is prepared for, Barbara’s behaviour becomes increasingly erratic. Her friendship with Sophia suffers, she rejects the help of the school psychologist, Mrs Mollé (Saldana), and does her best to avoid talking about the reasons why her main weapon against the giants is called Coveleski…

Adapted from the graphic novel of the same name by Joe Kelly and JM Ken Niimura, and with a script by Kelly, I Kill Giants is a winning blend of teen drama and fantasy thriller that plays it straight throughout, and when it does add humour, ensures that it’s as mordaunt as possible. Barbara’s world is convincingly structured from the start, and as the movie progresses, Kelly’s script adds the kind of layers that make it difficult for the viewer to dismiss Barbara’s fantasy world as being just that (there are moments when you’ll be sure it’s all in her head, and then moments when you won’t be). The movie provides clues as to the reality of what’s happening, but unless you’ve already read the original graphic novel, it’s unlikely you’ll piece it all together before the end. This means that the tone of the movie is dark overall, with its themes of imminent peril from without (the giants) and from within (Taylor), the fractured dynamic of Barbara’s family, and the cause – if there is one – of her retreat into a fantasy world.

With all these elements in place, you could be forgiven for thinking that I Kill Giants is a dour, depressing movie, but thanks to Kelly’s understanding of the characters and first-timer Walter’s sympathetic approach, not to mention an impressive performance from Wolfe, this is often uplifting stuff when it’s not addressing the serious natures of its various themes. Inevitably, Barbara is the kind of precocious child who can talk to adults on their own level, and leave them dumbfounded (something that only seems to happen in the movies), while her friendship with Sophia goes through the kinds of trials that leaves Sophia feeling less like a fully developed character and more of a deus ex machina. Elsewhere, there’s a striking animated section that depicts the origins and various incarnations of the giants, and several moments where the sound is either distorted or withdrawn in order to show Barbara’s disorientation when faced with certain unpalatable facts. Rasmus Heise’s cinematography, with its largely muted colour scheme, adds to the overall tone, and there’s a fascinating degree of detail in Stijn Guillaume’s set decoration.

Rating: 8/10 – an ambitious Irish/Belgian co-production, I Kill Giants tells its story with a great degree of warmth and affinity for its central character, and in doing so, proves itself to be noticeably sincere; it’s a cleverly assembled movie, forthright and stirring in places, and like all the best stories, it doesn’t give up its secrets until it absolutely has to.

Monthly Roundup – June 2015

30 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Action, Animation, Beyond the Reach, Black Samurai, Blood, Brian Cox, Bulldog Drummond Comes Back, Bulldog Drummond in Africa, Children of the Corn: Genesis, Chris Evans, Chyler Leigh, Crazy Sexy Cancer, Crime, Curse of the Witching Tree, Daphne, Documentary, Dolph Lundgren, Drama, Drunk Wedding, E.E. Clive, Echelon Conspiracy, Ed Burns, Espionage, Every Secret Thing, Faults, Forrest Tucker, Fred, Gambling, Green Dragon, Gunsmoke in Tucson, Horror, Human trafficking, Imogen Poots, Indie movie, Jennifer Aniston, Jeremy Irvine, John Barrymore, John Howard, Kris Carr, Leland Orser, Leticia Dolera, Louis King, Mark Stevens, Martin Sheen, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Michael Douglas, Miguel Ferrer, Mojave Desert, Movies, Murder, Noboru Iguchi, Not Another Teen Movie, Owen Wilson, Pamela Springsteen, Paul Bethany, Peter Bogdanovich, Prague, Predator: Dark Ages, Reviews, Rhys Ifans, Riley Stearns, Scooby-Doo! and the Samurai Sword, Serial killer, Shaggy, Shane West, She's Funny That Way, Skin Trade, Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers, Thailand, The Four-Faced Liar, The Night Flier, The Posthuman Project, The Reconstruction of William Zero, Thriller, Tony Jaa, uwantme2killhim?, Vampire, Velma, Ving Rhames, Witch's curse, Zombie Ass: The Toilet of the Dead, Zombies, [Rec]³ Génesis

This month, the roundup is bigger than usual thanks to spending three weeks in sunny France, in an area where the Internet was an occasional luxury rather than a constant presence. But in between drinking copious amounts of beer and wine, and sampling far too much cheese and local bread, there was quite a bit of movie watching going on. These are the movies I watched in a gite in the middle of the gorgeous Brittany countryside, almost all of them a reminder that when life is this good you can forgive quite a bit…

The Posthuman Project (2014) / D: Kyle Roberts / 93m

Cast: Kyle Whalen, Collin Place, Josh Bonzie, Lindsay Sawyer, Alexandra Harris, Jason Leyva, Rett Terrell, Will Schwab

Rating: 5/10 – a group of teens develop super powers thanks to a device created by the dastardly uncle of one of them, and must thwart his plan to use it for immoral profit; pretty much a low-budget, amateur version of The Fantastic Four, The Posthuman Project relies on its not inconsiderable charm to help the viewer get past its rough edges, but the acting and the dialogue leave an awful lot to be desired, sometimes too much so.

Predator: Dark Ages (2015) / D: James Bushe / 27m

Cast: Adrian Bouchet, Amed Hashimi, Sabine Crossen, Ben Loyd-Holmes, Jon Campling, Joe Egan, Philip Lane, Bryan Hands

Rating: 7/10 – a group of mercenaries led by Thomas (Bouchard) set off to hunt the mysterious creature killing people and animals in a nearby forest – and find something even more deadly than they expected; a fan-made short that adds a novel twist to the Predator saga, Predator: Dark Ages is a welcome distraction that confirms that, sometimes, the big studios don’t always have the right idea when it comes to their franchise characters.

