Category Archives: 2000s

Reviews of and posts about films released between 2000 and 2009.

24: Redemption (2008)

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Extended Edition

2008 #86
Jon Cassar | 98 mins | DVD | 15

24: RedemptionRemember the ubiquitous Writer’s Strike in the US? It must be about a year ago now, but its effects are still being felt — Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Joss Whedon’s rule-breaing internet musical, made during the strike, is about to hit region-free DVD in the US (albeit on DVD-R and only from Amazon.com); plenty of second-year shows are getting canned, probably because their truncated first years didn’t allow time to get decent audiences (that’s one excuse anyway); and 24’s seventh season, kicking off in January 2009, is a year late. Which allowed them to make this in the meantime.

The setup is simple: Jack Bauer’s trekking round the world, currently holed up with an ex-army buddy (played by the ever-excellent Robert Carlyle) in the African nation of Sangal where said buddy has set up a school. Yes, Jack Bauer is living a life of peace. But then Bad Men turn up wanting the kids for child soldiers, and within the hour they’re attempting a military coup — this is still 24 remember, the action all takes place “in real time”. What’s Jack to do? Why, return to his old One Man Army self, of course — if he can’t stop the coup, he sure as hell can save those kids! Meanwhile, it’s inauguration day for America’s new female (black? 24’s been there and done that — twice) President…

For a Fox action series, off screens for almost 18 months and undoubtedly designed as a starting point for new viewers, Redemption (not that that title’s seen on screen) has a surprisingly slow build up. That’s no bad thing — this is a story after all, not a 90-minute shoot-out — but there are times when one feels it should get a wriggle on. This is likely where most, if not all, of this extended version’s new material was added. There’s almost 15 minutes added to the running time here, though some is surely due to a 5-minute credit crawl that must be much longer than the TV version’s. Having not seen the broadcast edit I can’t comment on what new scenes, shots or lines are added, but there’s no greater violence or thematic density than 24 usually produces so I imagine what was cut was cut for time alone.

That said, Redemption certainly tackles its fair share of issues — primarily, the use of child soldiers, and the US involvement (or lack of) in African genocides. It’s certainly admirable and worthwhile for such a popular series to bring these important issues to the attention of a mass audience who might otherwise ignore, or at least not be aware, of them, but they’re still included in a “mainstream American action series” way — that’s to say, they’re ultimately a reason for a shoot-out. There’s also some subtle political commentary, such as the UN Peacekeeper stationed at the school being a coward who runs away at the first sign of violence… and then betrays them to boot! Of course, just because it’s unsubtle doesn’t make it wrong, but Blood Diamond this is not. Whatever the politics, the action sequences — and, once things get going, there are a few — are all carried out with 24’s usual panache.

Is this a suitable jumping-on point for newcomers? Yes, quite simply. It’s several years since the last season and Jack’s in a very new part of this life. Some old faces crop up and there are some backstory references, but these are more nods for returning fans than anything important. Everything you need to know for this story is contained herein, and fortunately that doesn’t involve great slabs of exposition about previous seasons. On the other hand, it fails as a standalone movie. While the main plot — Jack defends school — is kicked off and wrapped up in the space between the title and the credits, there are several US-based plot threads that aren’t even close to being resolved. These are clearly designed to flow on into season seven — presumably they’re either elements bumped from the early episodes up into the movie, or a fleshing out of information that would’ve just been exposition before.

It’s hard not to conclude that Redemption would’ve been better without the US scenes. They add nothing to the main action in Africa and they’re all quite flatly directed, forcibly reminding you that this is just a TV movie by being worse than most TV these days. Their one true benefit is an ending that juxtaposes the new President’s inauguration speech with the civil war beginning in Sangal, which, consciously or not, underlines the hypocrisy at the heart of America.

As a standard season-opening episode of 24, coming on the back of the weakest-yet sixth season, it may well have earned itself an extra star. Judged as a standalone film, however, I fear it has to be just

3 out of 5

Thinking “but that’s not a film”? Then please have a read of this.

The Cube Trilogy

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Introduction

I watched the entire Cube trilogy in one night — boy was it a long’un.

