The Met Ball (2010)

Posted on September 24, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #88a
R.J. Cutler | 27 mins | TV

Depending on your level of generosity, this could be described facetiously as either “The September Issue 2” or “a deleted scene from The September Issue”.

It’s sort of both. Culled from footage shot while Cutler was making The September Issue, The Met Ball clearly had no place in the finished film but does work as a piece in its own right. At almost half-an-hour it would’ve extended the feature considerably, but also detracted from the point — this has nothing to do with the production of the titular issue of Vogue. Instead, it shows Anna Wintour and co preparing for the annual Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which is of course an excuse for more of the vapid celebrity and fashion culture that Vogue is all about.

The interest of the piece for us normal, sensible folk, then, lies in what it exposes about this world: the ludicrous lengths they go to; the shockingly inflated sense of self importance. As with The September Issue, it presents no narration and a lot of long takes of documentary footage, leaving the viewer to draw their own conclusions. But there are conclusions to be drawn. Wintour is as much a closed book here as in the main film, but there are moments — glances, affectations, turns of phrase — that reveal a little bit more of the truth behind her icy demeanour.

One thing I can’t help think is that she’s very British — which, in America, has created a reputation for being icy, distant and controlling, but is more just quiet and reserved. At times, you can even see uncertainty and self-doubt, like in the painfully embarrassing sequence where Chloe Sevigny — hardly a huge star in her own right — walks right past Wintour’s attempted “hello” on the red carpet… and is promptly dragged back for an equally awkward second attempt, which ends with Sevigny lingering uncomfortably nearby while Wintour moves on. It’s a little painful to watch, but through the actions of those involved — and the thought-unseen moments Cutler captures — is one of the film’s most revealing sequences.

If you didn’t care for The September Issue then there’s nothing to see here. For those of us who appreciated it as an interesting documentary on an alien, perhaps unknowable world, The Met Ball peels back a little more.

Robin Hood: Director’s Cut (2010)

Posted on September 19, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #96
Ridley Scott | 156 mins | Blu-ray | 12

Origin stories are, as we well know, all the rage at the moment, and so Ridley Scott follows in the footsteps of Batman Begins and Casino Royale with his Darker And Grittier™ take on the beginnings of Robin Hood. No lurid green tights or Merry Men here — this is Robin of the Hood as he really was (maybe). Sadly, Scott’s potentially worthwhile effort has become distracted and wandered too far down the wrong path.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with the idea of a grittier, more realistic version of Robin Hood. Many critics seem to have complained that this telling lacked the fun and adventurous spirit of Errol Flynn’s — or even Kevin Costner’s — take on the outlaw hero, but so what? Those versions already exist, and while I’m no more adverse to seeing another equally swashbuckling take on Hood than anyone else who loves the older movies, surely there’s room for a different interpretation, one that hews more closely to (potential) historical fact? No, the idea of doing a gritty take on Robin Hood isn’t where this film falls down.

Certainly, the creation of the world is as top-notch as we’ve come to expect from Scott’s historical epics. Though one might argue the dirty aesthetic and grey cinematography are becoming Real Gritty History™ clichés, when placed in the context of the usual colourful Hood style it does make a change. Whether events are historically accurate (they aren’t), or battle tactics or weapons or clothing or living conditions or politics are spot on, is almost beside the point — this is still a version of Robin Hood, a likely-fictional creation, and so the style is suitably believable, whether it be precisely factual or not.

The problem isn’t the acting, either. Yes, numerous accents are suspect — though, if you think about it, we’re talking about characters living 900 years ago — did a Nottingham accent sound the same then as it does now? Personally (as a Southerner, I should perhaps mention) none of the accents bothered me greatly; I could hear Russell Crowe’s wandering, certainly, but after the first few scenes (when I was specifically listening out for it) I wasn’t distracted.

Whether the rest of his performance is fine is another matter. I think it’s safe to say it lacks the charisma required by Robin Hood, and not just because we’re all familiar with his atrocious real-life antics. Even if it’s not being swashbuckling fun, Robin needs to be a character who can convincingly convince a band of men to step outside the law and pursue ridiculous ends (because notions that the King needs his subjects as much as they need him, and that all men are equal, and that the rich owe the poor, are of course ‘ridiculous’ in context); there are flashes of this from Crowe, but nothing consistent.

The rest of the star-studded cast generally account well for themselves. Cate Blanchett’s Marion is, naturally, a strong-willed, modern, arguably anachronistic woman, but she nonetheless plays it well. As her father-in-law, Max von Sydow is about the only character to generate any significant sympathy, respect, or any other emotion. William Hurt may have overdone everything in Damages recently, but here he’s quite perfectly pitched. Eileen Atkins could probably turn in a good performance in her sleep; the same goes for Mark Strong in a villainous role (it might be nice to see him play a good guy sometime, I’m sure he’s capable). Danny Huston’s King Richard is a nicely revisionist take — not the flawless hero we’re used to seeing — which sadly gets too little screen time. Oscar Isaac’s Prince/King John is suitably brattish and inconsistent, but by playing the part fairly straight he doesn’t come close to being as memorable as Alan Rickman, Keith Allen or Toby Stephens in the key villain’s role.

