Nanny McPhee & the Big Bang (2010)

Posted on April 13, 2011 by badblokebob

aka Nanny McPhee Returns

2011 #24
Susanna White | 105 mins | TV (HD) | U / PG

The first sequel (I say that in the hope there’ll be more) to Nanny McPhee offers more of the same. Normally that sounds like a criticism, but here what I mean is that it offers more entertainment in the same style.

It’s not a rehash. That’s quite clearly marked by the change of setting: where the first was Victorian, here we’re in the midst of World War II. Writer (and star) Emma Thompson puts the setting to use too: the plot takes in evacuated children, a father away at war, a trip to the war office, and a climactic unexploded bomb. The focus, however, and naturally, is on the children Nanny McPhee must sort out. She still teaches her five lessons, but they’re different lessons, and though some of the ways the children react are similar to the first film there are enough differences — and different set pieces — to make this a suitably standalone piece.

It’s still a sequel in all the best ways, though. Thompson treats the audience with respect in relation to the first film, playing on expectations and speeding through parts of the story we know. You don’t need to have seen it, but you’ll get a bit more if you have. Also as with the first film, there’s a perhaps surprising undercurrent of genuine emotion and serious issues. This is one of the things that marks these two films out from the overcrowded kids’ film genre: they’re prepared to tackle things in an appropriate way, never allowing them to overwhelm and make an Issue Film but not sanitising them because It’s For Kids. The ending to a lovely picnic may well bring a tear to your eye.

The child cast are excellent. That’s always worthy of note, but they’ve struck gold two films in a row now. Impressive. Maggie Gyllenhaal is always worth watching in my opinion, and here her English accent is astoundingly perfect. This isn’t the “American doing an English accent Well” of Renee Zellwegger’s Bridget Jones, this is the “if I didn’t know better I’d assume she was English” of… hardly anyone else, as far as I can recall. A supporting cast of once again recognisable faces (I won’t spoil any surprises) round things out nicely.

CGI is also used again to magical effect. And, even more than that, to very cute effect. It feels like a bunch of scampering CG piglets, or a cuddly CG baby elephant, should be a little disturbing and wrong, but they’re not — they’re all incredibly cute, in fact. Aww. And they get up to plenty of funny and entertaining things. As with most of the enjoyment in both Nanny McPhees, it may be aimed at children, but I think it’s done in a way that appropriately-hearted adults can enjoy too.

Director Susanna White was previously responsible for TV’s Bleak House, Jane Eyre and Generation Kill — all excellent, but certainly not the material that springs to mind for a family movie. Thankfully that dark, dirty, grainy style isn’t dragged kicking and screaming into this film, and instead we’re treated to the appropriate vibrant colours of a glowingly perfect English summer, the kind you get in memory and picture books and never in real life. It’s spot on.

I loved the first Nanny McPhee, which always sets a sequel up for failure. However, Thompson (though she’s not in the director’s chair I think we can be certain she’s in charge of this series) doesn’t disappoint. She’s taken a brave route by setting the film in a completely different era with an all-new supporting cast (except for one lovely last-minute surprise for the attentive), but it’s paid off handsomely. This is at least as magical as the first, perhaps even more so.

Let Me In (2010)

Posted on March 14, 2011 by badblokebob

2011 #30
Matt Reeves | 116 mins | Blu-ray | 15 / R

This review contains major spoilers.

Owen is a 12-year-old loner in New Mexico in 1983, spending his days at school being bullied and filling his evenings spying on his neighbours. Then a girl, Abby, and her father move in next door and it looks like he might finally make a friend.

Doesn’t sound like the setup for a vampire movie, does it? Unless you’ve seen Let the Right One In, in which case it’s very much the-same-but-different. Indeed, it’s so much the same that one’s thoughts naturally gravitate to the occasions where it does differ. This may be doing the film a disservice, but I’m tempted to say “serves them right” for remaking it so damn fast and making it so damn similar. Some have asserted that it’s the same film for those who can’t handle reading subtitles. It’s not that bad, but you can see where they’re coming from.

Writer-director Reeves establishes that this isn’t exactly the same from the start: we get a title card to inform us it’s 1983, whereas the original left the era almost incidental as background detail; and then it begins halfway through the story. This is presumably because it’s a recently-made American/Hollywood low-key genre film and that’s one of their rules. It also introduces a new character, a detective who will play a larger role in the film that follows. Not that large, though; fore-fronting him in this way draws attention that he might not garner otherwise. Is it deserved? Debate among yourselves.

The nighttime scenes are bathed in the orange glow of street-lighting, a nice choice of colour scheme as it’s evocative of the real world, especially as it’s not unnaturally overdone: the colour is abundant where there is such lighting, but more natural tones are used in forests, etc. It also provides a very different feel to the original, where a more white, snow-emphasising light was adopted throughout. Despite its realism, though, such a solidly orange palette does make the US one feel more visually stylised. Ironic.

Secondary adult characters are pared back (with the exception of that police officer). Owen’s parents are all but removed — you never really see his mum’s face and only hear his dad down the phone — and they all seem to have roles (teacher, neighbour, etc) rather than names. The fact that some key characters are stripped of their names — most notably, Abby’s ‘dad’ — while others retain theirs (as per the credits, at least) makes it seem like a thematic point that wound up half-arsed. Reeves makes minor additions to the story elsewhere. We visit the pool earlier, for instance, where Owen doesn’t swim, which makes the climactic pay-off even sweeter.

Despite it being easier to spot omissions than additions, Reeves’ film runs the same length as the original and feels faster moving. This may just be because I knew the story well, watching both versions just 24 hours apart, but some things are quantifiable: as well as far fewer scenes with the neighbours — in the original, characters; here, victim-extras — there’s also fewer arty shots of scenery, which helped give the original its sedate arthouse tone. What’s taken the place of all these things? Scenes from the novel, you might think, but from what I’ve read it’s faithful to the film more than novel — stuff I’ve read about being in the novel but not the Swedish film hasn’t been reinstated here either.

There are some notable changes to significant traits of the main characters: Owen finding very old photos of Abby with another boy suggests this is definitely her helper-finding MO; Owen is no longer obsessed with death (no file of newspaper clippings) and doesn’t carry his knife as much — for instance, when the policeman finds Abby asleep in the bath, instead of threatening him with the knife Owen just says “wait!” Minor tweaks? Maybe, but I think it removes some nice nuance, complexity and ambiguity.