“Three ninety minute films?”, some of you might think, “I’ve seen single films longer than that!” Yes indeed, this is true, and I’ve watched all of the extended Lord of the Rings in one day — but those are good, and the Cube sequels just aren’t.

Anyway, I’ve posted all three reviews at once — partly because things are lagging review-wise here and I want to get a wriggle on (17 days ’til 2009!) — and so here is a little summary of the trilogy, with a brief note on my thoughts on it as a whole at the end.

This is probably obvious, but in case not: click on each film’s title for the full review.


#83a
Cube
1997 | Vincenzo Natali | 87 mins | DVD | 15 / R

“Cube manages to effectively juggle gruesome horror deaths, sci-fi mysteries, an awful lot of maths, and character-based drama. It’s a brilliant, low-budget, understated film [that] everyone interested in the more intelligent end of the sci-fi spectrum should see.”

5 out of 5


#84
Cube²: Hypercube
2002 | Andrzej Sekula | 90 mins | DVD | 15 / R

“The new cube set is bigger, shinier, simpler, emptier, always one plain colour, and devoid of traps. Consequently, but perhaps inadvertently, it seems to symbolise the film itself… Hypercube feels like expensive tosh based on a faux-intellectual idea.”

2 out of 5


#85
Cube Zero
2004 | Ernie Barbarash | 93 mins | DVD | 15 / R

“an entirely different setup: the people who observe the cube!… until one of them goes inside, and then we’re right back in familiar territory… Derivative and, worst of all, quite irritating.”

2 out of 5


Final Thoughts

I first saw Cube many years ago, certainly before it had any sequels, and have always thought it excellent. I picked up the trilogy DVD set a few years back, despite hearing advice that went, roughly, “never ever watch the sequels. Ever.” My God was that good advice.

The first remains a masterpiece, provided you can ignore the two sequels and their weak additions to the mythos. Try to integrate all three into the same fictional universe and you’re just going to wreck much of what’s great about the original. Watch that, love that, and pretend that was all there ever was.

Cube Zero (2004)

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2008 #85
Ernie Barbarash | 93 mins | DVD | 15 / R

Cube ZeroI presume, from the title, that Cube Zero is meant to be one of them prequel things, going back before the original film to reveal more of the backstory and answer questions that probably didn’t need answering. It does some of this — there are unwelcome answers and an ending that explicitly links back round to the first film — but undermines it by apparently being set in some fantasy-future retro-industrial universe that doesn’t gel with the everydayness of the preceding entries. This design work is almost nice, reminiscent of films such as Brazil, The City of Lost Children, and even Blade Runner; but it’s all on a direct-to-DVD scale that feels oddly familiar from things I’m sure I haven’t seen. Derivative? Yes indeed.

One thing it isn’t especially derivative of — initially, anyway — is its two prequels. After the requisite gory opening, the camera pulls back to reveal an entirely different setup: the people who observe the cube! Except they’re still a small group (just two), confined to one room, with no idea about the people behind all this. They are, very literally, only one step removed… until one of them goes inside, and then we’re right back in familiar territory, except with an added outside perspective that sinks to new depths so low I don’t even want to explain them.

In the cube itself, we have the most gory deaths yet. Barbarash — here adding “director” to his list of crimes after producing and co-writing Cube² — lingers on the gruesome details, seeming to make the series bridge the gap between relatively old-style horror films and the new trend for sickening weirdness that Saw would kick off the same year. I’m sure gore-hounds will love it but, for me, Cube was never about how vile the deaths could be.

You have to admire them (albeit begrudgingly) for trying to do something different with the concept and give it some fresh spins. But, as ever, the series didn’t need those additions, and consequently it doesn’t need this sequel. It answers too many questions, which might be acceptable if the answers were remotely original or satisfying, but, of course, they aren’t: they’re derivative and, worst of all, quite irritating.

And that goes for the film too.

2 out of 5

For a brief overview of the Cube trilogy, please look here.

Cube Zero featured on my list of The Five Worst Films I Saw in 2008, which can be read in full here.

Cube²: Hypercube (2002)

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2008 #84
Andrzej Sekula | 90 mins | DVD | 15 / R

Cube²: HypercubeThe new cube set is bigger, shinier, simpler, emptier, always one plain colour, and devoid of traps. Consequently, but perhaps inadvertently, it seems to symbolise the film itself.

