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Monthly Roundup – January 2018

31 Wednesday Jan 2018

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Awakening the Zodiac (2017) / D: Jonathan Wright / 100m

Cast: Shane West, Leslie Bibb, Matt Craven, Nicholas Campbell, Kenneth Welsh, Stephen McHattie

Rating: 4/10 – no one knew it at the time but the notorious (and uncaptured) Zodiac killer filmed the murders he committed, something cash-strapped couple Mick and Zoe Branson (West, Bibb) discover when they come into possession of one of the reels, and then find themselves and those around them targeted by the Zodiac killer himself; there’s the germ of a good idea lurking somewhere in Awakening the Zodiac, but thanks to a sloppy script, wayward direction, and an indifferent approach to the Zodiac killer himself (by the end he’s just a generic movie-made serial killer), this never gets out of first gear, and settles for trundling along and signposting each narrative development with all the skill and style of a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest.

Home Again (2017) / D: Hallie Meyers-Shyer / 97m

Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Michael Sheen, Candice Bergen, Pico Alexander, Jon Rudnitzky, Nat Wolff, Lake Bell

Rating: 7/10 – when middle-aged fledgling interior designer Alice (Witherspoon) splits from her unreliable husband (Sheen), the last thing she expects to do is allow three young men trying to break into the movie business to move into her guest house – and then become romantically involved with one of them (Alexander); it’s hard to criticise Home Again because despite it being almost drama-free and the very definition of innocuous, it also just wants to give audiences a good time, and on that very basic level it succeeds, but it’s still possibly the most lightweight romantic comedy of 2017.

Downsizing (2017) / D: Alexander Payne / 135m

Cast: Matt Damon, Christoph Waltz, Hong Chau, Kristen Wiig, Rolf Lassgård, Udo Kier, Søren Pilmark, Jason Sudeikis

Rating: 5/10 – the answer to the world’s population crisis is revealed to be shrinking people to the point where they’re five inches tall, something that sad-sack occupational therapist Paul Safranek (Damon) agrees to with alacrity, but being small proves to be no different from being normal-sized, and soon Paul is having to re-think everything he’s ever thought or believed; a closer examination of Downsizing (under a microscope perhaps) reveals a movie that contains too many scenes that pass by without contributing anything to the overall storyline, and a satirical approach to the idea itself that lacks purpose, and sadly for Payne fans, his trademark wit, making it all a dreary, leaden experience that goes on for waaaaaay too long.

Family Fever (2014) / D: Nico Sommer / 71m

Original title: Familien fieber

Cast: Kathrin Waligura, Peter Trabner, Deborah Kaufmann, Jörg Witte, Jan Amazigh Sid, Anais Urban

Rating: 7/10 – when two sets of parents get together for the weekend at the request of their respective children (who are a couple), none of them are able to deal with the fallout that comes with the revelation of a secret that threatens the security of both marriages; a German comedy/drama that doesn’t always go where the viewer might expect it to, Family Fever revels in the awkwardness and frustration felt by its quartet of main characters, and though it sadly runs out of steam in the last fifteen minutes, by then it’s done more than enough to provide plenty of wicked laughs and affecting drama.

Coco (2017) / D: Lee Unkrich, Adrian Molina / 105m

Cast: Anthony Gonzalez, Gael García Bernal, Benjamin Bratt, Alanna Ubach, Renee Victor, Jaime Camil, Alfonso Arau

Rating: 8/10 – Miguel (Gonzalez) is a young boy whose family has rejected any kind of music in order to focus on selling shoes, which leads him into all sorts of trouble in the Underworld on Mexico’s Day of the Dead, trouble that could also mean his never returning to the land of the living; right now you’re never quite sure how a Pixar movie is going to work out, but Coco is a treat, its mix of clever character design, beautifully rendered animation (naturally), heartfelt storylines, and memorable songs making it one to savour time and again… though, be warned, you will be in tears towards the end.

Darkest Hour (2017) / D: Joe Wright / 125m

Cast: Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas, Lily James, Stephen Dillane, Ben Mendelsohn, Ronald Pickup, Nicholas Jones, Samuel West

Rating: 8/10 – it’s 1940 and Great Britain is faced with a challenge: who is to lead them against the fast-approaching menace of the Nazis, and if it has to be Winston Churchill (Oldman), then what can be done to undermine him and his authority?; the answer is quite a bit – for the most part – but history is firm on Churchill’s success, and so Darkest Hour, while featuring a superb performance from Oldman, has no choice but to succumb to retelling events that have already been retold numerous times before, and in doing so doesn’t offer the viewer anything new except for a number of very good performances and assured, and surprisingly sinewy direction from Wright.

Message from the King (2016) / D: Fabrice du Welz / 102m

Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Luke Evans, Alfred Molina, Teresa Palmer, Natalie Martinez, Arthur Darbinyan, Lucan Melkonian, Diego Josef, Tom Felton, Chris Mulkey, Jake Weary

Rating: 5/10 – when his younger sister dies in suspicious circumstances in Los Angeles, South African cab driver Jacob King (Boseman) travels there to find out who caused her death and why – and exact revenge; a throwback to the kind of blaxploitation movies made in the Seventies, Message from the King at least refers to King as an angry brother in the traditional sense, but the movie’s plot is hollow, and the likes of Evans and Molina are wasted in roles that might have seemed fresh (again) in the Seventies, but here feel like caricatures for the movie to focus on in between bouts of King exacting his violent revenge.

The Commuter (2018) / D: Jaume Collet-Serra / 105m

Cast: Liam Neeson, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Jonathan Banks, Sam Neill, Elizabeth McGovern, Killian Scott, Shazad Latif, Andy Nyman, Clara Lago, Roland Møller, Florence Pugh

Rating: 4/10 – ex-cop turned insurance salesman Michael MacCauley (Neeson) is approached by a mysterious woman (Farmiga) on his train home and tasked with finding a complete stranger who’s also on the train – what could possibly go wrong?; everything as it turns out, with The Commuter going off the rails soon after, and never getting back on track, something confirmed (if there was any doubt before then) when the script throws in an “I’m Spartacus/I’m Brian” moment (take your pick), as well as reminding everyone that Neeson really is too old for this kind of thing.

The Post (2017) / D: Steven Spielberg / 116m

Cast: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Matthew Rhys, Alison Brie, Carrie Coon, Jesse Plemons, David Cross, Zach Woods, Pat Healy

Rating: 9/10 – the publication of the Pentagon Papers, which exposed the level of deceit the US government had perpetrated on its citizens about its involvement in Vietnam, is explored through the days leading up to the Washington Times‘ courageous decision to publish despite the threat of imprisonment for treason that the White House was prepared to enforce; Streep is publisher Kay Graham, Hanks is legendary editor Ben Bradlee, and Spielberg is on excellent form, giving The Post a sense of immediacy and potency that other historical dramas can only dream of (and the relevance to today’s US political scene doesn’t even need to be made obvious).

The Open House (2018) / D: Matt Angel, Suzanne Coote / 94m

Cast: Dylan Minnette, Piercey Dalton, Patricia Bethune, Sharif Atkins, Aaron Abrams, Edward Olson, Katie Walder

Rating: 3/10 – a recent widow (Dalton) and her mopey son (Minnette) get away from their grief and their problems at a house that’s up for sale – and find strange things going on there right from the start; an awful thriller that just refuses to make any sense or make either of its two main characters sympathetic, The Open House does everything it can to make you look away… and not in a good way.