Another notable change is the sexual element. It factors even earlier, with Owen voyeuristically observing it all around him — spying on neighbours as they begin to get it on, watching a young couple kissing in the shop, etc. It seems he isn’t innocent in the same way Oskar was, that Reeves is building up his awareness of sexuality… but then he asks Abby to go steady and he still considers it to mean you don’t “do anything special”. What? Also, if she says “I’m not a girl”, surely the logical response is “you’re a boy?!”, not “what are you?” — especially if the only answer she’ll give is “I’m nothing”. But she’s not a boy — probably. It’s not explicit, but she seems much girlier, and of course it would remove any dangerous homosexual element. Or possibly they just wanted to make damn sure they didn’t need to include The Crotch Shot. Considering they’ve changed the bully’s teasing of Owen from “piggy” to “little girl”, it seems even more obvious a shame to have stripped Abby of her androgyny. Unless that’s the point? They tease Owen about being a little girl, before getting their asses kicked — or, rather, bodies ripped apart — by one.

The worst thing about Let Me In, though, is that any time there’s a scene that’s a direct lift from the original, it feels less well played, by the director, by the cast and sometimes, despite the faithfulness, by the screenplay. The aforementioned swimming pool climax is a case in point: the original version is perfect, but directly copying it would be a no no, so instead Reeves jazzes it up… and, unsurprisingly, it doesn’t work half as well. You can’t improve on perfection.

Similarly, the CGI is overdone throughout. It’s not bad per se, just used too overtly. Whereas the original remained grounded and (perhaps surprisingly) plausible, Reeves occasionally indulges in more stereotypical horror movie excess — take Abby’s first attack in the underpass, for instance: superficially similar, but in this version a computer-aided Abby flies all over the place. It draws attention to its has-to-be-fakery and is therefore a less effective sequence.

As I mentioned in my other review, choices for cuts to the novel for the original adaptation were partly about getting it past censors but also about making the story work as a film, and all were made by the original author. This is probably why Let Me In reproduces the film version so faithfully, rather than re-adding bits from the novel: when the original author has already approved cuts, why re-do the job? The answer might be “to offer something different” — a valid consideration, I think, when you’re remaking a work so soon after the original — but you can see why Reeves didn’t. Of course, being American, it censors the tale further (losing any potential homosexual undercurrent, references (visual or otherwise) to castration, etc).

It’s probably unfair to judge Let Me In by watching it so close to the Swedish version. I expect it benefits from a bit of distance. It’s still a well-made film, still an unusual take on a familiar genre. But it is — obviously — not as original or innovative. It’s also not as well acted, not as nuanced, not as beautifully made — the images Reeves conjures up do not burn themselves into your mind in the way so many from the original do.

If you’ve not seen the original, I’d wager it comes across a lot better. But do yourself a favour and watch the original first — you wouldn’t want the inferior version to ruin any of its surprises, would you.

See also my comparison of this and the Swedish original, Let the Right One In, here.

~~Let Me In is out on UK DVD and Blu-ray today.~~

The UK TV premiere of Let Me In is on BBC Two tonight, Sunday 11th January 2014, at 10pm.

Let the Right One In (2008)

Posted on March 14, 2011 by badblokebob

aka Låt den rätte komma in

2011 #29
Tomas Alfredson | 115 mins | Blu-ray | 15 / R

This review contains major spoilers.

Oskar is a 12-year-old loner in Sweden in 1982, spending his days at school being bullied and filling his evenings with fantasies of revenge. Then a girl, Eli, and her father move in next door and it looks like he might finally make a friend.

Doesn’t sound like the setup for a vampire movie, does it? But, as you’re no doubt aware thanks to all the awards its won and praise its received in the past two years, Let the Right One In isn’t your typical vampire movie. If you’ve somehow managed to avoid hearing anything about it in that time, I encourage you to watch it before reading more — it’s hard to discuss any of it without spoiling at least some. Knowing it’s a vampire movie is too much, to be frank — it’d be grand to be able to see this completely cold.

And “cold” is an apt word (smooth link, eh?) as one of the many things that seems to mark the film out is the abundance of snow. We’re used to vampire films being Dark, visually, due to the necessity of a nighttime setting, but here the snow-covered locale makes most of the night scenes bright and white. Alfredson emphasises this with wide compositions that fill the frame with the white stuff.

Even more unconventional is the film’s treatment of vampires themselves. It’s not uncommon for tales to Do Vampires Differently by changing the basic rules, but Let the Right One In sticks to them — they drink blood, typically from the neck, can’t enter without invitation, burn up in sunlight, can fly — and changes the myth in less showy but more fundamental ways. For instance, when the usual skills do crop up, they’re presented in a very grounded way — any CGI required is used subtly and incredibly effectively — or kept off screen. They’re at the best when used to slightly emphasise Eli’s weirdness — the way she drops ever so slightly slower than is natural from the climbing frame when she first meets Oskar, or to shape and manipulate her face almost imperceptibly at times.

Primarily, however, most vampire films glamorise their lifestyle in one way or another, even when they’re the villains; this is especially bad right now, with the likes of Twilight befouling our culture, but it’s nothing new. But being a vampire Let the Right One In-style is no fun at all, characterised by painful hunger, the difficulty of getting food undetected, guilt after successfully feeding, and, perhaps worst of all, loneliness.

Loneliness is the real key to the film because, even with all the horror — and the film is scary when appropriate — this is about two lonely outsider kids finding each other and getting something they were previously lacking from that newfound human contact. It’s a romance, in fact; a mixture of first love and true, pure (read: sexless) love. Though that’s not entirely true — it’s more complicated than that.

The story’s central relationships — mainly, Eli/Oskar and Eli/Håkan, he being the ‘dad’ figure who helps Eli survive — can be read various ways. The author/screenwriter, John Ajvide Lindqvist, has one interpretation — indeed, based on what I’ve read, the novel is quite clear on these points — but the film leaves many facts ambiguous. Is Håkan related to Eli? Does he love her? In what way? Does she love him? Does she even like him? Is he just a facilitator? Was he once in Oskar’s position? If he was, is she just manipulating Oskar? Or is it really love? Or is it just friendship? The joy of such well-placed ambiguities in a story is that each viewer can bring their own interpretation, without anyone being clearly right or wrong and without undermining the quality of the story being told. I think I know what I think; but, just as much, I enjoy the fact there are numerous possibilities. (Of course, equally valid is the argument that there are no ambiguities because most if not all have been cleared up Lindqvist and/or Alfredson in interviews. But where’s the fun in that?)

