Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)

Posted on May 14, 2012 by badblokebob

If 2009’s Sherlock Holmes was Batman Begins — a re-introduction to a well-known hero and his entourage of secondary characters as they tackle a (second-string/unheard-of) menace in their home city — then A Game of Shadows is The Dark Knight: a globe-trotting epic against the famous, formidable nemesis attempting to drive the world to destruction. Unfortunately, the analogy doesn’t extend to the film’s extraordinary step-up in quality.

Before the first film’s release, accusations flew that Ritchie’s take on Holmes wasn’t faithful enough. Some of these persist, but as I noted in my original review I think they’re pish: yes, this series gives a blockbuster action/comedy spin on the character, but it remained a Sherlock Holmes tale. This is less true of the sequel. There’s still some detective work, but it comes in brief flashes here and there. The big denouement does pick up on scattered (deliberately-)easily-missed clues from throughout the film, but only to provide a standard Explain The Villain’s Grand Plan scene. A ballroom scene where Sherlock looks around the room, seeing “everything” through a series of quick-pan fast glimpses of stuff, highlights an inferiority to other current versions — where those certain others let us in on what Holmes is learning from his quick glances, here we just see some stuff. In short, it’s not Sherlocky enough.

Most of the other elements that made the first film a success are present and correct though. The banter between Robert Downey Jr.’s Holmes and Jude Law’s Watson zings as well as it did first time, though perhaps not always as memorably, and Ritchie crafts an array of interesting action sequences. Some still accuse it of being a sub-Matrix rip-off, which I personally think shows a lack of attention or imagination on the part of those viewers — there’s more to what’s going on here than that. There’s a wit The Matrix films never had, for one thing, and more twists on the format. The trick of having Holmes explain what he plans to do as we see it in slow-mo, before executing it at full blistering speed, is repeated but also subverted in multiple ways.

Plus the action is just finely staged full-stop — there’s a fun alleyway fight to open proceedings, a sprawling brawl around a London gentlemen’s club, a fun duel around a moving train (much seen in the trailers), and a stunningly unusual race through some woods away from a German munitions factory (coincidentally (I imagine) a bit like Captain America, but with better CGI; and also much seen in trailers). Those are the big numbers, but smaller-scale sequences come and go throughout. In many ways it pings from one action scene to another, a plot cropping up occasionally to provide a link between them.

Yet for all that, that climax is a game of chess: Sherlock and Moriarty come face to face while in the room next door Watson and gypsy Simza try to spot an assassin. It’s one of a couple of scenes where Downey Jr.’s hero comes face to face with his nemesis, played by Jared Harris, and these scenes are definitely some of the film’s high points. Harris makes a perfect addition to the cast, the only disappointment being that we don’t get to see even more of him. Downey Jr.’s become such a Movie Star recently that it’s easy to forget he’s a multiple Oscar-nominee, and he and Harris give as good a hero-villain act-off as you’re likely to find in a blockbuster.

Other big-ticket cast additions include The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo herself, Noomi Rapace, seriously underused as the aforementioned gypsy fortune-teller Simza, who turns out to be central to the plot. The size and scope of her role actually fits the story, pretty much, and it wouldn’t have mattered if they’d cast a European ‘unknown’, but by making a fuss of casting That Acclaimed Actress From Those Acclaimed European Films and giving her third billing attention is drawn to how little she has to do.

Better served is Stephen Fry as Mycroft, a role normally rendered as a brief cameo. And indeed it’s little more than that, but there’s more of him than I was expecting (certainly so in one (pointless aside of a) scene that I’m sure you’ve heard about), and Fry of course excels — it’s the kind of role he was made for. Meanwhile the award for best agent goes to Eddie Marsan’s: Lestrade appears late on for all of two shots, but Marsan is still billed high enough to be on the poster, above most of the cast.

A quick mention also for Hans Zimmer’s score. I enjoyed his work on the first film and he delivers again here. Zimmer’s one of those big Hollywood blockbuster composers whose work can all sound the same (I watched The Lion King just the other day and could definitely hear Piratical elements in there), but here he injects a bit more variety into his oeuvre. It’s not just the departure from his usual style that works, it’s that there’s a mixture of styles within the movie itself, each well suited to their own sequence while still blending as a whole.

A Game of Shadows comes out as a fun ride with several stand-out moments, but not as a particularly exceptional version of Sherlock Holmes. It’s very enjoyable as a comedy-action movie with amusing characters and entertainingly-staged action sequences, but while my affection for the first has grown to make it one of my favourite movies, this is just an entertaining follow-up.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is out on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK from today, and in the US from June 12th. Ha-ha.

X-Men: First Class (2011)

Posted on May 12, 2012 by badblokebob

Superhero films have been a significant regular part of the summer movie season for over a decade now, but this year really looks like it’s going to take the biscuit: The Avengers obliterated box office records Stateside last weekend, and has spent most of the week knocking down more worldwide; there’s a Batman sequel/finale to look forward to, which everyone has been expecting to do the same; and sandwiched somewhere between the two is a Spider-Man reboot that, provided it doesn’t get dwarfed by the other two and/or poor reviews, is likely to make a pretty penny. (If I recall correctly, the initial Raimi Spidey film was the first movie ever to make over $100m in its opening weekend; and now, 10 years later, The Avengers is the first to beat $200m — how neat.)

But that’s all still to come (I haven’t even seen The Avengers yet myself, and I won’t now until at least sometime next week, for various reasons. Grr.) Instead, here’s a review of my personal favourite from last year’s crop of comic book adaptations — indeed, I ranked it the second best film I saw all year.

I made sure to see First Class soon after its cinema release back in June 2011 — an increasingly-rare cinema trip for me (previous one before this was Inception in July 2010), and even rarer to go so quickly, but it earnt it as probably my most anticipated movie of the summer. I’ve been a fan of the X-Men since the ’90s animated series was a defining part of my childhood; Matthew Vaughn has become one of my favourite filmmakers thanks to Stardust and Kick-Ass, both of which earnt 5 stars and spots on my end-of-year top 10s (and Layer Cake was 4-star-ly entertaining too); and the idea of doing a superhero film that was definitively set in a specific point in the past (namely the early ’60s), rather than the perpetual Now of every other entry in the sub-genre, is the kind of thing creative fans long for but risk-averse studios rarely greenlight. Plus the trailers looked brilliant.

So my long-held high anticipation (unlike many whingy comic-continuity-obsessed inexplicably-Vaughn-dubious internet fanboys, who needed the trailer to even consider thinking the film might be good) led me to the cinema quickly. Why so long to post a review, then? Because I’ve been waiting for Blu-ray to see it properly.*

As “Film fans”, rather than “movie consumers”, we’re supposed to believe 35mm cinema projection is the best way to view a film, rather than the cold hard digital realm that’s taking over, or the home cinema that is increasingly the viewing location of choice as people seek to avoid inflated ticket prices and noisy crowds, and gain a huge degree of convenience in the process. Well, sod that. I saw X-Men on 35mm. It was blurry, the sound was muffly. I saw a clip in a summer movies trailer just a few days later when I saw Pirates 4 in 3D (i.e. digitally projected), and had a genuine moment of, “oh, that’s how it’s meant to look”. So thank God for Blu-ray — never mind prices, crowds or watching when I want, the real advantage is seeing it as sharp as a pin and being able to hear everything the characters are saying. I can enjoy the cinema experience, but at the end of the day it’s about the film, and if the only way to see, hear and appreciate it properly is to watch it 5+ months later on a much smaller screen from a digital source, so be it. The fact that it’s usually cheaper to buy the Blu-ray to own forever than take two people to see it just once doesn’t hurt either.