Almost every other role is under-represented — and here we’re beginning to get to the nub of the film’s problem. There are far, far too many characters. We never get a chance to know any of Robin’s gang, who merrily follow him around with little chance to differentiate themselves. The side of the devils have it worse, offering a shifting array that seems unsettled about who to settle on. The Sheriff of Nottingham, often the main antagonist, is a virtually needless inclusion when there’s King John masterminding things, Sir Godfrey riding about being nasty, and King Philippe of France behind him too. That’s not to mention the ancillary characters that clutter up proceedings.

This needn’t have been a problem — it’s possible to juggle multiple characters, of course it is, though a streamlined set of heroes and villains might’ve been more productive — but the film doesn’t know what to do with them all. Much of the time, what they do is engage in fairly inconsequential political wrangling. Scott makes sure to front-load a big action sequence, and slot in another two at the climax, but in the middle there’s a long stretch where it feels like not much happens. There’s a love story between Robin and Marion, and yet it never feels like we’re seeing them fall in love — after numerous scenes of them doing stuff, they just are. King John ums and ahs about various things, and if we’re being charitable his chief characteristic is ‘changeable’; and if we’re not, he’s a weakly-written, inconsistent character. Do I believe he’d go charging into the fray during the climax? No, I don’t. If he’d gone in when it was virtually over, just so he could later claim he had? Yes, that would fit.

In short, the pace is off. It drags for most of the middle, waiting for something of genuine interest to occur. The climax feels slightly rushed, two action sequences piled on top of each other that, despite a certain scale to both the assault on Loxley and the beach battle, still somehow lack heft. That’s without noting the fact that Marion — predictably and implausibly — turns up for the final fight too. They should have taken a lesson from Peter Jackson shoehorning Arwen into Helm’s Deep only to remove her again — i.e. remove Marion.

Perhaps the pace was actually better in the theatrical cut — ‘character beats’ are the kind of thing that gets chopped out of blockbusters to make them audience-friendly and it’s the long ‘character’ stretches that slow down Robin Hood‘s middle. The Director’s Cut is 15½ minutes longer, a potentially significant chunk that could throw the whole centre of the film out of whack if it’s all piled in there. Still, based on where key sequences fall and so on, I struggle to imagine the theatrical version was that much sprightlier. I may well give it a spin at some point to see if I like it any better. (Unsurprisingly, I can’t yet find anywhere online that details differences between the two cuts.)

I wanted the reviews to be wrong; for Ridley Scott’s Gritty And Realistic™ take on Robin Hood to be worth the potential of the concept. In places, it almost is — the era is evoked stylishly, the battles are largely well-staged if not perfect — but it drags, and ultimately Robin only becomes Robin Hood proper at the film’s end. (In fact, a surprisingly large amount of the trailer was taken from the film’s closing minutes, obviously to imply the usual Robin Hood story.) It’s copied Batman Begins and Casino Royale too precisely in this respect, perhaps. It also makes it feel like nowt but setup for a sequel, over-explaining how (this version of) Robin came to be where he was. As the final card says, “And so the legend begins”.

Scott & co are interested in a sequel, and despite my disappointment I hope they’re given the chance to make it: with all this needless business out of the way, the situations the characters are left in has the door open for a genuinely worthwhile Gritty And Realistic™ take on Robin Hood next time. But with the poor critical reception — and the distraction of two Alien prequels — (though, it should be noted, decent box office), I’m not sure we’ll get such a thing. Shame, because I think that might be the Robin Hood film I so wanted this to be.

Robin Hood is released on DVD and Blu-ray tomorrow.

Inception (2010)

Posted on August 6, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #69
Christopher Nolan | 148 mins | cinema | 12A / PG-13

This review ends by calling Inception a “must-see”. I’m telling you this now for two reasons. Primarily, because this review contains major spoilers, and it does seem a little daft to end a review presumably aimed at those who’ve seen the film with a recommendation that they should see it.

Secondly, because Inception — and here’s your first spoiler, sort of — also begins at the end. Now, this is normally a sticking point for me: too many films these days do it, the vast majority have no need to. I’m not convinced Inception needs to either, but it makes a better job of it than most. It does mean that, as the film approaches this moment in linear course, you know it’s coming several minutes ahead of its arrival, but for once that may be half the point.

As you undoubtedly know, Inception is about people who can get into dreams and steal ideas. Now they’re employed to get into a dream and plant an idea. This is either impossible or extremely hard, depending on which character you listen to. And that’s the setup — it’s really not as complicated as some would have you imagine. What follows is, in structural terms, a typical heist movie: Leonardo DiCaprio’s Cobb is the leader, he puts together a team of specialists, they do the heist, which has complexities and takes up the third act. Where it gets complicated is that this isn’t a casino robbery or betting scam or whatever other clichés have developed in heist movie history, but the aforementioned implanting of an idea; and so, the film has to explain to us how this whole business works.