I said it was “sexless love”. Perhaps, though sex is certainly a theme — not only because it always is with vampires (the intrusive nature of what they do & all that), but also witness the scene where Eli clambers into bed with Oskar naked, or when he catches a glimpse of her changing and we get a rather explicit close-up. They’re both 12-year-olds, it’s easy to see why some/many/most would be wary of touching on any sexual overtones in the film, but they’re definitely there. Interestingly, Oskar is every inch the innocent, with his white-blonde hair, pale skin, cherub face, with it’s slight-but-heartfelt flickers of emotion, be that joy or triumph or sadness; to whom ‘going steady’ with a girl means nothing changes and you don’t do anything special. Does that negate the film’s sexuality? Or does it just mean Oskar is the antithesis of the corrupted Eli?

Though most of Let the Right One In’s irregular take on vampires seems genuinely unique, one of those unusual elements — a 12-year-old girl being a vampire — immediately draws comparison to Interview with the Vampire. However, unlike that novel/film’s child bloodsucker Claudia (Kirsten Dunst’s character), who becomes an increasingly older woman trapped in a child’s body, Eli seems to have remained 12 — just like she says — even though she has existed for a very long time. Which version is more plausible? Well, let’s put it this way: vampires don’t exist. Duh. Both work for their respective points; neither disqualifies the other from being an interesting take on the creatures.

Another interesting point I learnt while reading up on the film is that Lindqvist’s novel is, apparently, somewhat autobiographical (aside from the vampire stuff, obviously). Oskar is Lindqvist, essentially, and it seems Alfredson could relate too. Perhaps this is what helps it feel so true. The character stuff, I mean, not the vampire stuff. Maybe that’s why Let Me In struggles to translate the tale as effectively: it’s taking a story set in a specific time and place for a reason (Lindqvist was 13 in 1982; plus it’s a year that has other significance for Sweden), and mashing it into a different one by someone who, maybe, doesn’t have quite as personal a connection as the previous authors.

I haven’t read the source novel so can’t make a comparison. Lindqvist adapted his own novel, making cuts partly to get past censors — one article I read asserted that, if they’d filmed some of the stuff in the novel, the filmmakers would’ve gone to prison — but also about refocussing the story to be a two-hour film instead of a novel. I’m not sure, therefore, how faithful the climax is, but it’s a sequence that seems made for the screen. I shan’t say much more on this point, just in case you’ve not seen the film and still read this far (tsk tsk), but it seems having a vampire for a best friend is a great way to deal with bullies.

Winning many awards and garnering much praise can sometimes hamper a film — especially when its hailed as an outstandingly innovative take on something familiar — but Let the Right One In manages to live up to this promise. It’s a horror movie and a character drama and does neither by halves, instead combining the two to transcend genre boundaries and just become bloody good.

Let the Right One In placed 3rd on my list of The Ten Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2011, which can be read in full here.

See also my comparison of this and its US remake, Let Me In, here.

The Invention of Lying (2009)

Posted on February 21, 2011 by badblokebob

2011 #6
Ricky Gervais & Matthew Robinson | 100 mins | download (HD) | 12 / PG-13

I expect you know the setup for The Invention of Lying: in a world very much like our own — except for the crucial difference that people can’t lie — Ricky Gervais invents lying. It sounds a simple, strong concept. I like it.

Unfortunately, it immediately raises questions — ones the film doesn’t answer, but indirectly brings up. Like if people didn’t lie, surely they wouldn’t have euphemisms (see: faggot, queer)? Or a corrupt cop? Gambling would work, I suppose, just not well… but could they really fix the games, as stated? And would making a wish be a lie? These aren’t the only points.

But does any of it actually matter? I posit no. It would be a stronger film if they’d headed some of these off, true, but there are two points to be made. One, it’s not really setting out to be a 100% flawless world-without-lies — it’s our world, reflected back with lies removed. And two, it’s a comedy — the honesty of the corrupt cop or the casino box office is funny. On a deeper level, one might argue the film is exploring the lies we tell ourselves and each other — how harsh the world would be without them. This includes the invention of religion for a dying woman; how religion is just a lie we tell ourselves to make us feel happy — and it says this quite explicitly! In an American film!

I enjoyed the religious plot. I don’t think it’s misjudged satire, as some reviews have claimed; I think it’s pretty decent satire, in fact, especially for a US-based film. Obviously, therefore, I don’t think it’s the blasphemous work of the devil. Because it isn’t. It’s a decently amusing deconstruction of religion and the ideas that underpin it, coming from a rational perspective that can see through the obvious flaws and falsehoods in (specifically) Christianity.

A love story runs alongside all this. I’ve seen it described as a subplot — as it’s this half of the tale that both begins and ends the film, it’s difficult to view it as something so insignificant; equally, the lying and religious plotlines take up so much time that they can’t be seen as “just subplots” either. No, it’s a film of two concurrent halves, and while one is the invention of lying & religion the other is the love story. And it’s passable, but not as good. The honesty of the characters at least brings something fresh, but it’s mostly a standard implausible romance between a not-good-looking guy and a rather-attractive girl. One might also say that Jennifer Garner’s character is too much of a bitch to get the audience supporting her or their coupling, but that would miss the part where Gervais’ character helps her to grow as a person, to see beyond the surface gloss to the real people and situations underneath. OK, it’s not a groundbreaking message, but it suffices.

Gervais plays the same character he always plays. He’s not a great actor, but then he doesn’t pretend to be — you know what you’re going to get, more or less, which at least makes it easier to come to an informed decision about whether you’re likely to enjoy his latest work. My opinion varies depending which of his slight subtleties put in an appearance — for instance, as ‘himself’ (on a chat show or what have you) he’s usually too faux-immodest for my taste; in Extras, he’s likably frustrated. Here he errs more toward the latter, playing a “fat loser” who’s constantly reminded of the fact, enduring a downtrodden and bullied existence that I expect most people (with the natural exception of those hateful ‘perfect’ specimens of mankind) can identify with in some way.

