Moonfleet (1955)

Posted on January 14, 2013 by badblokebob

2012 #91
Fritz Lang | 86 mins | TV | 2.35:1 | USA / English

Moonfleet is probably what you’d call a curio. It’s a colour CinemaScope Hollywood adventure movie from a director best known for epic German silents or dark film noirs; it’s not been passed by the BBFC since its original release in the ’50s, meaning it’s never been released here on DVD or (presumably) even VHS; I believe it’s also unavailable in the US; yet despite this dearth of attention in both the country that made it and the country in which it’s set, a poll in France’s Cahiers du cinéma ranked it the 32nd “most essential film”, besting the likes of Battleship Potemkin, The Godfather, Seven Samurai and The Passion of Joan of Arc. That probably explains why it has been released on DVD in France.

It was brought to my attention by a passionately positive article in MovieMail’s catalogue (because they currently sell imported copies of the French DVD), and then I caught it in the middle of the night on Channel 4, complete with sign language accompaniment. It’s based on a children’s adventure novel by J. Meade Falkner, though going by comments from the novel’s fans it makes some considerable changes that they find none too impressive.

Rendered on screen, it starts out feeling like a Dickens adaptation — part Oliver Twist, with orphaned blonde poppet John Mohune arriving by foot in the titular village, and part Great Expectations, with an unwilling guardian in a run-down, closed-off mansion and an attempt to forcibly send the boy to a distant boarding school. Gradually it becomes more overtly exciting, with smugglers, hidden treasure, adventures down wells and crypts, fights and chases of various kinds, a dramatic shoot-out on a beach, midnight escapes, and so on.

These moments provide some of the excitement one hopes for from a swashbuckling adventure, but they take a little while to trot along and feel hard-won. It’s difficult to see what so inspired the voters in Cahiers du cinéma’s poll, but then the French have always had their own ideas about cinema. On the bright side, between the film and the comments online, I do quite fancy reading the original novel.

At the very least, Moonfleet deserves more recognition as a curious aside in the accepted narrative of Fritz Lang’s career. Plus, for fans of mid-century Hollywood adventure movies (of which I’m sure there are more than a few), I imagine it’d be right up their street.

Another aside from Lang’s Hollywood career, war film An American Guerrilla in the Philippines, is on Channel 4 today at 12:35pm.

Cowboys & Aliens: Extended Director’s Cut (2011)

Posted on December 24, 2012 by badblokebob

This review contains spoilers.

We all know the saying “too many cooks spoil the broth”, and it can’t help pop into one’s mind during the 85 seconds of company logos that kick off this genre mashup. Here the “cooks” are Paramount (serving non-US distribution only), Dreamworks, Universal and Imagine Entertainment — I can’t remember the last time I saw a Hollywood blockbuster begin with so many individual logo animations. It’s unsurprising that no one wanted to take a solo punt on a Western-with-a-twist after the failure of the last one anyone can remember, and after this (it barely reclaimed its production budget at the worldwide box office) it looks unlikely many will want to again.

Unlike that Will Smith vehicle, however, Cowboys & Aliens isn’t an appallingly bad film. It’s not a particularly great one, true, but its lack of success is due in part to someone agreeing to spend too much money on it — it made $175m and looks like a failure for Chrissake! Looked at objectively, that’s a pretty fine number, especially when its “Indiana Jones and James Bond fight aliens” selling point is tarnished by the recent films in both those franchises being poorly received.

But enough about money, what about the film itself. The story concerns Indiana Jones and James Bond fighting aliens. Sadly, not literally — it’s Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig as cowboys faced with an alien invasion. Sounds like pulpy fun, right? That’s what the title implies. Unfortunately, director Jon Favreau and the team of seven writers (that’s right, seven) decided it would be better to make it Serious. Ugh. Well, I say “ugh” — I’m not adverse to the idea of serious-minded renditions of initially-daft concepts; but not using the daft version of the concept as your final title might be a starting point.