Despite this simplified set, the concept behind the new cube — or ‘hypercube’, so we’re told — and the plot that results from it is incredibly complex. In fact, it seems to be too complex for the writers to grasp, so the viewer doesn’t stand a chance. It’s not the only overdone element either: Sekula’s direction is frequently as inappropriately elaborate as possible, twisting the camera round for no reason other than some misguided attempt at (inaccurately) conveying this cube’s mixed gravity. He also feels the need to illustrate characters’ backstories, something the original left to the dialogue, which is probably because the ragtag selection of flat stereotypes here are far more generic than the lot in the first film.

And there’s loads of them too, though it’s hard to tell if this is to cover for them all being one-dimensional, or a transparent attempt to keep things moving by constantly chucking more people into the mix. As if to underline the point, several are cloned from the first film, but with much weaker acting, and almost none of them are granted a plot thread that actually gets resolved. In fact, nearly every character is entirely pointless. Eventually some of them do get killed off, but every death is too reliant on some middling CGI and abstract ideas. Not a single one is as properly inventive or scary as those found in the original.

Hypercube should at least be applauded for trying something new, when it might have been easier to bung a new group of people into the same cube and come up with new ways of killing them or new puzzles to solve. It dives further into SF territory, dragging in parallel universes and varying timelines, and largely avoids rehashing the first film’s mysteries. In fact, it more picks up where that left off, drawing out questions and providing some answers about the reasons for, origins of, and people behind the cube. Unfortunately, these questions don’t need re-posing and the answers certainly aren’t required. Like other elements of the first film not carried over — the clever deaths, the claustrophobia — it’s nice that they’ve not been duplicated, but equally they didn’t need changing, expanding or explaining.

Even worse, the writers seem to have spent more time mulling over the behind-the-scenes complexities of constructing the cube — and put in all their characters and ideas about this — and not enough time actually crafting a plot. The more the clock ticks by the more obvious this becomes, to the extent that they don’t even seem to have an ending. What minimal logic there was is thrown out the window in favour of some crazy different-timeline horror that barely resolves anything and certainly cops out of almost everything.

Where the original Cube felt like the smart little sci-fi indie it was, Hypercube feels like expensive tosh based on a faux-intellectual idea. Much of the original’s brilliance lay in its simplicity, but the sequel is more complex from the off — and not in a way that rewards the attentive viewer, or even in a way the writers seem to understand. Bigger and shinier, but simpler and emptier, it’s consequently less engaging, less interesting, and far less enjoyable.

2 out of 5

For a brief overview of the Cube trilogy, please look here.

Cube²: Hypercube featured on my list of The Five Worst Films I Saw in 2008, which can be read in full here.

Mamma Mia! (2008)

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2008 #81
Phyllida Lloyd | 104 mins | DVD | PG / PG-13

Mamma Mia!If you listen to the critics, no one liked Mamma Mia. If you listen to the public, everyone loved it. It’s the highest grossing British film of all time at the UK box office — at last count, just over £400,000 away from being the highest ever* — and was still playing on the big screen at hundreds of locations the weekend before its DVD release.

Mamma Mia! is the first feature from director Lloyd, who also directed the original stage production — and sometimes both facts show. She doesn’t always quite know what to do with the camera, the choreography is often aimed at a theoretical audience rather than the camera position (a pet peeve of mine), some shots are over-simplistic, others over-done, and there’s a bit of “point and shoot” too, missing opportunities that would be obvious to more experienced film directors. It’s never atrociously directed — at the very least, the scenery looks stunning, and is put to much good use — but it does the job and little more.

The songs themselves don’t need discussion (everyone knows what they think of Abba) but it’s worth mentioning how they’re choreographed and how they come about in story terms. Some have been brilliantly staged (Mamma Mia itself, but especially Does Your Mother Know), though others are flat and awkward (The Winner Takes It All doesn’t win anything as far as I’m concerned). Equally, some emerge naturally from the story (Chiquitita, Money Money Money), while others feel shoehorned in (again, The Winner Takes It All). For others still they seem to have just given up forcing them into the plot, leaving them to be performed by a musical act: Super Trouper, which at least is vaguely appropriate to the juncture it appears; and Waterloo, which is tacked on during the end credits, though at least is amusingly done.

