Waitress (2007)

Posted on May 18, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #31
Adrienne Shelly | 103 mins | DVD | 12 / PG-13

Whenever a star, director, writer, or other key creative dies during or around the production of a film, it’s apparently tempting to draw some kind of correlation between their death and the themes or content of their work. To force such a link between the murder of writer/director/co-star Adrienne Shelly and Waitress seems inappropriate, however, when the film is so much about life.

The basic plot could be made to sound identical to Juno’s, if one really wanted (I don’t though, so this won’t): Keri Russell (TV’s Felicity) plays titular waitress Jenna, a genius creator of delicious pies, who finds herself unwelcomely pregnant after a drunken night with her controlling, abusive husband Earl (Jeremy Sisto, TV’s Kidnapped). When Jenna visits her (female) doctor, she’s been replaced by (male) Dr Pomatter (Nathan Fillion, TV’s Firefly), an awkward, slightly bumbling man who, to cut the story slightly short, she falls for and they begin to have an affair — despite his being married (to fellow doctor Francine (Darby Stanchfield, TV’s Mad Men)).

Jenna tries to keep her pregnancy secret from Earl, with the support of her friends Becky (Cheryl Hines, TV’s Curb Your Enthusiasm), who has a secret of her own, and Dawn (Shelly), who’s being stalked by her one-time five-minute-date Ogie (Eddie Jemison, TV’s Hung). And she tries to keep her affair with Dr Pomatter secret from everyone, though it seems she can’t hide anything from perceptive elderly diner-owner Joe (Andy Griffith, TV’s Matlock).

I know I recently said I don’t give plot descriptions, but it’s these threads that illuminate Waitress’ life-affirming themes. Becky and Dawn show there’s hope for happiness with whatever hand you’ve been dealt, even where you least expect it; Ogie, Joe (and diner chef Cal (TV’s occasional guest star Lew Temple)) show you can’t judge a book by its cover; Joe also offers Jenna the gift of premature hindsight thanks to his reminisces and regrets; and then there’s the baby, who, aside from the obvious, represents fresh starts. None of these are hammered home quite as bluntly as I have here — not even the baby one — but my observations show, I suppose, what I took from them.

Though every performance excels, Shelly’s screenplay is the real star. To bring up the Juno similarity again, it features a quite idiosyncratic style of dialogue, particularly when delivered through the cast’s Southern accents. It’s also very funny, but never allows this to interfere with the more serious elements. Some have criticised it for putting so much levity near such tragic topics; I can only assume they live in a different world to our’s, presumably one where either everything is punctuated by a laughter track or one where everything is underscored by Coldplay.

From its promotional material and vaguest of outlines (Keri Russell leaves unhappy marriage for lovely Nathan Fillion!), Waitress looks like another breezy rom-com, the kind of thing that stars Jennifer Aniston — a chick flick, or to sound inappropriately less derogatory, “woman’s film”. Waitress is a “woman’s film”, but in a good way: written and directed from a female perspective, with its central roles being female, it doesn’t pander to a perceived female demographic and nor does it bellow “this is what we women think, and it’s so different to you damn men” — it’s more subtle than that.

Kathryn Bigelow won the Oscar by beating men at their own game — and that was probably for the best as a first-timer, dodging accusations of “well, she just made a woman’s film, didn’t she?” from the off — but hopefully it’s nudged the door open for female voices on a wider range of subjects. To slightly go against what I said in that opening paragraph, it’s a loss that Adrienne Shelly won’t get a chance to be among them.

The UK TV premiere of Waitress is on Film4 tomorrow at 9pm.
Waitress is on Film4 +1 today, Monday 28th July 2014, at 7:50pm.

Righteous Kill (2008)

Posted on May 16, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #46
Jon Avnet | 101 mins | Blu-ray | 15 / R

You remember Righteous Kill, right? It’s the film that reunited De Niro and Pacino, only the second time they’d appeared on screen together. And while the first, Heat, offered just one scintillating scene, Righteous Kill presented them as a police partnership — loads of scenes together! For a certain generation of film fans — several generations, probably — this just screams potential.

And what you’ll also remember is that it got slated. Thoroughly. Its Tomatometer is a measly 20%, and if you narrow that to ‘Top Critics’ — i.e. people/magazines that can usually be relied upon — it drops to a shockingly low 9%. It’s hard to find a good word said about it anywhere, although the pull quotes on Rotten Tomatoes are worth reading just to see Sky News’ contribution: in a field of quotes bursting with negative words, Tim Evans tries to assert not only that “it’s an effective whodunnit but — more importantly — it poses refined, complex questions about how the law operates in a so-called civilised society.”

Critics can be wrong, of course. It’s all a matter of opinion, and all that. But this time, they’re really not.