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The Circle (2017)

22 Tuesday Aug 2017

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D: James Ponsoldt / 110m

Cast: Emma Watson, Tom Hanks, John Boyega, Karen Gillan, Patton Oswalt, Ellar Coltrane, Glenne Headly, Bill Paxton

Imagine a device that could accurately record and predict your every emotion before you experienced it. Would you find that a boon or a hindrance to your everyday life? Now hold that thought, because there’s a better question: would you find such a device a boon or a hindrance while watching The Circle? (Actually it would be both: If you feel it would be a boon then you’re advocating knowing you’re going to be bored for an hour and fifty minutes, and you can deal with that appropriately, like watching something else; and if you feel it would be a hindrance then you’re advocating knowing you’re going to be bored, and you can also deal with that appropriately, like watching something else.)

The Circle is a high-tech company that’s looking to integrate every possible form of social interaction, be it personal, professional, legal, financial, medical, morally proscribed or otherwise, into a catch-all application that’s designed to promote and provide transparency in all aspects of daily life. In essence, The Circle is attempting to create a world where there are no secrets or lies, and all to make everyone’s lives easier and better and more fruitful. What could possibly be wrong with that? (Actually, quite a bit, but for the movie itself, that’s another issue.) It’s left to newbie Mae Holland (Watson) to discover the truth behind The Circle’s motives, but not before she becomes the face of The Circle, and accrues the kind of worldwide popularity afforded to rock stars, footballers and self-promoting celebrity wannabes… and all because of a midnight kayak trip that goes wrong.

It’s at this point in The Circle that director James Ponsoldt, along with co-writer and creator of the original novel, Dave Eggers, throw in the towel and quietly resign the audience to a series of even more ineffectual scenes than have gone before. Mae gets her job at The Circle with the usual ease of someone in the movies who can field a barrage of probing questions by umming and ahhing and giving uninspired answers. Once ensconced in Customer Experience she quickly blends in with all the other vanilla members of staff, and makes no impact whatsoever. She meets but doesn’t recognise disillusioned programmer Ty Lafitte (Boyega), whose True You application is now being misused by the company, and believes everything that co-founder Eamon Bailey (Hanks) says at his regular company-wide meetings (which are no more than mini-Expo’s for the company’s latest innovations). All around her, the clues are there as to The Circle’s true motives, and though she’s not exactly drinking the company Kool-Aid, she is allowing herself to be drawn further and further into its “evil machinations”.

But then comes that fateful midnight kayak trip and everything changes. Mae, who is to civil disobedience what Stephen Hawking is to breakdancing, steals a kayak, ventures out into a shipping lane surrounded by fog, and ends up being rescued by the Coast Guard. Without this out of character moment (which is never satisfactorily explained), the movie would have stalled altogether and even more viewers would have lapsed into comas. Mae thinks the publicity – the whole thing was captured on dozens of the company’s SeeChange cameras – will mean the end of her career. But Bailey has other ideas and enlists Mae to promote the company’s latest idea, that of a life led through total transparency. Mae wears a tiny video camera, allows the feed to be shared online, and only gradually begins to understand that The Circle is as dastardly in its aims as everyone else has guessed from the beginning. It’s not until the use of a new app leads to a tragedy that affects Mae directly that she decides to turn the tables on Bailey and… well… let’s just say it’s meant to be ironic and a case of just desserts being served, but it’s so underwhelming you might not believe she’s actually done it.

As dystopian thrillers go, The Circle operates on a level that, much like the Circlers who work for the company, requires the viewer to go along with whatever the movie comes up with, and not to raise any objections. However, Ponsoldt and Eggers have crafted a script that defies the viewer to make any connection with Mae, or Bailey, or her parents (an underused Headly and Paxton), or anyone else for that matter, and which is dramatically inert for much of its running time. It’s a movie in which very little happens, and when it does, it doesn’t have the impact required to lift the movie out of its self-imposed doldrums. It’s a thriller where the director appears to have forgotten to include any thrills, and a message movie where the message is spelt out in big bold letters for anyone watching who might be hard of understanding. It’s a spectacularly misjudged movie, baffling in its intentions, and uncomfortably, unalterably dull.

As well as being unable to elevate the material above the merely mundane, Ponsoldt is also unable to draw out even the hint of a good performance from anyone. Watson gives yet another performance that makes it seem as if she’s still astonished at how she’s been able to sustain a career beyond Harry Potter, while Hanks adopts a friendly uncle persona that is the whole of his portrayal (after this and A Hologram for the King (2016), perhaps he should stay away from any more adaptations of Eggers’ work). Boyega is wasted as the “mysterious” Lafitte (Bailey doesn’t know where he is, even with all his SeeChange cameras; which is a shame as he can be spotted at The Circle’s HQ wandering around quite openly), and several subplots waste the involvement of the likes of Oswalt, Gillan and Coltrane. While the movie clunks along in neutral, with occasional detours into first gear, it also manages to undermine the not inconsiderable talents of its composer, Danny Elfman, its DoP, Matthew Libatique, and its production designer, Gerald Sullivan. And when that’s the best achievement that a movie can make, then it’s definitely time to move on and watch something else.

Rating: 4/10 – boring, dull, uninspired, leaden, bland – take your pick as all of those could (and do) apply to The Circle, the latest in a long line of thrillers that have chosen high tech businesses as their preferred boogeyman; just when you think it’s going to get interesting, it doesn’t, and just when you think Mae will wake up and smell the bullshit, she doesn’t, leaving the movie to promise much, but deliver very, very little in the way of viewing satisfaction.

Sully (2016)

04 Sunday Dec 2016

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aka Sully: Miracle on the Hudson

D: Clint Eastwood / 96m

Cast: Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney, Mike O’Malley, Jamey Sheridan, Anna Gunn, Holt McCallany, Ann Cusack, Molly Hagan, Jane Gabbert, Sam Huntington, Michael Rapaport

On 15 January 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 from LaGuardia, New York to Charlotte, North Carolina, suffered a catastrophic bird strike that left both engines disabled. It had been in the air for approximately three minutes, and its pilot, Captain Chesley Sullenberger (Hanks) had to make a decision: to turn back and attempt an emergency landing at either LaGuardia or nearby Teterboro Airport, or make a forced water landing on the Hudson River. Sullenberger was certain he wouldn’t make it back to either airport and so adopted the latter option. With one hundred and fifty-five people on board, it was a manoeuvre that could have ended in tragedy, but thanks to Sullenberger’s forty year-plus experience, he was able to land the plane safely. And with the emergency services and local commercial vessels quickly on the scene, the passengers and crew were rescued in under twenty-five minutes. Later, a representative of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said that it “has to go down [as] the most successful ditching in aviation history.”

Such an event was always likely to be transferred to the big screen, and in the hands of veteran director Clint Eastwood, the story of Chesley Sullenberger and Flight 1549 has been granted a sober re-telling that suits both the man and the nature of the landing. On the surface, Sully is a movie that seems far removed from the intensity and heightened emotion of the event itself, as much of what occurs is played out against a wintry visual patina in keeping with the time the forced landing took place. But like Sullenberger himself, Eastwood – in terms of directing – has over forty years’ experience behind him, and in bringing Todd Karmanicki’s script to the screen he adopts a straitlaced, measured approach to the material that avoids any possibility of sensationalism or unnecessary hyperbole.

