Macbeth (1948)

Posted on January 23, 2014 by badblokebob

2013 #79
Orson Welles | 103 mins | TV | 4:3 | USA / English | PG

Twelve years on from his innovative, acclaimed, career-bolstering ‘Voodoo Macbeth’, and with the infamous War of the Worlds radio broadcast and films like Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons and The Lady from Shanghai now under his belt, Orson Welles tried to interest Hollywood in something they’d only attempted a handful of times since the advent of talkies: a Shakespeare adaptation.

“Tried to interest” and “attempted” are not inapt phrases here. After failing to elicit interest in an adaptation of Othello, Welles switched to pitching the ever-popular Macbeth as “a perfect cross between Wuthering Heights and Bride of Frankenstein,” interesting Republic Pictures because of their desire to move from producing low-budget Westerns to being a prestige studio. The end result was Welles had to shoot his film in just 23 days for only $700,000. The end result was a movie that struggled against Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet, released the same year, and for which poor critical reception led to nearly 20 minutes of cuts and the remainder being dubbed to change the actors’ accents.

Restored in 1980, the original version is a compromised but interesting adaptation. Welles has chopped and changed the play, cutting scenes, transposing others, assigning speeches to different characters, even creating new ones. This array of modifications scandalised critics at the time, though nowadays it’s much more common for film (and stage) versions of Shakespeare to mess around with the text as needed, usually to make the works a manageable length. Macbeth is one of the more sensibly-sized plays, however, though I suppose this is the legacy of Welles’ 23-day schedule.

The low budget and quick schedule affect the film across the board, for good and ill. There’s much dramatic staging, with grand sets and doom-laden lighting. The shadow-drenched cinematography may well be a result of the cheap production, but the resulting effect is marvellous. Indeed, all the camerawork is great. There are some striking long takes, including the majority of the night of the murder occurring in one long unbroken shot. The costumes, on the other hand, look like a ragtag bunch of Past Clothing from the studio’s store… which is because they essentially were.

Welles chose to have the cast speak with Scottish accents, which unfortunately end up a bit squiffy. I suppose it’s an attempt at authenticity at least, and if you don’t allow them to bother you then they won’t bother you. I certainly wound up not noticing them after only a few minutes. In spite of that, many of the performances are quite strong. Of their era — they can be a little stagey and histrionic, lacking the subtlety we might expect today — but good. The dialogue was pre-recorded for the sake of the schedule, with the actors miming their lines on set. Seems like a ridiculous idea, and no doubt had an effect on performances, but I only noticed it once in the entire production.

Much of the score (by Jacques Ibert, after Welles failed to secure Bernard Herrmann for contractual reasons) is appropriately atmospheric, but at one point it goes all Comedy. Macbeth himself is hardly in possession of all his faculties at that point, acting like a drunkard; but rather than make the sequence appropriately sinister (it’s in this state that he orders the execution of Banquo and Fleance, for example), it plays up the silliness, which is a shame.

For a variety of reasons, stemming from both the production situation and Welles’ creative choices, this is a flawed film. That said, its successes outweigh its problems to create a memorable adaptation that is justly regarded as one of the more significant films in Welles’ oeuvre.

Kick-Ass 2 (2013)

Posted on December 25, 2013 by badblokebob

When the first Kick-Ass was released back in 2010, one of the main stories was that it had flopped at the box office. That was poppycock: it opened at #1 in the US, and because it was made for just $30m it more than broke even in the US alone, eventually earning a total of $96m worldwide. It was an even bigger hit on DVD and Blu-ray, with an uncommonly large percentage of home entertainment sales being on BD, helping it earn even more cash.

Come the release of Kick-Ass 2 in September 2013 and the first film was suddenly referred to as a renowned box office hit. I guess the media have very short memories. And it made a good stick to beat the sequel with, when it opened at #5 in the US with just $13m. What a flop! Except it only cost $28m, has gone on to make just over that in the US, and has climbed to a total of $59.6m worldwide. Not close to as big as the first film, but even before the inevitably-successful DVD & Blu-ray numbers that’s a strong performance.