So what’s wrong with Righteous Kill? Well, it’s dull. Properly dull — not slow, not measured, not leisurely — just dull. Director Jon Avnet tries to spice things up occasionally with some swishy camerawork or editing, apparently forgetting he’s lensing a procedural thriller about a pair of 60-something cops and not Miami Vice 2. Suffice to say, it doesn’t work; if anything, it makes it worse.

The plot is confused in its telling. Events appear to jump around with random flashbacks and forwards, but it’s actually mostly linear… except the scenes so disconnected that you’re left trying to work out what’s happening at what point even when it’s just happening in order. Screenwriter Russell Gewirtz was previously responsible for penning Inside Man, where a little of this kind of playing worked. Perhaps it’s Avnet’s fault, then; perhaps Gewirtz is a one hit wonder.

The film plays like a procedural/whodunnit as the cops try to work out who the serial killer might be. Except we know who it is from early on. Except Avnet muddles things so much that we’re not sure we know after all. Is this going to a be twist, just really badly hidden? No, it isn’t. So why not just own up to it and do a proper howcatchem, or psychological study, or whatever? Well, there is a twist, actually. But by the time we’ve worked out that we’re meant to know who the killer is all along, anyone passingly film literate will be beginning to realise there will be a twist — too many hoops are being jumped through in some scenes to cover up something we’re being explicitly told in others.

I’m trying not to give too much away here — goodness knows why, because I heartily recommend you never waste your time on this. Even if you can forgive the boringly convoluted plot, there’s nothing else to latch on to. The film’s at its best when focusing on the De Niro/Pacino pairing, granting us the occasional good scene. Or just line — every little helps. But there’s not enough of that and too much of the dross. Other characters come and go with near-random irregularity, subplots are abandoned, or if they were resolved I missed it, and there are so many clichés you wish the DVD came with a spotters’ guide — at least ticking them off would give you something to do.

There are good elements buried here, or at least passable ones. The twist, for example, could work beautifully if it had been executed better. Which is slightly ironic, because one gets the feeling many other choices in the story and direction were dictated by needing to make that reversal work. “Oops.”

Righteous Kill, then, is messy and largely dull, with the odd bit that makes you not totally regret giving it some time. Perhaps with the right team the good parts could’ve been marshalled into something broadly effective. In fact, I’m certain they could be, because there’s proof that at least the premise can work: it’s a TV series called Dexter. Watch that instead, it’s immeasurably better.

Righteous Kill featured on my list of The Five Worst Films I Saw in 2010, which can be read in full here.

Titanic (1997)

Posted on May 14, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #35
James Cameron | 187 mins | TV (HD) | 12 / PG-13

Before Avatar came along and ruined everything — um, I mean, dominated both the box office and James Cameron’s career — the director seemed to have become best-known for his previous record-breaking box-office-topper, Titanic. And because he was so well known for it, it’s easy to forget that it stands out like a sore thumb in his filmography: previously he’d only been responsible for action and/or sci-fi films: The Terminator, T2, Aliens, The Abyss and True Lies. And, lest we forget, Piranha 2. And, in the years since his ship-based behemoth, his only fiction film is Avatar, which you may remember — it was a little film about some blue aliens on a moon.

So, despite Titanic’s slightly-ironic runaway success (considering the fate of the titular vessel), one still has every reason to question if Cameron can handle a straight-up drama. After all, dialogue and character are hardly his strong points, and box office success and Oscar victory are hardly reasons to suppose a film is any good.

The first thing one can note about Titanic is that it’s over-reaching itself size-wise. This is true of both vessel and film, one being too big to dodge an iceberg, the other simply too long. I can’t be certain, but it feels like the entire film following the iceberg’s arrival is in real-time, which would make the length an excusable narrative trick — I do like real-time — were it not for Cameron padding it out with endless contrivances to have Jack and Rose running around the ship. All of these sequences are suitably exciting in themselves, but there’s so many of them that they become dully repetitive.

But before the good bit — giant boat sinking! Yay! — there’s the Jack-Rose romance, clearly the main draw for many fans. I can’t help feeling they need to be shown some better films. It’s not quite as weak as George Lucas’ efforts in Attack of the Clones, but it’s not far off. The scene the day after Jack saves Rose — where they have a natter on deck and she looks at his art for the first time; aka the primary scene for their falling for each other — is particularly weakly written. “Oh Jack, the plot requires me to look at your drawings now, so please hand them over.” The dialogue’s not actually that bad, but it’s bloody close.

The film really takes off with the iceberg. While my criticism still stands that it goes on too long from this point (just as it does before it, mind), the post-impact scenes are by far the most exciting and engaging sequences in the film. The predictable romantic plot may keep Leo’s fans flocking back, but the horrendous spectacle of the sinking ship — both visually in an array of epic wide shots, and emotionally in the various and changing ways the passengers and crew react — is the film’s real triumph, a reason for the rest of us to even consider revisiting it.

