Richard Thorpe | 102 mins | TV | U
Ivanhoe is the kind of film they don’t often make any more, a pure swashbuckling romp. And when they do make them they tend to muck it up with over-complicated mythology-obsessed sequels — yes Pirates, I’m looking at you.
No such fate befalls Ivanhoe, of course. I’m not familiar with Sir Walter Scott’s novel, nor any other adaptation, so can’t comment in any way on the faithfulness, but adapter Æneas MacKenzie and/or screenwriter Noel Langley keep things moving at a fair lick, balancing well the romance, action, politics and humour. It’s an odd feeling seeing Robin Hood as a minor supporting character but, well, that’s the story I suppose.
But, as I said, it’s not really a film about acting or screenplay, though both are more than serviceable. No, swashing buckles are the order of the day, and here they certainly are. Most notable is an excellent siege sequence, a moderately epic extended battle that is certainly the film’s high point. The randomly hurled arrows and choreography-free sword fights may look a tad amateurish almost sixty years on, when we’re used to slickly staged and edited combat sequences, but the scale and rough excitement of the battle easily makes up for it.
Though the final duel that ultimately follows can’t quite live up to this in terms of sheer scale and excitement, it impressively holds its own as a climactic action sequence.
I feel there’s a bit more to say about Ivanhoe’s story, particularly the love-triangle romance side of the tale, or the subplot about Jewish acceptance in a film made less than a decade after the Second World War ended, but I’m afraid those will have to wait for a more intelligent reviewer another time. Having chosen to watch Ivanhoe as a swashbuckler (you may have gathered that by now), my subtext sense was not fully tingling. But I can confirm that it is indeed a very enjoyable swashbuckling romp.
Hammer didn’t just make horror movies, y’know. I’m sure many film fans know this, but the phrase “Hammer Horror” is so ubiquitous that I expect most people think that was the company’s name and all they produced.
It doesn’t all tie together fully. For example, one assumes the town of Bortrey was going to be the site of Newark’s castle, as that’s the only apparent reason why he’d be annoyed at the Archbishop for stopping the Sheriff acquiring it. But then Bortrey is burnt down, and with little reaction or comment from any character. And the opening plot point — a man escaping the Sheriff with a mysterious symbol — is never fully explained. Was he a co-conspirator? Was he aiming to warn the Archbishop? If the latter, where did he get the symbol? Maybe I missed a scene that explained all this.
The cast are adequate, even if Richard Greene’s no Errol Flynn and Peter Cushing’s no Alan Rickman (here at least). Terence Fisher’s direction is rather flat a lot of the time, though a few scenery shots, riding sequences and fights bring out a bit more dynamism.
Public Enemies came out nearly a year ago now, and I remember two things about its release: firstly, that the first review I saw was Empire’s, which 
What it brings here is an unusual quality. It’s clearly fiction, of course, albeit fiction based on fact, and there are still plenty of extravagant angles and editing so that you’re never in danger of thinking Mann is trying to pass this off as a documentary. But couple the raw cinematography with a meticulous attention to period detail, with a sound mix that is consciously rough and real, and you get a sense that this is how it was — it’s not a glossified movie version, it’s a How It Was one. Public Enemies is to the old gangster film as 
The characters do and don’t lack depth. The relationship between Dillinger and Billie is a significant part of the film, receiving roughly equal attention to Dillinger’s criminal deeds — it’s his final words to her that close the film, not his death. Christian Bales’ G-man, Melvin Purvis, on the other hand, is less developed, but to say he lacks any character is to do Bale’s performance a disservice. Behind Purvis’ blunt dialogue and stolid manner, and in slight gaps and lapses around it, one gets a sense of the true man and his real thoughts. The postscript — that he resigned from the FBI a year later and ultimately took his own life — reinforces and confirms the subtleties Bale injects into the performance.
Mann does his best, cutting around Dillinger in the movie theatre, the bizarrely-apt film he’s watching (this isn’t dramatic licence — Dillinger really saw 
is largely well converted to a dramatic piece, if occasionally a little episodic (as is the way with all biopics) and overlong towards the end.
I believe Tim Burton coined the now-ubiquitous term “reimagine” when he remade — I mean, reimagined (sorry Tim!) — 
It’s a moderately interesting cycle to attach it to, one it seems has been missed by its pigeon-holing as “a Tim Burton film” and “another Alice adaptation”.
Among the rest of the cast, Helena Bonham Carter does a speech-impedimented Red Queen that feels as familiar was Burton and Depp’s work; Anne Hathaway’s White Queen is amusingly floaty, her hands permanently raised in a faux-delicate gesture; Crispin Glover is under-characterised and marred by some dodgy CGI (quite what’s been done to him I don’t know, but his movement is frequently jerky), but otherwise a decent enough henchman. In the all-Brit voice/mo-cap cast, Matt Lucas is best as Tweedles Dum and Dee — sadly, there’s not enough of him… um, them… — while Alan Rickman is Alan Rickman as the Caterpillar; Stephen Fry has little important to do as a less-scary-than-usual Cheshire Cat; and others — like Michael Sheen, Paul Whitehouse and Timothy Spall — blend into the background with competent but unremarkable work.
The funny thing about Burton’s Alice is that — despite the ultimately needless 3D, the familiar fantasy-epic storyline grafted onto Carroll’s characters, and the apparent lack of inspiration from either the director or his cast — it’s still quite enjoyable. It’s not going to do much to engage your emotions or your brain, it won’t give you any hearty laughs or edge-of-your-seat thrills, and it may occasionally make you wish it would get a move on — all of which means that, by the end, it can feel a tad slight. Valid criticism abounds on the web, but… well, I enjoyed it. Maybe I’m just too forgiving.
#42 
I enjoyed the first 
but they’re to embellish its tale, in the same way many higher-class films have — it’s just an entertaining ride, with some exciting action, intriguing clues, and the odd bit of humour.
but there are worse ways to spend a couple of hours, particularly if all you want is a bit of well-made light entertainment.
I’ve only ever read one thing by Neil Gaiman. It’s not fan-favourite Neverwhere, nor the 
“fairytale story rules” rather than “real-world fantasy story rules” some viewers may have been more forgiving. Also, I’m digressing into a critical blind alley.
I find it hard to believe anyone could watch this and not enjoy much or all of it on a visual level. And if you don’t — honestly, are you sure you like films?
but Coraline deserves it. Maybe she’ll learn a lesson.” For me, however, Coraline is an independent and strong-willed individual with good reason for most of her grievances. Does she need to learn a lesson? Undoubtedly. This is a fairytale, after all, and lesson-learning is more-or-less the point. Perhaps if you think Coraline is unlikeable and deserves the woes heaped upon her you’ll like the film less (I should add that Ebert gave it three-out-of-four, however); but if you get on with the character — and I’m certain many among the film’s supposed target audience, kids, would — then she’s a likeable companion to learn the story’s lesson with.
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