Adventures Of The Chubby Rapper

Given that the original xXx made about $280 million at the worldwide box office it came as a bit of a surprise that Sony Pictures wanted to ,pursue a sequel. But pursue they did, this time without the director/star combo of Rob Cohen and Vin Diesel. At first glance their replacements, Lee Tamahori and Ice Cube, seemed like second rate choices. After all, Tamahori had just directed Die Another Day, the worst Bond movie since A View To A Kill and Ice Cube was a B-list actor, not to mention a chubby rapper. It came as a bit of a shock then that the sequel, xXx - State Of The Union (or xXx2 - The Next Level to give its international title) was a vast improvement over the original.

The first xXx movie wanted to be Bond so bad you could taste it on every frame of film. xXx, right from the start, realises it's never going to compete and so relishes the chance to revel in it's own identity; that of an ultra bullshit Spyz In Da Hood action flick. Minimal plot, amped up anti-authoritarian attitude, loud hip hop, a bullshit but fantastic Marco Beltramio score, ultra glossy photography, unbelievable gadgets, zero character depth, and huge expensive action sequences every few minutes...all better paced, choreographed and directed that the first film.

There's glamor in the shape of Nona Gaye (urgh!) and Sunny Mabrey (yummy!), Willem Defoe once again goes on bad guy duties (so reliable in Speed 2 and Spider-man), Scott Speedman blandly chases Ice Cube around in the familiar story of "good guys being set up and having to clear their name while law enforcer discovers their innocence and teams up with them to bring down the true villain" and Sam Jackson is back for more glaring and snappy one-liners ("I told you to shoot the bitch!")

Best of all is star Ice Cube as the new xXx. He might be a little out of shape, but he's got more 'fuck you' attitude and raw charisma than (the normally good) Vin Diesel displayed first time around. xXx2 might be the dumbest, most expensive blockbuster since forever, but at least it knows what it is and positively celebrates its dumbness.

Titan Puncher - A Greek God With A Particular Set Of Skills

Wrath Of The Titans, the direct sequel to the 2010 remake of Clash Of The Titans is a bit of a mixed bags of treasures when compared to its predecessor. Some elements are reliably the same; the script is dire, the dialogue weak and simplistic, the production design impressive, the tone gritty and the effects for the most part are pretty stunning. From then on it's a case of swings and roundabouts.

On the upside, star Sam Worthington is allowed to be himself a little more with a gruffer warrior persona, a rougher round the edges, shaggier look, a welcome twinkle in the eye and most thankfully a notable lack of effort to hide the Australian accent. I stand by my opinion that Worthington is not A-list leading man material but the decision to let Worthington be Worthington at least allows for a more badass hero. Director Jonathan (Battle Los Angeles) Liebesman delivers a more raw and rugged film with more hand held camera work injected into proceedings. This allows for a more realistic and immediate feeling fantasy film rather than the blander style which accompanied the bulk of the first film. Toby Kebbell, the lovely Rosamund Pike and a hilarious Bill Nighy (recalling Oliver Reed's fine work in The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen) make up for the loss of the larger ensemble in Clash, while Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes and Danny Huston get more time in the plot to deliver their particular brand of gravitas than last time around.

The script, while shallow and predictable, is at least more streamlined this time round, with a greater emphasis on the weight of events on Neeson and Worthington. There's also a stronger Shakespearean subtext to the script about the importance of family, especially father/son bonds as shown between Zeus and his sons Ares and Perseus and Perseus and his son Helius, which adds a further emphasis on character. The stripped down story (no fannying around in throne rooms here) means there's less time put aside for terrible dialogue and more time for scrapping with monsters and baddies. Talking of which, the action is much more effective than in Clash. Liebesman's camera work gives the action a much needed edginess and he's wise enough not to over cut the frenetic fighting sequences, with an early confrontation with a Chimera being particularly well handled.

Of course there's a negative side to all this. The grittier, more dour design and photography ethic make Wrath look very cheap looking, despite the massive $150 million budget. Kebbell and Nighy aside, Wrath is remarkably humourless and the story as a whole is completely lacking in tension being a predictable A to B to C quest plot.

Viewed with the right mindset (this is a big budget bullshit action movie, plain and simple) Wrath is throughly enjoyable fluff. Big on spectacle and stuffed with action, this feels like what Ghost Rider 2 is to the first Ghost Rider...just without the 99 tons of crazy. If you plan on seeing Wrath Of The Titans, please remember to remove your brain at the kiosk stand to ensur a fun time, otherwise avoid.