Even if spectacle is the real star, there are some actors too. Kate Winslet does fine work with a character who could just be (and occasionally is) a cliché. As the same character 85 years later, Gloria Stuart gives an even better, emotionally resonant performance. Billy Zane and David Warner are perfectly dastardly villains, Bernard Hill practices the stoic leader he would later perfect in The Lord of the Rings, and Kathy Bates provides some intermittent comic relief.

And Leo is pretty-boy Leo. I’m not saying he’s not a talented actor — that was something he’d shown before Titanic and has certainly proven since, though everyone seemed to forget it in the late ’90s — but Jack Dawson is hardly a tricky task for him. Clearly he looks beautiful, has the loveable rogue thing down, and that’s job done.

Russell Carpenter’s cinematography is always up to the task with a nice degree of diversity, from Michael Bay-style tech-fetish crispness in the present-day bookends to a warm glow for the past of Rose’s memory, with an icy collision of the two as disaster strikes. On a similar note, the CGI has aged surprisingly well… provided you don’t look too closely, at least. And I do mean “surprisingly” in the most literal sense, because I expected it to look awful. I swear it did last time I saw a clip. Anyway…

None of this can be said for James Horner’s irritating score. While not as bad as the batter-you-round-the-head signposting of his work on Avatar, it has a similar sense of obviousness. His frequent use of motifs from Celine Dion’s irritating My Heart Will Go On is always unwelcome, and (for me) always drags French and Saunders into the equation — “my heart will go ooooooooon” and all that.

Indeed, Titanic’s literally phenomenal success, and the subsequent abundance of spoofs and homages across all media in the decade-and-a-bit since, is an obstacle for any new viewer. One can’t watch Jack declare “I’m the king of the world!” without thinking of Cameron’s much-derided Oscar speech; can’t watch Jack and Rose ‘flying’ without thinking of any number of piss-takes; and French and Saunders spring to mind quite all over the place.

And yet, despite all this criticism, I found myself quite liking Titanic. I didn’t expect to, which is why I’ve avoided it for so long. I could take or leave the romance — could take it better if they’d gotten someone in to polish the script — and while they were at it they could’ve trimmed the second half’s repetition — but, all things considered, there’s enough spectacle to keep one engrossed.

Over-long and based on spectacle over content? Reminds me of this little film about some blue aliens on a moon…

Titanic is on Channel 4 tonight, Sunday 13th July 2014, at 7pm.

Death Wish (1974)

Posted on May 13, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #29
Michael Winner | 93 mins | TV | 18 / R

Apparently, the recent Michael Caine-starring Harry Brown is a Death Wish for modern times. I’ve not seen Harry Brown yet (Michael Caine killing chavs? Why haven’t I seen this yet), but — as you’ve probably guessed from which review you’re reading — I have seen its spiritual predecessor.

The Death Wish series, as it would later become, seems to be remembered with a certain degree of contempt these days (despite an expressed love for Death Wish 3 from Edgar Wright & co), and I suspect that may be due to the sequels. Not that this first film is a masterpiece or something, but it has plus points.

The characters are surprisingly believable for a start, with serious effort put into their motivation and progression. One expects a shallowness from the genre, plot and director — that the hero’s wife would be killed and daughter raped, and the next day he’s on the street killing scum, building to a climax where he finally gets the gang who committed the original crime — but it’s not so. Months pass before Charles Bronson’s unlucky architect, Paul, grabs his gun and hits the streets, and even then it’s not like he’s slaughtering foes left, right and centre every night.

Indeed, realism permeates: Paul’s encounters aren’t all easily won; he gets injured; his crimes create a media storm, on which public opinion is divided; he never conveniently come across the attackers of his wife and kids — after the crime, they’re never seen again; and so on. There are still unrealistic bits, certainly, but by employing enough believability and leaving aside certain rules of the revenge thriller — for one thing, he never actually gets revenge — Death Wish manages to rise a little above the “heroic vigilante” sub-genre.

The strongest element is probably Wendell Mayes’ script, because it constructs all this. Weakest is Michael Winner’s direction — some of it’s fine, the occasional shot even good, but largely it’s pedestrian and sometimes mediocre. That said, Winner has become such an unlikeable public figure that it’s somewhat difficult to gauge how much of this is bad direction and how much bias. Still, it’s not the kind of work to make one think, “he’s an idiot, but he knows how to do his job”.