But I digress massively. X-Men: First Class takes us back to the origins of the X-Men (at least, the movie-universe X-Men): it’s the 1960s, mutants aren’t widely known about yet, Charles Xavier is uncovering some interesting ideas at Oxford, and Erik Lehnsherr is travelling the world taking revenge for Nazi atrocities. But when some Evil People are plotting to do Something Nasty, the US government winds up bringing them together, and the road to establishing the X-Men begins…

I should give up on plot summaries again, I never write good ones. There’s so much more to First Class than that might suggest. Firstly, it’s very much a prequel to the other X-Men films, rather than a reboot. So no Cyclops and co in the original team-up, which really annoys some fanboys, but pfft, it doesn’t matter. It’s fair to say the characters who make up the eventual first X-Men team aren’t as iconic or memorable, but that’s fine because here they’re just supporting characters. This is the story of two other young men, Xavier and Lehnsherr, aka Professor X and Magneto.

You need some pretty fine talent to replace two of our greatest actors — Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, of course — and in Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy you certainly have that. Fassbender carries much of the emotional weight of the film, and certainly received much of the praise from critics, but it’s thanks to McAvoy’s support that the film is lifted to a higher level. He provides calm, humour and fundamental decency to balance Fassbender’s rage and emotion. What’s fascinating about them as characters is that they are half-formed people. That is to say, while they are Wise Old Men by the time of X-Men, here they are still flawed and finding their way; witness Charles’ insensitivity toward Raven, for instance. That’s quite aside from all the little character-building touches. It all builds to the fantastic, heartbreaking climax on the beach. I’d also say it adds weight to the relationship between McKellen and Stewart in the original X films. Not significantly, perhaps, because those films are about other things, but I think you can feel their shared history more keenly.

The rest of the cast is suitably well equipped. There’s 2011 Best Actress Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence as Raven, aka Mystique. Little more than a henchman designed to bring sex appeal in the trilogy, here she’s given a significant degree of backstory that makes her an important piece of the overall series. Indeed, she comes across as woefully underused if you watch X-Men after this — the flipside to the Xavier-Lehnsherr relationship working better, if you will. There’s also Kevin Bacon, playing his second superhero villain in as many years, who does sterling work as a former Nazi seeking world domination — remember the ’60s, when world domination was a valid aim for a villain? There’s more than a little Bond in the mix here.

Rounding out, we have the likes of Vaughn regular and perpetual “I’m only doing it for the money”-er Jason Flemyng, in an almost dialogue-free part that, while visually striking, doesn’t fare much better than his Kick-Ass ‘cameo’ in terms of screen time. There’s also a very flat (in every way apart from her frequently highlighted chest) turn from January Jones as a villainous sidekick, feeling every bit like the last-minute casting she was (after various other actresses walked away — considering the small size of both the role and costume, I can see why). Plus Rose Byrne, who’s always worth mentioning.

Much was made in some circles of a rushed production schedule leading to some of the film’s flaws. I think that’s only an issue because people know it could be one, because (on second viewing especially) I noted no such problems. The earlier parts are probably the film’s best — with Lehnsherr and Moira being all Bond-y, and Kevin Bacon’s Shaw being very much a Bond villain, making it feel more like a big ’60s spy thriller than a superhero movie in many ways — and when it tries to introduce an X-Men team made up of second-string leftover characters it loses its way slightly. But balance is everything with ensemble casts like this, and watching the film again gives a better perspective on its pace and its actual balance. First time through these things are distorted because you don’t know how far through the story you are, how long’s left, how long each scene will last, and so on; a second time, with an idea of where it’s going and so forth, you can better appreciate how it’s all actually weighed up, and I think First Class achieves a balance better than most have given it credit for.

Also worthy of a mention is Henry Jackman’s score. He gives us brilliant driving, menacing action themes, alongside some evocative ’60s stuff too, especially when they’re on the hunt for mutants for instance. I love a good blockbuster movie score, and this is definitely one of those.

Perhaps the thing that most impressed me about First Class, however, was its genuine sense of spectacle. The climax features master-of-magnetism Magneto hoisting a submarine out of the ocean with his powers. That’s not a spoiler, it’s in the trailers — so we’d all seen it going in. And we’re in an era of anything-goes CGI — nothing looks impressive any more because we know not only that it can be done, but how it was done too (greenscreen and pixels, essentially). But that’s not what happens, at least for me, especially on the big screen.

Between Vaughn’s direction, Jackman’s score, Fassbender and McAvoy’s performances, plus those of other supporting cast members, and sterling work by the visual effects team(s), the moment when that submarine floats dripping into the sky is hair-raising. It played to me as a moment of genuine cinematic spectacle; the kind of thing you used to get when big stunts had to be done for real somehow. It’s not a feeling I expected to get from a new film ever again.

I’ve mentioned a couple of times how it ties in to the earlier (set later) films in the series, and how some complained about it messing up X-Men comics lore. But this is an adaptation — it’s not beholden to what’s established in the comics. And it’s working around fitting into the world of the later films, so of course they’re not going to have Cyclops in a ’60s X-team, and so on. It’s a complete non-issue for non-fans, and the same for any open-minded fans who realise they’re not trying to faithfully bring the X-Men canon to the big screen. Earlier films should already have shattered that illusion anyway.

As to the former, it largely fits well with the earlier films. There might be some questions about ages and events not lining up precisely (especially with the flashbacks in The Last Stand), but these are minor points that I think we can overlook for the overall quality of the film. Largely, a use of certain effects, call-forwards, cameos and little touches here and there really tie it in to the existing films. You don’t need to have seen them to get this — indeed, I imagine the ultimate way to experience it would be with no foreknowledge whatsoever of where Charles & Erik’s relationship is going — but for all those of us who have, it works very nicely.

Yet despite these links, and the 40(-ish)-year gap between the end of this story and the start of X-Men, if First Class never received a follow-up it would work perfectly as a standalone ’60s X-Men film. But I’m ever so glad we’re getting more, because I want to see this crew and this cast tell us more stories of the X-Men.

After seeing First Class in the cinema I thought to myself that, while I would dearly love to give it a full five stars, in all good conscience I couldn’t; for whatever reason, it didn’t quite come together enough. Watching it again on Blu-ray, however, I’ve completely changed my mind: I wouldn’t change a thing. All my anticipation is more than paid off — I love this movie.

X-Men: First Class placed 2nd on my list of The Ten Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2011, which can be read in full here.

* That was released back in October 2011, I know. The rest is general tardiness. ^

Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)

Posted on May 4, 2012 by badblokebob

The first Kung Fu Panda was a surprise, at least to me. It sounded like a daft idea voiced by a cast that did anything but endear me to the project. That’s not quite fair: a lot of the cast are good, it’s Jack Black as the lead that was putting me off. Which was also unfair, because he’s done some good stuff. Look, we’re not here to talk about the first film much — the point is, it turned out to be really good fun. It did deservedly well, and so, unsurprisingly, a sequel was commissioned.