Drunk Wedding (2015) / D: Nick Weiss / 81m

Cast: Christian Cooke, Victoria Gold, Dan Gill, Anne Gregory, J.R. Ramirez, Nick P. Ross, Genevieve Jones, Diana Newton

Rating: 4/10 – when a couple decide to get married in Nicaragua, they and some of their friends are given hand-held cameras to film it all… with predictably awful, drunken, outrageous, and potentially life-altering effects; if your idea of comedy is seeing someone urinating on another person’s back, then Drunk Wedding is the movie for you, and despite its lowbrow modern day National Lampoon-style approach it still manages to hold the attention and is surprisingly enjoyable – if you don’t expect too much.

Zombie Ass: The Toilet of the Dead (2011) / D: Noboru Iguchi / 85m

Original title: Zonbi asu

Cast: Arisa Nakamura, Mayu Sugano, Asana Mamoru, Yûki, Danny, Kentaro Kishi, Demo Tanaka

Rating: 5/10 – while on a trip to the woods, Megumi (Nakamura) and four older friends find themselves under attack from zombies who have emerged from the bowels of an outhouse – and only her martial arts skills can save them; a wild, wild ride from one of the masters of Japanese Shock Cinema, Zombie Ass: The Toilet of the Dead is equal parts raw, uncompromising, witless, and gross, but it’s also a movie that just can’t be taken at all seriously, and on that level it succeeds tremendously, providing enough WtF? moments to make it all worthwhile.

Faults (2014) / D: Riley Stearns / 89m

Cast: Leland Orser, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Chris Ellis, Beth Grant, Jon Gries, Lance Reddick

Rating: 8/10 – down on his luck cult expert Ansel (Orser) sees a way out of debt and a chance to regain some self-respect when a couple (Ellis, Grant) ask him to abduct and de-programme their daughter (Winstead), but he soon finds himself out of his depth and facing up to some hard truths; a tour-de-force from the always excellent Orser – and with a solid supporting performance from Winstead – Faults is an unnerving look at a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and the ways in which his broken life have led him to a motel room where his own personal beliefs come under as much scrutiny as his captive’s.

She’s Funny That Way (2014) / D: Peter Bogdanovich / 93m

Cast: Imogen Poots, Owen Wilson, Rhys Ifans, Jennifer Aniston, Will Forte, Kathryn Hahn, Illeana Douglas, Debi Mazar, Cybill Shepherd, Richard Lewis, Ahna O’Reilly, Joanna Lumley

Rating: 6/10 – theatre director Arnold Albertson has a secret: he gives prostitutes money in order that they can set up their own businesses, but when his latest “project”, aspiring actress Isabella Patterson (Poots) lands the starring role in his latest production, it all leads to the kind of deception and duplicity that will test the notion that the show must go on; a modern attempt at a screwball comedy, She’s Funny That Way doesn’t have the sheer energy that made movies such as His Girl Friday (1940) or Bringing Up Baby (1938) so enjoyable, but Bogdanovich knows his stuff and keeps the movie entertaining for the most part, even if it doesn’t stay in the memory for too long afterwards.

Curse of the Witching Tree (2015) / D: James Crow / 102m

Cast: Sarah Rose Denton, Lucy Clarvis, Lawrence Weller, Jon Campling, Caroline Boulton, Danielle Bux

Rating: 2/10 – divorcée Amber Thorson (Denton) moves into an old house with her two children (Clarvis, Weller) only for strange phenomena to start happening that’s connected to a witch’s curse, and which leaves them all at risk of supernatural forces; woeful in the extreme, Curse of the Witching Tree is amateurish nonsense that is badly directed, poorly acted, contains defiantly stilted dialogue, suffers from below-par photography, is tension-free throughout, and stands as an object lesson in how not to make a low-budget British horror movie.

Bulldog Drummond Comes Back (1937) / D: Louis King / 64m

Cast: John Barrymore, John Howard, Louise Campbell, Reginald Denny, E.E. Clive, J. Carrol Naish, Helen Freeman

Rating: 5/10 – when dastardly villains Mikhail Valdin (Naish) and Irena Saldanis (Freeman) kidnap Phyllis Clavering (Campbell), the girlfriend of Captain Hugh Drummond (Howard), they send him on a merry chase where each clue he finds leads to another clue as to her whereabouts – but no nearer to finding her; the first of seven movies with Howard as the dashing sleuth created by H.C. “Sapper” McNeile, Bulldog Drummond Comes Back is as cheap and cheerful and antiquatedly entertaining as you might expect, and benefits enormously from a cast and crew who know exactly what they’re doing.

Every Secret Thing (2014) / D: Amy Berg / 93m

Cast: Diane Lane, Elizabeth Banks, Dakota Fanning, Danielle Macdonald, Nate Parker, Common

Rating: 7/10 – several years after two young girls are incarcerated for the murder of a younger child, their return to their hometown is marred by the disappearance of a little girl, and the belief that one or both of them is responsible; a stilted attempt at an indie film noir, Every Secret Thing features good performances – particularly from Macdonald – and focuses on the emotional effects a child abduction can have on everyone involved, but it never develops a sense of urgency, though its key revelation at the end carries a wallop that helps dismiss what will seem like a narrative impasse up until then.

Children of the Corn: Genesis (2011) / D: Joel Soisson / 80m

Cast: Kelen Coleman, Tim Rock, Billy Drago, Barbara Nedeljakova

Rating: 3/10 – a couple (Coleman, Rock) break down on a desert highway but manage to find shelter overnight with a old preacher (Drago) and his much younger, foreign bride (Nedeljakova), but soon find that what’s in the preacher’s barn is much more menacing than the old man himself; placing the action largely away from Gatlin, Nebraska may have seemed like a smart move but this tired, dreary, and just downright dull entry in the franchise shows just how bad things have gotten since the 1984 original, and just why Children of the Corn: Genesis should remain the last in the series to be made.

