All Hail The Hawkmeister!

When certain mega-budget blockbusters crash and burn spectacularly with critics and bat the box office, the naive movie fan in me hopes that these beleaguered films will find a health respect from a sizable cult audience in the years to come. Alas, it is rarely the case as Howard The Duck, The Adventures Of Rocky & Bullwinkle and Hudson Hawk remain pretty much unloved. A pity since all three, especially the later are original and quirky adventure films with humour and imagination to spare.

Hudson Hawk was a vanity project for rising action megastar Bruce Willis in the early 90's derived from a character he co-created with Robert Kraft when fannying around with some jazz jamming bullcrap. Its barking plot has a reformed ex-thief being cohered into stealing some of Leonard Da Vinci's finest works for a world domination plot. The story is irrelevant next to the film's priority of stuffing the running time with as many weird situations, comedy set pieces and bizarro characters as it can possible accommodate. So on top of cappuccino craving Eddie Hawkins (Willis), you've got his deathproof partner Danny Aiello, the dolphin talking undercover nun Andie MacDowell, corrupt CIA chief James Coburn and his trio of chocolate codenamed operatives which include a mute David Caruso, the persuasive Mafia boss Frank Stallone, and scene stealers Richard E Grant and Sandra Bernhard as eccentric, megalomaniac corporation owners. The humour is wildly irreverent, and often absurd in a loony tunes, cartoony kind of way and even veers into musical territory with reditions of old time swing numbers like Swingin' On A Star.

Tonally it's a bit of a mess, not knowing whether it wants to be a Tom & Jerry cartoon, an ingenious caper movie or a hard-nosed 90's action movie complete with ill-fitting, R-rated profanity. But it does give Hudson Hawk a flavor that has never been repeated in cinema, either before or after, and for that we are truly grateful.

Harry Potter & The Shit Your Pants Scary Lady

Since the production company of Hammer Films has been resurrected a couple of years ago they've managed to produce two strong movies with the solid The Resident and the splendid Let Me In remake. With their third release they've started embracing the period horror roots with The Woman In Black, a ghost story set 100 years ago, with unsolved deaths, restless spirits, oddly behaving residents of remote villages and a jolly splendid, spooky, deserted mansion house.

The production feels contemporary but still looks pleasingly period authentic, it's tensely edited and classily told, the acting is fine (including a restrained and largely non-verbal performance from the often stiff Danial Radcliff) and the mystery satisfying...although the ending is somewhat obvious. Great stuff which leads Hammer in the right direction if they are ever to re-embrace their roots doing period, blood soaked Dracula adaptations.

A Hard Boiled Movie For A PG-13 World

Let's be clear about this, John Woo's Hard Boiled is one of the greatest action films ever made. I started to hear about Woo's genre reinventing films like The Killer and A Better Tomorrow from UK film magazines and when the chance to catch his latest at the local Art House Cinema, I jumped at the chance. I was a giggling wreck.
The two handed gun play was cool, the balletic, poetically paced editing jaw dropping and the unmatched, slow-motion gun play electrifying. And the ultra-violence, eclipsing western culture's controversial Rambo bodycount and carnage in its opening shootout alone, was music to my eyeballs.

Chow Yun-Fat's toothpick chewing, ultra cool Tequila is a legend, plain and simple. Only a man of his superior movie star charm could pull off a character so cocky and arrogant and make him the guy you want to cheer for. The rest of the cast do their best to keep up but this is Fat's show.

But this film is all about the action. The secret is the over the top, fantasy gun play. The shoot outs are played out like in the imagination of a 7 year old kid; everything occurs in a slowed down version of reality where guns don't require reloading, bullets can be anticipated and dodged, all bullet hits to the good guys are merely inconvenient flesh wounds and impact wounds occur with all the ferocity of a liquid crimson Hiroshima blast.

Hard Boiled may not be the greatest action film in the world (Die Hard has that distinction in my book) but it may very well have the best action IN a film. And for an action fan, that's quite a profound statement to make.

We're Following His Leadah!

