Safe As Houses

Not only does Safe House have strong performances from it’s super star leads, Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds, but it’s got a great supporting cast in Vera Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson, Robert Patrick, Sam Sheppard and Liam Cunningham. It comes as a surprise then that having attracted a large number of quality actors that the script for safe house is derivative and predictable.

In fact, Ryan Reynolds made the same story a few years back with an inexperienced Government Agent having to protect a ‘criminal’ from trained assassins only to have a crisis of conscious about his superiors. That film strove to be original with an ending that was pounchy and memorable. Safe House plays it safe for the most part despite some edgy action film-making in the grainy photography and Bourne shakey-cam on show. Solid.

Reign Of The Evil (Bitch) Queen

After the childish bluster of Julia Roberts in Mirror Mirror recently it comes as quite a relief that Rupert Sanders new take on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale is light years better in quality. Following the recent trend in trying to ‘Nolan up’ a property by making it more dark and reality based (as Christopher Nolan did with Batman Begins) Snow White & The Huntsman grounds the fairy tale as a medieval story of oppression and revolution in a land where magic, trolls and fairies feel as real as war, taxes and mud.

The result is a dark, mature and highly atmospheric epic that’s far more enjoyable than I’d hoped. While there’s no great depth to the story (this is the archetypal heroes journey transposed to the Snow White lore) it is pleasingly slow and deliberate in it’s pacing, has many artistic flourishes to admire (some experimental editing and camera techniques) and Sanders has a remarkable eye for conjuring fresh and interesting visuals. His simple compositions are balanced out by rich texture in the production design and photography, the effects are stunning and practically flawless (courtesy of Rhythm & Hues) and James Newton Howard’s score lush score ranges from moody to uplifting.

The impressive cast deliver great work with Kristen Stewart fine as Snow White although you can’t help but think that a ‘Jennifer Lawrence’ type couldn’t have been more effective. Chris Hemsworth, complete with convincing Scots accent proves that Thor was no accident and demonstrates he’s a fully fledged leading man as the tragic and roguish Huntsman while Charlize Theron amps up the movie tenfold whenever she’s on screen. Sporting a flawless British accent, she’s the very essence of beauty personified…fitting for a character who values perception of her outer beauty above all else. With a performance from quietly menacing to eye bulging theatrics, Theron should be awarded for villain of the year if such a category were to exist in any revered film academy around the globe.

The film makers have to be admired from vering away from a Twilight-esque love triangle subplot meaning Snow White retains it’s integrity by staying restrained, subtle and quietly affecting. A wonderfully cinematic and arty reinterpretation of a familiar story, Narnia fluff this is not.

Alienating Prometheus

As a film geek, Prometheus is exactly the type of film you dread; a highly anticipated epic that fails to meet level of quality one reasonably expected of it. Disappointing in other words. After two decades of evil film studio Twentieth Century Fox fannying around with weak Alien sequels (Alien Resurrection) and pathetic crossover prequels (AvP Requiem) it was impossible not to get excited when it was announced that Sir Ridley Scott would be returning to the Alien universe that he created back in 1979 with a loose prequel story. Not to mention Mr Scott, a science fiction visionary, would be returning to the genre 30 years after Blade Runner cemented him as one of the great cinema artists of all time.

Prometheus is a mess. A beautiful, mesmerizing, gripping, thoroughly enjoyable, frustrating mess of a movie. It’s been mentioned before in other reviews, but Prometheus most feels like the Alien 3 of the three decade old Xenomorph franchise. That 1992 sequel has great ideas, fantastic set pieces and was undoubtedly a gorgeous (in a grim looking way) piece of stylistic film making by debut director David Fincher. But, much like Prometheus, it had a large cast of characterless characters that you couldn’t tell from one another and couldn’t care less about who were there simply as monster fodder. It also had a lazy, under-developed script where stupid characters did crazy, stupid stuff because no one could be arsed to apply logic to the story as it developed.

To be fair most of the problems with Prometheus lie with Damon (Lost) Lindelof’s half assed excuse of a screenplay. It starts off promisingly enough with the mission, the themes, the characters and the locations all being introduced very well indeed. Things begin to fall apart as the intrepid Prometheus crew enter the alien structures where they hope to encounter mankind’s makers, an alien race thought to have seeded Earth thousands of years ago. For a hardcore scientific expedition with a corporate company board member in charge, the team pay little attention to procedure (or even common sense) in a likely hostile environment. Therefore the head of the expedition does little to lead her team (after assertively making the point that she’s in charge), scientist wonder off and get lost, disregard orders about removing protective helmets, not touching potentially dangerous artefacts or re-entering their own spacecraft regardless of contamination risks. Even Michael Fassbender’s robot is allowed to go unsupervised to collect biological samples, given time to study it and then go unchecked to experiment with the samples on his fellow crewmates (all with his boss tucked away on the very same spaceship…he no mad, he crazy!)