As noted, I hear the sequels get increasingly ridiculous, which I can well believe: as a standalone film, Death Wish has strength in a certain degree of realism; imagining a franchise spun off from it, however, it’s easy to see how it would quickly become diluted and lose the power such veracity gives. One wonders, though, if a well-chosen director might produce an even better remake…

The September Issue (2009)

Posted on May 12, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #26
R.J. Cutler | 86 mins | TV | 12 / PG-13

I don’t really care about fashion, which means I really don’t care about Fashion — i.e. the world inhabited by Vogue and its American edition’s infamous editor, Anna Wintour. But I did watch The Devil Wears Prada and quite enjoyed it, while this documentary comes well-praised. And after all, what’s documentary for if not to educate you on a subject you know nothing about?

The September Issue, as it turns out, is surprisingly enjoyable. Is it illuminating? I’m not sure, though some bits are occasionally fascinating — director R.J. Cutler’s handful of interview snippets with Wintour are well-chosen; brief but potentially revealing, even as she does her best to given nothing away.

There’s no narration — nothing is rammed home. It occasionally feels free-form, a collection of bits and pieces about the making of one issue. But narratives form themselves amongst this, like the relationship between Wintour and Grace Coddington, her chief… I forget the job title, but it’s something magazine-designer-y.

Grace is, perhaps, the real star of the film. While Wintour floats around unknowably (though Cutler and co do their best to get under her skin, and manage to dig some information out in the process), it’s Grace who is frankest with the camera, who reveals her somewhat tragic past, who stands before a garden in Paris and is lost to memory staring at its beauty. She’s a wise centre for the film: Wintour, one suspects, will always be unknowable, a figurehead more than a person; but Grace is relatable, as human as the rest of us.

And actually, Wintour isn’t the most irritating person here; not when you’ve got ludicrous fashion stereotypes like André Leon Talley drifting in and out. This in spite of her opening assertion, apparently designed to drive away all non-Fashion-fans right from the off. No, love, not everyone secretly wishes they were part of your world; not everyone secretly thinks it’s the height of sophistication and glamour and only criticises it because they can’t get in on it.

Even after a whole film that does something to reconfigure her as slightly more human, and to repaint the industry as occasionally relatable, coming back to that introductory drum-beating still grates. But the rest is, somewhat surprisingly, worth it.

See also the accompanying short, The Met Ball.

Speed Racer (2008)

Posted on May 10, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #21
The Wachowski Brothers | 135 mins | Blu-ray | PG / PG

Speed Racer feels like an unfair place to kick off these half-arsed efforts because, despite the critical and commercial apathy it found on release, I really enjoyed it. This close to giving it 5 stars, I was. Still, it’s my oldest unreviewed film (from this year), so…

Firstly, it’s visually astounding. Speed Racer’s blocks of vibrant colour and computer whizzery are a natural fit for the modern digital experience. Action sequences are mind-meltingly fast, but also incredibly thrilling. When CGI is blatantly used in an attempt to fake something real it can leave an action sequence hollow; but here, everything is pushed to the limit — and, probably, beyond — and so it works.

The plot doesn’t have many twists or turns — at least, not any that are genuinely surprising — and yet it rarely feels boring or stale. It’s buoyed by the crazy action sequences, the likeable characters, the unabashed sense of fun that’s poured into every sequence. Little flourishes mark the film out: the Hallelujah moment with the sweets on the plane; Racer X’s delivery of a simple punch amongst a bevy of complex car stunts; numerous others lost to my memory.

Even some of the performances stand out, not something you’d expect from such a (for want of a better word) lightweight tale. Of particular note are Susan Sarandon as Mom and Christina Ricci’s Trixie, whose huge eyes help render her perhaps one of the most perfect live-action versions of an anime character ever seen. Yes, the characters mostly exist to service their place in the plot, but the odd scene or glance or line delivery adds some subtlety here and there.

The mediocre-to-bad reviews Speed Racer received on its initial release seek to chastise you if you happen to like it — look, Ebert’s already informed us why we’re wrong should we even attempt claims of artistic integrity in the Wachowskis’ work. Maybe he’s right — he can list a whole load of commercial tie-ins at the end, after all. Then again, this is the man who gave Phantom Menace half-a-star shy of full marks, a film that was only a little about story and quite a bit about tie-in merchandise if ever there was one (he awarded Revenge of the Sith the same, incidentally, and has included the granddaddy of all film-tie-in-tat, Star Wars itself, in his Great Movies series). And, to specifically rubbish his opinions here, Phantom Menace is praised for being “made to be looked at more than listened to… filled with wonderful visuals” and condemns Speed Racer because “whatever information that passes from your retinas to your brain is conveyed through optical design and not so much through more traditional devices such as dialogue, narrative, performance or characterization… you could look at it with the sound off and it wouldn’t matter.” Not that Film’s unique factor (over novels or radio or what have you) is its visual sense, and a silent film that can be told through image alone, devoid of any intertitles, was once a lofty aim. I’m sure Ebert could readily explain why Phantom Menace’s visual splendour is a good thing and why Speed Racer’s is so terrible, but, on the other hand… pot, meet kettle.