Problem is, Kung Fu Panda wasn’t really set up to be a franchise. It told the story of a no-hope wannabe who managed to attain the thing he wanted and become a Big Damn Hero. Hurrah! But with his training to be such a hero covered in the first film, and the big evil suitably vanquished, this sequel begins from the less dramatically exciting standpoint of him just being a hero in a time of relative peace. And so a new villain and a new evil plan is concocted to keep our characters busy, but without the reliably heartwarming character arc I already described, it doesn’t have the same soul as the first film.

There are other ways the sequel could make up for that. Sadly, I think it falls short on every count. Firstly, it’s not as funny. As a family cartoon it is, essentially, a comedy, and so not being funny is a distinct shortcoming. Nor is it as exciting. One of the several ways in which the first film surprised me was its detailed, fast, thrilling fight sequences. Panda 2 still has plenty of action, but it didn’t grab me in the same way as the first film’s. Even some of the good ideas didn’t quite come together to create something as memorable as they promised.

Thirdly, it has Gary Oldman as a villain. That should be wondrous, but it isn’t. He’s fine. Gary Oldman villains aren’t fine, they’re classic characters. But no, this one’s just fine. I guess he needed some cash.

Finally, it’s not as beautiful to look at. “Beautiful animation” was not a concept regularly associated with CG ‘toons, the very technological nature of the process keeping a kind of barrier to something that purely looked gorgeous. It can create all sorts of wonderful things, be that realistic movement or fur or water, or faces as malleable and expressive as anything sketched in pencil or moulded from clay, but genuine beauty seemed to be a step too far. Such perceptions have been steadily broken down in the past five or so years, thanks to films such as Ratatouille and Kung Fu Panda, but this sequel doesn’t reach such lofty heights. It’s by no means bad to look at, far from it — it contains all the detail and expression you could desire — but, one or two moments aside, it doesn’t have the same prettiness of its predecessor.

That’s my overriding impression of Kung Fu Panda 2: it’s not bad, but it’s not a patch on the first one. I’ve seen other reviews that assert the opposite, so perhaps I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind; or perhaps a significant chunk of the first film’s appeal was down to it surprising me, and this isn’t any worse but had higher expectations. One day I’ll re-watch them both and gain a more certain conclusion on that point.

Hopefully the inevitable third entry (this ends with a very obvious setup for where the series will go next) can regain some more of the first film’s magic. As things stand, I found Panda 2 to be a fairly decent 90 minutes — though, saying that, a slightly slow one — but not one that came close to the numerous joys of its forebear. Disappointing.

Kung Fu Panda 2 begins on Sky Movies Premiere today, Friday 4th May, at 10am and 8pm, and continues at various times over the next fortnight.

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

Posted on April 20, 2012 by badblokebob

The final entry in Marvel’s multi-film campaign leading up to big team-up The Avengers (Avengers Assemble this side of the pond, don’t forget) sees them tackle a big name in comics that hasn’t previously transferred quite as well to the big (or small) screen. And, to jump to the end, it did well: $358.6m worldwide, which is about two-and-a-half times its budget… though still $91m behind the next-highest grossing of Marvel’s new wave, leaving it fourth of the five films.

But box office does not tell of quality, as the highest grossing films of all time surely tells us. That said, rather than fourth I’d probably rank it fifth.

Despite how such a negative start may sound, I didn’t dislike Captain America. In fact, I largely enjoyed it. It was, as I’m sure you know, released the same summer as Thor (that’d be last summer), and they make quite a good pair within Marvel’s little universe. They both begin by grounding the viewer on present-day Earth, before spinning off to a different time and place for a second prologue, before heading off to a third time and place to kick off a different kind of superhero story. In Thor it was a sci-fi/fantasy tale of God-like beings; in Cap it’s a World War 2-era superhero-without-powers. Not to mention the fact that they’re tied together by brief second prologues in the same small Norwegian town and a super-powerful artefact called the Tesseract.

The connections don’t stop there. Some people complained that Iron Man 2 had too little focus on its own story and too much stuff setting up The Avengers. I disagreed, but I’d consider levelling such a criticism at Cap. While it doesn’t do it so overtly as the second Iron Man (this is set around 70 years before Nick Fury will come along with his Avenger Initiative), it feels at times as if it’s drawing together disparate threads from previous films in preparation for the team-up. Sure, most of the film works without knowing the connections — the fact that Cap’s shield cameoed in Iron Man 2, or that the super soldier programme plays a central role in The Incredible Hulk, won’t destroy anyone’s understanding of this — but, having seen those films (as surely most of Cap’s audience will have), it does feel almost as much a prequel to The Avengers as a film in its own right. Maybe the subtitle should’ve given that away.

Even aside from the inter-film connections, the story feels like someone gave the writers a checklist of “bits of mythology you must include” and they battled to shape a story around including them all. This results in a bitty narrative that jumps about, trying to include various WW2-era elements of Cap continuity ready for an ending that sends him to the present day in time for The Avengers. (Sorry if you consider that a spoiler, but I think the fact he’s in The Avengers rather gives it away.) To top it off, they also attempt to leave holes so that a sequel could be set in WW2 too, if so desired. While I appreciate that as an idea — the ’40s setting is a clear marker of why Cap is different to other similar heroes — it’s part of the reason it doesn’t feel like the whole thing quite ties together.

It also has the same problem that the first Iron Man did: there’s a lot of backstory involved in establishing Cap’s origins, leaving the villain to hover around the periphery until he’s needed for the climax. When said villain is Cap’s equivalent of the Joker in terms of significance, it’s a bit of a waste. They should be equals and opposites, and there are attempts to build that in, but the two don’t face off enough for it to really work. They both go about their own business, until they more or less bump into each other a significant way through the film, eventually leading to a climactic battle.

In short, I appreciate the attempts at creating a different structure for a superhero movie, but by trying to avoid the straight-up “hero encounters villain, fights against villain to end” shape of a tale, I think they’ve made something a bit too disjointed. I felt it was a series of shorter narratives connected by being placed end to end, not a single film-length story.

While I’m on things I felt they got wrong, let’s tackle the special effects. There are too many of them, meaning a lot looked quite fake to these eyes. OK, they tell the story just fine, and you might argue it gives a heightened comic-book-y feel, but I feel like I was seeing stuff of this quality six or more years ago, and I don’t believe I should be feeling that way on a movie this big. In fact, to be honest, the first Pirates movie was eight years old when this was made, and that was light-years ahead of this. Now, I think that movie had exceptional effects work, and it was well ahead of the average at the time… but that time was eight years ago. It’s hard to say what exactly is wrong here, but it’s mainly an abundance of CG backdrops, green/blue screen stuff that doesn’t scan. Heck, in one shot you can see a blue glow around the edge of a character’s hair! That’s bordering on the amateurish.

The much-discussed ‘Skinny Steve’ — where effects wizards turned muscly star Chris Evans into a wimpy little guy for the film’s first act — is an intermittently good effect. Sometimes it’s astonishing, the equal of similar work from Benjamin Button; a completely plausible human being. Other times, not so much: in some shots his head is obviously disproportionate, or a character pokes the air when he’s surely meant to be poking Steve’s chest, or he looks oddly squished, or cartoonishly exaggerated… Like all the effects, the makers seem to have overstretched their means/budget.

