Doctor Strange (2016)

25 Tuesday Oct 2016

Tags

Action, Astral plane, Baron Mordo, Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Cloak of Levitation, Drama, Fantasy, Mads Mikkelsen, Magic, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Rachel McAdams, Review, Scott Derrickson, Sorcerer Supreme, The Ancient One, Tilda Swinton

D: Scott Derrickson / 115m

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams, Tilda Swinton, Mads Mikkelsen, Benedict Wong, Michael Stuhlbarg, Benjamin Bratt, Scott Adkins

Stephen Strange (Cumberbatch) is a gifted neurosurgeon. He’s also an arrogant pain in the ass. His ego is on a par with Tony Stark’s, and he enjoys reminding people just how good he is. But one rainy evening, Strange’s car ends up in the river and his hands are so badly damaged that he’ll never be able to operate again. Angry and full of self-pity, Strange learns of a man who suffered a severed spine and was paralysed from the chest down, but who somehow managed to walk again. Strange tracks the man (Bratt) down, and is told of a monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal, where he learned how to walk again. Strange travels there and meets The Ancient One (Swinton), a mystic who teaches him that their plane of existence is one of many, and that Strange must let go of everything he thinks he knows in order to achieve “enlightenment”.

Strange proves to be an eager and willing (if still slightly sceptical) pupil. He learns how to cast spells, how to travel from one place to another by visualising it in his mind and creating a portal through which to get there, and the existence of a former pupil, Master Kaecilius (Mikkelsen), who believes he can gain immortality by helping a creature from the Dark Dimension, Dormammu, take over the Earth. As Strange’s powers grow, Kaecilius begins attacking the three sanctums that help keep Dormammu and his like from entering our world. Aided by another Master, Baron Mordo (Ejiofor), Strange attempts to stop Kaecilius from bringing about the end of the world; he also receives help from an unlikely source: the Cloak of Levitation, which chooses Strange as its master.

But the London sanctum falls to Kaecilius’s onslaught, and he moves on to attack the sanctum in Hong Kong. Strange and Mordo arrive too late to avoid its destruction and the arrival of Dormammu in our world, but Strange has an idea that will counter-act all the death and destruction that has followed in Dormammu’s wake. If he fails, however, it will mean the end of all life on Earth…

Another Marvel movie, another origin story. But Stephen Strange has always been the odd character out in the Marvel Universe (cinematic or otherwise), a humbled physician redeemed by the power of magic and able to deal with the kind of villains that would give the likes of Iron Man and Captain America more than a run for their money. (Not that Strange is in any immediate danger here; Kaecilius isn’t exactly the most threatening villain Marvel has come up with, but he is good at running a lot.) With Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe now under way, this gives Marvel the opportunity to add fresh characters to the roster, and take their ongoing series of movies in a new direction.

But is it any good? Well, predictably, the answer is Yes – for the most part. The standard Marvel formula is firmly in place, although there is less humour to be had this time round, and while the template is tweaked here and there, most viewers will be reassured that the House of Spidey hasn’t strayed too far from the formula that has made their movies so successful in the past. What is different, and markedly so, is the visual style adopted for the movie. Away from all the mind-bending, Inception-style graphics, Doctor Strange is both darker in tone and look. Even the hospital where Strange works isn’t as brightly lit as you might expect. But it’s not a gloomy movie over all, it’s just that for once, Marvel have realised that – scenes involving the Cloak of Levitation aside, and Strange’s “borrowing” habits in the library – this needs to be a serious piece above all.

Strange’s arrogance, and then his anger, in the beginning gives Cumberbatch the opportunity to play unlikeable with an unexpected fierceness. One scene in particular with McAdams as Strange’s one-time significant other, Christine Palmer, sees the actor deliver cruel lines of dialogue in a way that hasn’t been done before in a Marvel movie (he’s the hero and he’s being delberately objectionable). Even when he begins to accept that magic really does exist, he’s still an egotist, making snarky, caustic comments, but thanks to the script – by Derrickson, Jon Spaihts, and C. Robert Cargill – he’s also on a journey of self-discovery, and this comes across more and more effectively as the movie progresses.