The majority of the cast were clearly chosen for acting skills rather than singing ability, not that it’s done the film many favours. Pierce Brosnan was unfairly singled out by critics for poor vocals, but he’s no worse than several others. On the other hand, Julie Walters is as much of a riot as you’d expect, right from her first line, and earns the lion’s share of the laughs. For any bored male viewers, there’s always Amanda Seyfried, with her often bouncy pair of friends — played by newcomers Rachel McDowall and Ashley Lilley (why, what did you think I meant?) Every cast member is clearly having a ball, so much so that some forget to do more than read lines aloud; but it’s occasionally infectious, the frequency of infection being directly proportional to how susceptible the viewer is to this genre of music and this genre of film.

It may go without saying, but the more you like Abba the more you’ll like Mamma Mia. Conversely, the more you hate them the more you’ll hate it. (Extra stars can be added or subtracted at the end depending on which side of the fence you fall.) It’s therefore easy to see why audiences — especially British audiences — have lapped it up, while the critics have been fairly damning. On the other hand, the often clichéd first-draft-level script and occasionally ungainly first-readthrough-level performances don’t help things any. Luckily it very rarely takes itself too seriously, and consequently is often hilariously funny. Though it attempts both, it clearly works best when being a camp and cheesy comedy rather than a serious romance/family drama. One especially weak note, in my opinion, is the subplot awarded to Colin Firth’s character, who turns gay almost out of nowhere. It’s not a bad idea for a subplot, especially in a film based on Abba music (not that I’m applying any stereotypes here), but it’s poorly executed.

Mamma Mia! never aimed to please the critics, or even your regular movie-goer. Instead it sets its sights firmly on Women Of A Certain Age who can remember Abba from first time round, and students who perhaps listen to them in a more ironic way nowadays. In that sense, it’s clearly an unmitigated success. As camp as a row of tents, disliked by critics, loved by audiences: Mamma Mia! is everything you’d expect from Abba.

3 out of 5

* In the interests of fully-correct information, I feel I should point out that Mamma Mia! has now [December 28th, 2008] overtaken Titanic at the UK box office. (BBC News) ^

Quantum of Solace (2008)

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2008 #73
Marc Forster | 106 mins | cinema | 12A / PG-13

This review contains spoilers.
For a spoiler-free view, see my initial thoughts.

Quantum of SolaceQuantum of Solace is to Casino Royale what Tomorrow Never Dies was to GoldenEye: it’s the second film of a new Bond, tasked with revitalising a flagging franchise (this time creatively rather than monetarily); it’s been promoted as shorter (though by 38 minutes, not TND’s mere 11) and more action-packed; and it’s got to follow a huge success, both critically (94% on Rotten Tomatoes) and commercially ($588m worldwide). It’s a tall order — one many believe TND failed to live up to (personally, I’ve always liked it). Does QoS do any better?

Well, it’s certainly action-packed. Bond hurtles from budget-blowing sequence to budget-blowing sequence with alarming fervour, the camera literally struggling to keep up. It’s this zoomed-in, over-cut, handheld style that most grates with me during these sequences. I quite like it in the Bourne films — it’s part of their style; it fits — but I was incredibly glad to not find it in Casino Royale, and therefore disappointed to see it showing up here. Compare Royale’s early free running chase to the early rooftop one in QoS and you’ll quickly see not only which is better staged, but which is better shot. There are some good moments action-wise — for every disappointing boat or plane battle there’s an effective duel (swinging from scaffolding) or a destructive car chase — but I do wish someone would put the camera on a tripod. The frequency of such sequences, plus an abundance of other common action/spy movie tropes (a rogue agent, shadowy organisations, moles — in fact, trust has never been more of an issue), suggest that this is very much the Action Movie on director Marc Forster’s increasingly eclectic CV. His true strengths show up elsewhere however, as the most memorable parts of the film aren’t the headache-inducing punch-ups, but any scene that involved Bond and M or Bond and Mathis.