I know special effects are a means to an end, and we don’t routinely criticise the fakery of back-projection and what have you in Old Movies, but I think the difference is filmmakers don’t have to go as far as they do nowadays. We’ve seen similar shots and scenes and effects that have been done more convincingly, and when lesser versions begin to distract you from the storytelling, there’s something at fault. Whether that’s the effects themselves or something else, like the story not being engrossing enough, is another debate.

Perhaps it was that episodic story, because one of the other main things I got from Cap was a long game of Spot The TV Actor In A Small Supporting Role. So prevalent did they seem that at times I was more focussed on that than anything else. Oops. Still, do look out for Spooks & Robin Hood’s Richard Armitage, Boomtown & Desperate Housewives’ Neal McDonough, The Ruby in the Smoke’s JJ Field, The Tudors’ Natalie Dormer, The Mentalist’s Amanda Righetti, Doctor Who’s Jenna-Louise Coleman, and Scott & Bailey’s Ben Batt (blink and you’ll miss him). There are probably others, but those were the ones I knew. I imagine there are so many Brits in relatively small roles because it was shot over here. Not sure why, but it was.

Of the main cast, Chris Evans is fine as Steve Rogers, a guy so Honourable that it’s almost a thankless role — much like Superman, he’s almost too nice to be interesting. Not as bad as Superman can be, though, because at the start his good intentions surpass his physical means. It’ll be interesting to see how he plays in future films, especially The Avengers, where he’s going to have to face the awesomeness of Tony Stark. But that’s for other films. Romantic interest Hayley Atwell is perfectly up to task. Among the rumoured contenders for the role was Emily Blunt, who I can’t really imagine playing a character so supportive and fundamentally nice (a perfect match for Rogers, then), so I’m glad she didn’t get it. Shame for Atwell they bumped Cap into the future, automatically leaving her out of future franchise entries.

Elsewhere, Tommy Lee Jones could play roles like this grumpy-but-good-at-heart-General in his sleep, but at least claims the film’s best line. Equally, Hugo Weaving could be in a similar state of unconsciousness and give a good villain, and while he does his best to chew the scenery, I thought he was fine but unmemorable in an underused role. As I said, the screenplay positions him as a “we need a villain for a climax”-level enemy when his character should be The Hero’s Nemesis, leaving a waste of both character and actor. Co-villain Toby Jones is similarly ill-treated, although at least he may return, semi-reincarnated as another villain (no explicit clues in the film, but he is one in the comics).

Everywhere-man Dominic Cooper channels Robert Downey Jr and John Slattery to portray a young Howard Stark (Tony’s dad, natch), who had a bigger role than I expected. The rest of the cast appear for fan box-ticking (see my mythology comment), which means they also go underused. There’s only so much room in one film of course, and the focus is rightly laid on Cap’s journey. The small roles given to his team of army mates would have been fine as setup for a sequel, but as it’s been confirmed that Cap 2 will be set in the modern day, once again it’s good casting and character establishment gone to waste. Again, the film is attempting too much.

And I haven’t even mentioned the over-graded sepia hue, because it’s Set In The Past. Digital grading brought much potential to the film industry, but instead it’s pathetically and predictably overused. Whenever you compare a film itself to some B-roll footage in a behind-the-scenes documentary or somesuch, you suddenly noticed how not-like-real-life the film looks. In every thriller whites are actually blue, for instance. Here, I imagine if you compared it you’d find whites are actually bronze. I don’t imagine this kind of thing is going away now though.

I realise I’ve consistently laid into Captain America here. It has good points. I forgot to mention Stanley Tucci, for instance, who as an early mentor for Rogers is vital to the story and well played. There’s also some solid action sequences (eventually), and not too much 3D tomfoolery, and some humour, though not as much as Iron Man or Thor unfortunately. I did, overall, enjoy the film… just not as much as any other in Marvel’s Avengers lead-up. I wound up wondering if it would’ve worked better as a condensed 15-minute pre-titles to that film.

But hey-ho, here it is. Like I theorised at the end of Iron Man, maybe with this setup out of the way they can produce a better sequel… but considering the skinny-little-man-turned-muscly-superhero is one of the more interesting aspects of Cap, and they’ve done that now; and the World War 2 setting is another unique facet, which they’re leaving behind… sadly, I’m not holding out quite as much hope.

Captain America: The First Avenger is on Sky Movies Premiere from today (hence why I’ve reviewed it before Thor).

Avengers Assemble is in UK cinemas from Thursday 26th April. The Avengers is in US cinemas from Friday 4th May, and on various other dates worldwide.

Super (2010)

Posted on March 16, 2012 by badblokebob

If Kick-Ass was the fantasy version of “ordinary man becomes superhero” then Super is the hard-hitting, suitably-silly, ‘real’ version. And it’s not often you get to describe a film in which God rips the roof off a house, reaches down with anime-inspired tentacles, slices open a man’s head and plants an idea in his mind — literally — as “hard-hitting” and “real”.

It stars The Office’s Rainn Wilson as odd diner cook Frank, whose wife (Liv Tyler) leaves him for a local drug dealer (Kevin Bacon). Inspired by a cheap TV show starring Christian superhero the Holy Avenger (Nathan Fillion) — and the aforementioned finger of God — Frank sets out to fight crime as costumed hero the Crimson Bolt. Researching power-less heroes at the local comic shop, Frank meets Libby (Ellen Page), whose equal weirdness leads to her helping him and becoming his sidekick.

Super seems ready-made for cult status. Not in the self-conscious way of something like Snakes on a Plane, but in the genuine way of a film that’s quirky and different. It’s a comedy, but one with brutally realistic violence and visions of demons and faces in vomit. Unlike Kick-Ass (the blatantly obvious point of comparison, not least because they were made and released around the same time), which moves fairly swiftly into the fantasy of being a successful superhero, Super stays quite grounded. The ending allows itself to be a little more triumphantly heroic, but not far beyond the bounds of realism (unlike Kick-Ass).

It emphasises the likely real-life difficulties of being a ‘superhero’. Frank has to get out books on sewing to make his awkward patchwork costume; he goes out on patrol, only to find no crime whatsoever; when he finds out where the drug dealers are, he gets beaten up; other crime he fights include “butting in line” (or, as we’d call it on this side of the Atlantic, queue jumping) or car-keying; and half the people recognise Frank despite his mask. No mob-level gangsters played by Mark Strong here.

Realism is the overriding principle throughout, from characters to dialogue to acting to fighting to direction. Obviously Frank’s visions (the tentacles, the demons, the vomit-face) are extremely not-real, but as representations of his mental delusions thy get a pass. Gunn’s direction has a rough, ultra-low-budget feel, yet can be quite stylishly put together when it needs to be, suggesting he’s made a choice rather than isn’t capable of something slicker. It’s even more effective at making the film seem real-world than the usual Hollywood handheld-and-grainy schtick that passes for realism.