With the main character in good hands (Cumberbatch inhabits the role with his customary panache, and even slips in an Alan Rickman tribute for those paying attention), it’s a shame that the rest are painted in such broad strokes. Baron Mordo, Strange’s arch-nemesis in the comics, is here very much a secondary character whose time will come in a later movie, while The Ancient One, despite being well-played by Swinton, is burdened with some astonishingly po-faced dialogue (“I spent so many years peering through time… looking for you.”) that you start to wonder if the half-smile Swinton adopts at times is in acknowledgment of how daft some of her lines truly are. As mentioned before, Mikkelsen’s master-turned-bad is not one of Marvel’s best villains, while McAdams is sidelined for much of the movie, though at least she’s not there as a damsel in need of being rescued.

The visuals are, unsurprisingly, stunning. The folding of cityscapes and the weird monstrosities glimpsed in the Dark Dimension are both equally impressive, but there is one sequence which stands head and shoulders above all the others: when Strange reverses the destruction of the Hong Kong sanctum. If anyone wants a clue as to why Marvel is more successful at the box office, and critically, than DC, then it’s this particular sequence that should be watched for one of the answers. Both DC and Marvel have been guilty of going down the destruction-porn road before, and audiences have begun to voice their dislike of these big, CGI-driven demolition extravaganzas. But here, we don’t see the destruction of the Hong Kong sanctum, just the aftermath, and then, in a complete stroke of genius, we see the destruction in reverse – and it’s so much more effective for being shown in this way. Clearly, someone at Marvel is listening.

Where Stephen Strange will fit into the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe remains to be seen (though a pre-end credits scene points him in one particular direction), and he won’t be back in another solo outing for some time, but as an introduction to a character with so much more to be explored, Doctor Strange has to be considered a success. Like most of Marvel’s output in the last eight years, though, it does have its fair share of pitfalls, and it does stumble at times in trying to simplify the more esoteric aspects of playing with magic, but overall this is an exciting, well-crafted, rewarding, and enjoyable first outing for the future Sorcerer Supreme.

Rating: 8/10 – superb spectacle can’t compensate for some poor decisions when it comes to the secondary characters, or the tangled logic surrounding Kaecilius’ need to bring Dormammu into this world, but these are minor gripes in a movie that takes a challenging character and does him justice from start to finish; by doing more than enough with the formula to make it more interesting, Doctor Strange becomes a movie that contradicts the claim that Marvel are just churning out the same movie over and over again.

Hail, Caesar! (2016)

06 Monday Jun 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

"The Future", Actors, Alden Ehrenreich, Capitol Pictures, Comedy, Communists, Drama, Ethan Coen, George Clooney, Hollywood, Joel Coen, Josh Brolin, Kidnapping, Musical number, Religion, Review, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton

D: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen / 106m

Cast: Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich, Ralph Fiennes, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, Channing Tatum, Frances McDormand, Jonah Hill, Veronica Osorio, Heather Goldenhersh, Alison Pill, Max Baker, Ian Blackman, Christopher Lambert, Clancy Brown, Michael Gambon

Hollywood, 1951. Eddie Mannix (Brolin) is the head of production at Capitol Pictures; he’s also the studio “fixer’, the man who keeps all the stars in line and out of the gossip columns. It’s an average day for Eddie: one of his stars, unmarried DeeAnna Moran (Johansson), reveals she’s pregnant, his boss back in New York wants to take a young Western actor called Hobie Doyle (Ehrenreich) and put him in a period drama directed by European emigre Laurence Laurentz (Fiennes), he’s being headhunted by the Lockheed Company with the promise of a ten-year contract and early retirement, and by lunchtime he’s aware that the star of Capitol’s latest, prestige picture, Hail, Caesar! A Tale of the Christ, Baird Whitlock (Clooney) is missing.