The acting, you see, is of a high standard, certainly above the requirements of the genre. While Craig may be lumbered with a very focussed, almost one-note Bond, the flashes of drama and dark humour allow him the odd chance to stretch. He may not get the variety that Casino Royale offered in this department, but he does enough with what’s there. Never more so than in the scenes with Giancarlo Giannini’s Mathis — the action pauses for breath when Bond seeks him out, and we’re treated to some of the film’s very best bits. Some fans wondered how the character could be brought back after Casino Royale, and the trick is to transform his role: what was previously a minor part designed to facilitate the plot here becomes one of unique significance, an injection of emotion and humour that makes his unfortunate death the film’s most heartbreaking moment — in fact, I might go so far as to argue it’s the saddest moment in a Bond film since the end of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. It’s these scenes that allow Forster’s dramatic directorial abilities to come to the fore, confirming that this is where his true talent lies.

Best of all is Dame Judi Dench, unsurprisingly excellent as ever. She’s aided considerably by M having a much bigger part this time out — not in an obvious The World Is Not Enough-style “have her kidnapped” kind of way, but just by giving her a lot more to do as James’ boss. In the old days the boss sending an agent out into the field and not hearing from him again until the mission was over may have made sense, but in our world of easy telecommunication it would be ridiculous if M wasn’t closely monitoring and commanding Bond every step of the way. So she does, and it’s great for the viewer to be treated to so much of Dench and her relationship with Craig. Not only that, but M has a spot of governmental and inter-agency politics to deal with too, increasing her role still further. If they retain any element of QoS for Bond 23, I hope it’s this.

As for the other Bond girls, Olga Kurylenko is fine but unmemorable, perhaps most significant for being the only major Bond girl who doesn’t sleep with our hero. (Incidentally, this is the third action film in two years in which Kurylenko plays a major part and doesn’t sleep with the hero. That’s quite a niche to be carving.) Back-up girl Gemma Arterton is disappointingly underused, existing primarily for the sake of being another girl in an otherwise masculine film. Her Goldfinger-tribute death, a nice nod in a franchise that has almost entirely excised its past, is an effective touch in and of itself (aficionados will surely note that, this time, there’s no conveniently-placed cushion), but considering the substance at stake turns out to be water rather than oil, it’s either Quantum playing some misplaced guessing game or an ill-considered plot hole. More annoying is her name, however. I don’t care that she’s named Strawberry Fields — it’s either an appropriately silly Bond girl name or, in this day and age, depressingly believable — but much is made of her first name going unrevealed, only to be rewarded with no pay-off. It’s not revealed on screen (only in the end credits), and Bond doesn’t even have an (admittedly clichéd) “I never even knew her first name” line on finding her body. Only a minor misstep, to be sure, but a nagging one.

As the scheming villain-by-proxy, Dominic Greene, Mathieu Amalric feels underused. He’s not as non-present as some Bond villains (The Spy Who Loved Me comes to mind, where Bond shares all of three lines with his nemesis before shooting him), but there’s a definite sense that the military coup/water hoarding storyline is a perfunctory element around Bond’s hunt for the men behind Vesper, in the process establishing Quantum so they can be dealt with in a later film. While I like having a Big Bad Organisation to cross over the films, much as SPECTRE did in the early days, the downside to their first real appearance here is that this particular scheme — a coup in a relatively inconsequential country, it must be said — is a bit lightweight for such a powerful, important organisation. This, plus Greene being more of a civil servant-type figure than an evil megalomaniac, leaves the climax feeling rather anticlimactic, lacking both the grandeur of the old Bond and the emotional weight of Casino Royale (as if a sinking building wasn’t quite grand!) It’s been touted in interviews that Greene’s fighting style is that of “a man who can’t fight”, but that’s no reasonable excuse for his final duel with Bond being so brief. Try harder next time.

Which, it seems, has been the closing impression of QoS for many fans. In this vein, placing the famous gunbarrel at the film’s close is surely highly symbolic, in the same way that saving the equally famous theme music for the end of Casino Royale was: Bond has now completed his evolution, excised his Vesper-demons, and is now the character we all know. Where at the start of the film he merrily kills everyone he comes across, at the end, face to face with the man mostly directly responsible for Vesper’s suicide, who he’s spent most of the film tracking down, he questions him before handing him over to MI6. For all those who dislike QoS’s style, this closing gunbarrel is hopefully an indication that, come 2011, the Bond they know will be back.