(For a point of clarity, I normally like and agree with Ebert — I’m sure some previous reviews where I’ve cited him will attest to this — which is why I pick on his pair of opinions here rather than those of some lesser critic who can’t be expected to maintain a critical ideology from one film to the next, never mind two that sit almost a decade apart.)

Back to Speed Racer. In every respect it’s like a living cartoon, and it’s the Wachowskis’ commitment to this aesthetic in every single respect that makes it work where others have floundered. It’s not perfect, I suppose. It may run a little long at two-and-a-quarter hours; but then, it so rarely lets up that I didn’t mind a jot. And the kid is often annoying; but then, as annoying little kids in films go, I’ve seen worse. At times I even liked him.

But, all things considered, when the chips are down, with all said and done, and any other clichés you feel like listing for no particular reason, I found this to be a candy-coloured masterpiece.

The UK TV premiere of Speed Racer is on Channel 5 today, Sunday 26th October 2014, at 6:20pm.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)

Posted on May 4, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #16
Dave Filoni | 98 mins | Blu-ray | PG / PG

The Clone Wars can boast an awful lot of firsts within the Star Wars franchise: the first animated Star Wars in cinemas, the first not to feature Frank Oz as Yoda, the first not to open in May, the first not to have a text-crawl intro… It’s also the first not to open at number one at the box office. None of these facts are likely to endear itself to die-hard Star Wars fans. I’m not one, but it did little to endear itself to me either.

Things go wrong immediately. For fans, the Warner Bros. logo is horrendously incongruous (so I’m told — the original six films were all released by Fox), but for even the casual viewer there’s something seriously odd within minutes: no opening text crawl! This is meant to be Star Wars? Instead, a chunk of exposition — which sounds exactly like the opening crawl would, and so has clearly been designed to replace it — is read over a montage of the events it describes. Do they think children can’t read? In fairness, I’ve been to Star Wars screenings where there were children young enough that parents were having to read the crawl to their kids… but considering the live action films are “kids’ movies” too (as Lucas was so keen to remind us when everyone hated the prequels), surely what’s good enough for them is good enough for this?

Omissions such as this could be forgiven if more important aspects went well. But they don’t. The script is so good it could’ve been written by George Lucas himself. There are too many weak dialogue exchanges to even consider listing them, but Ahsoka’s habit of calling R2-D2 “Artooey” is memorably grating. Much of the voice acting is just as bad, with James Arnold Taylor’s Obi Wan accent particularly off-centre. Catherine Taber’s Padmé impression is probably the most convincing of the lot and, coincidentally sharing the same scenes, Corey Burton’s Truman Capote impression as Ziro the Hutt is entertainingly obvious. Count Dooku doesn’t particularly benefit from the involvement of Christopher Lee, but at least Samuel L. Jackson is vaguely recognisable lending his actual voice to Mace Windu. Most of the cast deliver the kind of performance you typically find in kids’ cartoons — i.e. not all that good, no doubt due to the pressures of producing as many episodes as possible as cheaply as possible. Dubious line readings abound, though in fairness this may be down to the awkward lines they’re forced to deliver.

In between the poor dialogue there are plenty of action sequences. The first battle is a bit dull: masses of troops just firing at each other, until the bad guys suddenly decide that actually they ought to retreat because of the cannons — cannons that have been firing on them throughout. At least the repeat performance ten minutes later features some tactics and diversions. Later fights are better, though not by a huge amount. There are certainly a fair few, though there’s little real variation between them. The big battles and space dogfights are adequate, if lacking in focus, but the lightsaber duels miss the heft of their live-action equivalents, animation robbing them of the physical skill involved in a real sword fight (even if those in the prequels involve a fair degree of CGI themselves). The much-trumpeted vertical battle is a great idea that’s competently executed, but the change in perspective is too little used — apart from the odd moment or shot, they may as well be progressing slowly on a horizontal plane.

All of these sequences are scored by stock-sounding ‘epic action music’. Kevin Kiner’s music is nothing like as original or distinctive as John Williams’ work on the main series. Other than re-using some of Williams’ themes, it’s a rather generic action score — perfectly pleasant for what it is, but not particularly memorable. A slight remix of the main Star Wars theme gives the opening a distinctive air… as if the Warner Bros. logo, war talk over the Lucasfilm logo, and lack of text crawl didn’t do the job by themselves.