Will we see a third film? That certainly looks plausible. Should we? Well…

Written and directed by Jeff Wadlow, based on two comic book miniseries (Hit-Girl and Kick-Ass 2) by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr., the movie of Kick-Ass 2 rejoins the characters a couple of years on. A wave of Kick-Ass-inspired costumed heroes now patrol the streets, though Kick-Ass himself, Dave Lizewski (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), has more or less retired. Mindy Macready (Chloë Grace Moretz) still fights crime as Hit-Girl, hiding that fact from her disapproving guardian (Morris Chestnut). Meanwhile, Chris D’Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) wants revenge on Kick-Ass for murdering his father, but is being kept out of the way by his mother and the remains of his father’s mob organisation… until she dies in a freak accident, when Chris dubs himself “the Motherfucker” and sets about forming a gang of supervillains…

If that sounds like a convoluted setup, that’s kind of how it plays on screen too — and it’s only the start of it. This is a somewhat muddled second instalment, taking time to re-introduce us to various characters and follow all their stories. Whereas the first film introduced elements gradually as they came into contact with the central narrative of a schoolboy-turned-superhero, Kick-Ass 2 picks up each character when they’ve more or less gone their separate ways, then sets about bringing them together again. So rather than one straightforward thread that others naturally emerge alongside, here Wadlow must juggle three disparate tales from the start, before he eventually ties them together.

It feels a little meandering, then, as Kick-Ass joins up with a superhero team trying to do good, the Motherfucker gradually assembles his own team of villains, and Mindy tries to fit in as a regular high school girl. You can see the germs of good ideas here, but how well they function is debatable. Whereas the first film riffed on archetypal characters and plots from regular superhero movies, as such providing an entertaining deconstruction of the genre, the sequel doesn’t feel as focussed. The themes are somewhat familiar — superheroes leading to supervillains, as seen in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, or the assembly of superhero teams, as seen in The Avengers — but it seems these are coincidental similarities, not conscious points of reference, comparison, juxtaposition, or examination.

Wadlow is an inadequate replacement for the first film’s director/co-writer Matthew Vaughn. In fairness he’s working to an even tighter budget (in the deleted scenes, he reveals a whole 30-second action beat in the Hit Girl/Mother Russia fight was cut purely because they couldn’t afford a small patch of green screen replacement in one shot), but that’s not the real problem. There just aren’t as many gags, the action sequences aren’t as viscerally satisfying, the story meanders a bit in the middle rather than barrelling through like the first. In part this is the widely-identified fact that Moretz is now a teenager behaving like a teenager rather than the shocking/amusing pre-teen swearing like a sailor of the first movie, but it’s a more endemic problem than that. Whether it stems from Millar’s original comic or Wadlow’s treatment of it, I don’t know, but on the whole it feels less inventive, less vital, and consequently less exciting (though there are some good sequences) and less funny (though there are some proper laughs).

Wadlow does make welcome changes to Millar’s notoriously nihilistic comic, however: instead of gang-raping Kick-Ass’ girlfriend, the Motherfucker can’t get it up (I guess because Kick-Ass isn’t dating his mother (ho ho!)); instead of murdering Colonel Stars & Stripes’ dog, he remarks that “I’m not that evil!”; and so on. The film version still has its points of offensiveness and some outré ideas, certainly, but the needlessly-harsh edge has been taken off, especially when it comes to punishing characters who are innocent. With the exception of Kick-Ass’ dad, but then that’s a superhero staple… just one that’s more violently executed here than normal.

The quality cast keep the film watchable at all times, and the tight budget doesn’t always stand in the way — some of the green screen work may be shockingly cheap, as seen in the van sequence ever since the trailer, but the action choreography of such sequences is still good — meaning that Kick-Ass 2 remains entertaining for fans of the first outing. But it isn’t as strong a production all round, and doesn’t exceed the original in any regard — indeed, any emotional investment in the characters (and there is some) is carried over from the first film’s groundwork — meaning that those fans may be entertained, but will also be a bit disappointed.

So is Kick-Ass 3 a good idea? Kick-Ass 2 does provide a kind of conclusion to the story… but it also leaves it wide open for more, not to mention that Millar & Romita’s third comic book miniseries (currently running) is supposed to be the definitive final act for the characters. It would be a shame not to see that completed on screen, but perhaps with more care in how it’s executed.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2013. Read more here.

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Posted on December 16, 2013 by badblokebob

In tribute to the great Peter O’Toole, who passed away on Saturday, today’s review is his defining role, and this year’s very special #100…

If you were looking for the archetype of an epic movie, Lawrence of Arabia would be a strong contender. It has a wide scope in just about every regard, from the desert locations that stretch as far as the eye can see, to the thousands of extras that fill them, to the glorious 70mm camerawork that captures it all, to the sweeping story that also contains a more personal throughline, to the 3½-hour running time.