So does QoS do any better than Tomorrow Never Dies? Critically, yes, actually — although it’s received mixed reviews, they’ve been positive overall. At the box office, very much so, including the franchise’s best-ever US opening weekend (in this case topping the widely-disliked Die Another Day, something Casino Royale didn’t even manage). As for me, the opinion that opened my initial thoughts on the film still stands: it’s not as good as Casino Royale, but that was a far above average piece of entertainment. QoS isn’t a great Bond film, and it certainly doesn’t have the cross-fandom appeal that Brosnan at his best managed — and it certainly does have more than its fair share of detractors — but it’s a solid entry in the series. When the preceding instalment was possibly the best the franchise has produced in its 46-year history, that can make things seem worse than they are.

4 out of 5

My initial thoughts also offer additional comments on the level of humour, the title sequence, and more.

Casino Royale (2006)

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2008 #72a
Martin Campbell | 139 mins | DVD | 12 / PG-13

Casino RoyaleI’ve seen Casino Royale four times in the two years since its release (twice on opening weekend, in fact), which is an unusually high number of viewings for me. Normally I’ll see a film once and, even if I really like it, might not bother again for years; even films I’d name among my most-favourites fall into this category.

The reason I share this upsettingly trivial bit of information about my film watching habits is because, after two years and four viewings, I don’t really have much to say about Casino Royale. It’s a damn fine Bond film, returning to Fleming and resetting the character without losing anything truly essential about the franchise. The action sequences are great because they’re not only exciting but also drive the plot forward and reveal character — when Bond runs through the wall at the building site is a prime example of this.

In Daniel Craig and Eva Green the franchise has probably the best two leads it’s ever had, in terms of acting ability, and they put it to good use. There are many more pitch-perfect things about this film — not least making a poker game engrossing — and, yes, a few flaws, though for me they’re so minor as to not matter; but I don’t feel the need to expound on them a great deal because the film really speaks for itself. And, looking at the UK box office and DVD/Blu-ray sales, I’m not sure there’s anyone who hasn’t seen it.

In summary, Casino Royale is possibly the best Bond film of all time — though when you have a series that has encompassed so many disparate styles (directly compare From Russia With Love to Moonraker and one might even struggle to believe they’re from the same series), it makes for an incredibly hard selection to pick a sole winner from. Still, this one’s up there with the very best, not just of Bond but of action-spy-thrillers in general.

Now, I just wonder what happened next…

5 out of 5

The Invasion (2007)

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2008 #72
Oliver Hirschbiegel | 99 mins | download | 15 / PG-13

The InvasionThe Invasion is a modern thriller aimed at a mainstream audience, which naturally means it begins at the end. Is there a reason for this? As is too often the case these days, no. The only explanation I could come up with is that such an opening suggests there’ll eventually be some some actual scares in this sci-fi/horror, and so is designed to help the viewer persevere through the distinctly lacking film that follows.

Things go sharply down hill from the lacklustre opening ending opening: Jeremy Northam accidentally stabs himself with an Evil Alien Parasite Thing in a blatant genre convention that seems to have moved from the “necessary to get on with the plot” to the “badly obvious cliché”. The order of scenes that follow seems to be a random mess — for example, Nicole Kidman’s kid, Olly, begins to have nightmares again; a few scenes later, his dad (Northam, now taken over by the Evil Alien Parasite Thing) phones wanting to see him after a long absence; a few scenes later, Kidman tells a friend that Olly’s nightmares restarted after he was told he was going to see his dad. This is not an isolated example.

Much of the dialogue is on the level of bad exposition, but, to rub salt in the wound, it explains things we’ve already been shown. Normally reliable actors turn in flat performances with such an awkward script, which ponderously works its way through a plot that’s far too slow-moving considering how obvious it is. We know it’s an Evil Alien Parasite Thing within the opening minutes and even a passing familiarity with the genre will let you know how things are going to end up (as if opening with the ending didn’t give you a hint), but we’re still treated to near-endless scenes of our luckily-immune heroes trying to work out why everyone else is behaving oddly. It takes a full 36 minutes for Kidman to finally realise what we’ve all known from the start, but just in case you’ve missed the bleeding obvious there’s a pile of handy flashbacks. More to the point, how come only two people in the entire world (the other being Daniel Craig) have noticed what’s going on? The possessed have all the subtlety of a Jeremy Clarkson joke, walking around in a permanent mechanical daze.