Skin Trade (2014) / D: Ekachai Uekrongtham / 96m

aka Battle Heat

Cast: Dolph Lundgren, Tony Jaa, Michael Jai White, Ron Perlman, Celina Jade, Peter Weller

Rating: 6/10 – when cop Nick Cassidy (Lundgren) is powerless to stop his wife and daughter being killed, he determines to go after the crime boss responsible, Viktor (Perlman), and destroy his human trafficking network, which means travelling to Thailand and teaming up with detective Tony Vitayakul (Jaa), who’s also out to put a stop to Viktor’s illegal behaviour; with its human trafficking backdrop giving it an unexpected depth, Skin Trade is not just a brainless, slam-bang action movie, but instead a very well-made (for its budget) revenge flick that features some great fight scenes – particularly one between Lundgren and Jaa – and uses its Thai locations to very good effect.

The Reconstruction of William Zero (2014) / D: Dan Bush / 98m

Cast: Conal Byrne, Amy Seimetz, Scott Poythress, Lake Roberts, Melissa McBride, Tim Habeger

Rating: 6/10 – when the brother (Byrne) of a scientist (also Byrne) wakes from a coma, it’s not long before he begins to suspect that this identity may not be that of the scientist’s brother, and that he’s a pawn in a much bigger conspiracy, but the truth proves even stranger and more disturbing than he realised; a spare, almost antiseptic movie about notions of identity and individual consciousness, The Reconstruction of William Zero features terrific performances from Byrne, but lacks consistency of pace and sometimes feels as if Bush has taken his eye off the ball and taken a while to find it again, which leaves the movie often feeling flat and lifeless.

Not Another Teen Movie (2001) / D: Joel Gallen / 89m

aka Sex Academy

Cast: Chyler Leigh, Chris Evans, Jaime Pressly, Eric Christian Olsen, Randy Quaid, Mia Kirshner, Deon Richmond, Ed Lauter, Paul Gleason, Mr T, Molly Ringwald

Rating: 5/10 – at John Hughes High School, popular jock Jake Wyler (Evans) accepts a bet that he can’t take an ugly girl and transform her into the prom queen, but when he picks out Janey Briggs (Leigh), and begins to spend time with her, it makes him begin to question whether he should have made the bet in the first place; a predictably irreverent teen movie that parodies all those dreadful teen comedies from the Eighties, Not Another Teen Movie has more heart than most, and thanks to Mike Bender’s script contributions, is also quite funny in its knowing way, and gives viewers a chance to see the future Captain America back in the day when his skill as an actor wasn’t quite as honed as it is now.

Bloomington (2010) / D: Fernanda Cardoso / 83m

Cast: Allison McAtee, Sarah Stouffer, Katherine Ann McGregor, Ray Zupp, J. Blakemore, Erika Heidewald

Rating: 7/10 – former child actress Jackie (Stouffer) attends Bloomington college, and finds herself having an affair with one of the professors, Catherine (McAtee), until the offer of a comeback threatens to end their relationship before it’s fully begun; an intelligent, finely crafted romantic drama, Bloomington has two great central performances, and an emotional honesty that is only undermined by the clichéd nature of Jackie’s need to return to acting, and Cardoso’s over-reliance on silent longing as a sign of emotional upheaval.

Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers (1988) / D: Michael A. Simpson / 80m

Cast: Pamela Springsteen, Renée Estevez, Tony Higgins, Valerie Hartman, Brian Patrick Clarke, Walter Gotell

Rating: 5/10 – Angela Baker (Springsteen), having decimated most of the staff and children at Camp Arawak, and now judged to be safe around others, begins sending unruly teenagers “home” from Camp Rolling Hills – which in reality means killing them for any and all perceived infractions that Angela takes a dislike to; a much better sequel than expected, Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers gets by on Springsteen’s preppy performance, some not-too-gory deaths, and Simpson’s confident touch behind the camera, as well as that dreadful musical interlude: The Happy Camper Song.

Gunsmoke in Tucson (1958) / D: Thomas Carr / 80m

Cast: Mark Stevens, Forrest Tucker, Gale Robbins, Vaughn Taylor, John Ward, Kevin Hagen, William Henry, Richard Reeves, John Cliff, Gail Kobe

Rating: 6/10 – brothers Jedediah (Stevens) and John (Tucker) are on opposite sides of the law, but when Jedediah becomes involved in a land dispute between cattle ranchers and farmers, his sense of right and wrong is put to the test, and he has to choose sides in the upcoming fight for the choicest plot of land; a robust, earnest Western, Gunsmoke in Tucson is a staid, respectable movie that doesn’t stray too far from its basic plot, and skimps on any psychological undertones in favour of a straight ahead anti-hero vs. the bad guys scenario that makes for a pleasant diversion.

Beyond the Reach (2014) / D: Jean-Baptiste Léonetti / 91m

Cast: Michael Douglas, Jeremy Irvine, Ronny Cox, Hanna Mangan Lawrence

Rating: 6/10 – arrogant businessman Madec (Douglas) hires tracker Ben (Irvine) in order to bag some game out of season, but when he shoots and kills an old man by mistake, Madec refuses to accept responsibility for his actions and when Ben stands his ground over the issue, finds himself being hunted instead through the harsh Mojave Desert; an occasionally tense two hander that will do little for either actor’s career, Beyond the Reach ramps up the contrivance levels with each successive narrow escape that Ben makes, and with each missed shot that Madec makes, leading to the inevitable conclusion that this is one movie where credulity needs to be left at the door – an idea that is further enhanced by the movie’s risible conclusion.