Thing is, what the film gives us doesn’t quite sit right, even if you’re expecting it to be non-pulpy. It’s still an action-adventure summer blockbuster, but with pretensions at times to be a Western drama. I think that’s the fundamental problem with the entire film, and probably why it feels slow, especially in the middle. A lot of that is character scenes, despite which the characters feel underdeveloped and under explored. One wonders if these particular writers, versed in the art of the blockbuster, don’t really know what they’re doing. Sometimes you can see what they were going for, for instance in how they set things up and pay them off (like the alien with a grudge against Craig), but somehow it doesn’t come off.

And the outcome is: maybe some of the pulpy thrills the name promised would’ve been better. It doesn’t need to be a comedy, it just needs to stop trying to be so grandiose and get on with the cowboys-fighting-aliens action. Which in this version, when it finally gets to it right at the end, is no fun because it’s too busy distracting us elsewhere — literally, the fight is a distraction for some of the other heroes to get on with the plot. Which I guess is why it feels so unsatisfying and you just want it to go away — we’ve nothing invested in that fight, other than it has to keep going on, and even that isn’t made clear (the aliens certainly aren’t desperate to get back inside their base, for instance).

Also note that this climax lasts a full 25 minutes. It may not sound a lot for the big finish — it’s the whole third act after all — but it felt it (especially as the build-up begins 40 minutes out), with constantly shifting goal posts and Favreau’s attempts at making a skirmish feel like an epic battle. Other parts are just straight wasted opportunities, like the extended sequence in an upturned riverboat. For one thing, no effort is made to explain its presence. For another, it’s all so darkly shot that you can’t get a real sense of it. Could have made for some impressive sets — heck, maybe they were impressive sets — but it’s not well utilised. Makes it harder to work out just what’s going on at times too. Thank goodness it wasn’t in 3D!

Even without that gimmick, however, I really disliked some of the cinematography. Much of it is great, but then there are those dark bits, and even worse is some handheld psychedelically-graded stuff that just sticks out like a sore thumb. I can see what Favreau was going for, but it feels out of place, wrong, distractingly nasty rather than provocatively effective in a film that is mostly shot very classically, especially for a modern effects-packed blockbuster.

I could go on. For example, Craig loses the love of his life to the aliens, then loses the new woman he seems to have quickly fallen for to them too… but it’s OK because he saw a hummingbird at the end, so he’s happy. Or there’s the fact that the town is called Absolution — I believe, anyway, because I think one of the three guys at the beginning mentions it and it’s the title of a featurette on the BD. Other than that, no mention is made in the film, despite it arguably being one of the key themes. We don’t need to be battered around the head with symbolism, but a bit more effort might’ve been nice.

Remember when I said the film wasn’t bad? Honestly, it… well, it wasn’t really. There are good bits. British composer Harry Gregson-Williams offers a likeable score, especially the main theme (which plays over the DVD & BD menu, if you want to hear it quickly). It’s nicely evocative of familiar Western music while giving it a modern style too, at times sweeping when we reach an appropriate bit. One of the best elements of the film, in many ways.

As you may have noticed, I watched the Blu-ray’s extended cut of the film, which in this instance offers somewhere in the region of 17 minutes of new material. (Normally that website is reliable, but this isn’t their best guide in my opinion.) That’s quite a chunk of time, which makes me wonder if some of the pacing issues — the slow middle, as I mentioned — may be down to this being extended. Still, despite their relatively large total length, the extensions mostly come in tiny bits. Some I guessed (all the stuff with them exploring the boat), some it’s hard to imagine the film without (an early scene with Craig and the town priest, or stuff about the doctor and the kid coming along on the hunt — the doc they could’ve got away with, but the kid? Did no one watching the theatrical version question why they took him along?) Conversely, some of the extensions seem borderline unnecessary — so maybe the theatrical version wouldn’t be much better pacing-wise after all. On balance this feels like an extended cut where someone decided to save a work-in-progress edit and later deem it an “extended cut”, then kept trimming to craft a more streamlined theatrical cut, as opposed to the filmmakers dropping missed elements back in post-release.