Invasion Of The Substitute Teacher Snatchers

It's always great to return to a film you had a good time with, many years after you last saw it, and be blown away by just how great it is. So it is with Robert Rodriquez's The Faculty, a school set reworking of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers as mind controlling parasites take control of a Ohio High School's teaching faculty, swiftly followed by the students.

Several things immediately stand out when rewatching the movie. Rodriguez's direction is fantastically slick and ungimmicky when not dwelling in his usual arena of kiddy flicks and exploitation action movies, the cast is beyond impressive being a who's who of TV and cinema talent ranging from Laura (Dead Like Me) Harris, Josh (Black Hawk Down) Hartnett, Jordana (Fast & Furious) Brewster, Clea (Identity) DuVall and Elijah (Lord Of The Rings) Wood...and that's just the kids!

But it's the script by Kevin Williamson that really impresses. It's not just the way he weaves post-modern references of alien invasion in pop culture like Robert Heinlein's The Puppet Masters, The Thing and Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. There's the Breakfast Club ensemble of teens who work out their issues during the crisis, there's the escapism of having pupils fight the authority figures of the teaching staff, and the effortless way the separate strands of the massive ensemble gradually team up (whether it's the teachers or the kids) before the two groups openly go head to head with the fate of the world at hand. Each of the brilliantly cast teens is made even more relatable by making them isolated loners whether it's the new girl, the lesbian/goth, the nerd, the bitch, etc. It's a fantastically structured movie that's focused on character while weaving it's familiar alien possession narrative that's made all the more engrossing with some top notch effects and plot twists.

Sod off Scream franchise, The Faculty rules.

X Marks The Slut

Poor Sony Pictures. When legal action prevented them from getting hold of distribution rights to Eon Production's long running and highly successful James Bond franchise back in the nineties they endeavored to forge their own globetrotting spy franchise in 2002 with xXx. Sony's twist on the spy genre concept was to have the inverse of Bond, so instead of a high class government trainer agent you got an streetwise, rebellious, anti-authority type who could infiltrate all those scuzzy down and dirty organisations the tuxedo wearing Bond could not.

Hiring the lava hot double act of director Rob Cohen and star Vin Diesel (fresh off of mega hit The Fast And The Furious) Sony pooped out a stunningly average action flick that seldom competed with the franchise they hoped to compete with. There's nothing particularly bad about xXx but there's little that's exceptional either. Rob Cohen is a hack, plain and simple, and what visual flair he has seems forced rather than a natural outcome of the storytelling. Vin Diesel too feels like he's coasting through proceedings, with his character lacking the super charged levels of 'fuck you' the xXx premise promised. Also, for a grand scale action flick most of the set pieces fall flat, despite some impressive stunt work on display.

But there are glimmers of genius. The rock soundtrack (including Rammstein, Queens Of The Stone Age and Drowning Pool) amps up the attitude, composer Randy Edelman delivers a strong spy moteif to accompany the heroics, Sam Jackson struts his stuff as NSA boss Gibbons and the final boat/car chase to defuse the end-of-the-world-Armageddon-device is the one action sequence that truly delivers in terms of thrills, pacing, stunts, emotion and gadgets. Best of all is leading lady Asia Argento whose performance as undercover Russian agent is perhaps the very essence and definition of the word slut. You many not take much away from the limp xXx, but the sultry sluttiness of Argento's Eastern European vixen is certainly one of them.

Not Over The (Jonah) Hill

The current trend in R-rated comedies has been a bit hit and miss off late with Bridemaids and The Change Up hitting the mark while Horrible Bosses, The Hangover Part II and Bad Teacher misfired or left the audience writhing in mirth free agony. As such, my expectations for Jonah Hill vehicle The Sitter were not particularly high. Thankfully, director David Gordon Green has managed to overcome the blip that was 2011's Your Highness and regain his Pineapple Express vibe.

The Sitter is the familiar tale of Babysitting gone awry, with good natured bur selfish slacker Jonah Hill babysitting for his neighbours three kids while his single mum goes off on a date. In true Hollywood tradition he inadvertently manages to sort out both his and the troublesome kids issues out while dealing with a variety of issues from sharting to ripping off drug dealers....and there's a very mild rom-com element courtesy of the dead-eyed but pretty Kylie Bunbury.