Gunn says that his film is “about the deconstruction of the superhero myth. Who is Spider-Man or Batman? We assume that they are heroic characters but, really, they are deciding something is right and something else is wrong”. The psychology of superheroes has been a factor to one degree or another for decades now, not least the Batman films making the parallel between the hero and his villains, but the difference in Super is it’s not a parallel — it’s primarily the heroes who are messed up. The villains are criminals and quite nasty at times, but they’re mostly quite normal. They may deserve their comeuppance, but wisely — and interestingly — they’re not over-written or over-played to heighten them to the level of the psycho-hero. The Crimson Bolt is a sledgehammer to crack a nut, even more so than Batman in Begins or (of course) Kick-Ass. Those two are at least going up against the top of big organised crime; Crimson Bolt just faces a local drug dealer.

The heroes are disturbed even outside their chosen vocation: Frank has weird visions, odd catchphrases, extreme reactions to relatively trivial things; Libby is secretly ultra-violent, gets off on their costumes, etc. Gunn says the film asks if it’s “psychotic for someone to put on a mask and a cape and go out and battle what they perceive as being ‘evil’?”, but I don’t think it sets out to specifically psychoanalyse these people. Still, it makes clear how barmy you’d have to be to give the superhero thing a go yourself. That said, Gunn argues that “I don’t think [Frank] necessarily is crazy. Super is about a troubled human being and his relationship with faith, morality and what he perceives as his calling… I think that is part of why we gave him Ellen Page as a sidekick — because her character, Boltie, actually is insane. The Crimson Bolt is not doing what he does because he enjoys hurting people but Boltie is and that is the difference between the two of them. It starts to become a concern when you enjoy the violence.”

A great cast brings these factors out with ease. Wilson does deranged hero well, not overplaying the comedy side of it. Page is suitably hyper as Libby, capturing a particular facet of The Youth of Today perfectly (again). Bacon is a fantastic villain, not so much menacing or psychopathic as just… I don’t know. That’s almost why it’s so good: it’s hard to say where he’s gone with it. Also worth singling out is Michael Rooker, playing Bacon’s top henchman, Abe. It could have been quite a basic henchman part, but he makes it more with expressions and line delivery (certainly more that than the lines themselves). He’s the only one on the villain’s side who realises the Crimson Bolt might actually be a threat. You kind of want him to cone through in the end, to turn good and live; but he does his job, which is probably truer.

For all its grounded reality, Super lets loose in the final fifteen minutes, creating a punch-packing sequence that’s the rival of any comic book movie. It’s emotionally-charged action, all the more powerful for its semi-amateur-ness and realistic brutality. It climaxes in a face-to-face between our hero and the villain which is as good as any you’ll find in such a film. Is it revelling in the extremity of its violence? You might argue it is, but I don’t think it’s celebrating its gore so much as the triumph of its hero. And that’s followed by a neat epilogue, which I won’t reveal details of but is a kind of ending I’ve been wanting to see for a while.

Between the comedy, the ultra-violence, the rough edges, the slick climax, the characters’ silly catchphrases, the well-worded climactic face-off, you could argue Super has an uneven tone. I would disagree, as would Gunn: “I agree that the structure and tone of this film is very atypical… I enjoy films that surprise me and which are not formulaic and take twists and turns that I do not see coming. My life doesn’t roll along to just one ‘tone’ — one day it might be a comedy and the next a tragedy”. I’ve said in the past and I’m sure I’ll say it again: I wish more po-faced dramas would realise this.

All the technical elements come together to support the film’s main thrust. There’s a great soundtrack, mixing some choice bits of score by Tyler Bates, finding the appropriate quirky tone generally but adjusting to an action vibe for the climax, with an obscure selection of songs that seem well-chosen but not too heavy-handed. As an example, it includes a decade-old track by Sweden’s 2007 Eurovision entry (they came 18th of 24. Don’t laugh — we were joint 22nd). And, despite the low budget, there’s great special effects. The tentacles are the rival of any big-budget movie; the blood and guts are all gruesomely realistic, not filmicly censored or reduced or cheaply fake; handdrawn-style Batman “kapow”s (etc) are very effective. The title sequence, in a similar style as the latter, but with a dance routine, is also a ton of fun.

So, to the big question: is Super better than Kick-Ass? I’m not sure. Personally, I loved them both. Some people will hate both, perhaps for different reasons. Gunn acknowledges there’s a definite connection: “I understand why people keep mentioning Kick-Ass… but let me clear this up. I wrote the script to Super in 2003 and worked on it for a long time… I think that the similarities are apparent, but I still wanted to get this story out there. I think what works in our favour is that people think it looks like Kick-Ass on the outside but when they see it they realise that we are less cartoonish and maybe a little more unpredictable.”

I certainly agree that it’s to Super’s advantage that it’s quite different to a regular film; more uniquely styled than Kick-Ass’s mainstream aims. Indeed, as Gunn also says, “I think that so many movies today try to be everything to all people and I’m a little sick of it. Super is not for everyone. It is for some people.” And for the people it’s for, I think it’s exceptional. If you were to compile a list of the greatest superhero movies, I believe Super’s unique style and perspective — plus its excellent climax — would earn itself a place right near the top.

Super is on Sky Movies Premiere from tonight at 12:15am, continuing all week.

Super placed 5th on my list of The Ten Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2011, which can be read in full here.

All quotes taken from an article by Calum Waddell in Judge Dredd Megazine #313.

* I first watched Super on the UK Blu-ray, where it runs 92 minutes thanks to PAL speed-up. The US BD (my second viewing) runs the correct 96. Image quality was better too, I thought, though if you’re considering a purchase do note it’s Region A locked. ^

Catwoman (2011)

Posted on March 11, 2012 by badblokebob

aka DC Showcase: Catwoman

Included on releases of Batman: Year One, Catwoman is an action-orientated short starring Catwoman (obviously) chasing down gangster Rough Cut because two of his goons tried to shoot a puddytat. OK, there’s more to her motivation than that, but that’d spoil the ending.

Being a short it has a brief plot, especially as Montgomery seems to have decided to make it all about the action, be that a car chase, a punch-up, or a striptease — of which there are two. But this is PG-13-ish animation, so don’t fret, it’s all cleavage and conveniently draped hair. That said, such gratuitousness could just add fuel to the fire of those who objected to DC’s controversial portrayal of Catwoman in her New 52 title the other month. This emphasis works well for a short — the plot is slight because there’s no time to develop it, there’s not much dialogue, just a visual feast of fluid fighting.

The quality of the action sequences outweigh anything seen in the main Year One feature. They’re original, exciting and very fluidly animated. Apparently Montgomery is known in fan circles for liking a bit of violence and trying to add it to the action in DCU films she’s worked on, and that’s in evidence here too. It gives it an edge, I think.

If you like a bit of animated action, this is a satisfying and well-staged piece.

RED (2010)

Posted on March 5, 2012 by badblokebob

RED here stands for “Retired, Extremely Dangerous”, a description bestowed by the CIA on a group of former agents who, for reasons I won’t go into — because, quite frankly, I can’t remember — fight back against the Agency when someone starts trying to kill them.

RED is just one in a recent array of tongue-in-cheek action films; films that aren’t strictly comedies but aren’t wholly serious either, meaning they can push their action sequences to ludicrous extremes and get away with it. They’re also a lot of fun and I love them. I love a gritty and serious Bourne as much as your next man, or a traditional action film too, but there’s also room for films that are daft, fun, knowingly silly rather than just ridiculous. Films like The A-Team, Knight and Day and RED — and I’ve enjoyed all of them.