Blood (2012) / Nick Murphy / 92m

Cast: Paul Bettany, Mark Strong, Stephen Graham, Brian Cox, Ben Crompton, Naomi Battrick, Zoë Tapper, Adrian Edmondson

Rating: 5/10 – when a young girl is found murdered, the police, led by Joe Fairburn (Bethany) immediately set their sights on local child molester Jason Buleigh (Crompton), but when their prime suspect has to be let go for lack of evidence, Joe and his brother Chrissie (Graham) decide to take the law into their own hands, with terrible results; grim, visually depressing, and with a script that has more holes in it than a string vest, Blood has only its performances to recommend it, particularly those of Bethany, Graham and Cox, as well as the sense to know that its tale of a proud man’s downfall is always more interesting when you don’t know just how far they’ll fall.

Echelon Conspiracy (2009) / D: Greg Marcks / 102m

aka The Conspiracy; The Gift

Cast: Shane West, Ed Burns, Ving Rhames, Martin Sheen, Tamara Feldman, Jonathan Pryce, Sergey Gubanov, Todd Jensen

Rating: 3/10 – computer security tech Max Peterson is given a mysterious phone that helps him gain a small fortune, but in doing so he finds himself embroiled in a plot to ensure that the NSA’s super computer, Echelon, gains the upgrade it needs in order to spy on everyone globally; so bad on so many levels, Echelon Conspiracy wastes its (mostly) talented cast, flirts with credibility before running away from it at high speed, offers laughs in places where they shouldn’t be, and is the cinematic equivalent of a car crash.

Crazy Sexy Cancer (2007) / D: Kris Carr / 90m

With: Kris Carr, Jackie Farry, Melissa Gonzalez, Brian Fassett, Aura Carr, Kenneth Carr, Leslie Carr, Oni Faida Lampley, Bhavagan Das

Rating: 7/10 – when aspiring actress Kris Carr was diagnosed with cancer, she decided to make a visual record of the process of dealing with it, and the various ways in which other cancer sufferers have done so, and supported by the cameraman/editor who became her husband, as well as family and friends; an uplifting, positive message for anyone dealing with cancer, or who knows someone who is, Crazy Sexy Cancer is the kind of documentary that doesn’t attempt to overdo the physical and emotional strain of being in such a situation, but which does nevertheless offer plenty of poignant moments in amongst the hospital visits, and shows Carr to be a determined, aggressive would-be survivor.

The Night Flier (1997) / D: Mark Pavia / 94m

Cast: Miguel Ferrer, Julie Entwisle, Dan Monahan, Michael H. Moss, John Bennes, Beverly Skinner, Rob Wilds, Richard K. Olsen, Elizabeth McCormick

Rating: 7/10 – hard-nosed, disreputable reporter Richard Dees investigates a series of murders carried out at small airstrips that appear to be the work of a vampire, but his initial scepticism gives way to reluctant belief as he talks to witnesses, and sees the injuries the victims have sustained; a well-crafted movie that betrays its low budget and scrappy production design, The Night Flier is still one of the better Stephen King adaptations thanks to Pavia’s confident handling of the material, Ferrer’s see-if-I-care performance, and some impressively nasty effects work courtesy of the KNB Group.

Killer by Nature (2010) / D: Douglas S. Younglove / 90m

Cast: Ron Perlman, Armand Assante, Zachary Ray Sherman, Lin Shaye, Haley Hudson, Richard Riehle, Richard Portnow, Svetlana Efremova, Jason Hildebrandt

Rating: 3/10 – troubled by nightmares of murder and sleepwalking, teen Owen (Sherman) undergoes therapy with Dr Julian (Perlman), a therapist who believes that a person’s essential nature is handed down through bloodlines – a theory originated by convicted murderer Eugene Branch (Assante), and who is connected to Owen in a way that causes Owen to believe he might be the perpetrator of a series of murders that mimic Branch’s modus operandi; a thriller that can’t decide if it’s tepid or overwrought, and then settles for both (sometimes in the same scene), Killer by Nature is a humdinger of a bad movie, and proof positive that sometimes the old saying that “if you can, it doesn’t mean you should” relates to far too many movies for comfort – especially this farrago of awful performances, pseudo-intellectual posturing, and deathless direction.

Scooby-Doo! and the Samurai Sword (2009) / D: Christopher Berkeley / 75m

Cast: Frank Welker, Casey Kasem, Mindy Cohn, Grey DeLisle, Kelly Hu, Kevin Michael Richardson, Sab Shimono, Keone Young, Gedde Watanabe, George Takei, Brian Cox

Rating: 6/10 – on a trip to Japan, Scooby-Doo and the gang become involved in the search for a mystical sword, while trying to thwart the efforts of the ghost of the Black Samurai to beat them to it; a middling entry in the series that at least provides a different backdrop than the standard old dark house (or mine, or hotel, or funfair…), and which allows Shaggy and Scooby to be the heroes we all know they really are deep down, while displaying a pleasing awareness of Japanese culture.