For an ending, I’m actually going to cheat a little and turn to another review. Naughty me. But Blu-ray.com’s coverage of the US disc has a good section that I may as well just quote in (almost) full as paraphrase as a source, and it goes on to a conclusion I simply agree with. So:

President of Universal Studios Ron Meyers’ brutally blunt assessment of [Cowboys & Aliens]? “Wasn’t good enough. Forget all the smart people involved in it, it wasn’t good enough. All those little creatures bouncing around were crappy. I think it was a mediocre movie. We misfired. We were wrong. We did it badly, and I think we’re all guilty of it. I have to take first responsibility because I’m part of it, but we all did a mediocre job and we paid the price for it. It happens. They’re talented people. Certainly you couldn’t have more talented people involved in Cowboys & Aliens, but it took, you know, ten smart and talented people to come up with a mediocre movie.”

Such honesty is rare indeed. As Blu-ray.com’s reviewer Kenneth Brown goes on to say,

you have to admire a studio exec willing to address criticism head on and take responsibility for projects that should have taken off but, for one reason or another, crashed and burned. So is Cowboys & Aliens really that bad? “Mediocre” is fair, “disappointing” even more so. It isn’t a bad flick — it’s actually kinda fun, if you’re willing to abandon high expectations and switch off your brain for two hours — it just isn’t nearly as good as it could have and should have been.

Sad, but true.

And I’m sure that, in its wake, Disney haven’t made a mistake by spending a reported $250m ($87m more than Cowboys & Aliens cost; $75m more than it earned) on Western-with-a-twist The Lone Ranger, have they?

…have they?

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

The Return of the Musketeers (1989)

Posted on December 22, 2012 by badblokebob

16 years after they first swashed their buckles for director Richard Lester, Michael York, Oliver Reed, Frank Finlay and Richard Chamberlain return as the titular swordsmen in an adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ Vingt ans après, aka Twenty Years After. As feats of sequalisation go, there’s something inherently pleasing about reassembling a cast and crew the best part of two decades later to adapt a tale set at a similar distance.

Unfortunately, it didn’t go down so well: although it did receive a theatrical release in Europe, in the US it wound up as a cable TV premiere a couple of years later. This may in part be due to the fact that it looks like it was shot close to the early-’70s originals, not in the late ’80s. It’s also tonally similar, a scrappy style that perhaps didn’t sit so well in the multiplexes of a decade-and-a-half later, despite a pulpy structure and emphasis on fun japes rather than serious-minded storytelling.

Despite being sourced from an Old Novel, The Return of the Musketeers is — just like its two forebears — far from being a Literary Adaptation. It may not scale the same heights of fun and frivolity as the first Lester-directed Musketeers movie, but it’s more or less on a par with the second, with moments (such as a clever opening) that shine through. Rough around the edges certainly, but likeable heroes, hissable villains, and widespread irreverence keep it the right side of entertaining for those who enjoyed this cast’s previous adventures.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

RoboCop (1987)

Posted on December 17, 2012 by badblokebob

In a crime-addled future Detroit, cop Alex Murphy is gunned down by a gang of crooks, only to be resurrected by evil megacorporation OCP as the future of law enforcement: RoboCop. Obviously — that’s the title.

Hailed by those who love it as some kind of satirical masterpiece, RoboCop does manage to raise itself above other mindless ’80s action fare, at least to some degree. Equally, should you choose to watch it brain-off then I doubt you’ll be too troubled by its criticisms of corporate greed or the privatisation of public services (at least, I assume those are the targets — this is an American film and don’t Americans love privatisation? But then, Verhoeven is European, so who knows). There’s gory action and the odd one-liner to enjoy, as well as Murphy’s battle with identity once he becomes the robotic enforcer.

At this point, I think RoboCop has become a film you had to be there for. Viewed now, 25 years after release, it looks dated. The stop-motion rendering of big bad robot ED-209 appears jerky and cartoonish now, like something from a kids’ action/adventure film rather than an 18-rated satirical thriller. RoboCop beats it by making it fall down some stairs, after which it can’t get up, wiggling its legs in the air comically. Maybe that was Verhoeven’s intent, to make it laughable, but I’m not sure. I’m loath to criticise old-fashioned effects because, a) that’s all they had access to at the time, and b) they can often look better than today’s CGI-obsessed major movies; but where the likes of Back to the Future or Star Wars still stand up to scrutiny, I don’t believe RoboCop cuts the mustard.