So (to slightly repeat myself) it’s all daft, but it’s all fun. The action is thoroughly OTT, but inventive with it. It manages to be very amusing as well as quite excitingly action-y. It even begins as a rom-com, which is an interesting tactic. It’s not what you’re expecting from an action movie, but surely no one is ever going to watch this and be fooled? Does anyone watch films completely unaware of what they are?

Naturally, considering the theme, the cast is made up of older actors — a neat twist on the usual action movie format of making people younger and younger. Expect this to spread, especially as anyone that could still just about be dubbed a movie star is ageing, replaced only by flash-in-the-pan teen idols. They’re all great because they’re all great actors. Well, Bruce Willis isn’t a Great Actor like Helen Mirren or Morgan Freeman, but he can do an action movie and he can do humour well enough. John Malkovich is as barmy as he always is, but here it works. Sometimes things just line up like that. Karl Urban also gives another solid supporting turn. I’m sure he’s had a few lead roles at this point, but maybe this autumn’s Dredd will finally cement him as a viable action leading man.

Stray thought: it’s set at Christmas, despite an autumnal release date. An extremely subtle Die Hard reference? There doesn’t seem to be any other reason for it.

If I have one criticism it’s that it’s perhaps too long. It begins to drag a little in places and is unable to sustain its own craziness throughout the third act. But until then it’s a lot of fun, and after decades of Very Serious action movies, isn’t it nice to be allowed to have fun?

Ip Man (2008)

Posted on February 23, 2012 by badblokebob

aka Yip Man

I liked Ip Man, but as we know from experience there are times when I find myself with little to say about a film, or I fail to make any notes, and this was an example of both. So I’ve decided to try something a little different.

I’ve read several different reviews of the film, found by various means, and have compiled a selection of quotes from them below. These are all segments of those reviews that I agree with or found to be an interesting point — I’m not trying to accurately represent each reviewer’s opinion, but instead using their words to enlighten my own. Each quote is, of course, credited and linked, so if you want to know their full opinion you can click through.

They’re arranged in an order that I think makes sense, too — by which I mean, rather than just bundle a selection of quotes in any old order, I’ve sorted them so that if you read them through as presented they should form a structured (more or less) piece.

And so:

Biographical martial arts drama starring Donnie Yen. China in the 1930s: Ip Man’s reputation as a martial arts master has brought fame and fortune to the city of Foshan. But hard times are ahead, as the Japanese invasion brings the once prosperous city to its knees.

– Radio Times

Donnie Yen plays the eponymous Wing Chun master, who stove off hunger, poverty and half the Japanese army during China’s WW2 occupation – by kicking ass!

– Matt Giasby, Total Film

Though that’s an amusing thought, the film’s not quite that simplistic:

As he rallies his people to stand up for themselves, Ip Man becomes about how war pushes a peaceful man into action, but also how he tries to maintain his faith in what it means to be civilized.

– Noel Murray, AV Club

Ip’s transformation from diffident bourgeois to symbolic man of the people is rendered as compelling period melodrama

– Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com

There’s a pleasing playfulness about the opening scenes, which contrast… with the downbeat mood that follows during the occupation.

– Jamie Healy, Radio Times

Not everyone was so impressed:

In transforming a humble real-life martial artist into the type of the reluctant hero (and nationalist icon), screenwriter Edmond Wong has turned his subject not only into something that he was not, but also into an overfamiliar kung fu movie cliche. This is an impression not helped by the film’s desaturated period look (yet another cliche), and a drift in the second, war-set half towards melodrama

– Film4

a shameless hagiography that only bears a passing resemblance to history.

– Dan Jolin, Empire

To elucidate:

The presence of young Zhun [Ip Man’s son] suggests an eyewitness veracity to the events as portrayed on-screen — after all, Zhun himself, now a much older man and a wing chun master in his own right, served as a consultant on Ip Man. The film, however, does not hesitate to sacrifice the truth to the demands of dramatic entertainment.

– Film4

almost none of what you see in Ip Man actually happened, and in some sense that’s too bad, because the real Ip sounds like a fascinating figure. He was a pre-revolutionary police officer, a reported opium addict, and a refugee who fled the Communist takeover in 1949 for a new life in British Hong Kong. But all those factors make him undesirable as the hero of a work of rousing nationalist agitprop. So instead we get Yen’s remarkable performance as a man of prodigious Buddhist-Confucian composure and tranquility, who goes from wealth to poverty to near-slave status, and finally must fight a public gladiatorial match against a sinister Japanese general

– Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com

disappointingly simplistic. Yip, Wong, and Yen never develop any real tension between Ip’s true story and the exaggerated myth-making of a martial-arts movie. But as an exaggerated, myth-making martial-arts movie, Ip Man is often thrilling.

– Noel Murray, AV Club

True-to-life or not, action star Donnie Yen largely shines in the lead role:

Donnie Yen delivers a charismatic portrayal of Ip Man, the martial arts master of the title.

– Derek Adams, Time Out

Man is the role Yen was made to play: a stoic tough guy that everybody in the community knows is the best

– Simon Abrams, New York Press

Yen’s performance is also a bit one-dimensional as the modest wing chun expert, but at least he gives a good account of himself in the finely composed and inventive close-combat scenes — an impressive highlight being when he wipes the floor with ten soldiers with methodical precision.

– Jamie Healy, Radio Times

Indeed, fighting is still what the film does best:

As a showcase for the distinctive moves of Wing Chun, or more generally for some formalised (if largely wire-free) chopsocky, Ip Man is exemplary, thanks to the action choreography of cult Hong Kong star Sammo Hung.

– Film4

Hung’s fight choreography is clever and exciting, with sequences that have Ip felling a sword-wielding rival with a feather-duster, or holding off two men with a 10-foot pole.

– Noel Murray, AV Club

That final conflict between evil General Sanpo and Man — who of course still has to fight the biggest bad guy since the locals are too incompetent to even fight a group of disorganized bandits — is also curiously ruthless. Sanpo is likened to Man’s coat rack-like training apparatus, making the flurry of blows Man rains down on Sanpo’s head a vicious attack on a dehumanized piece of furniture. It’s a fittingly abstract and totally brutal finale.

– Simon Abrams, New York Press

There are definitely better kung-fu flicks in terms of pure action spectacle, but Ip Man delivers as tremendous entertainment even if you don’t much care about martial arts.

– Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com

It’s not all rosy:

The film was a box office hit in China… That may have had less to do with the excellent fight sequences, directed by Sammo Hung with the help of one of Mr. Ip’s sons, than with the appeals to nationalism and, particularly, the heavy-handed depiction of the occupying Japanese as giggling sadists or implacable killing machines.

– Mike Hale, New York Times

The Japanese themselves couldn’t be more stereotyped in their presentation, with the honourable-but-brutal general and his cackling, sadistic henchman

– Jamie Healy, Radio Times

On the other hand, as that “sinister Japanese general”:

Hiroyuki Ikeuchi… imbues what could have been a cardboard villain role with dignity and grace

– Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com

To revisit Film4’s point about the “desaturated period look (yet another cliche)”:

Yip’s aesthetics are more muted and traditional than those of well-known florid imports Hero and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Yet such modesty is in tune with his soft-spoken protagonist, and also provides clean, sharp views of Yen’s awe-inspiring skills

– Nick Schager, The Village Voice

But in conclusion:

a throwback to those chopsocky Hong Kong films of the 1970s – a period piece filmed on obvious but eye-pleasing studio sets with wall-to-wall kung fu and a simplistic, philosophical message.