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This is important because while the story of Flight 1549 is one of heroism on an unprecedented level – as Sully himself says at one point: “Everything is unprecedented until it happens for the first time” – the forced water landing isn’t the focus of the movie, even though we see it from two different perspectives. The focus is Sullenberger himself, a self-contained, humble man who found himself questioning his actions in the wake of the forced landing. It may seem counter-intuitive to examine the mindset of a hero suffering doubts in the aftermath of the very act that defines them as a hero, but it’s what makes Sully a much more rewarding experience than you might expect.

This decision is aided immeasurably by Hanks’s performance as Sullenberger. Anyone who’s seen Captain Phillips (2013) should remember the final scene where Phillips is being tended to by a navy medic, and the shock of what he’s been through begins to hit home. It’s a bravura moment, with Hanks’ expression telling you everything you need to know about how he’s feeling. He does the same here, brilliantly revealing the tremendous doubts Sullenberger experiences immediately following the landing and later during the NTSB investigation. As he imagines what could have happened, such as the plane crashing into the centre of Manhattan, Hanks is completely convincing as a man whose instinctive response to impending disaster saved the lives of so many. As he struggles to accept his own role in the forced landing, and what it means not just for himself and everyone else aboard, but for a wider public for whom plane crashes in New York have a whole different meaning, Hanks ensures that Sullenberger’s humility and humanity remain to the fore throughout. This is a man who wouldn’t rest until he knew everyone on board was safe and alive.

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Hanks’ performance anchors the movie in a way that allows the script to explore the complex relationship between a man and his view of himself in exceptional circumstances. The actor adequately portrays the effect of the enormity of what happened on Sullenberger, and the lingering, pessimistic anxiety that threatened to undermine his self-confidence. For the purpose of the movie, that anxiety is allowed to overshadow his heroism, and through the one-sided machinations of the NTSB investigation, to be brought into question. But while Sullenberger’s heroism is never in any doubt, the NTSB investigation reveals a tactless insincerity about the nature of corporate responsibility, as it puts more faith in computer simulations that say the plane could have landed safely at LaGuardia, than the experience and knowledge of one of the best pilots around.

This is not the script or the movie’s finest hour. Demonising the Board and its representatives is the movie’s one truly sour note, a decision no doubt arrived at to offset a perceived lack of drama elsewhere. In these instances, there aren’t any bad guys, but Karmanicki ensures that the Board in this movie are emotionally hostile, professionally obtuse, and working to an unspecified agenda. It’s like watching a McCarthy hearing all over again, and Eastwood doesn’t make any attempt to downplay the Board members’ hostility to Sullenberger and his co-pilot, Jeff Skiles (Eckhart), until the error of the Board’s ways can be confirmed once and for all as both unrealistic and a poor narrative choice.

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Hanks aside, this isn’t a movie where the performances are required to be more than perfunctory, although Linney as Sullenberger’s wife, Lorraine, is memorable thanks to the odd cadence of her portrayal and an underlying, yet unconfirmed, sense that all isn’t well in their marriage. As Skiles, Eckhart sports a moustache that seems to have been flown in from the Seventies, while the three-headed “monster” that is the Board (O’Malley, Sheridan and Gunn) is treated so unfairly – and so at odds with what really happened – that all three border on caricature, an unfortunate choice that doesn’t do the movie any dramatic favours.

The movie concludes with Sullenberger achieving a victory over the Board that allows for a moment of narrative grandstanding, and which is at odds with Sullenberger’s introspective nature. It also appears to offer a feelgood moment when the feelgood moment of the movie has already passed: the moment when it’s confirmed that everyone got off the plane and everyone has survived. But Eastwood uses these moments to highlight just how much of a big deal Sullenberger’s actions actually were. And why shouldn’t he be feted and applauded? To everyone outside the Board, he’s a bona fide hero, doubts and all. He’s an heroic individual, and the movies love those kind of characters (possibly) above all else. And they love them even more if they don’t automatically embrace that heroism.

Rating: 7/10 – memorable more for its examination of a man uncomfortable with the notion of being a hero than the actions that gained him that title, Sully is a muted drama that never quite “soars” in the way that audiences may expect, but which hits home in several unexpected ways instead; bolstered by a terrific, awards-worthy performance from Hanks, this is a quietly impressive movie that benefits from not embracing the standard tropes of the “hero” drama, and proves surprisingly rewarding as a result.

Monthly Roundup – November 2016

01 Thursday Dec 2016

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Bury Them Deep (1968) / D: Paolo Moffa (as John Byrd) / 109m

Original title: All’ultimo sangue

Cast: Craig Hill, Ettore Manni, Giovanni Cianfriglia (as Ken Wood), José Greci, Francesco Santovetti, Luciano Doria, Pino Patti (as Giuseppe Sorrentino), Ruggero Salvadori

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Rating: 5/10 – when an Army payroll is stolen by notorious outlaw Billy Gun (Cianfriglia), expert tracker Clive Norton (Hill) is hired to get it back, but in the process he finds himself up against a variety of obstacles, not the least of which is Billy’s brother, El Chaleco (Manni); an average Spaghetti Western given a much needed dose of energy thanks to Manni’s muscular, spirited performance as the conniving El Chaleco, Bury Them Deep rarely rises above its perfunctory level, and despite cramming in several lengthy action sequences.

Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016) / D: Mike Flanagan / 99m

Cast: Elizabeth Reaser, Annalise Basso, Lulu Wilson, Henry Thomas, Parker Mack

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Rating: 6/10 – it’s 1965, and the Zander family – single mother Alice (Reaser) and her two daughters, Lina (Basso) and Doris (Wilson) – become imperilled by an evil spirit thanks to the misguided use of a ouija board; a prequel to the events seen in Ouija (2014), this does nothing new in terms of scares and special effects, but thanks to the involvement of Flanagan, at least gives you characters you can actually relate to and care about, and which is a rare and valuable thing indeed.

Finding Dory (2016) / D: Andrew Stanton, Angus MacLane / 97m

Cast: Ellen DeGeneres, Albert Brooks, Ed O’Neill, Kaitlin Olson, Hayden Rolence, Ty Burrell, Diane Keaton, Eugene Levy, Sloane Murray, Idris Elba, Dominic West, Bob Peterson, Kate McKinnon, Bill Hader, Sigourney Weaver

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Rating: 7/10 – Dory the blue tang fish (DeGeneres) starts having flashbacks to when she was younger and lived with her parents, and these in turn prompt her to try and find them, much to the continuing consternation of clown fish Marlin (Brooks) and his more positive son Nemo (Rolence); a sequel to one of Pixar’s most cherished movies, and one of this year’s most anticipated releases, Finding Dory lacks the original movie’s winning charm, and settles instead for being a guilty pleasure retread of Finding Nemo, while being saved from a lower score thanks to DeGeneres wonderful, and still inspired, vocal performance.