But that’s just the beginning of the script problems. The best of the characters manage to be two dimensional at best, and that includes Noomi Rapace’s lead scientist, with the rest being a sea of nobodies waiting to die. To its credit Prometheus does toy with lots of concepts such as where did mankind come from, science and faith, what it means to be human, and the nature of life from birth, evolution, procreation, offspring, old age and death. It’s all good stuff to be sure and it’s even more impressive that this is being dealt with in a mainstream science fiction blockbuster from Twentieth Century Fox of all people, but with such little thought having been given to script structure few if any of these ideas are explored to any degree of satisfaction. You only have to look at Christopher Nolan’s Inception or Joss Whedon’s Cabin In The Woods or even Scott’s own Blade Runner to see how a film with multiple thematic layers can work effortlessly. Even the overall story which, after raising the most alarming and surprising question in the entire movie, is effectively ignored at the very end in favour of blatantly setting up a direct sequel during its cop out conclusion. Therefore Prometheus, entertaining though it is, feels like a film without an ending. It even has the cheap-ass audacity to throw in a sell-out Alien reference in a cheesy mid-credits scene at the movie’s end.

Editing is another huge problem in Prometheus. The first issue is in the overall pacing of the film. Individual scenes work just fine and it’s in the individual parts that the film works the best. But, when viewed as a whole, characters disappear from the narative for long stretches when we ought to be aware of their actions with regards to everything else that’s going on. There’s one sequence where an imperilled Noomi requires urgent medical assistance and you’d swear from the way it was edited she was the only person on the spaceship. Earlier the film is so busy following the adventures of robot Fassbender, Captain Elba and CEO Theron that Noomi practically disappears from her own story. There seem to be major lost opportunities when editing the action as well. A Thing-like creature turns up to terrorise the crew but it’s extremely unclear which character is the threat, a storm sequence starts out well but ends in a confusing muddle of jostling space helmets and the climactic end game scenario is so devoid of alternative outcomes that all suspense has been stripped from the most epic moment of the entire film.

In terms of how Prometheus relates to the rest of the Alien franchise it is pleasingly distant in tone enough to form it’s own identity. There’s a grander, more awe inspiring feel to the film that’s echoed in the production design, effects and the lush score by Marc Streitenfeld which sets the story up as less of a horror film and more of a grander, serious science fiction spectacle along the lines of 2001. That means, despite the aggressive creatures hunting the crew, that Prometheus is less scary than Alien and less action packed than Aliens and that’s cool as it’s doing is own thing. The film does go out of its way to include as many of Alien’s story beats as possible such as the expedition to an unknown world, the shady company agenda, the seemingly untrustworthy android, ‘egg’ chambers, impregnation, body horror, lifeboats with hidden nooks and crannies and the obligatory attempt to prevent the danger from getting back to Earth. This gives Prometheus a strong connection to Alien and it feels familiar, yet different, in so many ways including how the film was designed visually…but in terms of story structure, James Cameron’s Aliens did this so much more intelligently.

My final problem is with casting. Noomi Rapace is fine in the lead role; she’s strong, passionate and oddly attractive but the idea of her being an English woman is as preposterous as Connery being a Russian or Statham being a Yank. Idris Elba, Charlize Theron and Guy Pearce are all great although their roles are tragically underwritten while it’s down to Michael Fassbender to steal the show as coolly detached Data-like android David. Meanwhile Brit badass Sean Harris makes an early impression before disappearing while Logan Marshall-Green comes across as the zero-dimensional, younger brother of Tom Hardy. The rest of the crew highlight the same problem Ridley Scott had when casting his 2010 epic Robin Hood…apart from the leads the supporting cast are bland and unmemorable, no matter what quality work might have preceded Prometheus.

Now, despite all that negativity and complaining, I really, really enjoyed Prometheus. It looks utterly stunning from the production design (which comes across as a cross between the original Alien and a cleaner Star Trek vibe), the 60’s retro-cool of the spacesuits, the stunning special effects (the planetary flybys are jaw dropping) , the sense of adventure, the atmosphere of dread, and of course the fascination with how it all links in with Alien. It’s a spaceship bound, far future science fiction epic which is catnip to me, Scott directs with a non-Hollywood Euro-feel which despite his advancing years, makes the film seem fresh and cutting edge, and the story is gripping regardless of structural issues.

Prometheus is a beautiful, unfocused, undisciplined mess but one that is still head and shoulders above most science fiction releases and it should be applauded for at least having some ambition. If the planned sequel goes ahead, it may go some way to addressing the feeling of incompleteness in Prometheus’s story, it’s just a shame Scott and Lindelof couldn’t make it work as a self contained piece of storytelling.

Men In Black To The Future

There seems to have been a lot of discussing that Men In Black 3 is way past its sell by date but I don’t particularly agree with that. If you want an unwanted sequel you only have to look at Sister Act 2, The Whole Ten Yards and Analyze That. The original MIB came out in 1997 and is a mini comedy sci-fi classic in the mould of Ghostbusters. The 2002 was a case of sheer sequelitis with a tired retread of a plot with a comedy tone that was almost devoid of humour.

Ten years later and Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones and director Barry Sonnenfeld have returned with a sequel that’s light years better than Part 2 but still not a patch on Part 1. The story, this time involving time travel to the late sixties, is much stronger and more interesting, there much more laughs (mainly due to Mr Smith) and it’s got a much stronger villain in Boris The Animal than the last film did.