The film begins at the end, with Lawrence (Peter O’Toole) dying in a motorcycle crash. At his funeral, various people express how they never really knew him. From there, it’s back to the height of the First World War, where Lawrence is performing menial duties for the British Army in Cairo before (in a series of events too incidental to go into here) he’s sent off to Arabia to assess the military prospects of Prince Faisal (Alec Guinness). Instead of merely reporting back, however, Lawrence leads some of Faisal’s men on an impossible mission… and succeeds. Supposed to be the British Army’s liaison with the Arab forces, he more ‘goes native’, leading the Arab troops in successful attacks on the enemy Turks, before considering turning on the British for Arabia’s independence…

And that’s much of the film summarised. But it’s almost besides the point, because it’s in the telling and details that Lawrence of Arabia thrives. For instance, as a war epic you might expect numerous battle scenes, and you get some of those; but the 140-minute first half deals with Lawrence’s journey to meet Faisal and then his first victory, while the second part begins later, after Lawrence has won many significant victories. Director David Lean is concerned more with this unknowable man, how he rose and how he fell, than with the ins and outs of all his triumphs.

As such, the film hangs on the performance of O’Toole. We’re told Lawrence is an enigmatic figure and his depiction arguably supports that — we never fully get inside his head; we’re always observing him. And yet that’s no bad thing, because even as Lawrence’s confidence waxes and wains, as his allegiances shift and alter, we can feel what he wants to achieve, why he thinks he can. He attempts the impossible and succeeds, which is why he later attempts a bigger impossibility, and must leave the pieces to the more level-headed men, who didn’t have his genius but can therefore play the political game better than he.

O’Toole carries us through all this with the skill of a seasoned pro, and yet this was his first major role. No wonder it made him a star over night. He makes every tweak in Lawrence’s attitude plausible; sells both the supreme self-confidence and crushing tumbles to inadequacy. Whatever else is going on, he draws your attention — not harmed by his piercing blue eyes, and looks so beautiful that Noel Coward remarked if he were any prettier they’d have to call it Florence of Arabia.

His command of the screen is even more impressive considering who’s playing opposite him. With hindsight it may be a mistake to have Alec Guinness blacked up as an Arabian prince, but his is not a caricature or cartoon villain. Indeed, Faisal is one of the most respectable men in the film, far more so than any of Lawrence’s British superiors. I said before that no man here outclassed Lawrence’s genius, but that would really be wrong: while he might not share Lawrence’s outward brilliance, Faisal is intelligent enough to hold back, to recognise that Lawrence will do much of what needs to be done, but that someone with a calmer head will need to be there to sweep up afterwards.

Then there’s Omar Sharif. Famed for having one of the greatest introductions in the history of the cinema — and one of the longest — there’s much more to his character than that sequence. At first Lawrence’s apparent enemy, he becomes perhaps the closest thing he has to a friend, before it disintegrates again. Such is the volatile nature of Lawrence’s relationship with most of the characters. A psychiatrist could probably diagnose him with some kind of mental health issue.

While those three may dominate, a film of this size has room for many more characters, and — at the risk of just sounding like a cast list — actors such as Anthony Quinn, Jack Hawkins, José Ferrer, Anthony Quayle, Claude Rains and Arthur Kennedy all make a mark, to one degree or another.

A similar legacy is left by those behind the scenes. Maurice Jarre’s score is the reference point for many a period desert epic — indeed, his music is so synonymous with such settings that it has arguably transcended its source to simply be what music for those locations and times is. It graces a film edited with class by Anne V. Coates, where scenes are allowed to play in luxuriantly long takes at times, while at others smash edits throw us from one location to another. This is undoubtedly supported by F.A. Young’s cinematography, where the wide frame can encompass so much action that there’s no need to cut amongst close-ups; and which can show the world in such majesty that you want it to hold for long, lingering takes. Even viewed on the small screen, the 70mm photography shines, especially on Blu-ray.

And, of course, overseeing all that, and surely as attributable for praise as any of those individuals already mentioned, is director David Lean. His ability to marshal a project of his size is unparalleled. To play it out across such a length without it feeling self-indulgent or overplayed is another skill, in part dictated by the material, but no less by the way that material is portrayed. I think, in the face of all this praise, there’s an argument that the film’s size has sometimes run away with. I couldn’t begin to tell you where a cut should be made or an element changed, and I’m not sure I’d presume to even if I had an idea (it was already sliced up once, then restored in 1989). Perhaps it doesn’t actually need changing at all — but on a first viewing, oh my, there’s an awful lot to it!