What matters most off all is that The Sitter is often very funny. Crude, irreverent and also a touch quirky (you've gotta love Sam Rockwell's ultra gay drug den) with a laid back but engaging turn from Jonah Hill who seems to have this smart, streetwise guy in a fat nerds body down pat if his recent Oscar nomination is anything to go by.
A pleasant and welcome surprise.

King Corman

Roger Corman is a legend in the film making community. Not necessarily because of the quality of films he's written, produced and directed over the years, but more because of the infamy of his ultra-low-budget output, the sheer volume of his exploitational product and the admirable length of his career. The documentary Corman's World - Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel explores Corman's life in movies from the early days through the fifties, sixties and seventies with insightful interviews from the man himself and his wife (also his writing and producing partner) Julie.

What's perhaps more impressive than his movies is that of the career opportunities his production outfits have supported and kick started over the decades. Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, Joe Dante, Jonathan Demme are on hand to recall the stories of their first directing gigs under Corman's nurturing gaze not to mention Jack Nicholson, Dick Miller, Robert De Niro, Peter Fonda and William Shatner who got a big break under Corman's watch.

Add to that the likes of exploitation hounds Quentin Tarantino, Eli Roth, Paul WS Anderson and Gale Ann Hurd in recent or archive interview footage and you've got a fun 90 minute biography into one of Hollywood's biggest mavericks.

Feasting On The Hunger Games

Ever since the Twilight series was adapted into a franchise of dire teen-friendly movies, Hollywood has been attempting to capture the public's imagination once more with the next big, youth-fiction thing. We've had Beastly, I Am Number Four and Red Riding Hood all failing to recapture that elusive spark, mainly because they're not very good. Now, along comes The Hunger Games, an adaptation of the first book in Suzanne Collin's youth orientated science fiction trilogy.

Given the dire nature of the films that have filled the needs and wants of the demographic so far, Hunger Games is startlingly excellent. This is great, all round film making from top to bottom which seeks to service Collin's source story than the drippy romantic urges of some naive adolescents. Bringing on writer/director Gary Ross was a smart move by the producers since his was the mind behind Pleasentville, a great piece of thought-provoking fantasy, which was told in a style dictated to by the story as opposed to the dubious imagination of a music video director's vision.

Hunger Games is handled with maturity, not dumbed down for an audience weaned on Transformers or Twilight films. The directoral style is varied and often experimental, often recalling the pre-Star Wars work of George Lucas on THX 1138 (which also dealt with an oppressive, futuristic dystopia) and the writing smart enough to allow for restraint in the dialogue, bravely preferring to let the visuals inform the audience.

The cast is equally impressive. Woody Harrelson brings a roguish nonchalance to the hero's mentor, Donald Sutherland brings authority and a serene, cold-hearted ruthlessness to his Presidential role, Elizabeth Banks is fantastic as the most shallow rich-person in the world while Wes Bently is Wes Bentley (meh!). Liam Hemsworth gets to stand round brooding manfully, but at least he's got 10 times the screen presence of Taylor Launtner in this kind of thing. Josh Hutcherson is pretty low key in what is essentially the male love interest role...but his performance pretty much suits the role he's playing. But this is Jennifer Lawrence's film from start to finish. She's already proven she's got the acting chops from her Oscar nominated performance in Winter's Bone, but she really steps up the pace to demonstrate she's got the charisma and star wattage to carry a blockbuster motion picture. Her Katniss Everdeen is both strong but vulnerable, skilled but flawed and impulsive yet patient. It's her eyes we discover this fantasy world through and without being able to empathise with her, the drama (of which there is considerable quantities) would just fall completely flat.

The post-apocalyptic world Katniss inhabits is simply designed yet utterly believable, the CGI strong although seldom needed, the action tense and gripping and the narrative along the lines of The Running Man or Rollerball is compelling.

Ignore the hype and the fact this is adapted from novels aimed at a youth audience. This is a serious film, intelligently made, spectacularly acted with a mature subject matter and themes. Like all good science fiction Hunger Games passes comment over the world we live in such as youths being sent off to do combat for its government for an unnecessary cause, oppressed undemoratic government oppressing the masses, shocking, manipulated reality TV to distract the masses from the real problems of society as well as drawing attention to the ever increasing wealth divde between the ultra rich and the distressingly poor. In many ways the timing of The Hunger Games release is apt in part because it becomes firmly part of the Occupy generation.

Of course many will either be unaware or choose to ingnore the warnings contained within The Hunger Games, it is after all the survival tale of a resourceful young woman, but it is comforting that young people are choosing to watch something this insightful in their masses.