[Rec]³ Génesis (2012) / D: Paco Plaza / 80m

Cast: Leticia Dolera, Diego Martín, Ismael Martínez, Àlex Monner, Sr. B, Emilio Mencheta, David Ramírez, Miguel Ángel González

Rating: 7/10 – a young couple’s wedding day is disrupted for good when one of the guests takes a bite out of another one, leading to a frenzied free-for-all among the guests and a fight for survival for those not affected by whatever’s causing people to become zombies – including the bride and groom, who have become separated in the mêlée; half found footage, half professionally filmed, [Rec]³ Génesis acts as a prequel to the events of the first two movies but is let down by both the change in location, and the absence of Claudia Silva, as well as a sense that by going backwards in terms of the outbreak and its possible cause, the makers are treading water until an idea as to how to carry the story forward from [Rec]2 (2009) comes along.

uwantme2killhim? (2013) / D: Andrew Douglas / 92m

Cast: Jamie Blackley, Toby Regbo, Joanne Froggatt, Jaime Winstone, Liz White, Mark Womack, Louise Delamere, Stephanie Leonidas, Mingus Johnston

Rating: 7/10 – popular schoolboy Mark (Blackley) leads a secret life on the Internet, where he invests his time and emotions in relationships with people he’s never met, but when of those people ask him to stop their younger brother, John (Regbo), from being bullied, what follows sets Mark on a dangerous path to murder; based on a true story, and told with a glum sense of foreboding throughout, uwantme2killhim? is an engrossing (though slightly frustrating) recounting of one of the strangest cases of the last fifteen years, and features two very good performances from Blackley and Regbo, though they have to fight against a script that favours repetition over clarity, but which still manages to flesh out what must have been a very strange relationship between the two boys.

Bulldog Drummond in Africa (1938) / D: Louis King / 58m

Cast: John Howard, Heather Angel, H.B. Warner, J. Carrol Naish, Reginald Denny, E.E. Clive, Anthony Quinn

Rating: 7/10 – on the very day that Drummond (Howard) is finally due to marry his long-suffering girlfriend Phyllis (Angel) he becomes embroiled in the kidnapping of his old friend Colonel Nielsen (Warner), and finds himself travelling to Morocco – with Phyllis, butler Tenny (Clive) and old pal Algy (Denny) in tow – in order to rescue him; the fourth in the series is perhaps the funniest, with Howard allowed to spread his comedic wings, and even the villain (played again by Naish) given some splendidly dry remarks to make in amongst the threats of death by hungry lion, and a bomb on Drummond’s plane.

The Four-Faced Liar (2010) / D: Jacob Chase / 87m

Cast: Daniel Carlisle, Todd Kubrak, Emily Peck, Marja-Lewis Ryan, Liz Osborn

Rating: 8/10 – five friends – couples Greg (Carlisle) and Molly (Peck), Trip (Kubrak) and Chloe (Osborn), and single lesbian Bridget (Ryan) – experience various ups and downs in their relationships, especially when Trip has a one night stand, and Molly finds herself attracted to Bridget; a refreshingly honest look at what relationships mean to different individuals, and how they affect the people around them, The Four-Faced Liar is an effective, well-written drama that benefits from good performances all round, a soundtrack that supports the mood throughout, and Chase’s confident approach to Ryan’s script.

A Long Way Down (2014)

14 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Aaron Paul, Adaptation, Comedy, Drama, Imogen Poots, New Year's Eve, Nick Hornby, Pascal Chaumeil, Pierce Brosnan, Suicide, Toni Collette, Valentine's Day

D: Pascal Chaumeil / 96m

Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Toni Collette, Imogen Poots, Aaron Paul, Sam Neill, Rosamund Pike, Tuppence Middleton, Joe Cole, Leo Bill, Josef Altin

On New Year’s Eve, four very different people find themselves on the roof of a London tower block, and all with the same idea: to commit suicide. There’s disgraced TV celebrity Martin (Brosnan), shy, apologetic Maureen (Collette), politician’s daughter Jess (Poots), and pizza delivery guy JJ (Paul). With all of them unable to go through with their plans (and each actively stopping the rest from jumping), the quartet decide to make a pact: that none of them will try to kill themselves until Valentine’s Day. Later that night, Jess accidentally O.D.’s in a club; with the aid of Jess’s boyfriend, Chas (Cole), the others get her to hospital. News of their attempted suicides reaches the press and they all become minor celebrities. Martin suggests they use the attention to make some money, and they take part in interviews, and talk shows. When one talk show appearance goes wrong, the four decide to go away together on holiday.

The trip proves to be yet another disaster, with JJ unknowingly befriending a journalist (Middleton) and further tensions arise when he also reveals something about himself that only Jess knows (and has kept to herself). The group return to London and go their separate ways (though each in their own way keeps tabs on the others, except for JJ). As Valentine’s Day draws near, JJ vanishes. On the day itself, the others find him back on the roof of the tower block, and ready to kill himself.

Adapted from the novel by Nick Hornby, A Long Way Down takes a serious subject and uses it as the springboard for a sporadically dramatic, essentially lightweight comedy that never quite fires on all cylinders, and has enough awkward moments for two movies, let alone one. The problems lie in the characters themselves. Martin’s back story includes time in prison for sleeping inadvertently with a fifteen year old girl, and this is treated largely as an excuse for amusement, with Brosnan mugging for all he’s worth when the subject is brought up. Maureen has a severely disabled son, Matty (Altin) that she no longer feels she can support adequately, but it’s obvious that she has a really good support network around her so the dramatic elements of her situation never really ring true. Jess is almost a caricature of every wild child and rebellious daughter of an establishment figure you’re ever likely to encounter, and her sadness over the disappearance of her sister is briefly explored and then forgotten. As for JJ, his character is the most maddening of them all, with his failed musical background and resulting depression proving hard to sympathise with, or appreciate.

While the movie works hard to flesh out these characters, and make their individual problems worthy of our concern, it’s unable to do so by virtue of their predicament being too artificial for its own good. At no time in the movie do you really feel that any one of these disparate people really, truly wants to kill themselves, and so any drama in the two rooftop sequences that bookend the movie is immediately eliminated. And as mentioned above, their individual dilemmas, particularly Martin’s, don’t hold the attention as well, or as much, as they should. This all leaves the movie lurching from one lacklustre scene to another, its attempts at humour proving occasionally successful, its dramatic approach having no bite, and its supporting characters – from Jess’s dad (Neill) to Pike’s deliberately insensitive talk show host – endorsing the view that the main four characters aren’t that interesting.