Hail, Caesar! is an important movie for the studio, and Eddie is keen to ensure that nothing goes wrong with its production. When he receives a note from “The Future”, the group claiming responsibility for Whitlock’s disappearance, his day is further complicated by rival gossip columnists (and twin sisters) Thora and Thessaly Thacker (both Swinton) who are planning to run stories about Whitlock and want to interview him that afternoon. Eddie fends them off, promising them both exclusive access to Whitlock the next day. Meanwhile, Hobie Doyle’s portrayal of a dapper gentleman in Laurentz’s latest movie, Merrily We Sing, is proving to be disastrous. Laurentz wants Hobie off the picture, while Hobie thinks he’s not doing so well in the role. Eddie tells both of them that there will be no changes.

A ransom call from “The Future” has Eddie placing $100,000 of the studio’s money in a valise that he can’t close properly. Doyle, who is meeting with Eddie when the call comes through, lends him his belt to keep it shut, and Eddie hides it in one of the sound stages. Later, after attending the premiere of his latest movie, Hobie sees the valise in the possession of song and dance star Burt Gurney (Tatum). Hobie decides to follow him. Back on the lot, Eddie has to make a final decision about the Lockheed offer, while also finding a solution to the problem of DeeAnna’s pregnancy. And as midnight ushers in another twenty-four hours, it’s still another average day for Eddie.

First touted back in 1999, though originally to be set in the Twenties and focusing on a troupe of actors performing a play set in Ancient Rome, the Coen Brothers’ latest has sat on the shelf for a while now, but what was originally a “thought experiment” has developed into a deceptively simple, endlessly endearing movie about the frivolous nature of entertainment and the serious efforts that go into making all that frivolity seem important. There’s also a political element in the form of “The Future”, the group of Communist screenwriters who kidnap Whitlock, and enough affectionate pastiches of Fifties movie making to keep fans of the period more than happy (a song and dance number called No Dames! and featuring Channing Tatum is a particular highlight).

But look closely and you’ll also find a number of religious references, from DeeAnna’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy and need for a husband reminiscent of the Virgin Mary’s situation, to the Lockheed Company’s pursuit of Eddie being a clear ringer for Satan tempting Jesus in the desert. Contentious? Probably, but the symbolism is there, and the Coens have a lot of fun with it, adding unexpected layers to a movie that appears quite lightweight on the surface. But then there are the clever Hitchcock references as well, the idea of good versus evil, sinning and redemption, and suddenly Hail, Caesar! is more than the fluffy confection that it looks and sounds like.

And yet it is also determinedly simplistic in its approach, almost offhandedly so. Eddie faces each problem with an equanimity that seems out of place given the potential for career-ending disaster that faces him at every turn, but then there’s that Lockheed offer he can fall back on if he needs to, so why should he be worried all the time. (It’s actually really simple: he’s that good at his job.) Whitlock embraces the Communist rhetoric of “The Future” because he’s an idiot, an empty vessel who soaks up their ideas in the same way that he soaks up the lines of dialogue in a script – and then parrots them verbatim. It’s no wonder he’s unfazed by his having been kidnapped; like Eddie he lives in a protected bubble: along as he does what he’s supposed to, everything will be all right.

Brolin and Clooney both give wonderful performances but in different ways. Brolin displays a gift for understated comedy he doesn’t get the chance to show too often, while Clooney channels the ghost of Cary Grant with every double take and concerted bit of mugging he can squeeze in (“Squint at the grandeur. It’s blinding! It’s blinding!”). Not far behind them is Swinton as the warring gossip twins, exasperated and credulous, while the likes of Johansson, Hill, Tatum, and Lambert are given small but lovingly crafted supporting turns. As the dramatically talent-free Hobie, Ehrenreich is angel-faced yet crafty, and Fiennes is perfectly cast as the despairing Laurentz. The two share a scene devoted to having Hobie say the line, “Would that it were so simple” that is a marvel of linguistic dexterity and comic timing; it’s one of the movie’s many comic highlights.