The animation itself is certainly stylised, which annoys some, but then it’s not billed as an Avatar-esque “it’s real, honest” style, or even the lower level achieved (if one can call it an achievement) by Beowulf. It’s surely a sensible decision — look how far from real Beowulf turned out to be on a feature budget and timescale, and when you’re churning out a weekly series (as this was always intended to be) such aspirations as photo-real CGI are far too lofty, not to mention expensive. Personally, I quite like the style. The painterly textures are slightly odd, but probably preferable to flat slabs of colour, while the cartoonisation of the cast (allegedly inspired by Thunderbirds) fits the lightweight tone and keeps things visually interesting. Besides, as noted, the visual style is the least of the film’s problems.

It may sound like a piece of trivia that this was originally conceived as three episodes of the TV series that now follows it, but where the breaks would fall is disappointingly clear — note, for example, that at around 25 minutes the first battle is won, Anakin resolves himself to teach the Padawan he previously objected to, and Yoda arrives to kick off the next part of the story. It could only be more like the end of an episode if credits rolled. It’s also the apparent need to fit two or three action sequences per episode that keeps them coming at regular intervals in a film which sticks three back-to-back.

There’s an overarching plot, thank goodness, which is immediately established… before being put on hold for half-an-hour while the events of what-would-have-been-episode-one play out: a battle that isn’t particularly significant in itself and has absolutely no relevance to the rest of the story, immediately betraying the three-episode origins. After that’s done the main plot resumes in two clearly-divisible chunks — the precise moment of the second transition isn’t as obvious as the first, but which subplots belong to which half is. Maybe the story joins are invisible to those who don’t know the production’s history or something of narrative structure (i.e. normal people), but they were blatant to me. It particularly shows in the final act/third episode, as the story switches from epic battle sequences to some out-of-nowhere political wrangling and lower-key lightsaber-based confrontations.

Although it has high-quality animation, a largely cinematic scale, particularly in the battles, and direction that isn’t as obviously TV-only as some TV-bound productions, The Clone Wars still feels like watching a compilation of TV episodes rather than a film in its own right. It’s partly the episode structures that remain unconcealed, partly the shortage of real voice talent indicating a lower budget, partly the relative insignificance of the story — it just doesn’t have the epic quality that imbued all the other Star Wars films. Not every film has to be an epic, even ones set within the same universe/storyline, but by wheeling out all the main characters and then showing them complete just one moderately low-key mission, The Clone Wars does feel like a single instalment of a TV series and not an appropriately-scaled cinematic experience.

This might’ve made a pretty strong set of opening episodes to a half-hour TV show, and I hear the series has gotten quite good as its first season progressed. If that’s true, it’s a shame such a weak beginning will have put so many off giving it a go, because as a standalone film The Clone Wars falls far short.

The Illusionist (2006)

Posted on May 1, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #32
Neil Burger | 104 mins | DVD | PG / PG-13

A Blu-ray release of The Illusionist has just been announced. Which is fair enough, of course. But if you were considering a blind buy, probably based on hearing it’s “a bit like The Prestige”, then please allow me to stick the knife in a little first.

Let’s begin with a pet hate of mine: this being a mid-’00s film, it of course begins near the end and finds an excuse to jump back to the start before eventually catching up with itself. As we move into the ’10s, I hope we’re seeing the back of this cheap and irritating screenwriting trick — which, having done my share of creative writing modules at university, I know is the kind of thing new writers are taught as a Good Thing because it allows you to jump right into the action. Maybe this helps you sell your script; personally, I’ve just found it a grating trend that needs bucking. What’s wrong with starting where the story starts?

At the other end — past the bit where we joined — sits a last-minute ‘twist’ explanation for all we’ve seen. But it’s a bit half-arsed, just repeating shots we’ve seen in a new order (with a few additions, to be fair), leaving the viewer to fill in the blanks… which is largely no chore (personally, I’d suspected that all along anyway), but it leaves significant important chunks unexplained, hoping to gloss over them by bamboozling us with a lot of other information. It doesn’t succeed.

The story itself — you remember those? It’s the bit between the attention-grabbing opening and preposterous-twist finale — is mediocre with or without the finale. It’s a something-and-nothing account of a Poor Boy who loves a Rich Girl he can’t have and… oh, I can’t even be bothered to explain it.

Writer/director Neil Burger has some nice effects going to help conjure up the period, using lighting, grading and the occasional wipe to evoke silent movies and the like during some segments, particularly — and pertinently, if predictably — the flashbacks. Other effects are less welcome, however: the magic is all obviously fake. This rather takes away any mystery, leaving the entire film as just a fantasy — very different from The Prestige in this regard.

Performance wise, everyone struggles with their accents. That this is the most notable aspect of the cast is, obviously, not a good thing. Ed Norton, looking rather like Derren Brown, is suitably enigmatic as the titular magician, while Paul Giamatti delivers the best performance as a conflicted detective, torn between his intrigue at the illusionist, duty to the Prince, and respect for the law. He’s by far the best thing about the film.