Could Blue Thunder be the most 80's movie ever made? Think about it. John Badham, of Short Circuit / War Games fame, directs with his trademark crowd-pleasing efficiency, there's a great electo-synth score courtesy of Arthur B Rubinstein, it's part buddy movie (48 Hrs, Lethal Weapon) with the teaming of Roy Scheider rebellious veteran cop and Daniel Stern's eager rookie, it prominently features a high tech super vehicle (Knight Rider, Airwolf) and it has a lead character traumatised by the Vietnam War (Firefox, First Blood).

And it's also brilliant. This is fast paced, stylish action thriller with tons of memorable characters (Warren Oates gruff police chief and Candy Clark's spunky girlfriend Kate), iconic scenes (Schneider using his wrist-watch to check his sanity) and a gloriously slimy turn from Malcom McDowell as the movies antagonist ("Catch you later!") It being a Badham film, things go a bit bullshit in the final act as airforce jets fire missiles into an non-evacuated metropolis (to be repeated in Die Hard 4.0) but it's so slick you just get caught up in the action. Brilliant.

It's ATwister, It's A Twister!!!

After the monumental Speed, director Jan De Bont wisely chose Twister as his follow up allowing for him to employ many of the tricks that made the Keanu Reeves blockbuster work on his new venture. Therefore Michael Critchton's script gets an uncredited Joss Whedon re-write allowing for a tough and cynical lead female (Helen Hunt), a instinctive and charismatic male hero (legend Bill Paxton) and a witty, misfit bunch of supporting characters. Like Speed, Twister uses a similar structure of ever escalating set pieces (five, one for each tornado) that ramps up the destruction and tension as the film progresses, only this time the Twister represents the whirlwind relationship of the leads.

There's a stunning Marc Mancina score, vast American heartland locations, rich photography, a decent selection of soundtrack songs and some great stuntwork on show. Best of all, De Bont ratchets up the fast, low travelling helicopter shots that translate to an audience the feeling of pure exhilaration. The more he does it (and he does it a lot) the more exciting and involving stormchasers quest becomes. In fact, his trademark helicopter shots are so effective that he scuppered his own career when he dumped them for insipid CGI-fest The Haunting. The twat.

The Vengeance Of Nicholas Cage's Flaming Noggin'

I'm not the greatest fan of the first Ghost Rider film. For a film that is both a super hero adventure AND a dark, twisted supernatural horror story, the original production team opted to go with a family friendly, brightly coloured, comic book yarn. The results felt like a watered down, missed opportunity that was only enlivened with Nicholas Cage's inspired performance as Johnny Blaze.

For the sequel, the direction has been turned over to Crank's masters of disaster Neveldine and Taylor who recognise that to make Ghost Rider work as a cinematic concept you have to embrace to wacky, nutty concept. Although Ghost Rider Spirit Of Vengeance is still a PG-13 film, it looks and feels like an R-Rated action/horror/thriller. The stark eastern European landscapes are more edgy than the safe cityscapes of the first film, the hand held camerawork make the audience feel less as ease and the imagery is more raw and textured.

Aside from the expected visual inventiveness of the directors most of the films success comes down to The Rider himself. Nicholas Cage doubles down on his bonkers portrayal from part 1 and gets to play Ghost Rider himself this time (rather than a nameless stuntman), meaning the flame skulled one is off his tits on Cageness. Secondly, the costume design and effects used to realise Ghost Rider are far more effective this time, making him feel a realistic and scary supernatural presence.

Of course the more bonkers approach may put off more mainstream audiences while the camerawork, photography and locations occasionally lend the film a cheap vibe (at least until the ace effects bling things up). But it's these very things that gives this superior sequel its distinct visual signature. There's a moment which sums up Spirit Of Vengeance you may have seen at the end of its trailer which show what it's like when Ghost Rider has to take a piss. In the movie, as he's urinating, he turns to camera and grins signalling to the audience the irreverent, cheeky direction the franchise is heading in. Of course, if you're in on the joke, that is the moment the movie will connect with you directly....and that's just fine with me.