Bolstered by gorgeous cinematography courtesy of DoP Roger Deakins, and allied to the kind of pin-sharp recreation of the period that the Coens are so good at providing, Hail, Caesar! – like a lot of their work – isn’t as straightforward as it seems, and rewards on all kinds of different levels. It seems to be common practice with their movies, to only look at what’s going on on the surface, and dismiss the notion that there’s more going on underneath, as if the Coens were journeyman movie makers, or new to the industry. But this is yet another movie of theirs that is clever throughout and cleverly constructed for maximum effect and enjoyment.

Rating: 9/10 – it may appear slight and lacking in depth, but Hail, Caesar! is a movie that never lets up in its desire to entertain by poking gentle fun at the movies of a bygone era; with a great script and winning performances, the Coen brothers have shown once again that when it comes to their own unique way of movie making, what you see is just the tip of what you get… and it’s damn funny too.

Trainwreck (2015)

01 Saturday Aug 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, Brie Larson, Comedy, Drama, John Cena, Judd Apatow, LeBron James, One-night stands, Review, Romance, S'nuff, Sports doctor, Sports stars, The Dogwalker, Tilda Swinton

D: Judd Apatow / 125m

Cast: Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, Brie Larson, Tilda Swinton, Colin Quinn, John Cena, Vanessa Bayer, Ezra Miller, Mike Birbiglia, Evan Brinkman, LeBron James, Amar’e Stoudemire, Daniel Radcliffe, Marisa Tomei

Amy Townsend (Schumer) is a magazine journalist whose idea of a relationship is to sleep with a guy on the first date and then wave goodbye to them in the morning (or sooner if she’s able to). She works for a men’s magazine called S’nuff that publishes articles such as “You’re Not Gay, She’s Boring”; when her editor, Dianna (Swinton) assigns her to write a profile on sports doctor Aaron Conners (Hader), she balks because she knows nothing about sports and thinks it’s all too silly.

At the same time as all this is going on, Amy and her sister Kim (Larson) are trying to get their father, Gordon (Quinn), who’s suffering from multiple sclerosis, into a nursing home. He’s a bit of a curmudgeon and is always antagonising or upsetting people. He also cheated on their mother and Kim resents him for it, though Amy is more forgiving. When she meets Aaron he quickly guesses that she knows nothing about sports, but there’s an attraction between them, and she plans to meet up with him again. In the meantime an evening with her on/off boyfriend Steven (Cena) goes horribly wrong when he learns about all the other men she’s been seeing.

Kim, who’s married to Tom (Birbiglia) and is stepmother to his son Allister (Brinkman), reveals she’s pregnant, but when she tells Gordon his attitude leads to her and Amy falling out. Amy meets Aaron again and after the interview they go back to his place and have sex; Amy breaks her own rule and stays the night. Panicked by this unexpected turn of events, Amy decides she must end things but Aaron calls wanting to see her again. At the next interview she intends to tell him but her dad has a fall and she and Aaron go to him, and Aaron stitches his head wound.

Amy and Aaron begin dating in earnest but she’s worried she’ll screw it up. At a baby shower for her sister, Amy upsets everyone with tales of her sexual escapades, but when she tries to apologise to Kim a couple of days later, Kim has some bad news that brings them back together. Later though they have another falling out, and she and Aaron argue as well. When she attends a function where Aaron is to receive an award she gets a call from Dianna and leaves the room while he makes his speech. When he catches up with her outside they have a fight which carries on back at his apartment. The next morning Aaron is unable to go ahead with an operation because of how tired he is. When he confronts Amy and says they should take a break, she takes him to mean permanently. Aware that this is one argument he’s not going to win, he leaves, which prompts Amy to return to her old ways… but this gets her into more trouble than she ever expected…