As a result, it’s fitting that the performances are as equally uninspired as the movie itself. Brosnan plays Martin as a bit of a buffoon, good-natured but with an often spectacular misunderstanding of the people around him, his unfortunate “indiscretion” treated like a minor inconvenience blown out of all proportion. Brosnan’s an accomplished actor but here he seems unable to get to grips with such a poorly crafted character. Collette has the least showy role, and fares better than the rest, her understated performance as Maureen the nearest the movie gets to providing someone for the audience to relate to; her scenes with Altin are genuinely affecting, but belong in a different movie. Poots plays Jess as a whirling dervish, snappy and borderline obnoxious, her quieter scenes more convincing than the ones where she’s supposed to be the challenging anti-establishment rebel. Paul, meanwhile – the predictably token American in the cast – does his best with a role that becomes more and more important as the movie goes on, but he can’t overcome the clumsy way in which JJ is written.

There’s a better movie to be made here, and while it’s clear the material is a challenge, A Long Way Down doesn’t even attempt to play up the more darkly humorous aspects of the group’s situation or elevate the drama inherent in such a premise. The movie seems determined not to make things too uncomfortable for the audience, to play things down to make them more palatable (and presumably, more box office friendly). It’s an obvious decision on the part of the producers (unfortunately) but it doesn’t help the movie at all.

Rating: 5/10 – not as dramatic or as funny as it looks, A Long Way Down struggles to be as emotionally involving as it should be; with no one to connect with, the movie loses focus early on and never really recovers, leaving its characters to stumble on until the movie’s predictably feel good ending.

The Look of Love (2013)

12 Thursday Jun 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Anna Friel, Biopic, Debbie Raymond, Drugs, Fiona Richmond, Imogen Poots, Jean Bradley, Men Only, Michael Winterbottom, Paul Raymond, Pornography, Review, Revue Bar, Sex, Steve Coogan

D: Michael Winterbottom / 100m

Cast: Steve Coogan, Anna Friel, Imogen Poots, Tamsin Egerton, Chris Addison, James Lance, Shirley Henderson, David Walliams

Presented as a series of flashbacks as Paul Raymond (Coogan) reflects on his life in the wake of his daughter Debbie’s death, The Look of Love takes us back to his early years as part of a mind-reading act, his early attempts at providing a show including static nudes, and the founding in 1958 of the infamous Revue Bar strip club in London’s Soho. From there he ventures into publishing, though it isn’t until 1971 that the publication of Men Only brings him success in that field. With pornography proving such a lucrative business, he stages risqué plays, and in the early Seventies branches out into real estate, mostly in Soho (there’s a scene early on in the movie where Raymond and his granddaughter Fawn are being driven through London and she has to pick out the properties he owns; later the scene is repeated but with a young Debbie).

Raymond is a somewhat mercurial man, adept at persuading those around him to follow in his wake, though his more personal relationships don’t fare so well. As he builds his empire his marriage to Jean (Friel) begins to show signs of falling apart, his affairs with other women proving too much for her (it’s a sign of the times that is cleverly subverted, this was the Swinging Sixties after all). His time with Fiona Richmond (Egerton) shows him at possibly his happiest, even when it leads to his taking drugs, but it’s a relationship that is doomed to failure, especially when her fame begins to outstrip his. And his daughter Debbie (Poots), who he hopes will take over his empire, has dreams of being a performer but she lacks enough talent, and he has to close the show he’s set her up in. From there, Debbie’s insecurities take hold and Raymond’s inability to support her leads us back to the movie’s beginning.

The Look of Love takes a conventional approach to the biopic format, and charts Raymond’s life with obvious respect, but in many ways it feels as if there’s too much of a distance between the movie and its audience for it to be completely effective. Despite the often challenging subject matter, and Raymond’s role in what was as much a cultural revolution as a sexual one, the movie is often like watching a mildly interested TV documentary, one that wants to say something about its subject but never quite manages it. Under the auspices of its very talented director, The Look of Love is still an intriguing viewing experience, and its success in recreating the Sixties and Seventies and the vibe that was around during those times helps bolster the sense of a period when society was changing (though for better or worse is another matter).

Winterbottom is aided by a clutch of great performances. Coogan, not a naturally gifted actor, works hard at presenting the various aspects of Raymond’s often contradictory nature, and – bad wigs aside – does an impressive, if at times awkward, job. Raymond is still a character (albeit one that really lived), and Coogan displays a remarkable intuition at times that offsets any doubts about the man’s behaviour. But there are also too many occasions when he affects a range of comic expressions that come across less as character detail and more as Coogan falling back on tried and tested habits. The actor is clearly having fun in the role, but perhaps a little too much fun.

As his long-suffering wife, Jean, Friel manages to avoid being pushed to the sidelines, and imbues her with a no-nonsense determination that makes the poignancy of her (later) photo-shoot all the more effective. Jean’s relationship with Raymond was mostly one-sided and her pragmatism in the face of so much “meaningless adultery” highlights the fortitude she had, and Friel brings these traits to the fore with an unshowy display that grounds her character completely. As porn icon Fiona Richmond, Egerton expertly navigates the character’s transition from eager free spirit to self-publicising brand name with persuasive ease. Her early scenes, as Raymond becomes more and more besotted with her, show both the carefree willingness to push boundaries alongside the more measured awareness of the benefits of doing so. It’s a much more subtle performance than it appears, and Egerton never puts a foot wrong throughout. As the emotionally wayward Debbie, Poots delivers an assured combination of vulnerability and self-destructive neediness, and her scenes with Coogan show the depth of their emotional co-dependency. It’s an assured performance, and Poots displays a maturity and depth that belies her years.