A lot of articles have noted that the studio disliked how the film ended and so brought in other writers and director(s) to re-shoot the final act, aiming to bolster the action. Thank goodness they did, because it’s at this point that there’s finally something worth watching. The aliens’ dominance is a near-inevitable and obvious eventuality from very early on, and so structurally speaking should have been reached sooner. Unfortunately, when it does arrive, the weak early scenes mean we don’t care about the characters, so while some of the more action-packed scenes are well staged they have little genuine impact. Some good moments sneak through though, like a couple’s very public suicide, or… No, that was the only one I noted.

In this structural imbalance The Invasion is reminiscent of I Am Legend: a ponderous dramatic first half turns into an all-action assault as the only uninfected people are relentlessly pursued by the infected majority. In an inversion of the disappointing (but not dreadful) Will Smith vehicle, The Invasion‘s first half is dire while the second at least has some excitement and jeopardy. In Legend it was a shame that they couldn’t keep the first half running for the rest of the film; here you’re glad the studio intervened and forced some actual events on the film. It would be quite interesting to see how it was all meant to turn out originally, but I doubt it would be entertaining in the slightest.

Once it’s all over there’s a truly dreadful info-dump that explains what happened next. Besides making you cringe and wonder how a piece of exposition so blatant could ever have been greenlit, all it achieves is the delivery of a killer blow — not by blatantly stating the film’s subtext (which it does — not so ‘sub’ then), but with what that subtext actually is: when humanity is taken over by aliens, war stops; ergo, war is what makes us human. Lovely.

2 out of 5

The Invasion featured on my list of The Five Worst Films I Saw in 2008, which can be read in full here.

St. Trinian’s (2007)

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2008 #71
Oliver Parker & Barnaby Thompson | 97 mins | download | 12

St. Trinian'sI really didn’t think I was going to like St. Trinian’s. It seemed to be aimed squarely at teens whose quality barometer is fixed at Girls Aloud being the best music artists of all time and aren’t old enough to have seen There’s Something About Mary. Certainly, some of the film lives up to these expectations, but other bits are surprisingly good.

For one thing, it has a pleasantly wicked sense of humour, which must be pushing that 12 certificate on moral grounds — 10-year-olds producing black market vodka, for just one example. There’s a number of good, brief, visual gags too, such as the RE department having a Practical Study of the Easter Story with a girl strung up like Jesus on the cross (Christian bating is always funny). On the other hand, it merrily includes some ancient gags too — a dog shags someone’s leg! Hilarity! But then again, it makes no bones about being aimed at a relatively young audience, and for them this probably seems wonderfully fresh and naughty. Thankfully it’s not all down on this level — it has an even better line in Colin Firth spoofing than the Bridget Jones movies, and while some of these references may fly over the heads of that intended audience, they should at least keep any adult viewers amused. My personal favourite was the two 10-year-old girls who keep quoting famous movie lines. Simple, but effective.

A fair number of people seem to have considered the moral vacancy of St. Trinian’s’ style of comedy a bad thing, claiming impressionable girls will copy the characters’ actions or at least be influenced by their anarchic attitude. Not likely, I say — the school is such a fantasy-mess that I think even the very young would struggle to believe it as a potential reality. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that most of it is relatively harmless fun — if only some of The Youth Of Today would copy this lot rather than getting stupidly drunk, pregnant as soon as they’re able, and knifing each other every evening, then we might not be in the state we’re in. But anyway…

Through any weak patches, affairs are buoyed by a rather wonderful cast. The likes of Colin Firth and Rupert Everett are clearly having a ball, the young (though most not as young as their characters) cast all do a good job, with Gemma Arterton standing out in particular, and anything featuring Stephen Fry is at least worth a look. Yes, he’s only playing himself (literally) on a version of University Challenge that no doubt owes something to QI (even if it is just Fry hosting), but luckily he’s given a smidgen more to do than just read out cue cards. In spite of which names may be above the title or which characters get introduced first, it’s decidedly an ensemble piece — every time you think a lead is emerging another takes centre stage. In that respect it might be seen as a bit messy, but each one gets a decent enough through-line.