Best known for her TV appearances in the likes of A Different Spin with Mark Hoppus (2010), Delocated (2012) and her own show, Inside Amy Schumer (2013-15), the writer and star of Trainwreck is perhaps an unlikely choice to drive a relationship dramedy directed by Judd Apatow, but surprisingly enough, Schumer does extremely well in both departments. She’s not the world’s greatest actress, and her script skirts perilously close at times to being needlessly crude, but with the aid of Apatow, Hader and a strong supporting cast, Schumer has come up with a story that covers a lot of emotional ground and manages to avoid short-changing its characters.

And while her script isn’t exactly the most original concoction out there – too much happens that makes it look as if Schumer followed a pre-existing blueprint – what makes it work as well as it does is Apatow’s handling of the various relationships and the way in which he gives his cast the room to flesh out their characters beyond the story’s conventions, and pays close attention to the serious undertones that are present throughout. These are key to the movie’s overall effectiveness, and shows that Schumer the writer is able to be poignant and touching, as well as funny and caustic. There’s a brief scene between Amy and Allister that is as touching as anything you’ll see in a more dramatic movie, and the moment when Steven reveals his true feelings for Amy is superbly written, acted and directed.

Of course, this is primarily a comedy, but though it is incredibly funny in places – Amy’s attempt at a slam dunk is the movie’s comedy highlight – there are also times where the script tries too hard, notably in a sex scene involving Schumer and Cena that undermines the idea of Amy and Steven being together and includes Cena talking dirty in Chinese (but not really). Elsewhere there are some great one-liners (Aaron calling LeBron James his bitch), instances of situational comedy that brighten things immensely (Amy’s aforementioned speech about her sexual escapades), and some great visual gags too (co-worker Nikki’s smile). All in all the comedy and the drama are well balanced and neither detracts from the other.

The cast enter into the spirit of things with enthusiasm, and aside from the inclusion of some real life athletes (James is particularly awkward), there are some really great performances, notably from Larson as the sensible but resentful sister, and Cena as the boyfriend whose inappropriate responses to another cinema goer’s complaints is another of the movie’s highlights. Schumer proves herself to be a better actress than you might expect, and Hader shows a sensitivity as Aaron that grounds the character and makes him entirely sympathetic. And there are brilliant cameos from Daniel Radcliffe and Marisa Tomei in the movie Amy and Steven go to see called The Dogwalker, a small masterpiece of Sixties existential canine distress appropriately shot in black and white and which is such a glorious pastiche it leaves you wanting more.

Trainwreck is a little slow to get off the ground, and Amy’s behaviour may put off some viewers, but this is a movie that tugs at the heartstrings just as much as it tickles the funny bone. With Apatow using his directorial prowess to enhance Schumer’s script, and a cast prepared to give it their all, Schumer’s first attempt at a polished, nuanced movie is mostly successful, though what missteps it does make aren’t enough to hurt it.

Rating: 8/10 – an unexpected treat (even with the talent involved), Trainwreck is a small triumph, both laugh out loud funny and tearfully serious; all credit to Schumer for coming up with such an intelligent script and not trying to make every scene full of unnecessary jokes.

Snowpiercer (2013)

17 Saturday May 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Chris Evans, CW7, Ed Harris, Ice Age, Jamie Bell, John Hurt, Joon-ho Bong, Kang-ho Song, Le Transperceneige, Protein meal, Review, Sacred engine, Tilda Swinton, Train

snowpiercer_3a25f386

D: Joon-ho Bong / 126m

Cast: Chris Evans, Kang-ho Song, Jamie Bell, Tilda Swinton, John Hurt, Ah-sung Ko, Octavia Spencer, Alison Pill, Ed Harris, Luke Pasqualino, Ewen Bremner, Vlad Ivanov, Clark Middleton, Emma Levie