There’s the requisite amount of nudity throughout, though nothing that would embarrass anyone – this isn’t 9 Songs (2004) – and the casual sexism of the times is adequately reflected in the attitude of Raymond’s advertising associate Tony Power (Addison). The awkwardness and the inappropriate relationship between Raymond and Debbie is shown by their taking cocaine together, and there’s a perfectly judged moment at Debbie’s funeral where Jean accuses Raymond of failing their daughter by wanting her to be like him. The emotional fallout from all this leaves Raymond adrift, and although the movie doesn’t cover his final years, he spent most of them as a recluse.

Rating: 7/10 – an absorbing look at the life of Paul Raymond, The Look of Love recreates the times of his rise to fame in an earnest yet thoughtful manner, yet doesn’t quite manage to be impassioned about its subject; the supporting characters prove to be more interesting, and there’s a great deal of misguided humour that only serves to undermine the tragicomic atmosphere.

Need for Speed (2014)

02 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Aaron Paul, Car chases, Car crashes, Cross-country, Dominic Cooper, Imogen Poots, Michael Keaton, Prison, Racing cars, Review, San Francisco, Scott Waugh, Video game

D: Scott Waugh / 132m

Cast: Aaron Paul, Dominic Cooper, Imogen Poots, Michael Keaton, Scott Mescudi, Rami Malek, Ramon Rodriguez, Harrison Gilbertson, Dakota Johnson, Nick Chinlund

At one point in DreamWorks’ Need for Speed, Julia (Poots) comes out of a gas station restroom and sees Officer Lejeune (Chinlund) in the next aisle. Immediately she ducks down and tries to sneak her way out. It’s possibly the stupidest moment in the whole movie – and there’s plenty of others – and makes you wonder if anyone actually read George Gatins’ half-baked, semi-developed script before they committed to filming it. (The answer is clearly: no.) Another question that springs to mind is: are the car chases going to be enough to help the movie make its money back? (Ahh… we’ll get to that.)

Tobey Marshall (Paul) has inherited his father’s auto shop but there are mounting debts he can’t pay, so when old rival Dino Brewster (Cooper) offers him a chance to make $2.7 million on a private race involving Tobey, Dino and Tobey’s friend Little Pete (Gilbertson), he can’t turn it down. But Little Pete is killed in the race, forced to crash by Dino. With Dino denying any involvement, and hiding the car he was driving, Tobey ends up spending two years in prison. Two years later, Tobey is released on parole, and promptly arranges for a car so that he can travel from New York to California and a) take part in a race arranged by mysterious philanthropist Monarch (Keaton), and b) have his revenge on Dino. Dino is taking part in the race, but Tobey needs a way in as its by invitation only. With car dealer Julia along for the ride as the car owner’s representative, Tobey gets the car and himself noticed enough times that Monarch gives him a spot in the race. All he has to do is reach San Francisco within forty-eight hours, avoiding the police and anyone who takes up Dino’s offer of a bounty if Tobey is stopped from getting there.

Naturally, Tobey has help along the way from fellow mechanics and friends Benny (Mescudi), Finn (Malek), and Joe (Rodriguez). Benny is also a pilot and keeps stealing planes and helicopters in order to provide Tobey with eyes in the sky along the route. Finn and Joe help refuel the car while it’s in motion, and generally follow along the route Tobey takes in case of back up (which is eventually needed when Tobey reaches San Francisco). Monarch provides a running commentary on Tobey’s progress, and acts as commentator when the race starts. Julia provides the inevitable romantic interest, and Dino is the sneering villain we all want to see crash and burn like Little Pete does. Which leaves Tobey, the mostly silent but determined underdog who should win the race but only if he watches out for dastardly Dino and his habit of running people off the road.

If it seems a little predicable so far, then that’s because it is. Need for Speed is a movie without an original thought under its bonnet, a handful of barely convincing performances, and lines of dialogue that prove impossible to give credibility to. It’s movie-making by cliché, a string of ill-thought out scenes and low-key characters whose combined motivations couldn’t power a light bulb. Once again, it’s the fault of the script, a horrible concoction that almost screams, “Rush job!” This is Gatins’ first produced screenplay, and it’s ironic that he was an associate producer on a movie called You Stupid Man (2002); he gets hardly anything right. This leaves the cast to deal with mountains of trite and terrible dialogue, third-rate plot contrivances, scenes so laughable they should be included in a training scheme for aspiring writers – at random: Benny in a military jail asking for an iPad and being allowed to follow the race on it… and all the while the guard holds it up for him to watch – and some of the most perfunctory dialogue this side of a script by George Lucas (have I mentioned the dialogue enough yet?).

With director Scott Waugh unable to breathe any life into the movie when there’s no chase going on, Need for Speed has to depend on its action scenes to gain any brownie points or gold stars. Much has been made already of the fact that CGI hasn’t been used in the car chase sequences, and that all the smash-ups were done for real. And so they should be. But while Paul and Cooper may have spent time learning how to race so they could seen behind the wheel as much as possible, what the filmmakers have failed to realise is that, racing, in and of itself, is only really interesting or attention-grabbing when something goes wrong. So yes, the car chases are exciting, but only if you find the idea of a car going really fast in competition with another car, and (inevitably) on a deserted stretch of road, to be truly exciting. On this evidence, it’s almost exciting, but what’s missing is a real sense of danger. When Tobey is in Detroit and he’s being chased by the police, there’s never the slightest doubt that he’ll get away (and yes, I know that’s obvious, he’s the hero, after all) so the movie drops down a gear or two and makes his escape both a high point and, from a technical viewpoint, a bit of a let-down.