Much of the supporting cast is a case of ‘spot the cameo’. If you’d like an I-Spy guide for when you watch, there’s (in alphabetical rather than appearance order, naturally) Jason Bateman, Michael Caine (apparently), Tina Fey, Christopher Guest, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Stephen Merchant, Edward Norton, and Barry From EastEnders. They’re all fine, though the “oh, look who it is!” factor occasionally overwhelms the story briefly. (In the case of Merchant and Barry it’s more “oh, should’ve guessed they’d turn up”.)

So The Invention of Lying uses its high concept to create a tale that both explores the lies we tell ourselves to get by, and draws the inherent humour out of our lack of honesty. And, despite a stock romantic side-plot, it does it pretty well.

And if you’d like another recommendation, Wikipedia informs us that “the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops rated The Invention of Lying as “O – morally offensive” calling it venomous and pervasively blasphemous.” Well, you can’t say much higher than that.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

Posted on February 13, 2011 by badblokebob

2011 #17
David Fincher | 166 mins | Blu-ray | 12 / PG-13

Benjamin Button was released in UK cinemas two years ago last week. Time really does fly. The critical reception was a little divisive — the Rotten Tomatoes score is 72%, which is good but hardly outstanding, and reviews even by notable critics range from ones to fives and everything in between. It seemed to me there was a bigger backlash a little later, giving the impression it wasn’t as good as it had been cracked up to be. Still, it was nominated for 13 Oscars, winning three.

That’s as good a place to start as any, because those three wins were for Art Direction, Makeup and Visual Effects. Unusual for a Drama to win for visual effects, but even the film’s staunchest critic surely wouldn’t deny its right to claim victory in those categories. As you undoubtedly know, Benjamin Button is born as an 80-something year old man and ages backwards to a baby. In between, he’s almost entirely played by Brad Pitt, or other actors/models/semi-CGI creations with Brad Pitt’s face. The integration of Pitt into the CG faces of old-Benjamin is astounding good; so much so, in fact, that you almost can’t help but look for faults and joins. Even at its least convincing, however, it’s no worse than very good old-age makeup. Later, as Benjamin gets younger, the digital smoothing de-ages him well too — aided, it must be said, by plenty of shadows. Nonetheless, it’s a lot more convincing than the only other examples I’ve seen, namely Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in X-Men: The Last Stand and Wolverine.

The visuals in general may be Benjamin Button’s strongpoint, holding up a variety of era-evoking colour palettes and other design elements as it passes throughout the 20th Century. Flashback-like asides are conveyed in older film styles — scratchy prints for instance, or with a silent movie aesthetic — that on the one hand could seem an inappropriate indulgence, but objectively work very nicely. For a director who has a reputation in some corners for exhibiting excessive flair with swish shots and effects, Fincher shows steady restraint here — as he did in Zodiac, and Se7en, and all the moments in his other films where it was appropriate.

But what of the story this is all in aid of telling? As noted, Benjamin Button is the story of a life, right from birth through to death. Few biopics take such wide a scope, ending before the end or picking up some way from the beginning. Naturally such a tale can become episodic — who plausibly lives a life that throughout conforms to a neat three-act structure? — but it nonetheless ties together with the main thread of Benjamin’s relationship with Daisy, not to mention the primary thematic element: love, in various forms — fatherly, matey, sexual, everlasting…

Many comparisons have been made to Forrest Gump, in no small part because both were adapted for the screen by Eric Roth. I’ve not seen that in a very long time, but Button didn’t feel nearly as episodic, nor nearly so obsessed with History. Benjamin encounters foreign diplomats and is embroiled in World War 2, but both are relatively non-specific and don’t colour his life in the way Gump’s parade of Defining Moments do. Instead the storytelling is character focused. Viewer awareness of time passing in the narrative is left to the odd snippet of dialogue or obvious jump; aside from a few clear points, there’s a less convincing sense of era than Fincher evoked in Zodiac. Whether this matters or not is debatable — Button isn’t a chronicle of the 20th Century through one man’s eyes, which is what Gump arguably was, but is rather the story of a (somewhat unusual) life lived during that timed period.

And I say only “somewhat” unusual because, actually, a lot of Benjamin’s story might just as well be imagined with a life that runs forwards. The fact that he’s ageing backwards colours events, certainly; it gives it the surface sheen of a more unusual story; it gives motivations for some of his actions — such as leaving the woman he truly loves and their one-year-old daughter — but if he was a regular orphaned boy, it wouldn’t take much extra creativity to see the same tale work. But the devil is in the details, as they say, and so maybe more would be lost than I’m perceiving.

Or perhaps it’s the very point: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Benjamin is ageing in completely the opposite direction to the rest of us, and yet his life isn’t all that different. Witness the end of the film (naturally, spoilers follow): Benjamin loses his language and memory, his life fading away as his brain fails. Presumably this is because he’s regressing to childhood, his brain shrinking and devolving to that of a child/toddler/newborn, but don’t we see the same thing happen to adults with dementia? As Daisy observes earlier in the film, “we all end up in diapers”. A life backwards is not so different to a life forwards, then. It’s all in how you live it, that kind of thing.

And speaking of death, there’s an awful lot of it about in Benjamin Button. He grows up in an old people’s home; most of the people he knows there die. It ends by detailing his final years, his gradual slide to death. Threaded throughout is the tale of Daisy’s death, in a hospital right before Hurricane Katrina hits — a natural disaster which claimed almost 2,000 lives. For a film that’s about A Life, this seems like rather a lot of the other. Either it’s me reading a lot of death into it, for whatever reason, or that’s something else it has to say: life is defined by death. As one character comments, “Benjamin, we’re meant to lose the people we love. How else would we know how important they are to us?”

Ultimately, Benjamin Button strikes me as less than the sum of its parts. Bits are good, even very good — “bits” both as in story episodes and technical elements; and I particularly like the sections with Jared Harris, who’s always worth watching — but what does it add up to? It’s quite long and, unlike Zodiac, feels it. It may be easy to admire, but I find it awkward to love.

I watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button as part of a David Fincher Week. Read my thoughts on all his films to date here.

Fight Club (1999)

Posted on February 10, 2011 by badblokebob

2011 #16a
David Fincher | 139 mins | Blu-ray | 18 / R

I used to have a friend who loved all kinds of action movies and rap movies and other kinds of violence-obsessed forms of entertainment. He once tried to watch Fight Club, in the wake of the praise poured upon it and no doubt interested in the visceral thrill of the fighting element, but got bored about halfway through and turned it off. He was not impressed. Please note that halfway through is certainly after the titular club, and all its associated antics, begins.