You'd Be A Muppet To Miss The Muppets

I love the Muppets having grown up on Sesame Street, The Muppet Show and Fraggle Rock in my youth. That childish adoration has turned into a confident adult appreciation of Kermit and co upon seeing A Muppet Christmas Carol in the early 90’s when I realised the screening was packed full of like minded grown ups with very silly brains.

Their latest excursion, The Muppets, pretty much follows the modern trend of doing a combined reboot and sequel, essentially reinventing the Muppets for a new generation while acknowledging their past history. Jason Segal, Amy Adams and new Muppet Walter are the viewpoint from which the movie is told from but there familiar Muppet cast of Kermit, Piggy, Fozzie and company are very much the centre of proceedings.

It has a great, inoffensive family friendly tone that is interwoven by the superior comic timing and post-modern irreverence that has consistently drawn an adult audience to the childish puppet premise. The film is full of surprises including a bunch of crowd pleasing cameos, huge song and dance numbers, Hollywood in-jokes and even a character arc for Animal.

If there's a downside it's that The Muppet Show itself, which takes up the last third of the movie practically stalls the films plot and isn't as entertaining as the scenes that preceded it, but this is only a minor complaint for a film which successfully reintroduces the likes of Gonzo and Rizzo to a new generation.

Tower Heist Lacks Feist

There’s a certain expectation one gets from a Brett Ratner directed film; one of a solid, glossy and professional studio entertainment movie that is in no way fully satisfactory. That can be applied to his thrillers (Red Dragon), super hero movies (X-Men – The Last Stand) and, as is more often the case with Ratner flicks, action-comedies (Rush Hour). And that’s a pretty accurate description of Tower Heist, a comedy heist movie that’s neither not very funny, not very clever or not very exciting.

Of course, this being Ratner, I can’t accuse it of being awful either since it’s got an impressive cast including Ben Stiller, Alan Alda and Matthew Brodrick, looks like a million dollars, has a classy, old fashioned score and has a refreshingly fun tone. But Stiller’s charisma is too low key to really make the ensemble gel, the caper itself is too brisk and the obstacles overcome too easily and the script too soggy to be consistently amusing.

Tower Heist does have one major weapon in it’s arsenal and that’s Eddie Murphy. Damn, Eddie is one funny guy, and it’s his wise-cracking, fast-talking professional criminal that rises far and above the averageness off the rest of the film. It’s a shame he’s not in it that much.

The Breakfast Club Chronicle

All genres must push the boundaries if they are to remain fresh and interesting whether they are Westerns, Space Operas or Crime movies. Most genres, like the Superhero movie, are content to play the safe ground and generally rework the basic origin story like Iron Man, Spider-Man or even more unusual variations like Thor or Captain America. But some explore the genre in different directions like how superheroes affect a person’s personality or how they influence the world around them. With the resurgence of the genre just over a decade ago some truly groundbreaking films have emerged such as Unbreakable, Watchmen, Kick Ass and Super which have sought to explore superheroics in a new light.

The latest film to achieve these great heights is Chronicle, from writer/director Josh Trank. it does this primarily by blending familiar genres in a fresh and interesting ways, so not only is it a super-hero origin film with a varied trio of high school kids gaining telekinetic powers exponentially, but it’s also a hand held, found footage style film which lends the drama an air of authenticity and immediacy to everything. It also feels right at home in the horror genre too as the story explores the corrupting influence of unbridled power on an unstable mind. Then add to that a huge dollop of teen growing pains and you’ve got a mixture that has plenty of potential.

The execution is also superb with a threesome of teenage lads come across as likable and human enough to separate themselves from slasher film fodder, it’s inventively directed and amazingly, economically written so that it gets right to the core of the film without the viewer feeling short changed. For a staggeringly low budget film the effects are very impressive, the Seattle setting refreshing and it’s all admirably character based.