Bridget Jones’s Baby (2016) / D: Sharon Maguire / 123m

Cast: Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth, Patrick Dempsey, Sarah Solemani, Gemma Jones, Jim Broadbent, Emma Thompson, Neil Pearson, Joanna Scanlan, Kate O’Flynn, Celia Imrie, Ed Sheeran

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Rating: 7/10 – at the dreadfully old age of forty-three, Bridget (Zellweger) feels like love is passing her by, until two one night stands – with old flame Mark Darcy (Firth) and new beau Jack Qwant (Dempsey) – lead to her being pregnant but unsure as to which one of them is the father; a welcome return for Bridget, and with much of the pizzazz and feelgood humour of the first movie, but the whole “who’s the father?” storyline is a poor conceit to hang a whole movie on, and it shows, leaving standout moments such as Bridget miming to House of Pain’s Jump Around, as a much better reason for splurging on this latest installment.

Shut In (2015) / D: Adam Schindler / 90m

aka Deadly Home; Intruders

Cast: Beth Riesgraf, Rory Culkin, Martin Starr, Jack Kesy, Joshua Mikel, Leticia Jiminez, Timothy T. McKinney

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Rating: 5/10 – when Anna (Riesgraf), who’s agoraphobic, doesn’t attend her recently deceased brother’s funeral, the three men who arrive at her home to rob her soon find that Anna has a dark secret that will endanger them all; a brave attempt to do something different in the home invasion genre, Shut In nevertheless remains an intriguing idea that never coalesces into a completely successful whole, but does feature a terrific performance from Riesgraf.

Inferno (2016) / D: Ron Howard / 121m

Cast: Tom Hanks, Felicity Jones, Omar Sy, Irrfan Khan, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Ben Foster, Ana Ularu, Ida Darvish

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Rating: 6/10 – despite suffering from short term memory loss, symbologist Robert Langdon must endure a race against time in order to stop the release of a deadly toxin that will wipe out billions of people; another year, another Dan Brown adaptation, but this time it’s an adaptation that’s at least bearable, thanks to Tom Elkins’ and Daniel P. Hanley’s editing skills, an enjoyable, knowing performance from Khan, and a script that doesn’t hang around getting bogged down by endless exposition, which, considering Brown’s reliance on it in his novels, is a massive step forward should The Lost Symbol or any further novels be adapted for the screen.

Attack of the Lederhosen Zombies (2016) / D: Dominik Hartl / 77m

Cast: Laurie Calvert, Gabriela Marcinková, Oscar Dyekjær Giese, Margarete Tiesel, Karl Fischer, Patricia Aulitzky, Kari Rakkola

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Rating: 5/10 – a formula for producing snow proves extremely harmful if ingested, and soon the guests at a remote mountain top ski resort are knee deep in zombies, both human and animal; similar in tone to the Dead Snow movies, Attack of the Lederhosen Zombies combines daft humour with gross-out gore and flying body parts a-plenty, but as usual with this type of movie, it pays lip service to cohesive plotting, or credible characters, and focuses instead on providing a series of inventive zombie kills – which is pretty much the only aspect it gets right.

Fort Osage (1952) / D: Lesley Selander / 72m

Cast: Rod Cameron, Jane Nigh, Morris Ankrum, Douglas Kennedy, John Ridgely

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Rating: 6/10 – homesteaders looking to head west through Indian country are exploited by a crooked businessman (Ankrum) and have their lives put at risk by his decision to cheat said Indians out of the rewards of a peace treaty, leaving would-be wagonmaster Tom Clay (Cameron) to get the bottom of all the corruption; an enjoyable way to spend seventy-two minutes thanks to Selander’s typically intuitive direction, Cameron’s no-nonsense approach to dialogue, and the joy of watching so many standard Western tropes being trotted out and given such a good airing.

A Hologram for the King (2016)

28 Thursday Jul 2016

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A Hologram for the King

D: Tom Tykwer / 98m

Cast: Tom Hanks, Alexander Black, Sarita Choudhury, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Tracey Fairaway, Jane Perry, Tom Skerritt, Ben Whishaw, David Menkin, Christy Meyer, Megan Maczko, Eric Meyers, Khalid Laith

Early on in A Hologram for the King – and after a wonderfully staged, and ironic, interpretation of Talking Heads’ Once in a Lifetime – Tom Hanks’ character, Alan Clay, is sitting across a desk from his boss, Eric Randall (Meyers). They’re talking about a deal to be made in Saudi Arabia, and about Clay’s ability to clinch the deal. Randall is making it clear that Clay has to make the deal, while Clay is being equivocal (and not exactly inspiring his boss with confidence). It’s also clear that this is a very important deal for their company, and that Clay has to clinch it or his career – which is already suffering thanks to his recent divorce – will be over. All of which begs the question: if you have potentially the biggest, most important deal in your company’s history about to happen, would you really put it in the hands of a man whose life seems to be falling apart around him?

It’s a question this adaptation of the novel by Dave Eggers never quite manages to address, let alone answer, and it’s indicative of the problems with the movie as a whole. Clay’s mission – to deliver a contract-winning presentation to the King of Saudi Arabia on the merits of holographic telecommunications – should be a simple one, but right from the start nothing seems to be going according to plan. Jet lag means he misses the hotel shuttle to the site where the presentation will be conducted, and has to avail himself of the services of a driver, Yousef (Black). At the King’s Metropolis of Economy and Trade, Clay finds his small team (Menkin, Meyer, Maczko) sequestered in a tent away from the main building where all the other companies making presentations are based, and without benefit of consistent wi-fi, air conditioning or food. And no one knows when the King will actually be visiting the site for the presentation to be made.

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Unable to make any headway against the seemingly carefree approach to business that the Saudis appear to be indulging in, Clay finds his health deteriorating. A large growth appears on his back; when he attempts to “investigate” it with a heated steak knife he’s not entirely successful in his efforts. This leads to his visiting a clinic and being seen by a female doctor, Zahra (Choudhury). She reassures him that the growth is a cyst and should be removed. Meanwhile, a combination of persistent delays, angry phone calls from Randall, and memories of his time with Schwinn and a deal he was involved in that went badly wrong, conspire to bring on an anxiety attack. When he wakes he finds Zahra at his bedside, and the beginning of an unlikely relationship is forged.

As unlikely this relationship is – and Yousef points out just how unlikely it is given that there are so few female doctors in Saudi Arabia – it’s as unlikely as any other relationship Clay has. From the adversarial conversation with Randall at the movie’s start, to the spiteful divorce-signing barbs of his ex-wife (Perry), and his e-mail based discourses with his daughter, Kit (Fairaway), Clay is always struggling to connect with the people either closest to him, or those he’s dependent on. Ordinarily this would be scope for an ironic commentary on the nature of modern communications and the way in which traditional methods are being usurped and/or replaced. But A Hologram for the King pitches itself firmly as a fish-out-of-water tale (or camel-out-of-the-desert tale, if you will), and in doing so avoids doing anything fresh or surprising. Even his relationship with Yousef, the source of much of the movie’s humour, is dependent on a connection that feels forced into place by the demands of the script.

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Watching the movie you begin to wonder how it was that Dave Eggers’ source novel managed to be a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award. In the hands of writer/director Tom Tykwer, the movie stutters and flails about trying to make itself relevant in any way possible, and succeeds only in wasting the viewer’s time. There’s such a lack of clarity and focus that scenes pass without making any impact – even when Clay probes the growth on his back it’s handled in such a matter of fact way he might as well be probing a potato on a plate. Tykwer mishandles so many scenes in this way that after a while the viewer has no choice but to just go along with the jumbled narrative and hope for the best. Add an abbreviated ending to everything that hints at production problems, and you have a movie that disappoints on too many levels to count.