I start with this story because I’m now going to pick on Roger Ebert’s 1999 review of Fight Club. I don’t know if his opinion has changed in the intervening decade — a decade which has seen Fincher’s adaptation of Chuck Palahnuik’s novel quickly canonised as a generation-defining modern classic — but we’ll take his review as an example of all the critical ones (the reasonably critical ones, anyway — unreasonable critics are impossible to argue against after all), because he’s respected and because I can’t be bothered to trawl through too much more of the big pile of reviews Rotten Tomatoes offers up. But more so, actually, because I’d be here forever batting away criticism after criticism if I did.

Incidentally, the film has there an 81% approval rating. This is perhaps negated by the fact it includes more recent reviews — some are of the Blu-ray, for instance — but a debate about whether it should be an archive of original-release critical opinions or of all-time critical opinions is for somewhere else. My point is, critics who dislike Fight Club are in the minority (29 ‘rotten’ reviews vs 122 ‘fresh’ ones), so it might just be a little cruel to go picking on them all. Though rubbish like “Fight Club undermines any seriousness it might have harboured with an avalanche of smirky cynicism designed to flatter the hipper-than-thou fantasies of adolescent moviegoers,” doesn’t so much need rebuttal as offering of some literature to the reviewer. Plus it comes from a Christian magazine/website so it’d be a bit like picking on a kid with learning disabilities.

So, Ebert.

Of course, Fight Club itself does not advocate Durden’s philosophy. It is a warning against it, I guess

At least he starts here. To miss that would be… well, I’ll return to that point later. On the other hand, he’s surely using it to preemptively cut-off criticism of his criticism — Ebert is adept at predicting ways people might defend a movie and telling them they were wrong in advance, as we have seen.

Although sophisticates will be able to rationalize the movie as an argument against the behavior it shows, my guess is that audience will like the behavior but not the argument. Certainly they’ll buy tickets because they can see Pitt and Norton pounding on each other; a lot more people will leave this movie and get in fights than will leave it discussing Tyler Durden’s moral philosophy.

…whatever Fincher thinks the message is, that’s not what most audience members will get.

This is the primary reason I’ve chosen Ebert’s review to pick on, and it was this paragraph that led to my opening one. My guess is, the kind of person liable to buy in to Tyler’s moral philosophy and engage in similar fights will get bored by the movie and go watch something that’s more straight-up action (or just go get in a fight, of course). To say that only “sophisticates” will be able to comprehend the points the film is actually making does a disservice to most viewers. Now, I’m not going to be one of the first to jump to the defence of the great unwashed — when programmes like The X Factor rule our TV schedules it’s quite clear their cultural taste is highly questionable — but I don’t think you have to be exceptionally gifted to get what Fight Club’s driving at. Perhaps I’m coming at it from too privileged a background? I don’t know. But I still don’t believe people would be so easily led as Ebert implies; and those that might be probably got bored and switched off.

Maybe at the time it was a genuine fear that Fight Club would inspire violence (a different review compares the potential effect to A Clockwork Orange’s over here), but history has proven it near groundless. In over a decade since its release, there have been no more than a handful of incidents one might directly and solely attribute to Fight Club’s influence.

And just maybe, it was already covering the thoughts of a generation — rather than being the spark that set them off, it was reflecting back a mentality that already existed and saying, “look, don’t go this far with that thought”. It’s not groundless to think that: Palahniuk interviewed young white-collar workers while writing the novel and widely found opinions which he worked into the novel, about the influence of a lack of father figures and the resentment of the lifestyles advertising promoted. All of this is carried over into the film.

In many ways, it’s like Fincher’s movie The Game… That film was also about a testing process in which a man drowning in capitalism (Michael Douglas) has the rug of his life pulled out from under him and has to learn to fight for survival. I admired The Game much more than Fight Club because it was really about its theme

Hm.

For better or worse, I think Fight Club is far more tied into its themes than The Game is. Fincher’s earlier film, as I discussed yesterday, is a well-made and entertaining thriller, and it does have a similar thematic basis to Fight Club — Douglas’ character is effectively stripped of his lifestyle to show how hollow it is and what he’s lacking as a human being. That just underscores the action, however; it adds something to the film, certainly, but there’s nothing there to lead viewers to “leave the movie… discussing [its] moral philosophy”. Fight Club, on the other hand, is more forward about its thematic points. Both the Narrator and Tyler spout philosophical tidbits at various points, and their differing reactions to the path they take considers this too. It still works as a story — it isn’t just facilitating an essay on the subjects of free will and consumerism — but it’s more present, and presents more to consider, and perhaps discuss, than The Game does.

Later, the movie takes still another turn. A lot of recent films seem unsatisfied unless they can add final scenes that redefine the reality of everything that has gone before; call it the Keyser Soze syndrome.

…the third [act] is trickery

Ah, the twist.

Despite what Ebert implies, Fight Club’s twist works. It makes sense. “Sense” in the sense that the characters are mentally ill and we’ve been let into their experience — quite literally, an unreliable Narrator — but that fits. Clues are littered throughout. You can argue they’re not fundamental to the story — most are lines or asides that hint at it — but I don’t think it’s a nonsensical turn of events. In fact, one could argue that it contains perhaps the film’s biggest point: beneath the veneer of consumer-focused office-working modern life, every man has a Tyler Durden who wants to put society to rights. The question becomes, should he be let out; Fight Club explores what might happen if he were, but leaves it up to the viewer to decide if it turned out for the best (while strongly erring, despite what Ebert suggests, to the side of “no”).

The twist also calls to mind The Game again. Whereas knowing the end result of that film’s twist (or twists, really) can scupper it after only another viewing or two, Fight Club doesn’t suffer in the slightest from the revelation that… well, y’know (and if you don’t, that’s why I’ve not said it). You can watch it again and pick up the clues and see how it works — and, as I said, it does — but you can also still enjoy the film, its story and its ideas without the need for the twist to remain a surprise. A bit like Se7en, I suppose.

Another point that interests me here is the audience’s reaction to a filmmaker who uses twists. As we’ve seen, Fincher produced three films in a row that had considerable twist endings; two of them often number in lists of the best movie twists ever. So how is it that he didn’t gain a particular reputation for twist endings, whereas M. Night Shyamalan gained one after… well, one film. I’m not complaining about this — the constant need to provide a shocking last-minute rug-pull has gone on to scupper Shyamalan’s career — but the difference of reaction/public perception is intriguing. I’m sure there are reasons — the sheer size of The Sixth Sense’s twist relative to those in Fincher’s films (it’s only Fight Club’s, his third such film, that changes everything we’ve seen in the same way); the way Shyamalan appeared to court the reputation; and so on.