In 2014 global warming has reached such a level it threatens the entire human race with extinction. To combat this, scientists release a reversing agent, CW7, into the atmosphere. To the world’s horror, CW7 destroys all life on the planet and returns it to the ice age. The only survivors are those on a train that circumnavigates the globe without ever stopping, the brain child of reclusive Mr Wilford (Harris). But even on the train there is a class system: those at the tail end exist in cramped, overcrowded conditions, while those at the front of the train live a life of conspicuous luxury. Seventeen years later, the people at the tail are guided by Gilliam (Hurt), but place their trust for a planned revolution in the hands of Curtis Everett (Evans). Aided by Edgar (Bell), Curtis is planning to reach the front of the train and take control of the “sacred engine”, thus allowing him control over the whole train (he is also receiving cryptic messages written on red paper from a mystery source).

When two of the tail people’s children are taken by the armed guards that oversee the tail section, the agony experienced by the mother of one, Tanya (Spencer), and the father of the other, Andrew (Bremner), prompts Curtis to seize his chance to move forward through the train earlier than planned. At the first section, the de facto jail, they free Namgoong Minsu (Song), a security expert whose knowledge of the train and its systems will help them get through each door they come to; they also free his daughter, Yona (Ko). As the tail people make their way from one car to the next, they discover all manner of disturbing facts about life on the train, and are hindered continually in their progress by Miss Mason (Swinton), Mr Wilford’s representative on the train.

Despite overwhelming odds, Curtis reaches the front of the train sections of the train and the gap between the people there and at the tail is thrown into sharp relief. At a classroom run by Teacher (Pill), he learns more about Mr Wilford and his plan for the train, as well as learning that the person who is sending him the messages is part of the hierarchy he seeks to overthrow. With Mr Wilford’s guards, as well as the citizens of the front sections, determined to stop him from reaching the “sacred engine”, Curtis is forced to make some difficult decisions to achieve his aim, but when he does he’s faced with an even more difficult, unexpected decision to make, one that threatens to overturn everything he’s ever believed about the train, and himself.

Snowpiercer is an odd movie, a mix of high concept filmmaking supported by cod-literate meditations on the nature of existence and the need for balance in a world that’s a microcosm of the world we still live in. It’s a long, uneven movie as a result, with an expected emphasis on bone-crunching action while it attempts to say something about a range of subjects, from rampant consumerism to notions of self-sacrifice to carefully monitored euthanasia to the morality of keeping one set of passengers in what amounts to a rigorously controlled ghetto. Some of these aspects are handled adroitly (the euthanasia), others less so (the ghetto), but the movie is largely thought-provoking in its approach, and while some of the twists and turns can be seen a snow-covered mountain away, there’s still enough here to surprise the average viewer.

What stops the movie dead in its tracks sometimes (no pun intended), are the moments when something is revealed that immediately makes no logical sense. One of the biggest of these moments occurs when Curtis and his companions reach the abattoir car, and there are row upon row of chicken carcasses on display – after seventeen years, really? Another is why, considering the lethal sub-zero temperatures outside the train, none of the rails have ever split or buckled? And the biggest flaw concerns the train itself and its route: was Mr Wilford so prescient he knew CW7 wasn’t going to work even before it was conceived, because the movie makes it seem as if everything was in place from the moment the reagent was launched. (There are other moments that give pause for credulity but then the whole idea is inherently nonsensical; criticising it further would be like taking a blind man to task for failing to pin the tail on a donkey… that isn’t there.)