Against the odds though, it’s not all bad. Hanks is too accomplished and intelligent an actor to allow a ragged script to get the better of him, and while Tykwer’s direction is erratic and lacks consistency from scene to scene, the actor at least makes Clay a sympathetic (if somewhat bewildered) everyman, and has the viewer hoping that despite all the chaos around him, he’ll come good in the end. In the hands of (probably) any other actor, Clay wouldn’t have been as rounded as he is here, and certainly despite the laissez-faire nature of Tykwer’s approach to the character. And Choudhury, an actress who, like Hanks, rarely if ever puts in a bad performance, is on equally fine form as a kindred spirit of Clay’s who provides him with a degree of stability he can’t find otherwise.

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Filmed largely in Morocco, the desert locations are given a lustrous sheen by Tykwer’s DoP of choice, Frank Griebe, and there are plenty of diverting compositions to take the heat off the wayward narrative, not least the beautifully shot underwater scenes that appear towards the end. And again, despite Tykwer’s involvement, the movie has a natural, organic rhythm courtesy of underrated editor Alexander Berner (he’s one of the few people able to come away from Jupiter Ascending (2015) with their reputation intact).

Rating: 4/10 – muddled and frustrating, A Hologram for the King never engages with its intended audience, and gets by thanks to the efforts of Hanks and Choudhury; Tykwer has talent but with two disappointing literary adaptations in a row now, perhaps it’s time he turned his attention to more original material.

Trailers – Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016), A Hologram for the King (2016) and Trapped (2016)

15 Tuesday Mar 2016

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If there was ever any doubt as to who would be the first choice to direct the movie version of Ransom Riggs’ best-selling novel, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, then those doubts will have been allayed with the appointment of Tim Burton to the director’s chair. A perfect match of visionary and material? Perhaps. A great combination of visual flair and dramatic invention? Perhaps again. But if you’ve read the first of Riggs’s Peculiar Children trilogy then you’ll know that it’s a lot darker than what’s glimpsed in the trailer, which highlights the idyllic nature of the children’s existence. The script is by Jane Goldman – always a good sign – so this may be one fantasy adaptation that retains the source’s vitality and creative energy and sticks closely to the story, but if Burton is still finding it difficult to connect with the material, as seems to have been the case in recent outings, then we may be faced with a movie that only achieves a portion of what it sets out to do – and that would be a shame.

One of four Tom Hanks’ movies planned for release in 2016, A Hologram for the King sees the rubber-faced everyman on the cusp of a (late) mid-life crisis, and travelling to Saudi Arabia in the hopes of pulling off that one last deal that will help him regain his self-respect and solve all manner of other issues that he has. Aided by the likes of Ben Whishaw and Tom Skerritt, Hanks’s character, Alan Clay, is the traditional fish out of water, ignorant of the customs of the country he’s in, and out of his depth – at first -when it comes to making his comeback. With a romantic sub-plot involving the lovely Sarita Choudhury thrown in as well, this adaptation of Dave Eggers’ novel, written and directed by Tom Tykwer – Run Lola Run (1998), Cloud Atlas (2012) – looks and sounds great, and hopefully, will prove to be a rewarding alternative in amongst all the big budget superhero movies coming our way in 2016 (and it includes a fantastic Talking Heads parody).

A powerful documentary that won a Special Jury Award at this year’s Sundance Festival, Trapped looks at the increasing number of US states that are introducing so-called “trap” laws, or Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers. As these states seek to take away a woman’s right to legalised abortion, and in doing so, put many women’s lives in danger, Dawn Porter’s unflinching look at the potential consequences that these decisions could have both in the short and long term is both frightening and appalling. By focusing on the lives of the men and women who are taking the fight to the lawmakers, and who refuse to back down in the face of so much blinkered, often Christian-centric prejudice, the movie becomes a rallying cry for anyone who still believes that the decision in Roe vs Wade still gives a woman the right to choose what happens to her body.

Bridge of Spies (2015)

09 Wednesday Dec 2015

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Bridge of Spies

D: Steven Spielberg / 141m

Cast: Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Scott Shepherd, Amy Ryan, Austin Stowell, Sebastian Koch, Alan Alda, Jesse Plemons, Will Rogers, Michael Gaston, Dakin Matthews, Billy Magnussen, Peter McRobbie, Mikhail Gorevoy, Burghart Klaußner, Max Mauff

In 1957, Rudolf Abel (Rylance) was arrested by FBI agents and charged with three counts of conspiracy as a Soviet spy. He was defended by an insurance attorney called James B. Donovan (Hanks), but despite Donovan’s best efforts (and to no one’s surprise) Abel was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to a total of forty-five years in prison (which was a surprise). An appeal to the Supreme Court was rejected and Abel remained in jail.

In 1960, US pilot Francis Gary Powers (Stowell) was shot down while on a spy plane mission over Soviet territory. He was charged with espionage against the Soviet Union and sentenced to ten years in prison. In 1961, American economics student Frederic Pryor (Rogers) found himself arrested and held without charge by the East German police. In 1962, Donovan, at the request of CIA chief Allen Dulles (McRobbie), travelled to Berlin to negotiate the exchange of Abel for Powers; when he learned of Pryor’s incarceration he made the young student’s release a part of the deal as well. On 10 February 1962, Pryor was released at Checkpoint Charlie, and Abel and Powers’ exchange took place at the Glienicke Bridge.

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These are the basic facts that Bridge of Spies elects to tell, and while it makes it clear from the beginning that the movie is “inspired” by real events, writers Matt Charman and Joel and Ethan Coen have expanded on those facts in order to fill in the gaps and make the movie more audience friendly. They’ve done a terrific job, with the politics of the time, both American and Soviet, explored and explained with a conciseness and brevity that allows the story to breathe and not be bogged down by endless exposition (there’s even room for a brief exposé of East German politics as well). What this means is that Bridge of Spies becomes a movie where all the twists and turns don’t leave the viewer baffled as to what’s going on, and they have a firm grounding as to why it’s all happening.

With the political and espionage themes so effectively set up and presented, Spielberg is left to get on with doing what he does best: telling a complex, complicated story easily and with surprising verve. The director seems at home when making historical dramas, and he has an enviable track record in the genre, from Empire of the Sun (1987) to Schindler’s List (1993) to Munich (2005) to Lincoln (2012). Spielberg is rightly regarded as a populist movie maker, but it’s his forays into history that often prove more satisfying, and Bridge of Spies is no different. Most of the “action” takes place behind closed doors, and consists generally of conversations between Donovan and one or two others. But it’s during these scenes that Spielberg teases out the subtleties and unspoken nuances of the various negotiations and political manoeuvrings, and makes them resonate in a way that few other directors are able to.

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As Donovan juggles the demands of his own government with the needs of the Soviet Union, and the aims of the newly created East German authorities, Spielberg shows how close everyone is in terms of not wanting to be seen to be directly involved in any of the negotiations – Donovan himself is officially a private citizen representing his client, Abel – and how appearances are more important than the truth. Donovan is seen as an honorable man doing the best he can, and as he sees fit, in difficult circumstances, and his early brushes with his own legal system (which seems happy to ignore due process and the Fourth Amendment when it comes to prosecuting Soviet spies) show just how determined and independent-minded he is; or, as Abel puts it, a “standing man”. Donovan provides the moral compass to help audiences steer their way through the various schemes and ruses that each side comes up with.