The explanation of the rules and the intricacies of the plot occupy almost all of Inception’s not-inconsiderable running time. There’s little in the way of character development, there’s (according to some) little in the way of emotion. But do either of these things matter? Or, rather, why do they have to matter? Why can’t a film provide a ‘cold’ logic puzzle for us to deduce, or be shown the methodology of, if that’s what it wants to do? When I watch an emotional drama I don’t complain that there’s no complex series of mysteries for me to unravel; when I settle down to a lightweight comedy I don’t expect insight into human psychology; musical fans don’t watch everything moaning there aren’t enough songs; you don’t watch a chick flick and wonder when the shooting’s going to start. That is, unless you’re being unreasonable with you expectations.

The film centres on Cobb, it uses Ariadne (Ellen Page) as a method to investigate Cobb, and everyone else plays their role in the heist. And that’s fine. Perhaps Ken Watanabe’s Saito could do with some more depth, considering his presence in that opening flashforward and his significance to Cobb’s future, but then perhaps he’s the one who most benefits from the mystery. Some would like Michael Caine’s or Pete Postlethwaite’s characters to have more development and, bluntly, screentime; but I think their little-more-than-cameos do a lovely job of wrongfooting you, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Some say the same thing about Lukas Haas’ tiny role, but I don’t know who he is so he may as well be anyone to me. Cast aside, there’s not much humour — well, no one promised you a comedy. At best you could claim it should be a wise-cracking old-school actioner, but it didn’t promise that either.

To complain about these things being missing is, in my view, to prejudge the film; to look at it thinking, “this is potentially the greatest film ever because, well, I would quite like it to be. And so it must have a bit of everything I’ve ever liked in a film”. Which is patently rubbish.

Taken on its own merits, Inception presents itself as a heist movie, a big puzzle to be solved, with a team leader who has some of his own demons. Now, you can argue that his demons are revealed in chunks of exposition rather than genuine emotion, and that might be a valid criticism that I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with; and you can argue that we’re not shown enough of the planning to fully appreciate the big damn logic puzzle of the heist, instead just seeing it unfold too quickly as they rush deeper and deeper into levels of dream, and I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with that either; and you can argue that some of the action sequences could benefit from the narrative clarity Nolan (in both writer and director hats) clearly has about which level’s which and how they impact on each other, and I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with that either… but if you’re going to expect the film to offer something it didn’t suggest it was going to… well, tough.

And the film isn’t entirely devoid of character, it’s just light on it. All the performances are fine. DiCaprio is finally beginning to look older than 18 and better able to convince as a man who has lost his family and therefore most of what he cares about. He wants a way home, he gets a shot at it, and he goes for it. Him aside, it’s a bit hard to call on the performances after one viewing: there’s nothing wrong with any of them, it’s just that they’ve not got a great deal to do — the film is, as noted, more concerned with explaining the world and the heist. How much anyone has put into their part might only become apparent (at least to this reviewer) on repeated viewings. Probably the most memorable, however, is Tom Hardy’s Eames, which is at least in part because he gets the lion’s share of both charm and funny lines.

The plot and technicalities of the world are mostly well explained. Is it dense? Yes. Some have confused this for a lack of clarity but, aside from a few flaws I’ll raise in a minute, everything you need is there. Some, even those who liked it, have criticised it for the bits it definitely does leave out. How exactly can Saito get Cobb home? Whose subconscious are they going into now? What are the full details of the way the machinery they use works? The thing is, it doesn’t matter. None of it does. It would’ve taken Nolan ten seconds to explain some of these things, but does he need to? No. Do you really care? OK, well — Saito is best chums with the US Attorney General, so he asks nicely and Cobb’s off the hook. Sorted. It’s not in the film because it doesn’t need to be; it’s not actually relevant to the story, or the themes, or the characters, or anything else. Apparently this distracts some people. Well, I can’t tell them it’s fine if it’s going to keep distracting them, but…

It’s fine. Because Nolan only skips over information we don’t need to know — precisely because we don’t need it. Should it matter whose mind we’re in? Maybe it should. But it would seem it doesn’t, because it’s all constructed by Ariadne and populated by the target anyway, and apparently anyone’s thoughts can interfere — they never go into Cobb’s mind, but Mal is always cropping up, not to mention that freight train — so why do we care whose brain they’re in? It seems little more than a technicality. And as for how the system works… well, we’re given hints at how it developed, and the rules and other variables are explained (for example, how mixing different chemicals affects the level of sleep and, as it turns out, whether you get to wake up), but — again — we’re told everything we need to know and no more. Because you don’t need anything else. It’s all covered. And if it’s as complicated as so many are saying, why are you begging for unnecessary detail?

And I have more issues with other reviews, actually. I think the desire for more outlandish dreams is misplaced. It’s clearly explained that the dreamer can’t be allowed to know he’s dreaming, so surely if they were in some trippy psychedelic dreamscape — which would hardly be original either, to boot — they’d probably catch on this wasn’t Reality. On the flip side, this rule could be easily worked around — “in dreams, we just accept everything that happens as possible, even when it obviously isn’t” — but where’s the dramatic tension in that? There’s tension in them needing to be convinced it’s real; if anything goes… well, anything goes, nothing would be of consequence, the only story would be them completing a danger-free walk-in-the-park mission.