As a means of dealing with his pain, [the Narrator] seeks out 12-step meetings, where he can hug those less fortunate than himself and find catharsis in their suffering. It is not without irony that the first meeting he attends is for post-surgical victims of testicular cancer, since the whole movie is about guys afraid of losing their cojones.

That, however, is some reasonable analysis. I liked this.

To round off this defence of Fight Club, let’s call up the BBFC (this is the point I said I’d return to). You may remember they cut four seconds of violence from the film (reinstated in 2007. Incidentally, the MPAA had no problem whatsoever with the violence but questioned some of the sex, such as Tyler being seen wearing a rubber glove. American values regarding sex/violence on film and TV are seriously questionable.) In 1999, when asked to ban the film for glamourising and encouraging the kind of behaviour it contains, the BBFC refused, and in no uncertain terms:

The film as a whole is — quite clearly — critical and sharply parodic of the amateur fascism which in part it portrays. Its central theme of male machismo (and the anti-social behaviour that flows from it) is emphatically rejected by the central character in the concluding reels.

Maybe it’s just me, but such a definitive statement — underlined by the relatively informal addition of “quite clearly” — from an authoritative body, one that is (theoretically) objective about a film’s quality in lieu of deciding which age groups its content is suitable for, feels unusual to me; and, by extension, worth taking into consideration. Not as the be-all-and-end-all of the debate, of course, but if the BBFC are prepared to dismiss such criticism of the film with a “quite clearly” — a “if you missed it, you’re dim” kind of phrase — then you have to think it’s pretty obvious.

A couple of stray points before I go:

If you’ve not read it, know that the film keeps a lot of Palahnuik’s novel. The narration often takes it verbatim. With the exception of the ending — changed, for the better — it’s a remarkably faithful adaptation.

Fincher’s films often look great, but Fight Club is surely the most visually inventive. A list of exciting spectacles could be endless, but for some: the title sequence, pulling back from the fear centre of the brain, through the brain, and down the barrel of a gun in extreme close-up; the IKEA catalogue condo shot; big sweeping flybys of tiny things — the contents of a trash can, kitchen appliances, bomb wiring; the meditation cave bits; flash frames of Tyler; the “let me tell you a bit about Tyler Durden” sequence, with the fourth-wall-obliterating to-camera narration and the interaction between ‘flashback’ & narrator; the crazy mutating sex scene… To top it off, the ‘regular’ cinematography is grounded in Fincher’s trademark darkness, as if every shot was conceived as just black and he added only what light was necessary.

And a pet peeve: Look at the end credits. See how Ed Norton’s character is credited as Jack? Oh, that’s right — he isn’t. He doesn’t have a name. The film makes a point of drawing our attention to this point: early on, Marla asks him his name; there is no answer. And that’s because his name is (shh, whisper it) (…oh yes, I’m keeping this spoiler-free). There are counter arguments to that being his real name (his colleagues never call him it, only those who met him… after), but that’s beside the point. Stop calling him Jack. (I believe I read somewhere that, on the relevant DVD commentary, Ed Norton says he calls the character Jack. Not good enough reasoning for me.)

That’ll do, then.

At one point consensus seemed to have it that Fight Club was easily Fincher’s best movie, a generation-defining statement, “the first great film of the 21st Century” despite being released in 1999 (I can never remember who originated that quote). I don’t know if times have changed that as a widespread opinion, particularly with the acclaim The Social Network has received. That’s been called a generation-defining movie too, actually — two in as many decades; nice work. But I digress; such talk is for a few days’ time.

I’ve always preferred Se7en myself. I still do. But Fight Club is nonetheless an exceptional film.

I watched Fight Club as part of a David Fincher Week. Read my thoughts on all his films to date here.

Toy Story 3 (2010)

Posted on December 26, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #114
Lee Unkrich | 103 mins | Blu-ray | U / G

Didn’t get Toy Story 3 for Christmas? Pick it up in the sales, then, because it’s bloody good.

Look:

Much was written about Toy Story 3 when it was released this summer, so I’m not sure how much I have to add, but here we go. It’s no surprise either — that’s what happens when a preeminent and popular studio releases a sequel to a beloved and acclaimed film franchise 11 years after the last instalment. High expectations abounded. For once, they weren’t necessarily unrealistic: if anyone could pull off such a feat, it’s Pixar.

It was somewhat amazing when Toy Story 2 equalled — some (including me) would say bettered — the first film. We may be more used to quality sequels these days but, as major franchises like The Matrix and Pirates of the Caribbean readily prove, they’re still far from guaranteed. To even try again with a threequel seems madness (no one’s told Chris Nolan this either, it seems). But they tried, and they succeeded: Toy Story 3 is at least the equal of the first two, if not once again slightly better — something that is, as far as my memory can muster, unheard of.

Individual adjectives serve admirably: it’s hilarious, emotional, exciting, scary; a great comedy, a great action/adventure. And Ken’s fashion show sequence is worth the price of admission all by itself. It’s kid-friendly, of course, but it’s not just for kids — it’s for young adults, who’ve grown up with these films and these characters and, in a way, are letting them go along with Andy; and for adults, who may have left childish things behind but can hopefully still appreciate the thematic sentiment.

Darker sequences support this interpretation, I think — the furnace climax, for instance, which carries a palpable sense, even to a savvy adult viewer, of “will they really do that?” doom. With the intention being that this is the series’ closing instalment — and with Andy grown up and leaving so that, however things end for the toys, this is The End for viewers — there are times when one wonders just how dark Pixar may be willing to push it. The potential that some or all of the toys may be lost along the way is a genuine fear, a move of blue-moon rarity for modern Children’s Films. This is in addition to the usual Pixar style of including jokes and references to skim over the kids’ heads.

I suppose TS3 may not be quite as effective if the first two films weren’t part of your childhood. I feel they were on the edge of mine — I was certainly too old to actually have any of the toys, for instance; I imagine anyone who had their own Buzz or Woody will feel even more emotional seeing them go through what they do here. Similarly, it pays to be aware of events and jokes in the preceding films. You don’t need to know intricate plot details, but there are plenty of pleasing references to catchphrases and moments.