– G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle

I’m not qualified to judge whether [Ip Man] belongs among the top martial-arts films ever made, an opinion that’s been gaining credence as the movie bounced around the world… But there can be no doubt that director Wilson Yip has crafted a gripping, rousing, beautifully structured yarn, built around a calm but charismatic star performance by Donnie Yen and magnificent action sequences choreographed by the legendary Sammo Hung.

– Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com

Consulted sources (including some unquoted)

Abrams, Simon ‘Ip Man’ ushers in the return of the tough guys (New York Press)
Adams, Derek Ip Man (2008) (Time Out)
Cook, Simon IP Man 2 (Empire)
Ebert, Roger Ip Man 2 (rogerebert.com)
Film4 Ip Man Review
Glasby, Matt Ip Man (Total Film)
Hale, Mike Mastering Martial Arts (The New York Times)
Healy, Jamie Ip Man (Radio Times)
Johnson, G. Allen Review: ‘Ip Man’ is a fun kung-fu throwback movie (SFGate / San Francisco Chronicle)
Jolin, Dan Ip Man (Empire)
Murray, Noel Ip Man (A.V. Club)
O’Hehir, Andrew “Ip Man”: A dazzling martial-arts epic (Salon.com)
Schager, Nick Bruce Lee Mentor Ip Man Gets His Own Kickass Movie (The Village Voice)

2000 AD (2000)

Posted on February 4, 2012 by badblokebob

aka Gong yuan 2000 AD

2012 #9
Gordon Chan | 99 mins | DVD | 1.85:1 | Hong Kong & Singapore / Cantonese, English & Mandarin | 18

Part coincidence (in that I happened to notice it), part forced appropriateness (in that I then chose to post it now), 2000 AD was originally released in Hong Kong 12 years ago yesterday, tying in to Chinese New Year the last time it was (as it is now) the year of the Dragon.

Or something like that — I’m no expert, I just Wikipedia’d it.

New Year was a fairly appropriate time to release it, as the title may indicate, because it was designed to tie in to the fuss around the Y2K bug. So ostensibly it’s a techno-thriller about computers and, y’know, all that. Well, there are some computers in it, and I think someone mentions Y2K early on, but that’s about it. Really this is a movie about chasing bad guys, people shooting at other people, people kicking the whatnot out of other people, and all that regular action movie stuff. The thing they’re all chasing is a stolen computer program that can do all kinds of magic hacking stuff, but that’s about as far as the technology element goes.

The plot it has wound up with doesn’t make a great deal of sense. The gist of it is fine — see above for my description — but it’s loaded with reversals and characters switching sides that slide past so quickly I’m not sure they even made an effort to explain it. That towards the end, mainly — at the start, it’s just bloody slow to get going. It’s not a problem that it takes over half-an-hour to get to the first real action sequence — I can handle an action movie that takes its time to build things up; it’s that nothing much of significance happens during that half hour. All that’s established in these parts could be done much more economically, which would result in far less viewer thumb-twiddling.

An opening almost-action-sequence-thing with some fighter jets seems to exist simply so they could put some fighter jets in the trailer (they seem to have been featured heavily in the film’s promotion, but the main cast go nowhere near them). Some subplots exist purely to pad the running time — for instance, why all that business with the Singaporean agent, his boss’ assistant and their birthdays? There’s lots of others: something about an X-ray-EMP-device-thing causing cancer; a robot dog that doesn’t do anything significant; a friend of a character who’s established as a judge, only to not re-appear…

When the action does arrive, it has all the flare and panache you’d expect from a Hong Kong production. And then some, actually: it’s directed and edited with a heft of real-world grit, but swished up with some jumpy cutting, unusual angles and interesting colour washes. There’s all that on the first gunfight anyway — maybe it took a lot of effort, because it’s largely abandoned later. There’s some awkward undercranking, unfortunately, plus occasional confusion about what’s going on — how did she get that car? which character just jumped in that car? etc.

That might be being picky. The action feels slight at the time because it’s a good while coming, but in retrospect, considered on their own merits, there’s a lot of good stuff. There’s a good car chase, a couple of shoot-outs that err towards realism rather than balleticism (both have their merits, but something that feels realistically punchy is rarer), and a couple of solid punch-ups that play fairly nicely on the idea that our hero isn’t a martial arts expert. That concept isn’t mentioned in the film as much as it is in the DVD extras, but his style has a sort of scrambly feel that’s less honed than your usual kung fu bout; plus, as director Gordon Chan explains in the commentary, his apparent competency is how all kids fight in Hong Kong, because they’ve copied it from the movies!

The centrepiece fist/foot fight takes place on the 32nd storey of a building. I learnt that from the DVD special features. They really filmed it up there too. I also learnt that from the special features. It’s a shame, because you definitely get more of a feel for how dangerous and on the edge — literally — the fight was in some of the B-roll footage and interviews than you do from the movie itself: it’s covered almost entirely through low-angle shots, meaning it could just as well have been recreated on a ground-level mock-up as the actual rooftop. There are some long shots in the making-of which show them filming it, and viewing those you can’t help but wish they’d taken the time to shoot at least some of the fight from the same vantage point, because it really shows off the drop. Oh well.

That’s not the finale. The finale takes place at a Singapore convention centre and, after all that action, feels a bit limp. Again we can turn to the special features though: there was supposed to be a huge gunfight, but a mix-up with permissions meant when they arrived on location they weren’t allowed to film it, to the extent that the couple of shots that are fired were captured as men holding guns with muzzle flashes added in later. This kind of explanation makes you think, “well, fair enough”, but watching the film in isolation it felt anticlimactic.

Talking of the action — it’s an 18? I know the BBFC used to be harsher, and particularly so on things featuring martial arts and whatnot, but I still don’t see how this makes an 18. A bit of swearing, a bit of blood — it’s a 15 surely? I watched this just days after Ironclad, which had people’s limbs being lopped off in close-up, beheadings, bodies being cleaved in two, much more violent stuff than 2000 AD features… and that’s only a 15. I know, this doesn’t matter to most of us, but I notice these things.

I’ve seen other reviews comment that it goes wrong when they head off to Singapore, around the third act. Personally I thought that was when it began to go right! The pace picks up, the action picks up. It’s not a movie of two halves — some of the film’s best bits are in the Hong Kong section — but I certainly wouldn’t say it gets worse. Hong Kong is, for example, where we find the best character, police officer Ng. He barely says anything, but he’s got a presence that works. Actor Francis Ng (who I noticed in Exiled and is also in Infernal Affairs II, as well as a mass of other stuff) conveys far more with looks than with the dialogue, which is probably why he’s so memorable. One scene featuring him, which comes around halfway I’d guess but I shan’t spoil, is the only non-action part of the film that really works, where you really care about something that’s happening. On the commentary, Bey Logan quotes Jean Cocteau: “never state what you can imply” — and that’s Ng’s whole character.