There’s a middle years Red Dwarf thing going on with Men In Black 3 in that it’s much more interested in its clever science fiction plot than it is in generating jokes…and that’s OK as the film is light, breezy fun but still a little disappointing. The script seems underwritten and could have benefited with much more fish-out-of-water references given the time travel opportunities at hand plus actors like Alice Eve, Bill Hader and Emma Thompson aren‘t exploited to their full potential. Everything else is just adequate; the effects, songs, score, creatures, action and direction are all just run-of-the-mill and solid in execution.

If there’s a stand-out piece of the MIB3 puzzle it’s Josh Brolin playing a young Tommy Lee Jones. He gets the character, the comic timing and the world weariness perfectly and the film only truly comes alive when he an Smith are together onscreen.

Raiding The House Of Pain

There are some movies where the evidence of it being exceptional are the uninhibited giggles emanating from your mouth courtesy of your highly impressed nerd brain. This uncontrollable joyous geekout might be due to a certain awe inspiring cinematic image (The Balrog in Fellowship of the Ring), a line of dialogue (“DRAKE! WE ARE LEAVING!!!” from Aliens) or, most commonly, a gratuitous display of ultra-violence (the last half an hour of Peter Jackson’s Braindead).

Indonesian action film The Raid falls perfectly into that latter category too with the most gigglesom display of hyper-violent action film I’ve seen since John Woo’s masterpiece Hard Boiled. It’s a simple siege movie reminiscent of the best of John Carpenter/Neil Marshall/Walter Hill with an elite group of tactical cops going into a gang controlled apartment block to take out the all-powerful drug lord once and for all. It’s a simple tale which allows for plenty of skull splintering fighting, shooting, stabbing, punching and brutal, brutal death. The key here isn’t so much that the action is brilliantly shot (in long McTiernan-like takes so we can appreciate the fight choreography or to revel in the multiple crimson fountain bullet hits) or edited (like Woo, Welsh director Gareth Hughes treats this like a ballet of mayhem) it’s that it takes martial arts to the next level. I’ve seen martial arts movies before but not when the combatants are using knives along with the chop-socky . The result is brain jarringly awesome…a shock and awe tactic that never wears out its welcome.

Surprisingly there’s deep enough character relationships and an intriguing enough story going on to compliment the action so this isn’t just another exercise in surface level action. Absolutely amazing to behold, The Raid is an experience that will leave you breathless. Hands down the best straight-forward action film since The Matrix.

Casino Royale (With No Cheese)

The 2005 James Bond reboot carries on the tradition of introducing a new actor to the world of 007 in a quality film, after all On Her Majesties Secret Service, Live & Let Die, The Living Daylights and Goldeneye were all top quality Bond movies. Casino Royale goes one step further by resetting the franchise back to Bond’s first mission as a ‘00’ operative. It’s a smart move; not only do we get to see the mature, experienced ex-navy officer we expect of Bond but we get an origin story giving us insight into how he evolved into the suave and ruthless secret agent we all know and love.

Daniel Craig owns Casino Royale in a way I simply wasn’t expecting. His Bond is a lot less flamboyant in the personality department but compensates with his sheer physical masculinity. Here we’re presented with a Bond who, for once, feel like an ex-marine…an unstoppable force of nature who will keep going until the mission is accomplished. Surprisingly he also delivers Bond’s dry, wisecracking humour with aplomb and, thanks to a cracking script, gives Bond considerable depth, unpredictability and vulnerability.

Goldeneye helmer Martin Campbell gives the proceedings a lot of class and glamour, the action sequences are brilliantly staged and hard hitting (the best being the post credits African Rundown), the card game that dominates the middle act is evey bit as gripping as the punch ups, the script polished by Paul Haggis is the most emotionally deep since OHMSS back in 1969 and the eclectic cast is superb, especially a radiant and sensual Eva Green.

If there’s a downside it’s that the Miami chapter is the most mundane part of the film, going through the motions as it attempts to link Bond with Mad Mikkelsen’s creepy big bad and Eva’s ice queen, but there’s enough great moments for it to breeze by. Easily one of the best Bond films ever forever ingrained on the memories of blokes for the ball-aching horror of 0007’s nutsack being bludgeoned by the villain. Goldfinger this is not.

Scary Movie, And That’s A Pact

I’ve come to expect that when watching most genre films whether it’s rom coms, action films or horror that originality isn’t going to be the main thig going for it…as long as it does what it does well. That’s an apt way to describe The Pact which in many ways in one part J-Horror and one part Poltergeist. This time it’s not a little girl that’s gone missing but a young mother who may have supernaturally disappeared into the closet of her recently deceased mother’s house. It’s up to her rebellious, loner sister to find out what’s going on in the house).

This is an extremely well made ghost story that is slow burn and patient in its execution (All the better for building nail biting suspense), well acted (especially by lead Caity Lotz in a complex multi-layer performance) and with a down to earth twist I didn’t see coming.

The Pact may be the same old shit but it’s damn good shit.