As comparisons with The Prestige are inevitable, particularly as both films were ultimately released around the same time, I’ll briefly put them head-to-head. Both concern stage magic in a similar-enough period setting, debate about whether the tricks are just that or actually supernatural powers, a love story that goes awry, which involves a fatal rivalry… But they’re actually very different films. The Prestige jumps about in time in a more complex way than The Illusionist, but this also has a point. The former’s story is more original, more engaging, its use of magic — real or not — more captivating. I fear I could go on, but it’s succinctly summed up thus: in this comparison, The Illusionist comes up short.

On the bright side, I avoided a pun there. You know, like, “The Illusionist just doesn’t have The Prestige’s magic.”

Oops.

Evangelion: 1.11 You Are (Not) Alone. (2007/2009)

Posted on April 26, 2010 by badblokebob

aka Evangerion shin gekijôban: Jo / Evangelion New Theatrical Version: Prelude

2010 #41
Hideaki Anno, Masayuki & Kazuya Tsurumaki | 101 mins | Blu-ray | 12 / PG-13

When I (first) reviewed Watchmen, I commented that it was hard to divorce my opinion of the graphic novel from my opinion of the movie, so faithful was the adaptation. That’s as nothing to this, though: Evangelion: 1.11 (also known as Evangelion: 1.0 and Evangelion: 1.01, slightly different versions of the same thing) is a retelling of the first six episodes of the highly-acclaimed anime TV series Neon Genesis Evangelion, using the original animation and voice cast to recreate the story.

To put that another way: as a retelling of the first quarter of the original series, reconstructed from the original animation elements, some may wonder what the point of You Are (Not) Alone is — why not just re-watch the series? And how well can six episodes of a TV series work when stuck back-to-back as a film? To be frank, I’m in no position to accurately compare the content of the film and the original episodes, as I last (and first) watched them about three years ago. I can say that some of this is very familiar — one is certainly aware it’s the original elements re-appropriated — while other bits I suspect may have been drafted in from later in the series, and others I’m certain are actually all-new.

Despite some animation tweaks, other things go unchanged, occasionally making the future-set story seem already dated. A line mentioning cell phones, in an attempt to cover why Shinji is bothering to use a phone box, is a new addition I swear, while he also listens to a (digital, at least) cassette player rather than an iPod (other MP3 players are available, naturally). It’s not a major flaw — unlike, perhaps, the fact that the “covert” and top-secret Nerv organisation has great big signs plastered all over town and everyone seems to know about them — but, still, maybe a new bit of animation to replace the tape-playing close-ups would’ve been nice.

The original episodes run around 2 hours 20 minutes total (including all titles, trailers, etc) so edits have been made, but it’s intelligently done. Despite the time since I watched the series I’m aware of where some episode breaks fall, so it’s hard to accurately say how it hangs together as a film to a newbie, but it seems to me that it does rather well. It throws you in at the deep end a bit, but then so does the series. It’s a non-stop opening 25 minutes, a relentless onslaught of information and action, before the pace lets up a little. The pace is surprisingly good throughout, a well-considered balance between action, character and mysteries. Anno and co have retained some of the original’s light and shade — this isn’t just a plot recap, but includes some of the humour and character-based subplots. These elements are still the most trimmed, but there’s enough retained that they work in the context of the film. Indeed, it’s been so skilfully done that an uninformed viewer might even accept it was originally created as a film.

The pros and cons of the series remain. Shinji is alternately interesting, perhaps even complex, and a whiney little irritant. Here he has a character arc at least, suggesting he may be more sufferable next time out. His relationship with Major — sorry, Lieutenant-Colonel — Katsuragi, important in the series, seems to have an even greater focus here, providing a key emotional through-line for the characters. Some of the philosophical bits survive too, feeling as pretentious as ever, but — like the occasionally OTT humour — have been reduced by the need to hit a feature-length and still pack the story in.

As best I can tell the English voice cast is entirely the same as the TV series. Though I presume they’ve all been re-recorded for the film, your opinion of their work is unlikely to be changed. I don’t mean this specifically as either criticism or praise, just that there’s nothing to distinguish between this and the TV version vocally.

One thing that worried me was that this would feel less like a standalone film and more like Part One of a much longer story, primarily because I recalled episode six being ‘just’ another big battle — an action sequence, certainly, but no more of a climax than any of the other fights. I don’t know if I’ve misremembered or if work has been done to place a heavier emphasis on it here, but it is unquestionably a Big Climax — an all-or-nothing finale, bringing together the plot, most of the subplots, and a Threat To The Whole World. There’s still a “To be continued…” — not only literally, but quite clearly in a raft of unresolved subplots — but it fits as an End Of Act One, much as does the end of, say, Fellowship of the Ring.