As with any great film, Lawrence of Arabia is at least the sum of its parts. Replace any of the artists I’ve mentioned, or surely many more, and it would not be the film it is. In fact, when working on such a scale, this is more than a film — it’s an experience. And if that sounds pretentious, well, tough. If you haven’t experienced it yet, try not to leave it as long as I did.

Lawrence of Arabia was viewed as part of my What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…? 12 for 2013 project, which you can read more about here.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2013. Read more here.

Lady of Deceit (1947)

Posted on December 13, 2013 by badblokebob

aka Born to Kill / Deadlier Than the Male

2013 #88
Robert Wise | 88 mins | TV | 4:3 | USA / English | PG*

Director Robert Wise certainly had an eclectic career. Depending on your genre predilections, you may feel he’s best known for The Sound of Music and West Side Story, or The Day the Earth Stood Still and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, or The Haunting and The Body Snatcher, or perhaps even a string of film noirs including The Set-Up, I Want to Live!, Odds Against Tomorrow, and this mid-’40s thriller.

Based on the novel Deadlier Than the Male** by James Gunn (not that one), the story sees a young woman, Helen (Claire Trevor), getting a divorce in Reno so she can marry her fiancee (Phillip Terry). On the night she’s due to leave, Helen discovers the murdered bodies of her friendly neighbour and her new boyfriend, but chooses to skip town early rather than tell the police. On the way back to San Francisco she runs into the murderer, Sam (Lawrence Tierney). He inveigles his way into Helen’s life, but when she refuses his advances he turns his attention to her rich sister (Audrey Long), and… well, I’m getting quite far into it now, aren’t I? Suffice to say there are affairs, investigations, and more murders. It’s “an hour and a half of ostentatious vice”, as one contemporary critic put it. You should read their full review, it’s full of more gems, concluding that “discriminating people are not likely to be attracted to this film.”

Even today, it’s quite a nasty little work, although tastes have evolved to the point where “discriminating people” are likely to be attracted to it — though not purely for the violence. You’d imagine that would pale by today’s standards, but even now the opening double homicide — presented pretty much in full on screen — is quite shocking, especially because it seems so horrendously plausible. Much movie violence is heightened, involving gangsters or spies or whatever, but here it’s a lover in a jealous rage killing two people in the kitchen of a regular house. Grim.

The real reason to watch is the quality cast. Trevor and Tierney are excellent as the secretly-duelling central pair: her, scheming but oft thwarted; him, an unreadable mass of brazen nerve, cunning, and a fatally short temper. There’s able support from the ever-reliable Elisha Cook Jr. as Sam’s only friend, attempting to aid his cover-up, and Esther Howard as the gregarious landlady who won’t let the murder of her friend go unavenged. Plus, Walter Slezak as a strangely jovial investigator, one of those left-field characters who never quite seem like real people but, thanks to their appealing affectations, sometimes develop a cult following.

Nasty it may remain, but Lady of Deceit is really probing dark corners of human nature; mining its story from the places people might find themselves if they’re a little too prepared to dig fresh holes to avoid potential troubles. Performed by a cast all firmly on their game, it adds up to a quality noir.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2013 — the first on it to be more than four years old, in fact. Read more here.

* Here’s yet another Odeon Entertainment release that doesn’t seem to have been before the BBFC recently (in this case, it was last classified A in 1948). I’m not sure how they get away with it. ^

** The film is called that in Australia. In the US, it’s Born to Kill. In the UK, it was released as Lady of Deceit and the print aired on TV bears the same title, though the DVD release plumps for Born to Kill. For my money, the novel’s title is the best, followed by the UK one, while the US title is blandly generic. ^

Jack Reacher (2012)

Posted on December 12, 2013 by badblokebob

I don’t like Lee Child. I’ve never read one of his novels, but I’ve read and seen interviews with him, and always felt he comes across as intensely pompous and irritating. I disclose this up front because it leaves me predisposed to dislike Jack Reacher, the first (they hope) movie adaptation from Child’s series of novels starring ex-military policeman and now all-purpose vigilante Jack (you guessed it) Reacher.