As with any film heavily based in the realm of technology, certain things have dated. Two things work in its favour: one, as noted, it’s not actually got much to do with technology anyway; and two, it comes from the slightly later time when home computers were more commonplace, so it’s not as bad as those ’90s tech thrillers where computers could do pretty much anything a writer dreamed up. But there’s floppy discs, flight sims with flat graphics, and Magical Hacking Software that can Destroy Everything. An opening spiel about the future of warfare being cyber-attacks doesn’t feel like its quite come to pass (yet?), but then the film doesn’t wholly build on that. The computer software they’re chasing is as MacGuffiny a MacGuffin as they come — it may as well be a bomb or a file of information for all that would change the story.

There’s some obvious CGI, which is fine for what’s a low budget film of this era. You’d see better in a computer game today, but it gets the job done well enough when it’s needed… though mixing in fake fighter jets with footage of real ones during an already-needless opening sequence was a mistake. I only mention it because, highlighted in the commentary, there actually tonnes of computer effects throughout the film that you don’t come close to noticing: bullet holes, smashed glass, a lead character nearly getting hit by a car — all faked by computer, all barely noticeable even when you’ve been told. So there.

In the DVD’s special features, Chan notes that 2000 AD was an attempt to make an American-style action movie, to show there’s more to Hong Kong cinema than kung fu. Maybe that’s why it’s compromised at times — it’s an emulation of something else. It’s successful in places, but certainly not entirely. My score was awarded almost immediately after watching the film, but after looking back on it through the DVD extras I find I may have liked it a bit more. Am I being too harsh? Perhaps. But still, perhaps not.

Ironclad (2011)

Posted on January 28, 2012 by badblokebob

In medieval times, a group of filmmakers set out to prove you can make a Hollywood-quality historical action epic with independent funding in Britain, while in the present day a ragtag group of seven samurai— sorry, gunslingers— sorry, warriors, defend a small town— sorry, castle, from evil bandits— sorry, an evil king.

I think I got some details confused there.

Set shortly after the signing of the Magna Carta, Ironclad tells the true story of King John not being very happy and, with the backing of the Pope, setting about reclaiming England. Violently. Naturally the men who forced him into scribbling on the famous document aren’t best pleased, so while some set off to persuade the French to invade, others hole up in Rochester castle, vital to John’s efforts as it controls trade routes to the rest of the country or something.

Firstly, I say “true story” — I have no idea how much fact has gone into this. Some, at least. Was John really supported by a Viking-ish army? Dunno. Were the Knights Templar really dead set against him? Dunno. Was Rochester really defended by a dozen men? Dunno. But this isn’t a history lecture, it’s a piece of entertainment — aiming for the same ballpark as Gladiator, Braveheart, Kingdom of Heaven, and so on, albeit less grand; and there’s a sort of connection to Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood too, which I seem to remember included the signing of the Magna Carta.

Anyway, it seems to me its use of facts are probably strong enough to support it as an entertainment. So some of the story structure may be reminiscent of Seven Samurai/The Magnificent Seven, but it’s not the first to use that and it won’t be the last (and I’ve never seen either anyway. Bad me). And so the special effects-driven climax may occur on the wrong tower of the castle’s keep — I think we can live with that level of deception.

As to the point of “why not just go round the castle?”, I presume the answer is more or less, “well… he didn’t…” Somewhat thankfully, the commander of the Danish forces puts this very question to the King, whose answer is some muttered speech about how his family built it and… I dunno. I’m not clear why they can’t just use the massive camp next to the tiny castle as their appropriate base of operations, other than the film wouldn’t be half as exciting.

And exciting it of course is. There are stretches some may find dull — there’s little new to be done with the whole Recruiting The Team bit, and once John gets the castle under siege and everyone’s twiddling thumbs and eating horses some viewers will be doing one of the two as well — but there are regular bursts of sword-swinging violence that achieve the film’s primary aims. The fights are generally well staged, even if many resort to the modern vogue for close-up quick-cut handheld shakiness, and they’re certainly gory.

I’ve seen some complain about the level of graphic detail in this regard, but this is medieval times, they didn’t just bump each other about a bit; and you don’t think a giant axe swung down on someone’s shoulder with all a man’s weight is going to just leave a scratch, do you? Director Jonathan English doesn’t linger on detail as if this were a horror movie. There’s cleaved bodies, severed limbs, squirts of blood and more, and it all feels gruesomely realistic, but individually each moment passes quickly.

This is as appropriate a moment as any to mention that the film should be in the ratio 2.40:1, but the UK Blu-ray (and presumably DVD) was for some unknown reason mastered in a screen-filling 16:9 — I thought some of the shots looked tight! On the bright side it means English isn’t incompetent; on the dark side it means whoever mastered the UK Blu-ray is. (I’ve seen grabs from the US BD and that’s in the right ratio. Completely different special features too — a director’s commentary may well trump the half-hour of EPK interview snippets we get, for those that care.) I found this to be most blatant in dialogue scenes, where characters are barely squeezed into the extreme edges of the screen, with even the occasional moment of pan & scan required to get everyone who’s speaking on screen. I think it must also hamper the impact of the occasional epic shot — and there are a few — which is a shame because I think that feeling is really part of English’s aim here. I imagine it also makes some of those fight scenes even more disorientating, which is a pity. Nothing will help the sometimes-too-obvious use of digital video though, which looks as nasty as ever.

The battling cast — led by James Purefoy and supported by the likes of Mackenzie Crook, Jason Flemyng and Jamie Foreman — all seem to have a whale of a time with their swords and axes and general fisticuffs. Their roles don’t offer too much depth, but only Flemyng (who I never rate) struggles. They’re supported by some talented thesps in the shape of Brian Cox, Derek Jacobi and Charles Dance, quality actors who maybe don’t always have the greatest taste for quality roles (Dance was recently in that direct-to-DVD Tesco-funded Jackie Collins adaptation, for instance) but always offer gravitas. There’s also Kate Mara, who does a fine British accent as an unnecessary love interest for Purefoy’s warrior monk type.

The real star, though, is Paul Giamatti as King John. Petulant, entitled and fundamentally weak, he rants and raves and chews any piece of scenery he can get his teeth into (not literally, but at times I swear he came close). It’s a well-pitched performance — he doesn’t go too far with it, making the King ridiculous and laughable without dragging the whole film down around him. That makes for a good villain.

Despite some occasional cheapness in the cinematography, Ironclad largely achieves its goal of creating a Hollywood-esque historical action movie on British soil (it was shot in Wales). Yes some of the CGI is obvious, and some stuff that looks like CGI was apparently model work, but these are all forgivable, especially when you remember this was made for just $25 million. The unfamiliar true story also gives it the added edge of not knowing who lives or dies, or whether our heroes even succeed. If the ultimate end feels guessable, I think it’s only in retrospect. Of course, that doesn’t mean any of it’s historically accurate anyway.

And so what? It’s an action movie. And on all points that matter, it scores well.

Ironclad began on Sky Movies Premiere last night and continues daily throughout the week. I have no idea which aspect ratio it’s in.

It placed 10th on my list of The Ten Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2012, which can be read in full here.

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Category Archives: Action

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)

X-Men: First Class (2011)

Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

Super (2010)

Catwoman (2011)

RED (2010)

Ip Man (2008)

2000 AD (2000)

Ironclad (2011)