In the more than capable hands of Hanks, Donovan is an ordinary man thrust into the extraordinary world of legal and political expediency and asked to put aside his personal and moral beliefs. That he doesn’t, and that he doesn’t in such a way that he also doesn’t appear to be pedantic or judgmental (at least not publicly) is a measure of Hanks’ controlled portrayal and what’s needed to make Donovan both sympathetic and credible. Hanks is matched by an equally impressive performance from Rylance, his stoic features and polite bearing providing a neat counterpoint to the American public’s view of him as reprehensible and an enemy of the American way of life. At different points in the movie, Donovan asks Abel the same question but in different ways: “Aren’t you worried by what might happen to you?” And always he answers: “Would it help?” Rylance plays Abel quietly and with dignity, his awareness of his situation and the political games going on around him expressed with a resigned authority.

Spielberg recreates the period with his trademark exactitude, and aided by longtime collaborator Janusz Kaminski highlights the differences between US and East German life by emphasising Powers’ homeland via warm tones and an ingrained sense of comfort, while recreating Berlin’s post-War identity as the still-blasted, partially rebuilt city it was. The contrast is illuminating, adding to Donovan’s initial feelings of unease as he navigates the treacherous waters of international diplomacy.

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It’s here though that the movie loses some of the traction it’s built up along the way. Abel’s arrest and subsequent trial, along with Donovan’s hampered attempts to defend him properly, are expertly handled by Spielberg, and if the movie had only been concerned with Abel’s case then it would be an unqualified success. But once Donovan arrives in Berlin, and despite the various obstacles that threaten to derail his negotiations with the Soviets and the East Germans, there’s no tension in these scenes. Donovan overcomes each obstacle by either refusing to accept the problem is worth worrying about, or by making demands in the hope that the other side will blink first. By making this stretch of the movie so “easy” for Donovan, by the time we get to the exchange at the Glienicke Bridge, there’s so little reason or chance for things to go wrong at the last minute that any apprehension on the audience’s part has evaporated long before.

It’s a shame as the scenes in Berlin should have provided most if not all of the movie’s dramatic highlights, but alas it’s not to be. There is humour however, with Donovan’s fish-out-of-water situation used to good effect, and it’s drily executed by Hanks and perfectly in keeping with Donovan’s increasingly weary view of the world (at one point he remarks that the full names of the Soviet Union and East Germany are just too long). Away from Donovan’s efforts to negotiate the exchange and Pryor’s release, there’s a powerful sequence that shows Powers’ U2 plane being shot down and just how lucky he was to survive (though the movie makes it clear he shouldn’t have), and we see the initial creation of the Berlin Wall, a sight that remains unnerving even now that it’s gone.

Rating: 8/10 – measured, patient and deceptively simple in its approach, Bridge of Spies lacks resonance in terms of what’s happening in the world today, but as an examination of a particular event in recent world history it’s still fascinating and informative; capped by another of Hanks’ effortless performances, and Spielberg’s mastery of the medium, it’s a movie that holds the attention throughout even if it isn’t particularly thrilling.

The Terminal (2004)

16 Saturday Aug 2014

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Terminal, The

D: Steven Spielberg / 128m

Cast: Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Stanley Tucci, Chi McBride, Diego Luna, Barry Shabaka Henley, Kumar Pallana, Zoe Saldana, Eddie Jones, Michael Nouri

Arriving at JFK International Airport, Viktor Navorski (Hanks) learns that while he was travelling from his home country of Krakozhia, a civil war has broken out and all travel permits and visas have been suspended; this means he can’t return home.  To make matters worse, the US government is refusing to recognise the revolutionary Krakozhian government, so won’t allow anyone from there to enter the US.  This makes Viktor “unacceptable”.  The only place he can stay is in the airport’s international terminal, something that Customs and Border Protection head Frank Dixon (Tucci) isn’t happy about but believes will be only temporary.

Viktor settles in at Gate 67 which is unfinished.  From there he ventures forth each day in the hope that the civil war has ended and he can either go home or go into New York as he’d originally planned (he has made a promise to do something for his father, who has recently died).  Through this he strikes up a friendship with Dolores (Saldana), a Customs officer who processes visa applications.  This in turn leads to a friendship with Enrique (Luna), an airport worker who has a crush on Dolores.  In return for food that hasn’t been used on flights, Viktor learns about Dolores’ likes and dislikes and relays this information back to Enrique.  During this time, Viktor also meets air stewardess Amelia (Zeta-Jones).  His attraction to her is tempered by her seeing a married man, Max (Nouri), but a relationship develops between them nevertheless.

As Viktor gets to know more of the airport staff – including Mulroy (McBride) and Gupta (Pallana) – Dixon becomes more and more irritated by his presence in the airport.  He tries to persuade Viktor to leave the airport but Viktor doesn’t take the bait.  With an important inspection coming up that will help towards an expected promotion, Dixon is anxious that nothing interfere with his plans, yet when a desperate Russian with undocumented drugs for his father arrives on the day of the inspection, Viktor interprets for him and resolves the situation with a lie, making Dixon furious with him. This makes Viktor very popular with the rest of the airport staff.

Viktor also continues to see Amelia when she flies in and when she tells him she’s stopped seeing Max, Viktor arranges a romantic dinner but it turns out Amelia has resumed the relationship (though this has an unexpected benefit later on).  When the war in Krakozhia ends, Dixon tells Viktor he has to return home and that he can’t go into New York; with the plane home ready to take off, Gupta stands on the tarmac and blocks it from moving, giving Viktor the chance to leave the airport and honour the promise he made to his father.

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With a wonderful central performance from Hanks, The Terminal is glossy whimsy of the highest quality, a modern day fairy tale that features a princess in peril (Amelia), a wicked ogre (Dixon), three fairy godmothers (Enrique, Mulroy and Gupta), a maid (Dolores), and a handsome prince (Viktor – kind of).  It’s hugely enjoyable and is the type of movie that you can watch over and over again and still spot things you missed every other time (such as the head of the Statue of Liberty – keep an eye peeled, it’s there).  And like all good fairy tales it has a happy ending (though not the kind you might be thinking of).

Based around the true story of Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian refugee who spent eighteen years living in the departure lounge of Terminal One at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport, The Terminal downplays the drama inherent in such a predicament in favour of a heartwarming tale that is often hilarious, and which adds a romantic element that is both cute and bittersweet.  The script by Sacha Gervasi and Jeff Nathanson is structured much like a play, with act one concerning Viktor’s arrival at the airport, act two detailing his coming to terms with living in the airport, and act three showing his becoming a valued and respected member of the airport “staff”.  It’s a cleverly constructed script, with nods to wider issues such as immigration and racism, but included in such a way that they don’t intrude on the feelgood, aspirational  drive of the movie, or its message that tenacity and self-belief will always see you through.

It’s Viktor’s positive nature – so ably portrayed by Hanks – that is so affecting, his resourcefulness and persistence the very qualities we would like to think we’d have if we were in his position.  Hanks is nothing less than superb in a performance that is as richly nuanced as any other he’s given.  His choice of expressions alone offers a masterclass in acting; the scene in the men’s room when a traveller asks him, “Ever feel like you’re living in an airport?” is worth watching just for the stupefied look Viktor gives as a silent reply – and it’s made all the more impressive for being a reflection (and Hanks makes it all seem so effortless).