These lapses aside, there is still much to admire in Bong’s adaptation of the graphic novel Le Transperceneige by Jacques Lob, Benjamin Legrand and Jean-Marc Rochette (Rochette also supplies the artwork seen in the tail end of the train). As Curtis makes his way to the “sacred engine”, discovering more and more unpalatable truths about the workings of the train, there is a marked sense that he is becoming physically more restricted than he was at the tail, despite the increase in space in which to move. Bong makes being at the front just as bad as being at the end, if not worse, and Evans gives a performance that sees his character become more and more insular and compacted than he was at the beginning (he also gets to deliver an emotionally charged, yet chilling, speech towards the end that resonates even more when he reaches the “sacred engine”). Evans is one of those actors who can easily subvert his handsome looks, and here his grimy appearance is offset by a physical, tightly coiled performance that fits the mood perfectly. He’s ably supported by Swinton as the tombstone-dentured Mason (and in another, blink-and-you’ll-miss-her smaller role), Spencer as the mother obsessed with retrieving her child, and Song as the drug-addled security expert. Bell, however, has little chance to make anything of Curtis’s young follower, while Hurt lends the necessary gravitas to a role that is as close to underwritten as you’d expect.

The depiction of a new ice age is effectively maintained throughout, and the cities the train passes through are thankfully anonymous. The functions of the various train cars are imaginatively handled (the woman knitting in the garden car is a particular favourite), while the special effects are, for the most part, seamlessly integrated into the physical action. Bong directs with a visual flair that suits the movie’s mise-en-scene, and despite filming in English for the first time, doesn’t miss a nuance or moment of subtle shading. He’s ably supported by Kyung-pyo Hong’s often striking photography, and the tremendous production design by Ondrej Nekvasil, continually supporting the notion of people living in one place for so long and often surprising in its details as a result. There’s also an impressive score by Marco Beltrami that skilfully avoids the musical clichés that usually clog up dystopian flavoured movies such as this.

Rating: 7/10 – not the sci-fi masterpiece some may have been expecting (the hype surrounding proposed cuts of twenty minutes for the US release hasn’t helped), Snowpiercer is an often thought-provoking movie that tries its best to add political and social content to its storyline without skimping on the action; sometimes awkward in its execution, this still has more going on than most sci-fi movies out there these days, and is well worth seeking out.

Mini-Review: The Zero Theorem (2013)

22 Saturday Feb 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Christoph Waltz, David Thewlis, Drama, Mathematical equations, Matt Damon, Review, Sci-fi, Terry Gilliam, Tilda Swinton

D: Terry Gilliam / 107m

Cast: Christoph Waltz, David Thewlis, Mélanie Thierry, Lucas Hedges, Matt Damon, Tilda Swinton

Another dystopian fable from the mind of Terry Gilliam, The Zero Theorem bears a strong relation to Brazil, but lacks that movie’s charm and deft characterisation. Here, Waltz plays Qohen (not Quinn) Leth, a company man who is asked by Management (Damon) to solve the Zero Theorem, a mathematical formula which posits that everything amounts to nothing, or zero. With the help – or is it hindrance? – of Bainsley (Thierry) and Management’s son, Bob (Hedges), Leth does his best to solve the puzzle.

Made on a predictably small budget, the movie flirts more with ideas than it does engage with them, and there’s a delicate romance in there as well, but it’s all kept in check by the type of narrative ambiguities that make movies like this such a struggle to enjoy and connect with. Gilliam can do this kind of thing in his sleep now and while that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it does seem to limit him as a filmmaker; ultimately it’s the visuals that strike home rather than any emotional heft the story may contribute (one visual conceit is the black hole that represents Leth’s inner turmoil…or is it his soul?…or his demons? Who knows?). It’s a shame then that The Zero Theorem zips along at a good pace, and the laughs, when they come, are very good indeed. Waltz plays the baffled, slightly obsessive Leth with a keen eye for the absurdities his character has to endure, while Thierry makes for an appealing heroine. It’s Thewlis though who steals the movie, mugging throughout but with all the best lines to excuse him. With an ending that reinforces the similarities to Brazil, the movie leaves one thinking that maybe for his next project Gilliam should tackle something that doesn’t depend on weird props and special effects to get itself noticed.

Rating: 6/10 – disappointing and hollow, The Zero Theorem shows Gilliam’s imagination running riot once again, but at the plot’s expense; scattered with flashes of brilliance but too few to elevate the material.