They’ve presumably gone down the name-as-title route for brand recognition value; plus to give them the choice to call the sequel simply Jack Reacher 2, because, as we all know, a series needs the same umbrella title on every entry to succeed — just look at the billion-dollar earnings of James Bond 23. (Oh wait, no.) The film is actually adapted from Child’s ninth Reacher tome, One Shot, which concerns a retired sniper who kills five civilians with six shots. When arrested, all he says is, “get Jack Reacher”. But Reacher isn’t his friend — thanks to past crimes, Reacher wants to see the man go down. But only if he’s actually guilty…

Writer-director Christopher McQuarrie (writer of The Usual Suspects, and The Wolverine script that Darren Aronofsky loved but James Mangold clearly felt could be improved(!)) has delivered an enthralling action-thriller with an unusual-these-days emphasis on the thriller part. There’s still a well-executed car chase, an epic punchy-shooty climax, and the odd spot of running and fighting along the way, but primarily this is a mystery that our heroes must wind their way through. It’s an intriguing yarn, which unfurls neatly to a largely satisfying climax. How much you consider the twists to be twisty will depend on which suspects your guesswork picks out, but in that regard it’s as strong as other similar genre examples.

Whether Cruise is a good fit for the literary Reacher (“literary” is a bit of a stretch, isn’t it?) I don’t know, but he’s as likeable a leading man as ever (i.e. if you don’t like him normally, this won’t change your mind), albeit a little terser than usual. I’d happily watch a sequel, let’s put it that way, and I’m very nearly tempted to pick up one of the books. There’s strong support from Rosamund Pike as the accused’s legal defender, and an array of fun cameo-sized supporting roles, which you may have heard about but, in case you haven’t, I shan’t spoil. (I mean, their names are on the poster, but I’d somehow missed that.)

A general apathy from cinema audiences (read: low box office) and Child’s fans declaiming Cruise’s casting (he’s far too short) may have led to the impression that Jack Reacher was a mediocre offering. Happily, that’s not the case. If anything, it’s underrated — the final product is a classily-made thriller that merits your time.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2013. Read more here.

Real Steel (2011)

Posted on December 10, 2013 by badblokebob

Once upon a time, Real Steel would have been rated PG, been aimed at 7- to 10-year-old boys, and would probably have been quite the success. In the current Hollywood moviemaking climate, however, it’s rated PG-13, consequently aimed at teenage boys and grown men who still have the tastes of teenage boys, and seems to be regularly slated in online comment sections.

That’s a shame because, despite some corny and cheesy bits, it generally works. It begins by setting out some apparently predictable plots, but then several didn’t play out entirely as I expected (I mean, it’s hardly revolutionary, but it wasn’t quite as blatant as I was expecting it to be when it came to certain resolutions). The fights aren’t the most exciting robot action sequences ever put on film (or digital file), but are suitably punchy for their purpose. The final duel is perhaps not as triumphant as the filmmakers think it is, but I’ve seen worse.

Other bits falter more obviously: there’s some horrendously clunky exposition, and it’s so desperate to be set in the near future that its future-history is practically our present already, which undermines it to an extent. OK, it’s not high on realism, but when someone says, “ah, that’s a Generation 2 robot from 2014,” you just think, “well, this isn’t going to really happen, is it?”

Some things are also distinctly unresolved: just why was Evil Lady prepared to pay $200,000 for a no-hope junkyard robot? I figured there was going to be some Nasty Secret to come out, especially as there’d been hints of the robot having extra abilities… but no. And what was up with the kid being 11 but Jackman always thinking he was 9? Figured that was going somewhere too. There’s talk now of a sequel — I hope such random bits weren’t intended as elaborate seeding for a follow-up, because that’s just irritating. That said, it would be nice if whoever’s in charge spotted those things and built on them in the sequel’s story.

For all that online moaning I mentioned, to my surprise I haven’t seen anyone complaining about that oft-cited bugbear, product placement. It’s glaringly obvious at frequent intervals… but it’s also pretty well integrated into the world — no “mm, Converse All Stars, vintage 2004!” moments here. (Funnily enough, Dr. Pepper — which is fairly prominent, though not so much as other things — was used with permission, but wasn’t paid for by… whoever makes it. So it’s not product placement. So if you do ever see someone moaning about the product placement of Dr Pepper in Real Steel, you can tell them they’re a moron, or something.)