He has some great support too.  Zeta-Jones, still fresh from her Oscar-winning turn in Chicago (2002), makes Amelia appealing and sad at the same time, and in doing so makes the character more credible as Viktor’s possible love interest.  As the hard-nosed Customs and Borderland Protection administrator, Tucci is contained and hard to like but it’s a subtler performance than at first meets the eye, with echoes of a more sympathetic man showing through at odd moments.  And then there’s Pallana, whose deceptively expressive features are a joy to watch, his character’s unwavering paranoia amusing and wistful and, ultimately, well justified.  Luna plays Enrique as an adorable puppy, while McBride and Hensley are more stoic, and as Dolores, Saldana’s sunny approach to the character makes her more and more likeable as the movie goes on (it’s also fun to discover that Dolores is a Trekkie).

With all this favourable material allied to a raft of great performances, it comes as no surprise that Spielberg orchestrates everything with consummate ease, employing a lightness of touch that helps elevate Viktor’s plight from personal tragedy to unalloyed victory.  There’s more than a hint of Thirties screwball comedy in The Terminal, especially in Viktor’s confrontations with Dixon, and it’s to Spielberg’s credit that he augments such a contemporary story with such “old-fashioned” elements, and does it so seamlessly.  As with Hanks’ performance, this is one of Spielberg’s less appreciated movies, but one serious misstep aside – would Dixon really have been promoted after he grabbed Viktor by the neck and remonstrated with him? – he hits the movie out of the ballpark.

Rating: 8/10 – ripe for reassessment, The Terminal showcases an actor and a director working completely in synch, and providing their audience with a delightful slice of feelgood entertainment; richly detailed and with a clutch of stand-out moments, this is avowedly superior stuff.

 

Mini-Review: Captain Phillips (2013)

12 Wednesday Mar 2014

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Captain Phillips

D: Paul Greengrass / 134m

Cast: Tom Hanks, Barkhad Abdi, Barkhad Abdirahman, Faysal Ahmed, Mahat M. Ali, Michael Chernus, Catherine Keener, David Warshofsky, Corey Johnson, Chris Mulkey

Based on the attempted hijacking of the freighter ship Maersk Alabama in 2009 by Somali pirates, Captain Phillips is a heart-stopping, adrenaline-charged powerhouse of a movie that grabs hold of its audience from the moment two ominous blips are seen on the Alabama’s radar screen, and doesn’t let go until nearly two hours later. The first time the Somalis attack they are unsuccessful, but the ship’s crew know they’ll be back; it’s just a question of how long. When they do, and they manage to board the ship, so begins a game of cat and mouse between the titular Captain Phillips (Hanks) and the Somali leader Muse (Abdi), a game that escalates when Phillips, Muse and Muse’s three compatriots, end up in the Alabama’s lifeboat heading for Somalia. The navy is called in – will they be able to rescue Phillips unscathed, or will the Somalis reach their home shores instead?

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The answer to both questions is not exactly, and maybe. This is high drama played out at such a pitch that it keeps the audience on the edge of its seat not daring to breathe. Through each twist and turn of the narrative, Greengrass keeps a tight hold on proceedings, ratcheting up the tension until it’s almost unbearable. He’s aided immeasurably by incredible performances by Hanks and Abdi, both equally mesmerising, and both deserving of every accolade they receive. Hanks’ final scene is incredible to watch, a wrenching, pitiless depiction of a man who has gone through so much he’s fighting to remain on top of things and not succeeding; while Abdi convinces as a Somali fisherman who is complex and threatening and naive and proud all at the same time. Of course, all this is down to Billy Ray’s incredible script, by turns thrilling, emotional, nerve-wracking and detailed. The photography by Barry Ackroyd and editing by Christopher Rouse are superb, but this is Greengrass’s towering achievement: his best film yet and easily the most kinetic, charged movie of 2013 – never has the word “execute” been the trigger for an audience to be able to release so much pent-up emotion.

Rating: 9/10 – my movie of the year for 2013 and easily the most exciting thriller of recent years; a powerful experience that lingers long in the memory.

Saving Mr. Banks (2013)

13 Friday Dec 2013

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Saving Mr. Banks

D: John Lee Hancock / 125m

Cast: Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Annie Rose Buckley, Colin Farrell, Paul Giamatti, Ruth Wilson, Bradley Whitford, Jason Schwartzman, B.J. Novak, Rachel Griffiths, Kathy Baker, Ronan Vibert

Based on the true story of Walt Disney’s attempts to secure the film rights to P.L. Travers’ Mary Poppins, Saving Mr. Banks opens with the financially compromised author (Thompson) telling her agent she has absolutely no intention of flying to Los Angeles and letting Disney (Hanks) ruin her creation.  One quick turnaround later and we see Travers arriving in La La Land and being met by her driver for the duration of her stay, Ralph (Giamatti).  One dispiriting car journey (for her) later and she is introduced to the charming and sincere Disney.  Her doubts assuaged for the time being, she agrees to work with the proposed movie’s writers (Whitford, Schwartzman and Novak).  As they work through the script and songs we’ve all come to know – and perhaps love – Travers’ objections remain largely in place, but gradually her resistance is worn down by a combination of the writers’ enthusiasm, Disney’s determination not to renege on a promise made to his daughters twenty years before, and memories of her childhood that resurface during the visit.

It’s these flashbacks that add meat to the otherwise thin story of “a writer taking on the system”.  As portrayed by Thompson – and superbly, I might add – Travers is presented as a bit of an old dragon: scathing, contemptuous of her American “cousins”, rude, condescending and almost completely out of her depth.  Hancock and writers Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith, instead of making the movie a “fish out of water” story where the fish wins out by virtue of personal fortitude and stubbornness, have wisely chosen to look at the reasons for Travers’ animosity towards Disney, and why the character of Mr Banks was so important to her.  As Travers’ back story unfolds through the depiction of her childhood, so we come to learn the fundamental truth behind the characters of Mr Banks and of Mary Poppins herself, and the long-term effect Travers’ childhood has had on her.  These scenes give a much-needed depth to the movie, and allows Thompson to provide a richer, more psychological approach to P.L. Travers than may have been expected.  Thompson dominates the movie, reducing even Tom Hanks to the level of humble onlooker in their scenes together, and gives a masterclass in screen acting, her voice and mannerisms and facial expressions all perfectly pitched to leave the audience in no doubt as to her thoughts and feelings at any time.

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Matching Thompson in terms of screen performance, and presence, is her younger counterpart, Annie Rose Buckley.  With only an episode of Aussie soap Home and Away back in 2010 under her belt, Buckley’s performance as Ginty is intuitive, mesmerising and a minor revelation.  As her scenes transform from pastoral idyllic to domestic unstable, Buckley displays a maturity and command of the material that few actresses her age would be capable of achieving, let alone maintaining, over the course of a two hour movie.  She’s a remarkable find, and all credit to the casting director Ronna Kress for picking her out.

As Disney, Tom Hanks gives a comfortable performance but the script often sidelines him, so that he pops up only now and again to urge on Travers and perform a little light damage control when required.  It’s effectively a supporting role, and one that doesn’t stretch him in any way.  In other roles, Farrell as the inspiration for Mr Banks plays against type for the first half of the movie, while Wilson is given little to do as his wife other than look disappointed or, in one scene, have a five minute breakdown.  Giamatti is good as Travers’ driver, and he provides several deft comic ripostes to Thompson’s sarcastic jibes.  And in perhaps the most sublime casting decision of all, Rachel Griffiths messes with our acceptance of Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins by portraying the “real” Mary.