Of course it’s never quite escapes it’s origins being reminiscent of the Star Wars sequels (specifically Anakin’s journey), Captain America (if we had followed the Red Skull’s journey) or closer still the 70’s classic The Medusa Touch which had uber-scary Richard Burton as a telekinetic menace. But by being handled with such care, energy and intelligence Chronicle transcends them all.

Wolfpuncher

Coming from the same director, star and studio as 2010's bland A-Team movie, my thoughts of a reteaming of Joe Carnahan, Liam Neeson and Twentieth Century Fox wasn't anything to get too excited about. However, Fox are on a roll after a critically strong show in 2012, Carnahan has regained the mojo he demonstrated in his gritty debut Narc and Neeson dials it up to 11 for their new film, The Grey, which may well rank among the very best come years end.

The Grey is basically a survival movie with the lucky half dozen oil workers who made it out of an aircraft crash in the barren Alaskan wilderness having to fight off the advances of a killer pack of native wolves. Like any survival story it's essentially a slasher film, with the characters getting killed off one by one as they attempt to fight off and evade the predators intent on tearing them limb from limb.
On this level it works very well indeed with the animals kept in the shadows with tight close ups, silhouettes, shadows and terrifying howls creating the tension rather than shoddy CGI creations this era has led us to expect. In fact the sound design is award winning standard capturing the soundscape of the harsh environment perfectly. In addition the gritty, rugged photography makes the film fantastically cinematic, much more so than it's inevitable small budget Vancouver shoot would normally show.

The cast are all strong, bickering amongst themselves in the best horror film tradtions to create even more suspense as starvation, injuries and severely low temperatures threaten to kill off the group as much as the hungry doggies. Neeson, not doing as much wolf punching as the trailer might suggest, is simply brilliant as the broken man who is best placed among the group to lead them to safety. This is the Neeson we want to see, not the vacant Muppet he was in The Phantom Menace.
Carnahan is also on top form delivering a movie that's very experimental with its sound design and editing to deliver something that's a touch more arty than initially anticipated.

But it's the strong spiritual subtext that runs through the story that really pushes this to the next level. The themes of how you deal with life and death recall The Shawshank Redemption, The Wrath Of Khan, Sucker Punch and Thelma & Louise and are present from the start right through to it's beautiful, idiot-bothering, ambiguous conclusion.

Atmospheric, tense and wonderfully haunting I can't wait to watch The Grey again.

It's Dumas, Idiot, Not Dumb-Ass!

The Three Musketeers author Alexandre Dumas would be rolling in his grave, not to mention the legion of purists Dumas fans, if he ever got to see hackmeister Paul WS Anderson's loose adaptation of his novel. It still retains the fun and the epic sweep of that adventure tale but it's now been instilled with unashamedly contemporary characterisations, bullshit slow motion action sequences and a jolly large dose of steampunk. Coming from the director of Resident Evil, Soldier and Death Race this turn to the dumb is not at all surprising although the end result is, if I'm honest, for despite it being filled with flaws from top to bottom, the 2011 version is very much a guilty pleasure movie.

First the bad news. The musketeers themselves are good, but not great. Ray Stevenson, Matthew MacFadyen and Luke Evans are all fine in their distinctly different roles, but they're too subdued...not quite embracing the daft spirit of the film. Logan Lerman is OK as D'Artagnan, but he's only about a 15% improvement over the shaggy haired Hayden Christensen model from Revenge Of The Sith. Oh, and it's got James Corden in it.
The other truly weak point is the mass of very obvious, poorly rendered CGI environments that clutter the movie. Like the main cast, they're fine and are never, ever offensively bad...but you can't help but think that another hour of render time might have made things a bit more convincing.

Everything else is fine. Milla Jovovich steals the show as a sultry assassin, Madds Mikkelsen is as suitably menacing as Gabriella Wilde is pretty, Christoph Waltz is far too good for this kind of thing and Orlando Bloom is clearly having a ball hamming it up as the Duke Of Buckingham. It's got scale and a big enough budget behind it to back it up, the story is well paced and structured and there are some memorable sequences along the way to hold the attention.