Another factor thrown up by the TV-series-to-feature conversion is the image quality. An HD big screen is a mixed blessing here. On one hand, it looks great on Blu-ray, with crisp lines and solid colours, the result of re-filming, colouring and CGI-ing the original animation elements rather than using the finished TV shots. On the other, such clarity sometimes shows up a lack of detail in the original animation — these elements were created for 4:3 mid-’90s TV, not a hi-def (home) cinema — and the solid colours and money-saving techniques (for example, showing something static rather than a lip-synched (ish) mouth during conversations) can remind the viewer of cheaper TV roots. Perhaps I’m being overly critical though, because much of it does look fabulous; at the very least, the thorough ground-up rebuild means it looks better than the TV series ever will, never mind has.

Ultimately, You Are (Not) Alone works satisfyingly as a film. Arguably it has a slightly unusual narrative structure or slightly unsophisticated animation, but it works much better than you’d expect from six TV episodes stuck together. With introductions, character arcs and a suitably important climax, it even functions as a standalone film, in a similar way to Fellowship or other trilogy/tetralogy/etc first instalments.

Plenty of mysteries remain at the end: who are Seele? What is the Human Instrumentality Project? Why does Shinji’s father hate his son but smile whenever he sees Rei? To mention just a few. They’re not allowed to over-dominate this story, but they let the viewer know that, while You Are (Not) Alone functions as an entertaining standalone tale, there’s a lot left to be revealed and investigated. It’s enough to make one scurry back to the series for answers, though the three movies still to come promise whole new characters, plots and a — frankly, much-needed — brand-new ending. After two misfires (one in the series, one in a film), hopefully Anno can provide something truly satisfying this time.

Evangelion 1.11 is out on DVD and Blu-ray today.

Wallander: The Revenge (2009)

Posted on April 23, 2010 by badblokebob

aka Mankell’s Wallander: Hämnden

2010 #40
Charlotte Brändström | 89 mins | TV | 15

Krister Henriksson returns as the titular Swedish detective for a second — and final — series of feature-length investigations, though this time only this first has received a theatrical release (which means it’s likely the only one I’ll review, unless the series finale offers something that persuades me otherwise).

This Swedish series (there’s another, incidentally) is most often praised for its calmer, low-key, realist aesthetic, as opposed to the British adaptations’ tendency to turgidly-paced over-stylised over-emotion, but the handful of cinema-released entries tend away from this, no doubt in justification of their big-screen debuts. So rather than a thoughtful investigation into an ‘everyday’ murder, Wallander blazes back onto our screens with the explosive destruction of a power station, a bloody execution — no less than 17 shots fired — and the army rolling into town to handle the fall-out from an extended power cut. Epic, indeed.

What continues to mark Wallander out is the attention to character and detail it shows even while there are large-scale events going on all around. There’s clearly an effort to keep everything grounded and moderately realistic even as more bombs go off and more symbolic executions are, er, executed — the police still have to struggle with a waiting room packed with people wanting to complain about the odd abandoned car or just moan about the lack of power, for example.

The climax is a case in point. There’s no grand shoot-out or serious race-against-time-for-the-last-bomb, just Wallander and the criminal having a calm chat. OK, so there’s a kidnapped government minister, a gun, snipers and a big vest-bomb, but these are set dressing to the conversation. It’s proof if proof were needed (it isn’t) of Henriksson’s controlled skill in this role. As great as Branagh could be, it’s hard to imagine his introspective interpretation of a weepy Wallander slotting into this scene without making it unpleasantly histrionic.

In the series’ first season (and, therefore, the first three theatrical releases), Wallander’s policewoman daughter, Linda, played an equally important role — indeed, in several episodes, including the first, she had a much larger presence than her father. Actress Johanna Sällström sadly took her own life in 2007 and the role is wisely not re-cast; a passing reference is made to the fact Wallander has a daughter, though where she is now isn’t mentioned. It’s easy for one to imagine a future for Linda in the wake of the shocking events of the previous episode, so perhaps the understated style of this Wallander is to leave viewers to their own conclusions.

However, the departure of Linda and death of fellow lead character Stefan leaves a hole to fill. It’s partly done by the return of Martinsson, not seen since Mastermind, but also by adding two new recruits to Wallander’s team, Isabelle (Nina Zanjani) and Pontus (Sverrir Gudnason), and the introduction of prosecutor Katrina (Lena Endre). All are set up as key new characters for this run, though it’s clearly Only The Beginning here. Katrina is a little too blatantly a potential love interest for Wallander, while Isabelle and Pontus are… well, new characters. There’s little to say about them yet.

I suppose it’s this kind of thing that reminds one that The Revenge isn’t really a standalone Wallander movie, but the first episode of a 13-part series. Still, it can certainly be enjoyed in isolation, and it promises the new run will maintain the first’s high quality — perhaps even better it.

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