Saving Mr. Banks is lovely to watch, courtesy of bright, colourful photography by John Schwartzman (half-brother of Jason), and a pleasing recreation both of turn-of-the-20th-century Australia and 60’s Los Angeles.  Disneyland is given an effective retro makeover, and the music by Thomas Newman – incorporating several of the songs from Mary Poppins (1964) – adds extra emotional elements to both storylines.  If there is a lightness of touch, a slight distancing from the more dramatic aspects of Ginty’s childhood, then it should be remembered that this is still a Disney movie, and the studio that works hard to sanitise almost all of its family-oriented movies – and at heart this is still one of them, make no mistake – isn’t about to let people leave the cinema feeling saddened or depressed.  Fortunately, Saving Mr. Banks carries enough emotional heft to offset its more calculated hilarity, and if there are moments where you wonder just how much of it all is true or not, the fact that Disney were banking on a much-loved “product” in Mary Poppins, also informs this movie as well.

Rating: 8/10 – enjoyable, handsomely mounted movie that avoids being as original as say, “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”; and without Thompson in the lead role providing a strong point of reference for the audience, would have struggled to stand out from the crowd of other “true stories” set in Hollywood.

X-Men: Apocalypse and Cinema’s Dependency on Superheroes

10 Tuesday Dec 2013

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The announcement a couple of days ago that Bryan Singer would be directing another X-Men movie, due to be released in 2016, seemed equally exciting and dispiriting at the same time.  When I first heard the news, my reaction was mixed: if the forthcoming Days of Future Past is as good as it looks then another X-Men movie, especially if it involves Apocalypse (a fan favourite), will be worth looking forward to.  But then I also thought, they’re talking about a movie that won’t be here for another three years.  Three years!  Can anyone really be that excited by the prospect?  And then I realised that yes, there probably was: that rare breed of upright ape, studio executives.

Apocalypse

Ever since Marvel went all Phase One on us and released Iron Man (2008), the big studios have lagged behind in their efforts to match the  returns that Marvel have made at the box office (at time of writing, the eight Marvel movies that have made it out of the gate so far – Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), Thor (2011), Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), Marvel’s The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013), and Thor: The Dark World (2013), have amassed over five and a half billion dollars).  That level of success has definitely got the suits at Warner Bros., Sony and Fox practically scrambling to catch up.  So now, in various stages of development we have the follow-up to Man of Steel (2013) which we now know will also feature Batman and Wonder Woman as well as Superman, reboots of Fantastic Four, Daredevil, and the upcoming X-Men movies, as well as the Spider-Man franchise which is going to run to at least four movies and may even spawn some off-shoot movies featuring characters from that particular strand of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

With Marvel committed to a Phase Three that will begin in 2015 with Ant Man, and continue with two movies in 2016 and one in 2017, it seems that we’ll be wading through big-budget superhero movies for some time to come.  And while it’s true Marvel has been canny enough to attract the right talent both behind and in front of the camera – Kenneth Branagh? Did anyone see that coming? – and as a result have garnered a degree of critical acclaim, the fact is that the movies that the majority of people on the planet want to go and see at the moment involve weird men and women in weirder costumes.  Now, I’m not some cineaste who thinks the only good movie is one that examines the plight of the dispossessed or that one ten minute static shot of an actor’s face eclipses any CGI-fuelled spectacle hands down, but I do have to question whether or not we’re losing some kind of perspective here.  Don’t get me wrong, I look forward to seeing a Marvel movie as much as the next person (providing they’re not still living with their mum at the age of forty), but what are we missing when the adventures of a man in a high-tech tin suit, or an ex-wimp with a shiny shield command so much of our attention and excite us so much?

Is it the grand scale on which this particular brand of escapism is served up?  Is it a combination of seeing characters previously only seen to good effect in comic books, now looking incredibly real on the big screen, and having them do all the things we’ve had to settle for seeing in flat old 2D?  Perhaps.  Or is it because the rest of the movies out there are pale and uninteresting in comparison, the skinny kid on the beach to Marvel’s Charles Atlas?  I think it’s all these things, plus one more, one very important part of the whole package that Marvel have done, and continue to do, since Tony Stark first stomped out of that cave in 2008: tell the audience what they can expect next time…and then the time after that.  Not in detail, but just enough to keep their attention from waning, and carefully spaced out between movies so that it’s always there, that knowledge that, like the legendary bus of English urban mythology, there’ll be another one along soon.

Which brings us back to the announcement that in 2016 we can all head down to our local multiplex and revel in the antics of a wheelchair-bound mind reader, a psychotic spoon bender, and their merry bands of malcontents.  If I’m being a bit facetious with my descriptions of Professor Xavier and Magneto, it’s because I can’t help but think it comes back to perspective.  The best film I’ve seen so far this year – by a nautical mile – is Captain Phillips.  It is one of the most gripping, emotional, tension-filled dramas you’re ever likely to see, and despite the high drama depicted, it’s a relatively small-scale movie (until the US Navy arrives).  It’s filmed with an emphasis on tight close-ups and even tighter locations: the bridge of the ship and its confines, and most of all, the lifeboat that houses Phillips and the four Somali pirates for about an hour.  It’s tour-de-force filmmaking, bravura in its style and scope, and an emotional rollercoaster ride to boot; it’s quite simply, breathtaking.  And yet, despite glowing reviews, an Oscar-worthy performance from Tom Hanks, and the exceptional directing talents of Paul Greengrass, more attention will have been paid to some blond bloke with a hammer and his sneaky adopted brother than to the real life story of a captain forced to engage tactically with Somali pirates.

Captain Phillips

Yes, but Marvel are making “entertainment”, I hear you say, their movies don’t have be deep and/or meaningful.  And I would agree with you, except that Marvel themselves are trying their best to make sure their movies have some depth and/or meaning to them.  These are largely tragic heroes, each trapped by fate or destiny into being the heroes that they are, and yet longing for peace, and mostly for themselves.  But ultimately, and in spite of Marvel’s good intentions, the focus will always remain on blowing things up, or knocking things down, or fighting.  The spectacle is what matters most.  Imagine turning up to see the next Thor movie, only to find it’s two hours of Thor and Jane Foster discussing their relationship à la Before Midnight (2013).  The fans would stay away in their millions. Ultimately, Marvel are giving people what they want, and the other studios will follow suit until the sight of yet another superhero crashing unscathed through yet another building is considered passé, and we all move on to the next big genre, whether it’s Westerns, or musicals, or play-doh animation.

For me, the news that Bryan Singer will be directing X-Men: Apocalypse for release in 2016 is neither good nor bad.  At this stage it’s very much an unknown quantity; it may not even happen.  What frightens me most, I guess, is that, already, too many people care about the announcement and the proposed movie for it to be a truly good thing.  Call me an old curmudgeon but if you’re excited by a movie that you won’t see for three years, and you can’t wait for it to get here, then the marketers and the sales guys and the executives and the CEOs have all won the jackpot in advance… only you’ll be providing the winnings.  Opt for a kind of studied indifference instead.  Damn it, make them work really hard for your attention!

Agree?  Disagree?  Feel free to let me know.