Real Steel is a good family movie, masquerading as a teenage-focused robot action blockbuster thanks to its 12 and PG-13 certificates. The true best audience for it will be those around the same age as the central kid: they won’t find him as annoying as older viewers will, and the whole robot fighting thing will just seem exciting.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2013. Read more here.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)

Posted on December 4, 2013 by badblokebob

I’ve never actually read the Narnia novels, but I did have them read to me when I was very young and, for some reason, I remember Voyage of the Dawn Treader being my favourite. Sadly, this doesn’t quite translate to the big screen.

We’re re-introduced to the younger two Pevensie siblings, still during World War 2, staying with their irritating cousin Eustace. They are of course sucked into Narnia, this time much closer to their last visit: Prince— sorry, King Caspian is searching for some missing chaps, giving a nice excuse for a quest narrative across the seven seas. Or however many seas there are in Narnia.

What that means, unfortunately, is two things that often cause films trouble: an episodic narrative, and a surfeit of different locations and creatures. There’s no shortage of ambition in their rendering on screen, but the film sadly comes up short on occasion. Despite director Michael Apted’s experienced hand on the wheel, the course strays into Syfy Channel TV movie territory at times, with a kind of cheapness that won’t please anyone (though, of course, some simply won’t notice). Elsewhere, sequences that were surely fine in a children’s novel sit awkwardly amidst the grander, Lord of the Rings-y tone these adaptations strive for. By contrast, the epic finale is actually quite scary, surely stretching the bounds of the modern PG certificate… or possibly just demonstrating why more 12As could stand to be rated PG.

Then there’s the ending, which is all a problem sourced from the novel. While The Golden Compass was forced to downplay its atheism in an attempt to garner lucrative box office from grimly non-secular countries, like the United States (which ultimately did it no favours because the news that it was Ungodly and Evil had already got out), Dawn Treader offers no such courtesy with C.S. Lewis’ blatant Christ analogy version of Aslan. I never noticed this when I was little, but as a grown adult it is painful. The level of subtlety here is so low a participant in TOWIE or one of those other dreadful shows would surely be able to grasp that the film is screaming, “here’s Jesus, and that place behind the water is Heaven, and you should all aspire to this!” And it goes on, and on, and begins to feel like nasty propaganda, especially in a family movie.

I actually quite liked Dawn Treader while I was watching it, the distasteful final sequence aside. But looking back, I was kindly glossing over some of its flaws, even before the nasty taste you’re left with at the end. Nonetheless it hasn’t killed the franchise, with a fourth entry recently announced, at long last. I’ll catch that at some point, but, sadly, I’m in no hurry to revisit this one.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2013. Read more here.

LEGO Batman: The Movie – DC Super Heroes Unite (2013)

Posted on December 2, 2013 by badblokebob

Well. What can I say? Curiosity got the better of me.

It’s weird to think that a generation or two of kids have now grown up with there always being tie-in LEGO. Until about 15 years ago, the toy brick manufacturer did not do licences. For whatever reason that all changed with The Phantom Menace, when sets were released that tied in to both that film and the original trilogy. I doubt it surprised anyone when these were a huge success, and since then pretty much any action figure-friendly franchise has received the LEGO treatment: Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones, even The Lone Ranger and Prince of Persia!

It was such a success that they got kind of cocky and made a LEGO Star Wars video game. What the hell?! Except it turned out to be massively popular, thanks to its mix of irreverent but informed humour and clever gameplay mechanics that emphasised and utilised the LEGO-ness of the world. After multiple sequels and the concept again branching out to encompass more licenses, this same style made its way to animated TV specials and, ultimately, feature-length animations — of which I believe this is the first.

But it’s also a bit of a cheat. It’s an adaptation of the game LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes — so much so that it takes the game’s cinematic cut scenes and fills in the blanks (i.e. the bits you’d actually be playing in the game) with new animation. This has, understandably, quite irritated those who’ve played the game — it’s just the thing they’ve already seen, only less interactive. For the rest of us, it’s not startlingly obvious where all the gameplay bits would be, but every once in a while a character outlines a set of mission goals right before an action sequence, which slightly gives the game away (ho ho). The side effect is that at times it feels a little like watching someone play a computer game, and that’s rarely fun.