Incidentally, it’s incredibly British — not just in its setting and style, but also the very current cultural references — which might explain why it still hasn’t had a US release. It wouldn’t look out of place premiering on TV, probably at Christmas considering the scale of it, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the budget had been TV-sized. It’s also got a posh girl played by that girl who plays a posh girl in everything on TV (namely, Lucy Punch). That doesn’t really signify much, but my God she’s done well out of playing essentially the same role in numerous productions.

Despite my preconceptions when starting out, which were all supported by the opening few minutes, I ultimately found St. Trinian’s quite enjoyable. It’s far from perfect, and every time I began to truly warm to it — I even found myself laughing at a final beat for the leg-shagging dog cribbed from a decade-old comedy (I believe I already mentioned it…) — there was another recycled or immature joke to make me despair. In spite of that, the overall impression was adequate enough.

3 out of 5

Hitman: Unrated (2007)

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2008 #70
Xavier Gens | 94 mins | download | 15

HitmanVideo games have been fertile ground for filmmakers over the past couple of decades — or, rather, for film financiers, because while they almost invariably garner poor reviews they do insist on making them. What marks Hitman out from the crowd? Well, nothing.

In fact, Hitman seems to be doing its best to blend in and go unnoticed — much like a good hired assassin would do, you’d imagine. Except in this film, all the assassins are bald and have barcodes tattooed on the back of their head — not at all conspicuous. The story begins at the end, as is the fashion for most films these days, and as usual there’s absolutely no reason why it should. After that, you’ve got a series of ideas and scenes recycled from the likes of The Bourne Identity — and by “from the likes of” I really mean “from” — that don’t add up to anything particularly new. The majority of the plot is easily guessed within the first half-hour; those guesses that don’t pan out aren’t because the film has anything surprising to do, but instead because it seemingly can’t be bothered to resolve certain plot threads. Equally, the plentiful leaps in logic appear to be the result of lazy filmmaking, not caring to fill in the gaps between two cliched plot beats.

Characters suffer from poor performances — disappointing in the case of lead Timothy Olyphant, who was pretty good in Deadwood — but are also let down by a lack of technical ability, featuring a copious amount of clearly dubbed dialogue. They shouldn’t’ve bothered, because it’s all atrocious. Behind the dialogue, the rest of the writing isn’t any better. Agent 47’s characterisation is all over the place. He’s clearly supposed to be calm and robotic, and at times he is, with an appropriate lack of understanding about life and women; but then there are moments where he’s shouty, or humourous, or eye-rollingly knowing. It’s like the screenwriter’s copied the scene from another film (usually The Bourne Identity) and forgotten to put his characters into it. As for the rest of the cast, Dougray Scott and current Bond girl Olga Kurylenko are also let down by poor material. Also worthy of note is a Russian General toward the end, who is a spectacularly bad actor.

Believe it or not, Hitman does have the odd moment that’s almost worthwhile. There’s some wit with the sex (or, rather, “lack of sex”) scenes, and I quite liked the (derivative, it must be said) score. And then there’s the action, of course, which is naturally the main point of a film like Hitman. It’s fairly extreme, considering, and appropriately bloody — exploding heads from snipers, many spurting wounds from SMGs, and so on. This is the ‘benefit’ of the unrated cut, which is barely any longer than the theatrical one but does have plenty of extra blood CG’d in. For a full list of differences — as well as that blood, there’s a few extra shots in fights and of ‘controversial things’ like drug-taking — have a look at this page (translated from German). Most of the action scenes are passable but with nothing to mark them out, the one exception being a four-way blade fight in a disused train carriage between Agent 47 and three other bald assassins. It’s a good idea fairly well executed, but suffers from a nagging question: where did the other three come from and, more importantly, why were they there?

I’ve made it this far without mentioning Leon, the gold standard against which all other assassin movies will inevitably be compared. It feels almost cruel to mention it though, because Hitman’s aims are nothing so lofty. Style and content-wise, films such as Wanted and Shoot ‘Em Up are much closer relations, as well as the film it so often imitates, The Bourne Identity. Hitman is not as original nor as fun as any of these, which makes it all rather pointless.

2 out of 5