Much has also been made in reviews of the skill displayed by editor Lee Smith in cutting back & forth between the multiple dream levels, a supposedly incredibly hard job. And it is well done, make no mistake — but it also sounds harder than it is. Really, it’s little different than keeping track of characters in three or four different locations simultaneously; it’s just that these locations are levels of dream/consciousness rather than worldly space. Still no mean feat, but not as hard as keeping three different time periods/narrators distinct and clear, as Nolan & co did in The Prestige.

Then there’s the final shot, which has initiated mass debating in some corners of the internet (yes, that dire pun is fully intentional). In my estimation, and despite some people’s claims to definitiveness, it proves nothing. Some have taken it as undoubted confirmation that Cobb is dreaming all along — the top keeps spinning! Mal said it never stops in a dream! — but I swear we saw it stop earlier in the film, so was that not a dream but now he is in one? How would that work? Others have suggested Cobb is in fact the victim of an inception; that we’ve watched a con movie where we never saw the team, and couldn’t work out who they were. Perhaps; but for this to work surely it’s dependent on a way that we can work out who they were, and what their plan was, and how they did it? Otherwise we may as well start picking on every movie and say “ah, but characters X, Y and Z are actually a secret team doing a secret thing, but we never know what the secret thing is, or what the result of that is”. In other words, it’s pointless unless it’s decipherable.

And still further, the top doesn’t stop spinning on screen. But you can make those things spin for a damn long time before they fall over, if you do it right, so who can say it’s just not done yet? If it does fall over, eventually, sometime after the credits end, then that’s that, it’s the real world after all. Presumably. And that’s without starting on all the other evidence throughout the film: repeated phrases, unclear jumps in location, the first scene that may or may not be different the second time we see it…

Something’s going on, but is it just thematic, or is it all meant to hint that Cobb’s in a dream? And if he is, who (if anyone) is controlling it? To what end? I’m certain that those answers, at least, aren’t to be found, so, again, are the questions valid? My view — on the final shot, at least — is, perhaps too pragmatically, that it’s just a parting shot from Nolan: it doesn’t reveal the Secret Truth of the whole film, it just suggests that maybe — maybe — there’s even more going on. Maybe. And I’m not sure he even knows what that would be or if there is; beyond that the top still spinning as the credits roll is an obvious, irresistible tease. He wouldn’t be the first filmmaker to do such a thing Just Because.

Or there’s always the ‘third version’: that the top doesn’t stop not because it doesn’t stop but because the film ends. Ooh, film-school-tastic. Also, stating the bleeding obvious. I believe it was suggested as a bona fide explanation by one of Lost’s producers, and so is surely automatically classifiable in the “tosh” bin along with that TV series. Presumably it’s ‘deep thoughts’ like that which led to an ending that left many fans unsatisfied. But I digress. He’s right in the sense that the film doesn’t tell us, but it’s not an explanation of it in and of itself unless you want to be insufferably pretentious: it is ambiguous, yes, but it’s not a comment on the artificiality of storytelling or whatever. And if it is… well, I’ll choose to ignore that, thanks, because, no.

I alluded earlier to flaws. If anything, the final act heist is too quick. With, ultimately, four layers of dreams to progress through, not enough time is devoted to establishing and utilising each one. It’s as if Nolan set up a neat idea then realised he couldn’t fully exploit it. They have a week in one world, months in the next, years in the next… but it doesn’t matter, because events come into play that give them increasingly less time at each level. Would it not have been more interesting to craft a heist that actually used the years of dreamtime at their disposal, rather than a fast-edited & scored extended action sequence across all four levels? It makes for an exciting finale when they need to get out, true, but I couldn’t help feeling it didn’t exploit one of the more memorable and significant elements enough.

Indeed, at times the film operates with such efficiency that one can’t help but wonder if there’s another half-hour cut out that it would be quite nice to have back. I appreciate some have criticised the film for already being too long; it would seem I quite decidedly disagree. And not in the fannish “oh I just want more” way that really means they should just get hold of a copy and watch it on loop; I literally mean it could be around half an hour longer and, assuming that half-hour was filling the bits I felt could handle some filling (i.e. not the omitted bits I was fine with nine paragraphs back), I would be more than happy with that. I did not get bored once.

Still on the flaws: Mal (that’d be Cobb’s wife — I’ve been assuming you knew this, sorry if I shouldn’t have) is talked up as a great, interfering, troublesome force… yet she’s rarely that much of a bother. At the start, sure, so we know that she is; and then in Cobb’s own mind when Ariadne pops in for a visit, but that’s why he’s there so it goes without saying; and then, really, it’s not ’til she puts in a brief appearance to execute Fischer that we see her again (unless I’m forgetting a moment?) And apparently Ariadne has had some great realisation that Mal’s affecting Cobb’s work, and Ariadne’s the only one who knows this… but hold on, didn’t Arthur seem all too aware of how often Mal had been cropping up? Does he promptly forget this after she shoots him? Mal is a potentially interesting villainess, especially as she’s actually a construct of Cobb’s subconscious, but I’m not convinced her part is fully developed in the middle.