What makes this work is the tone. Unlike other Paul WS Anderson efforts that take themselves far too seriously, Musketeers knows it's absolute, 100%, pure, undiluted bullshit and it revels in the frothy, fun, unrealistic, over the top situations and occurrences. It may not what is considered a 'good' movie by any ones standards and I couldn't defend it with any great passion, but it is very entertaining and for that I salute it!

Jumping Hungry Rabbit Seeks Justice

Another month passes and another direct to video Nicholas Cage film has appeared for us to assess his downward career path. To be fair, he is at least working with a bunch of still relevant actors like Nicole Kidman, January Jones and Guy Pearce as well as strong directors like Joel Schulmacher and Roger Donaldson (even if their A-list careers have long disappeared). His latest is a high concept thriller called Seeking Justice (the original title Hungry Rabbit Jumps is much more appropriate to the story and much more memorable) and is a twist on the tired revenge thriller sub-genre.

This is solid stuff and would have been a respectably grossing theatrical hit in the early 90's when thriller like this (Indecent Proposal, Unlawful Entry, Pacific Heights) was king, but in the era of found footage horror and superhero flicks this just comes across as bland and unoriginal. But at least with Mr Donaldson at the wheel, this is at least well made stuff.

Wicker Tree (Ed Wood Wood Wood Not Included)

Not being a particularly great admirer of British films in the pre-Lock Stock era, it took me bloody ages to get round to watching The Wicker Man, but when I did I loved what I saw. Odd and disturbing with that classic, downbeat ending here was a film that was distinctly British that wasn't afraid to 'go weird'. Now, nearly 40 years after that film's release, director Robin Hardy returns to direct a straight-up sequel called The Wicker Tree.

Hardy maintains a 70's directing style which makes it feel right at home with the original and Wicker Tree still retains that oddness and dark humourous streak that defined the first film. It's got a strong premise too with a born again, virgin, Christian singing superstar being lured to the village of Tressock to convert it's residents. The great thing about this sequel is that we're in on the secret for the beginning and so (much like Rob Zombie's House Of 1000 Corpses) we're siding with the locals as opposed to the irritating Jesus freaks right from the start. Also, the film enters into an interesting exploration of faith, pitching one organised religion against another with not an atheist to be seen.

But the film has it's problems. Its horribly old fashioned view of a wee, quaint Scotland are frankly embarrassing and that's also reflected in its cliched portrayal of bible-belt southern USA township. And despite and attempt to mount tension by having the hapless heroine and her clueless boyfriend try to avoid their unhealthy fates, the film predictable stumbles at it's conclusion when the plot has run out of steam.

Well worth checking out and not nearly as bad as had been rumoured (or the ghastly Nic Cage remake from a few years back).

Johnny English Reburied

Oh, Rowan Atkinson, we love you but you don't half make some right shit. All we really want from you is a Blackadder movie, epic, crude and very, very mean spirited. But all we get from you are more Bean films and Johnny English movies...always years after the last film had come out and way beyond the point where anybody gives a shit about the character to warrant a sequel. But hey ho, Atkinson's Bond spoof persona is back in Johnny English Reborn, sequelising a weak spy parody that had way too few gags to seriously consider itself a "comedy".

This unwanted sequel has, what I'd like to call, The Red Dwarf Factor. Red Dwarf was (and still is actually) a UK produced, space-bound, science fiction sitcom..and pretty darned funny it was too. Unfortunately, it fell into the trap, especially in it's middle seasons, of taking itself too seriously as a sci-fi show, and letting the comedy elements take more of a backseat. That's what happens with Reborn as it so desperately wants to be a Bond movie, complete with chase sequence and fight scene every 5 minutes that the jokes begin to disappear from the narrative. It's well produced, has a great cast (Dominic West, Gillian Anderson, the English rose Rosamund Pike), Bondian locations and strong effects and score. But the comedy is too hit and miss. There's not enough gags to fill the running time and what there is has been mishandled by the director and editor.

Now then Rowan, about that Blackadder movie?

February Pick N Mix