This wouldn’t matter so much if what was left was entertaining, but it’s a little weak. I’ve seen a couple of the LEGO Star Wars TV specials and found them to be quite fun, but LEGO Batman can’t reach their level. It’s not just that it’s almost four times as long as one of those, it’s that the humour it does contain doesn’t hit home in the same way. It’s often too juvenile, too “that’ll do”, too “I can tell this is supposed to be humorous but it’s just not funny”. I know I started by saying that I just watched this through curiosity, but partly it was that I’d found those Star Wars specials enjoyable enough and thought this would be more of the same with superheroes. It wants to be, but it isn’t.

The top thing that struck me, however, was this: imagine that, instead of Zack Snyder directing Henry Cavill and Ben Affleck in Batman vs. Superman in 2015, we’d instead been treated to Joel Schumacher directing George Clooney and Nicolas Cage in Batman and Superman in 1999. The result, I can’t help but suspect, would have been rather like LEGO Batman: The Movie. And yet, as a 70-minute kid-focused animated confection, it’s gone down a lot better than I suspect my imagined Schumacher opus would have.

I don’t really think it deserves to. In fact, I’d kinda rather see that Schumacher version.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2013. Read more here.

Dredd (2012)

Posted on December 1, 2013 by badblokebob

Dogged by comparisons to The Raid (which filmed after but released before), and enforced 3D that its 18+ audience didn’t go for, Dredd underwhelmed at the box office.

Huge shame. It’s the gritty take on 2000AD’s primary hero that aficionados have long desired, but also an exemplary sci-fi/action movie in its own right. With impressive gun battles, dry humour, and Karl Urban nailing the title character (yes, including the voice), it’s an hour-and-a-half of unencumbered testosterone entertainment.

Screenwriter/producer Alex Garland’s trilogy outline sounded unmissably good. We must hope home media sales are ultra-strong and the ongoing sequel campaign ultimately succeeds.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2013. Read more here.

Dredd placed 6th on my list of The Ten Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2013, which can be read in full here.

In the interests of completing my ever-growing backlog, I decided to post ‘drabble reviews’ of some films. For those unfamiliar with the concept, a drabble is a complete piece of writing exactly 100 words long.

* IMDb used to list the countries of production as UK, USA and India, while the end credits of the film itself refer to it being “A South Africa/United Kingdom co-production”. With that in mind, I found the BFI list all four. Seems only fair. (IMDb have since taken my suggestion and added South Africa.) ^

Shane (1953)

Posted on November 28, 2013 by badblokebob

2013 #52
George Stevens | 113 mins | TV | 4:3 | USA / English | U

Though not part of my “What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…?” project, Shane is exactly the kind of film that could have been: a widely acclaimed classic that therefore comes with all that associated baggage. Like many of those films, that baggage weighs the film down to a point where, on a first viewing, it’s hard to just purely appreciate it.

The general shape of the plot is one familiar to Western fans, though that may well be because the others are based on Shane: a mysterious stranger rides into town, just looking for lodgings and/or work. Turns out the honest good-hearted town-folk are in some way being oppressed by a local gang/landowner/etc. The stranger doesn’t want to intervene, he just wants a quiet life… but eventually something galvanises him and he can’t help it. Cue climactic shoot-out.

I don’t mean to do Shane down by reducing it to these generic elements — as I say, my history of Westerns isn’t so hot, so it may well be the template from which all similar narratives are pressed. But perhaps this is why so many reviews emphasise the film’s subplots, particularly the fondness displayed towards Shane by the wife of the man he’s working for, and the hero-worship adorned on him by the man’s son. This is where the baggage comes into play, however, because while those elements get emphasised in reviews and commentary, I didn’t find them noticeably prominent in the film — calling them subplots is to increase their import.

The thing with the wife, for instance, is mainly down to a few looks, or the way a line of dialogue is played. I was once taught that if a writer doesn’t put any subtext into a scene the actors will add it themselves — perhaps that’s even what happened here. I was wondering if it was going somewhere, if we were going to learn that Shane and wifey actually knew each other, or if they were going to have A Thing now (this being a ’50s American movie, “almost have a thing but then not quite” is probably nearer the mark). But, without meaning to spoil things, it doesn’t play out like that. At all.

I didn’t dislike Shane, but I’m trying to both work out and explain why I didn’t love it. If I sound overly critical then it’s because of those expectations, for which look to sources like the Radio Times, who state that, “if you’ve never seen it, Shane is a revelation”. It wasn’t, and I kinda blame them.

Shane is on Film4 today at 4:30pm.

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Category Archives: adaptations

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Shane (1953)