On a different note, some of the visuals are truly spectacular. I don’t hold to the notion, expressed by some disappointed reviewers, that we’ve seen it all before. The Matrix may have offered broadly similar basic concepts in places, but Inception provides enough work of its own for that not to matter. But there is another problem: we have seen it all before. In the trailer. It’s a little like (oddly) Wanted. That comic book adaptation promised amazing, outrageous, impossible stunts through an array showcased in the trailer. “Wow,” thought (some) viewers, “if that’s what’s in the trailer, imagine what they’ve saved for the film!” Turned out, nothing. And Inception is pretty much the same. The exploding Parisian street, the folding city, the zero-G corridor, the crumbling cliff-faces… all look great, but there’s barely any astounding visual that wasn’t shown in full in the trailer. Is that a problem? Only fleetingly.

But it’s the kind of thing that makes me think Inception will work better on a second viewing. Not for the sake of understanding, but to remove it from the hype and expectation. I’ve seen it now, I know what it is, I’ve seen what it has to offer, I’ve had the glowing reviews and the lambasting reviews either affirmed or rejected, and next time I can actually get a handle on what the film is like. Which makes for an anti-climactic ending to a review, really — “ah, I’ll tell you next time”. Well, I can say this:

Inception is certainly worth watching. I’m not sure it’s a masterpiece — maybe it is — but I’m certain it’s not bad. I don’t think it’s as complicated to follow as some believe, but maybe that’s just because I was prepared to pay attention, and equally prepared to disregard the bits that aren’t necessary rather than struggle to fully comprehend every minute detail. It is flawed, though perhaps some of those I picked up on can be explained (in the way I’m certain some others I’ve discussed can be explained). Is it cold and unemotional? Not entirely. Is it more concerned with the technicalities of the heist and the rules of the game than its characters and their emotions? Yes. Is that a problem? Not really.

At the very least, if only for all the reaction it’s provoked and the debate it will continue to foster, Inception qualifies as a must-see.

Inception placed 3rd on my list of The Ten Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2010, which can be read in full here.

Kick-Ass (2010)

Posted on August 3, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #39
Matthew Vaughn | 117 mins | cinema | 15 / R

This review contains spoilers.

If you happen to remember my (first) Watchmen review, you may recall that I asserted the following:

Zack Snyder’s Watchmen Film is not “the big screen equivalent of Alan Moore’s Watchmen” — that would be a movie, likely very different to the graphic novel, that examined and deconstructed representations of superheroes in cinema and television.

To cut to the chase, Kick-Ass is that film. Yes, it’s still adapted from a pre-existing comic book text, and it doesn’t “examine and deconstruct” quite as methodically — or, if you prefer, “as coldy” — as both Moore and Snyder did; but it still takes its cues as much, if not more, from fellow superhero films and TV series than directly from comics. Much as Watchmen offered variations of specific characters and situations in comics, so too does Kick-Ass from their film counterparts: Kick-Ass himself has the whole “awkward teenage experience” thing of Spider-Man, but fully updated to the era of internet social networking (even if it’s a behind-the-times use of MySpace over Facebook or Twitter); while Big Daddy is a clear Batman analogy, with elements of The Punisher thrown in for good measure.

Elements and moments in this vein permeate the film: Nic Cage employing an Adam West Batman voice for Big Daddy; the black eyeliner required to complete his mask; the Spider-Man plot structure (particularly early on) and numerous references (the opening voiceover, or when Kick-Ass considers jumping rooftops); the “chicks dig the car”-esque scenes with Red Mist — the list goes on, other sequences spoofing whole genre clichés (the “first night on the job”, for example) as well as such specific films.

The score is similarly perfect, mixing serious action queues with appropriately-placed fun songs (mainly during Hit Girl’s action sprees) and more knowing nods to other films — listen out for almost-note-perfect riffs on the famous Superman theme and Danny Elfman’s Batman work.

And, again like Watchmen, Kick-Ass takes all these familiar elements and clichés and attempts to place them in ‘the real world’ (though its real world is far closer to, um, the real real world than Watchmen’s alternate history). What this means, practically, is that Kick-Ass gets his ass kicked. Badly. And that his enemies aren’t cackling megalomaniacs who leave handy riddles around or plot to pollute the water supply, but everyday muggers and, at worst, crime kingpins. This, I suppose, could be seen as where it takes on Batman Begins; signs seem to suggest Kick-Ass 2 may follow The Dark Knight’s theory of supervillains following the superhero into existence.

But, to go back on myself, the most striking point here is the ass-kicking. Violence is bloody, brutal and realistic. Well, the actions themselves are all action movie choreography, but the results are realistic — bloody and brutally so. Kick-Ass gets broken his first time out… which, fortunately, and fully in-keeping with the superhero-origins story, leaves him with a half-metal skeleton and the ability to feel no pain. “Cool,” as he probably says.

This example characterises the film’s attempts to have its cake and eat it. While it does the whole “being a superhero would be a nightmare” thing early on, we then meet Big Daddy and Hit-Girl, who are unfeasible pros, and Kick-Ass himself improves too. It gets to criticise the unlikelihood of the premise and the extremity of the violence, before later revelling in it itself. On the other hand, it’s so much fun that maybe this doesn’t matter — director Matthew Vaughn certainly knows his way round an action sequence, and the humour keeps rolling too — so the (arguably) topsy-turvy themes of the tale ultimately serve as a “downbeat good-for-nothing makes good” story arc.