Is Toy Story 3 faultless? Probably not. But I can’t think of any right now. Sublime.

Toy Story 3 placed 2nd on my list of The Ten Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2010, which can be read in full here.

Nanny McPhee (2005)

Posted on December 23, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #75
Kirk Jones | 94 mins | TV | U / PG

Nanny McPhee is brilliant. But to expand more directly on that sentence would be a conclusion, and so, before that, I present a collection of thoughts on bits I liked. Let’s call it “a review”.

The story is excellent, the kind of tale that imparts moral messages and lessons without you even realising — perfect for kids… and adults. It rattles along throughout, but particularly during the opening, which is surely what you want in a kids’ film: keep their attention! Emma Thompson’s screenplay is a delight. She’s in full control of her material, which allows her to set up rules — such as Nanny McPhee having five lessons to teach — and than almost immediately subvert them — though to tell you how would be to ruin a bit of the fun. Humour is rife, and without even realising it you develop a care for the characters.

Some have criticised the film for having no likeable characters. I can only think they were actually watching something else. Are the children a menace? Certainly — but they clearly have hearts of gold; they’ve been neglected and to an extent rejected; they’re acting up for attention. And they care about each other and always band together — they aren’t squabbling brats, they’re a gang, sticking together to defend themselves from a world that they perceive is out to get them. This is never clearer than when Angela Lansbury’s evil, rich Aunt turns up to take one away, and they do all they can to prevent it. And there are consequences; consequences, in fact, that matter to them, rather than more of the semi-neglectful treatment they’re used to.

And even if you can’t engage with the troublesome children, surely Nanny McPhee coming in to sort them out is therefore a blessing? To say the children are a naughty, nasty rabble but McPhee is an oppressive, overbearing force is just trying to have your cake and eat it — pick a side, or pick both, oh awkward viewer. (And by “viewer” here I mean “one IMDb commenter I read”.)

The cast are exemplary without exception. Thompson, ‘uglying up’ as the titular nanny, conveys all the quiet authority necessary at the start, then softens without ever losing the sense she’s doing what is required; as she states, she never chooses sides. Colin Firth is naturally suited to being a dashing-if-bumbling type, so is also spotless as the father who does care but has forgotten how to show it, with the weight of the realities of the world — otherwise known as Money — pressing down on him. They’re ably supported by an array of British talent: Celia Imrie as a pink, fluffy, and dastardly potential fiancee; Imelda Staunton as a beleaguered ex-army chef; David Jacobi and Patrick Barlow as a Tweedledum and Tweedledee-style pair of comedy funeral attendants; Angela Lansbury as the controlling old Aunt.

Not to mention Kelly MacDonald, the film’s sweetness and light — not like Anne Hathaway’s caricatured (deliberately) White Queen in Tim Burton’s Alice, thank goodness, but more Cinderella-y; the downtrodden but caring servant, who, when given the chance, — well, I wouldn’t want to spoil the ending. You’ll probably guess it anyway. But that’s not the point; indeed, that’s Good Writing, isn’t it — everything must be seeded well in advance, otherwise it’s all a deus ex machina. But this isn’t a time to rant about storytelling mores.

Even the rabble of children are pitch-perfect. With a cast this young that’s as much the skill of Thompson’s writing and Kirk Jones’ directing as any genuine acting talent, but that doesn’t make it any less of an achievement. As the eldest and therefore leader, Thomas Sangster is superb as ever. He gets the most to do, evolving from the awkwardest of the awkward to reveal intelligence and caring. The scene where he visits his father at work to ask him not to marry is almost heartbreaking, the boy’s well-meaning confused for his previous obstructiveness; and what he does next just shows how much he’s evolved. If there’s one flaw among the children it’s that Eliza Bennett (seen to good effect in Inkheart, shot just a year later) isn’t given much to do as the eldest girl; that’s an inevitable side effect when you’ve got a mass of kids fighting for time alongside several significant adult parts.

Around the large cast, there’s plenty more to see. The primary-coloured sets and costumes work marvellously, a delightful mash between reality (the actual buildings, sets, costumes, etc, all look real and period-accurate) and fantasy (the bright colours!) It could’ve been garish; instead, it’s vibrant. The effects are properly magical. They don’t overwhelm, always serving the story rather than themselves, which is probably what makes them all the more effective. The climax is another highlight — though what occurs at the wedding (oh, it’s obvious there’ll be one) I shan’t spoil by describing.

I confess, Nanny McPhee took me by surprise. It always sounded a bit too much like Mary Poppins; it might be passably nice but little more, I thought. But no. It’s its own film, with its own magical nanny. It’s a children’s film, but with plenty for adults to engage with — assuming it doesn’t simply unleash your inner child, which it may well do. It’s exciting, funny, touching, magical and charming, quite often all at once. It’s brilliant.

Nanny McPhee placed 5th on my list of The Ten Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2010, which can be read in full here.

Tales of the Black Freighter (2009)

Posted on December 21, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #100a
Daniel DelPurgatorio & Mike Smith | 25 mins | DVD | 15 / R

In the world of Watchmen, superheroes are real, and so comics have turned to other avenues; mainly, pirates. Threaded through the novel is a boy reading one of these pirate comics, which we also get to see excerpts from, because it (rather obliquely) mirrors the arc of one of the tale’s major characters. As a comic-within-a-comic — indeed, a comic commenting on a comic — it works well as a conceit. But when it comes to adapting the novel to the big screen, how do you convert that?

In this case, as an animation… which was then removed from the feature. It’s back in the home-video-released Ultimate Cut though, which I’ll cover at a later date. First, what of Tales of the Black Freighter as a standalone animation, which is how it was released in the run up to Watchmen’s theatrical run last year.

Appropriately, the short emulates an ’80s Saturday morning cartoon style… albeit in cinematic widescreen, evocative 5.1 Surround Sound, and with horrific R-rated gore. Yes, this probably wouldn’t actually have been shown on Saturday morning TV, even in America. Nonetheless, considering Watchmen’s ’80s setting, it’s a solid choice for this adaptation, which could well have gone down a more modern-styled route.