This is the highly regarded “two-lane grasshopper” manoeuvre, where Tobey accelerates up an embankment and powers his car over two lanes of traffic to land safely in a third and drive away without being followed any further – at all. It sounds like a great stunt, and on paper it is, but in the movie it’s a short sequence made up of five or six different shots (one of which is a long shot of the car in mid-flight), that doesn’t let the viewer see it happen in one fluid take (unlike, say, the bridge jump in The Man With the Golden Gun (1974). It’s like the scene in Speed (1995) where the bus has to jump the gap in the freeway; it was done for real, but the way it’s cut together leaves you thinking it wasn’t. Sadly, it’s the same here.

There are some positives, though. Keaton – on a bit of a roll at the moment – reminds us just how exciting a performer he can be, and lifts the movie out of the doldrums whenever he’s on screen. The crashes, when they happen, are spectacular and thrilling, and a testament to the creative abilities of the stunt team; they all look suitably life-threatening. Paul and Poots, reunited after appearing together in A Long Way Down (2014), have a chemistry that helps their scenes immeasurably, and the location photography ensures the movie is nothing less than beautiful to look at in places.

Rating: 4/10 – fans will disagree but Need for Speed doesn’t have that kinetic charge that would have elevated it above other chase movies; the script’s deficiencies hurt it tremendously, too, and no matter how fast Messrs Paul and Cooper may try, that’s one (very major) problem they can’t outrun.

That Awkward Moment (2014)

01 Saturday Mar 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Bromance, Commitment, Dating, Friends, Imogen Poots, Marriage, Michael B. Jordan, Miles Teller, Relationships, Review, Romance, Tom Gormican, Zac Efron

D: Tom Gormican / 92m

Cast: Zac Efron, Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Imogen Poots, Mackenzie Davis, Jessica Lucas, Addison Timlin, Josh Pais

With the rom-com feeling like it’s hit a bit of a rut at the moment, this male-centric offering from first-time writer/director Gormican seems – at first glance – to offer something a little bit different.

When Mikey (Jordan) tells his friends Jason (Efron) and Daniel (Teller) that his wife, Vera (Lucas) wants a divorce, it prompts them to make a pact: to avoid serious, long-term relationships and revisit their younger days when they partied and flirted and drifted from woman to woman. For Jason and Daniel this isn’t so difficult as this is what they’re already doing; for Mikey it proves a little bit harder as he still wants to rescue his marriage.

Jason meets Ellie (Poots) at a bar and they go back to her place. A misunderstanding sees him leave before she wakes the next morning, but already he’s smitten. When they meet again where he works as a book jacket designer (in tandem with Daniel), they resume their fledgling relationship, and begin spending more time together. Daniel, who uses his friend Chelsea (Davis) to pick up girls, finds himself becoming attracted to her; their friendship evolves into their becoming lovers themselves. With Mikey rekindling his marriage to Vera, all three men find themselves reneging on the pact they made. Afraid of ruining their own relationships, the men find themselves struggling to admit their feelings for the women in their lives, both to themselves and to each other.

That Awkward Moment is, at heart, more of a bromance than a romantic comedy, with the relationship between Jason, Daniel and Mikey taking centre stage. With this in mind it’s easy to dismiss the movie as a “guys-can-be-jerks-but-deep-down-they’re-really-sensitive” modern-day fairy tale. They’re all good guys and they have an obviously close bond but they can’t seem to relate that well to women, until they meet the right ones (or in Mikey’s case, fail to call her back). There’s the usual missteps and misunderstandings along the way, a couple of minor emotional upheavals, and the sight of Efron and Teller both attempting to pee while dealing with the effects of Viagra. The humour is generally low-key (there are few laugh-out-loud moments), and some scenes are entertaining in an offbeat way, but the way in which the guys lie and deceive each other is wearing and uninspired. It’s this haphazard approach that keeps the movie from being as insightful as it would like to be, and as original as it thinks it is.

Of the male leads, Teller (recently revealed to be the new Reed Richards in the Fantastic Four reboot) fares best, his rapid fire delivery and caustic put-downs infused with a nervous energy that suits his often dismissive character. Jordan is required to look either bemused or credulous a lot, and while his character is the most likeable of the three, he gets less screen time. It’s Efron, though, who gets a bit of a raw deal. Jason is, to put it bluntly, a bit of a prick. He’s a commitment-phobe who balks when the women he’s seeing start to ask where their relationship is going (the awkward moment of the title), and he badly disappoints Ellie at a time when she really needs him. He views being “serious” as something to be avoided, even when he is clearly falling in love; why he’s so repressed in this area is never satisfactorily explored or explained. As a consequence, Efron is hard-pressed to make Jason sympathetic; he just makes too many easily avoided mistakes.

As the slightly kooky Ellie, Poots cements her rising star status, while Davis’s confident turn should ensure her career gains momentum, but Lucas is saddled with a one-note character who is never developed in a way that would make her interesting. The script is at fault here, and it’s this lack of attention to some of the characters that stops the movie from breaking out of its own shell. That aside, there are some good moments – Jason attending a party and misunderstanding the dress code, Daniel and Chelsea’s friendship evolving into something more serious – but there aren’t enough of them to make up for the shortage elsewhere.

Under Gormican’s direction, That Awkward Moment ambles through its running time, neither pleasing its audience entirely or taking too many risks. The material wears thin too soon, and there’s not enough depth to make the interplay between the couples anything less than perfunctory. There’s the germ of a good idea here, but Gormican can’t quite get it to flower.

Rating: 5/10 – below par bromantic comedy that never takes off or seems to want to; a patchy script means a patchy movie and a severely weakened premise.