Not that the mass of negative reviews seem to notice this anyway — they’re too busy being outraged at the swearing uttered by and violence enacted on a young girl. I speak, of course, of the likes of Christopher Tookey (don’t worry if you haven’t heard of him — he writes in the Daily Mail) and Roger Ebert, both of whom lambasted the film for its moral vacuity. They’re not the only ones, just some of the most high-profile (on the other side of the fence, plenty of reviews didn’t miss the point, but they’re less interesting at the moment). Is it low to suggest Ebert & co are too old to ‘get’ Kick-Ass? Probably; especially as some of the other critics who hated it are suitably young. But I don’t think it’s wrong to suggest that not all their arguments hold weight; that some of their reactions were too simplistic.

Reviews like the Daily Mail’s would have us believe the film is all about the glorification of extreme violence and sexualisation of 11-year-old girls. Some have read this as Tookey being a paedophile — how else would he spot something others didn’t, unless he were aroused by it himself? Tookey, naturally, denies such things (he’s posted a long whiney “I’m being internet bullied!” article online, trying to lump himself in with those unfortunate souls who’ve suffered the emotional consequences of genuine internet bullying). I fall between the two camps on this one — that is to say, Tookey’s probably not a paedophile, but nor does the film set out to entice them. Vaughn said he cast Hit-Girl young to avoid sexualising her; if he’d cast a more physically developed 15-year-old, she would’ve been more suspect.

If anything, the film works to confront its audience with notions like this. Is Hit-Girl sexy? She’s 11, you perv! Is getting into fights fun? Not when you get the crap kicked out of you! Is being captured by the enemy, ready to be unmasked on the internet, just a chance for a cool escape? Not when you get burnt alive. Slowly. Is this highly-trained uber-assassin the Coolest Killer Ever? Not when a grown man is beating up a little girl. Vaughn & co (by which I mean original author Mark Miller and co-screenwriter Jane Goldman) start from a place of “this doesn’t work” (having their cake), then they do make it cool (eating it), but then they tear it back down again (I can’t think of a pleasant analogy now).

But, unlike their characters, they don’t tear it down with a baseball bat around the audiences’ head; by which I mean, they don’t spell it out in big idiot-friendly letters — “do you see why this is wrong? Do you see? Let me tell you again…” Instead, they let what occurs speak for itself. OK, the good guys do win in the end, and in a rather cool way — but would it be a more complete moral message if the grown man killed the little girl; if the hero got blown up by the bazooka? Perhaps it would; I don’t know; personally, I like it the way it is.

Am I saying experienced, respected critics like Ebert and Tookey (well, he’s experienced) are too thick to see subtext that I’ve noticed? For once, I suppose I am (though I certainly don’t claim to be alone in noticing it). Am I treating the filmmakers with more intelligence than they deserve? I don’t think so; I think Ebert, Tookey & co have assumed they’re dumber than they are, and in the process made themselves look a bit dimmer. I think they’ve been blinded by the comic-booky roots (their defence, “but I’ve liked some comic book films!”, is beside the point), the extreme situations the film presents — and there’s no doubt that the violence and swearing from such young characters are deliberately extreme and provocative (but for a reason) — and the potential for audiences to misread the whole thing as “just cool”, and so have misread it themselves, as “just perverse”. I think that does the film a disservice.

My initial reaction — besides “wow this is a fun watch!” — was that Kick-Ass walks a tightrope between its initial “what if someone really tried to be a superhero?” premise and the visceral pleasures of taking it to the level of “what if someone succeeded at being a superhero?” But the more I consider it, the more I think this is part of the point — it never, really, goes fully ‘right’. As I’ve said, the good guys win and the bad guys lose, but there are casualties and hard-fought battles along the way. Yes, it thoroughly abandons its “this is the real world” premise by the final act, but the film as a whole leads you there step by step. Is this a flaw, or sneaky filmmaking pulling (or attempting to pull) the wool over our eyes? Does it matter?

It’s an ideological minefield, that’s for sure, and perhaps some would rather it more blatantly faced up to this than it does. Others would clearly rather it didn’t ever raise such issues. Has it dodged them, or has it left them for the audience to consider? I think it’s clear I believe the latter; that most of the negative reviews are too busy being angry to notice they were made to think (or were meant to); sadly, some viewers will be too busy thinking “woah, cool” to have thought at all, which just vindicates those naysayers in their own mind. This latter group are clearly the ones the critics are worried about, but why should every film cater to the lowest common denominator of intellectual ability, or be wary that every viewer might be a paedophile or violent psycho?

And even leaving all that aside, even treating it as “just a comic book movie”, Kick-Ass has something significant to offer. By using various other superhero movies and TV series as its starting point, but grounding them in (a version of) the real world — with attendant debates about violence etc — Kick-Ass fills a void in need of filling. By which I mean: as Watchmen was to superhero comics, so Kick-Ass is to superhero films.