The story itself is a bit slight. It barely runs 20 minutes once you take off credits at either end, and even at this length feels a little drawn out. It’s a morality play, one that it would take mere minutes to cover the key points of, including a twist ending that seemed surprising in the original. Knowing what was coming, I can’t say if it’s as surprising on screen as it felt on the page; the cartoon is at the disadvantage of presenting the story in one 20-minute chunk, whereas in the graphic novel it’s scattered in small chunks throughout, delaying the reveal and making it harder to piece together the clues.

Overall, however, I did find the story easier to follow in this form. Perhaps Zack Snyder and Alex Tse’s screenplay strips away some of Alan Moore’s typically pretentious narration, or perhaps it was just the benefit of consuming it in one sitting rather than in morsels woven through an already-complex narrative, but keeping track of what’s happening is easier here. Does it lose something when taken out of that context though? Probably, but then I never felt it added much to the graphic novel in the first place. It’ll be interesting to see how it fits into the film when I finally get round to watching The Ultimate Cut — I already have some reservations waiting to be expressed in my review.

I did enjoy Tales of the Black Freighter, though I wouldn’t readily recommend it to others without specific reason. One can easily imagine it as an episode of an anthology series about this mysterious vessel; indeed, thinking of it that way makes me long to see more episodes. But it’s still an odd tale, one created primarily to serve a purpose alongside the main story of Watchmen. I think it does stand alone, but in doing so it becomes reliant on the final twist, which takes a time coming. I’m not sure how many would be interested in the story if they weren’t fans of the novel or film.

It’s got an excellent song over the end credits, mind. Definitely the highlight.

The Wolfman: Unrated Version (2010)

Posted on December 10, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #117
Joe Johnston | 119 mins | Blu-ray | 15 / R

The “extended director’s cut” (as the Blu-ray blurb describes it) of The Wolfman begins with a new CG’d version of Universal’s classic ’30s/’40s logo, the one that I’m sure opened many/most/all of their beloved classic horror movies. As well as being a self consciously cool opening shot, it’s a succinct way for director Joe Johnston to signal his intentions: this is not your modern whizzbang horror movie, but something more classically inspired.

Aside from a murderous opening teaser, the film makes this clear pretty quickly — or rather, quite slowly. The plot and character are allowed to unfurl at a gradual rate, building up to bursts of action later on rather than trying to keep the audience’s adrenaline pumping with a constant barrage of set pieces. This rationale seems to be particularly true in the 16-minutes-longer extended version, which adds additional dialogue-centric scenes from the outset. It also adds flaws like blatant continuity errors: in the original cut, Gwen writes to Lawrence to persuade him to come; in the extended version, she visits him in person, rendering future references to her letter baffling.

An extensive illustrated list of the numerous changes can be found here. Despite the “unrated” branding implying “more gore” as per usual, there’s hardly any of that added. Instead it’s mainly character moments of varying degrees of relevance, plus an array of inconsequential tweaks. I appreciate the attempt to bring a slower, creepier style back to modern horror films, but Johnston over-eggs it at times. This becomes especially evident when the majority — perhaps even the totality — or plot developments and, particularly, twists are guessable far in advance. Trying to lose 16 minutes for the theatrical cut was probably a good idea, though some of my favourite moments lie amongst what was excised.

The other downside comes when Johnston tries to have his cake and eat it. The plot may retain its relatively leisurely pace throughout, but room is found for three or four CGI-packed action sequences. I think the film indulges too much in CGI. It’s a useful tool when used well and all that, and it’s undoubtedly found itself well employed in out-and-out blockbusters, but its obvious presence in even low-key scenes here — it’s used to realise a tame bear and sacrificial deer, for instance — feels incongruous; a sore thumb when so much of the script, plotting and pacing is old school.

There’s plenty of computer work on show in the transformations, fights and deaths too, of course, but I feel a similar sense of incongruity there: after the filmmakers went to publicised effort to make the Wolfman himself a creation of makeup rather than computers, it’s a shame they couldn’t extend the practical approach to more effects, particularly others involving the werewolves. As it stands, The Wolfman’s CGI is unoriginal, the same pretty-real-but-undoubtedly-computer-generated stuff we’ve seen in every blockbuster for the past five to ten years. Even Anthony Hopkins’ decapitated noggin feels like something I saw in some 12A blockbuster in the last half decade.

The gore all round, however, was rather good. I’m no gore fiend, but considering the subject matter and the film’s more adult bent, it was appropriately gruesome and, at points — such as the (brief) reveal of Ben Talbot’s mutilated body — scary and plausible; indeed, it was scarily plausible. The same can’t be said of the abundant jump scares though. Such artificial frights are widely considered the scourge of horror movies, and The Wolfman certainly has more than its fair share of cheap ones. Generally speaking, in most films I find such moments to be neutered by the events and signposts being so damned predictable; Johnston is frequently not guilty of this, at least, pulling off some genuinely surprising jolts. And some of them are even legitimate, if such a distinction is possible.

Despite the avowed interest in story, I nonetheless found the scary bits and action sequences to be The Wolfman’s most engaging. Leaving aside the predictability I already noted, the cast are at least partly to blame. I’ve never much rated Benicio del Toro as an actor (with exceptions) and here he does little to change my mind. Indeed none of the cast excel themselves — Hopkins, Blunt and Weaving may not be bad per se, but there’s little to endear them either. Hopkins stands out as either rather good or rather hammy, depending on your point of view; and either way, he’s distinctly Hopkins-y. Plus ça change.

Max Von Sydow’s cameo-sized role (only found in the extended cut) is possibly the film’s best bit. Aside from the fact he’s usually good value, the relevance of the scene itself is unclear. That might sound like a problem, but I choose to see it as making the sequence — and the character — rather intriguing. The rest of the supporting cast are largely British faces recognisable from TV and similarly-sized film roles, playing the parts you’d expect them to and existing primarily as monster ready-meals. Equally, Danny Elfman’s score is disappointingly generic and clichéd, particularly so whenever the film is being the same.

Considering Johnston’s background in family-friendly films, he always seemed an uncertain choice for an adult horror movie. In some respects there was nothing to fear — the adultness is clearly undiluted — but he’s nonetheless made an adequate movie, rather than the exceptional one a classically-styled horror revival deserved. On the bright side, it’s immeasurably better than Universal’s last foray into their horror back catalogue, Van Helsing. In fact, placed in such company, The Wolfman almost begins to look like a masterpiece.

The Wolfman begins on Sky Movies Premiere tonight at 10pm, and is on every day at various times until Thursday 16th December.

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