Kick-Ass is released on DVD & Blu-ray in the US today, and in the UK on 6th September.

It came 1st on my list of The Ten Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2010, which can be read in full here.

Sherlock Holmes (2010)

Posted on July 24, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #45
Rachel Lee Goldenberg | 89 mins | DVD | 12 / PG-13

From the company that brought you such pinnacles of cinematic excellence as AVH: Alien vs. Hunter, Snakes on a Train and Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus comes the latest in a long line of cheaply-produced blockbuster cash-ins, this time tied to… well, I think you know. (While I’m at it, I encourage you to look at their website — the sheer volume of these ‘mockbusters’ they’ve produced now is almost impressive.)

You wait decades for a new Sherlock Holmes film and then two come along at once. One is the Guy Ritchie-directed Robert Downey Jr-starring genuine blockbuster moneymaker. The other is thankfully not the rumoured Sacha Baron Cohen/Seth Rogen/Judd Apatow/other faintly irritating people (I forget who was involved) comedy vehicle, but instead a direct-to-DVD cash-in from mockbuster kings The Asylum. Yes, I’d rather this version, thanks.

I’ve not seen an Asylum film before, but I hear this is one of their best. It’s not exactly “good” by any reasonable definition, but as “cable TV movie” quality goes I’d say it trumps the dull Case of Evil. And dull this certainly isn’t — sea monsters! dinosaurs! dragons! air battles! If you thought Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes looked disrespectfully blockbusterised, it seems positively Brettian by comparison.

But, in The Asylum’s favour, their Sherlock Holmes doesn’t hide what it is. Yes, it’s called simply Sherlock Holmes rather than Sherlock Holmes and the Implausible CGI Monsters, but at least said monsters are plastered all over the DVD cover (both US and UK). If you see that and still expect something faithful to Conan Doyle, more fool you. That said, at times it’s surprisingly faithful to Doyle’s spirit. There’s some decent-ish investigation and deduction, the story structured like a mystery rather than an action-adventure.

But you can’t escape the dinosaurs, sea monsters and dragons, or the various steampunk elements introduced towards the climax. And so your enjoyment probably depends on your expectations. Some of the acting’s poor — not least Ben Syder’s camp short-arse Holmes, sadly — and the CGI’s weak, looking like a ’90s syndicated TV series. The direction occasionally lacks competence and a couple of action sequences are pointlessly repetitive.

Anachronisms abound, the best being the first: the film opens in London, 1940, the middle of the Blitz, and the opening shot foregrounds the Millennium Bridge. I don’t think you have to be too familiar with London to know when that was built. Elsewhere we get intercoms on houses, incongruous light switches and period inaccurate telephones, just to mention a couple. It’s shoddy, yes, but almost part of the fun.

But, for all the faults, there are positives. It’s still not “good”, but it is often “quite fun”. Thoroughly daft, certainly, but — provided you don’t demand too much — quite entertaining because of it.

Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’ modern-day re-imagining of Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock, starts at 9pm tomorrow on BBC One.

Tomorrow night, my review of the Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes.

Alice in Wonderland [3D] (2010)

Posted on June 2, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #38
Tim Burton | 108 mins | cinema | PG / PG

I believe Tim Burton coined the now-ubiquitous term “reimagine” when he remade — I mean, reimagined (sorry Tim!) — Planet of the Apes almost a decade ago. Now, he turns his re-imagination to a new version of The Mad Hatter — sorry, posters/ad campaign/DVD art confused me, I mean Alice in Wonderland — which receives its controversially speedy (remember all that fuss with Odeon?) DVD/BD release tomorrow.

This time, rather than starting from scratch, Burton has created a sort of “Alice 2”, crafting a new plot from the novels’ elements. It’s set 13 years after Alice’s first trip down the rabbit hole, which presumably occurred in the classic Disney animation (as opposed to her two trips in the original novels, or any of the other numerous screen versions there have been). Maybe this is for the best — with Alice committed to film so many times before, one might well argue there’s no need to see the exact same tale done again.

Consequently, this new Alice positions itself freshly in two ways: one, as “Burton’s version”, and two, by following in the footsteps of the specific side of the filmic fantasy genre started by Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, which has since encompassed the likes of two Narnia adaptations, The Golden Compass, and probably several more that I’m forgetting. Although it uses the original’s most famous elements, the film’s narrative and structure is familiar from those recent films more than 19th Century literature, particularly a final epic (well, epic-ish) battle in which our unlikely heroine emerges as the long-prophesised One Who’ll Win It For The Good Guys. 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”.

So, talking of Burton, Alice falls into the same ballpark as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the supposedly-forthcoming Addams Family remake: they’re the kind of films one expects Burton to be interested in making, and consequently there’s a sense of ticking-boxes about the results. Like Charlie, Alice offers no real surprises from either Burton or their shared star, Johnny Depp. Both do good work, certainly — the former is visually imaginative, the latter suitably barmy — but neither produce anything you don’t expect. True, one might not have been able to predict the exact elements they wheel out — particular Depp’s random use of a Scottish accent — but it nonetheless never feels unexpected.

Mia Wasikowska is something of a revelation as Alice. She’s a newcomer, so say reviews — the kind of newcomer who’s been in a dozen other things of various size — and presents an almost-knowingly naive Alice, which seems an entirely appropriate characterisation. She’ll next be seen as another titular character in a classic novel adaptation — the BBC’s new Jane Eyre (as if the one they did four years ago wasn’t good enough). (It was.) — which is neither here nor there when it comes to this film, really. I’m sure she’ll do fine.

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 post-production 3D proves (as far as I’m concerned) that James Cameron is being falsely elitist and some reviewers are too easily led: it is very rarely less convincing than what we saw in Avatar. True, Burton doesn’t show it off quite as much as Cameron did — this is a normal film that’s been put into 3D (even the stuff-flying-at-the-camera shots feel like they would’ve remained in a 2D-only version), not one designed to make you go “woah, look at that world! In 3D! I’m, like, so immersed”, the driving factor behind 90% of Avatar’s visuals. I suspect Roger Ebert’s correct that Burton’s visuals would pop more in 2D, away from the sunglass effect of polarised specs, and the added depth adds little of significance to one’s enjoyment of the story or even the visuals… other than 3D sometimes looks nicer, what with all that depth. Well, maybe.

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.

Alice in Wonderland is available on DVD and Blu-ray (2D only) now in the US and from Friday in the UK.

Pixels (2010)

Posted on May 26, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #40a
Patrick Jean | 3 mins | download

Pixels falls somewhere between a commercial and a CGI showreel, albeit one with a definite narrative and a dizzying amount of fun.

The plot is simple: characters and graphics from old 8-bit computer games escape and run riot over New York City. We’re talking Space Invaders firing on real streets, Tetris blocks crashing onto buildings, Donkey Kong hurling barrels from the top of the Empire State Building, Frogger hopping across a road of real traffic… For people of A Certain Age (a little older than me, it must be said) it’s an explosion of nostalgia, but everyone can be impressed by the CGI on display. My personal favourite is the effect of Tetris blocks on that building, but I won’t spoil it here.

Rather than just being a high-concept showcase, director Patrick Jean relates a story. It’s slight and dialogue-free, true, but then this is only two-and-a-half minutes long and, really, is a showcase more than a fully-fledged film. Considering the film’s point — a series of videogame-inspired vignettes — a narrative is virtually unnecessary, but tying them together with one anyway is a pleasing touch.

The visuals and execution of the humorous premise easily hold the attention for the brief running time, however, and I’m sure the former are set to do the film’s real job proficiently — i.e. win One More Production lots of work.

Pixels can be watched in full on the production company’s website.

A feature-length adaptation is released in the US tomorrow, 24th July 2015, and in the UK on Wednesday 12th August.

Scenes of a Sexual Nature (2006)

Posted on December 20, 2008 by badblokebob

2008 #88
Ed Blum | 88 mins | DVD | 15 / R

Scenes of a Sexual Nature is a half-accurate and half-misleading title for this low-budget British comedy drama. The first half is spot on — the film’s made up of seven unconnected scenes — while the second implies it’s ruder than it is.

Effectively, Scenes is seven short two-hand plays stuck together, occasionally intercut for no good reason (only one runs throughout), all on a similar theme — which, despite the title, is really “relationships” rather than “sex”. And “plays” is the right word: the styles of dialogue and acting, plus the sparsity of locations and cast members, not to mention the thematic construction, all suggest theatrical roots. In fact, so much does it seem grounded in the stage that I was thoroughly surprised to discover it wasn’t an adaptation. One wonders if writer Aschlin Ditta has perhaps launched his work into the wrong medium then; on the other hand, a stage production would never have attracted such attention or such a high number of recognisable names and faces.

Most of the scenes can be simply labelled — the Gay Couple, the Old Couple, and so on — and, unsurprisingly, some are better than others. The Gay Couple is a textbook example of how to write conflicting motivations both between a loving couple and within a single character, nicely performed by Ewan McGregor and Douglas Hodge. Consequently, it’s probably the film’s best sequence. Elsewhere, the Old Couple are quite sweet, Ditta pleasingly taking their story beyond an obvious, clichéd end point, though it is lumbered with a bench metaphor that’s a touch heavy-handed. Similarly, the Blind Date Couple is initially hilarious but doesn’t seem to know where to go, a problem that afflicts most of the film as every scene is distinctly inconclusive.

Worst is the one starring Mark Strong and Polly Walker, in which nothing at all happens in the name of a closing twist. It’s like the antithesis of the Old Couple bits. The one that stretches credibility the most, however, is the Divorcing Couple. Amicable divorces surely exist, but not that amicable — it’s very hard to believably see why they’re not still together. On the bright side, at least they’re not reunited by the scene’s end; but then, like much of the film, they’re not definitely apart either — it’s inconclusive.

Scenes of a Sexual Nature isn’t a bad film, but it is a bit of a mixed bag. Some stories work, others don’t. It’s not badly directed, but the writing and acting is all very stagey. It’s more like a collection of thematically and stylistically linked shorts than a feature in its own right. Some will no doubt take more from it than others, but I can only fall down the middle.

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Category Archives: 2010s