There’s a remake coming soon which has seen a lot of criticism levelled at it by fans, especially over leaked photos of the new costume. I’m not exactly looking forward to it, but nor am I dreading it — the concept’s a good’un and could withstand a refresh. Plus the version of RoboCop presented here, all stompy and bulky and slow, wouldn’t cut the mustard in an era that’s decades on from the T-1000 and can see small, streamlined technology every way we turn.

In the meantime, there’s this, but I do think it’s rather had its day.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

Tiny Furniture (2010)

Posted on December 11, 2012 by badblokebob

Some have been quick to call twenty-something writer-director-actress Lena Dunham “the voice of a generation”; usually older people who think this is how people that age are, because I’m part of Dunham’s generation and she certainly doesn’t speak for me, and you don’t have to go far or look hard on the ‘net to find similar views. But it’s turned out alright for her, as by whatever ridiculously young age she is she’s made this film, got a multi-season series on HBO (the critically divisive Girls), and recently signed a ludicrously lucrative book deal. Clearly, she speaks to someone.

Tiny Furniture, then, comes with a predisposition to dislike it from anyone who isn’t a hipster or desperate to be relevant to hipsters (I feel like this is the point at which to note that it’s recently been inducted into the Criterion Collection). It’s a slow-paced, consciously arthouse-drama-y story film about unlikeable people leading unlikeable lives. I think everyone in it is either selfish or at least self-centred, and even if you buy into any of its characters being more than that, Dunham eventually unmasks them as gits in one way or another.

It’s hard to tell if the film knows everyone appearing in it is so awful, and is inviting us to judge them in some way (be it to look down on them, or to laugh at them, or to just generally dislike them); or if it actually wants us to think they’re all alright really; or if there’s supposed to be some distinction over which ones are good and which ones not so much. If the last, it’s thoroughly unclear to those of us (that’d be most of us) who are just looking in on this self-obsessed world — all of the characters are a much for muchness in their levels of (un)relatability and (un)likeability.

Trying to read Dunham’s intentions in these regards is complicated by the film being clearly autobiographical. And if it isn’t, it’s working overtime to suggest it is. Dunham writes, directs and stars as the lead character; said character’s mother and sister are played by Dunham’s real mother and sister; I wouldn’t be surprised to learn her friends are played by her friends. Her apparent status as ‘the voice of a generation’ and the little I’ve read about her HBO series suggests to me that this is, if not 100% true to her life experience, at least a fictionalised version of it. Which again begs the question, are we actually meant to like some of these people? To identify with them? It’s clear Dunham has no problem with putting herself down and presenting herself in a negative light, but it feels to be in an angsty, whiny, “you totally get this, yah right?” way.

Yet, for all its characters’ many faults, there is something somewhat engrossing about Tiny Furniture. It’s not the car-crash rubber-necking of watching a bunch of people you dislike make fools of themselves, nor is it a burgeoning understanding that underneath it all these are genuine, relatable people. Perhaps it’s because Dunham can, to some degree, empathise with all of her characters — that almost all have some pros to go along with their cons (except, perhaps, the men) — that she occasionally, sneakily, gets you on board.

Many reviews cite Woody Allen as an influence, and it’s easy to see why: a small-scale autobiographical dialogue-driven New York-set study of specific people in a specific time. It falls short of such lofty aspirations on a few fronts, not least the evocation of the setting — there’s no trouble doubting this is set in New York, but you don’t feel the city the way you do in Annie Hall or Manhattan or many more of Allen’s works. But comparing a newcomer to a master is always a hiding to nothing for the newbie, so best not judge her too harshly for that.

Visually, the film belies its super-low-budget origins. In part this is the 2.35:1 frame, usually reserved for mega-blockbusters, which makes it ultra-filmic. In part it’s the slick interiors, cleanly shot, often with squared-off framing in longer takes, which comes across as film-literate rather than amateurish dump-the-camera. Only occasional exteriors, like grainy nighttime shots, give away the cheap roots. If nothing else, Dunham knows how to make a film look like a film.

And after all that, there’s the ending. Or, perhaps, the stopping, because does it actually End? I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with the concept of an opaque ending; one that, rather than resolve everything entirely, asks the audience to project their own meaning or their own imagined conclusion onto the events witnessed thus far. Rather than reach out and slap you in the face with an explanation, an effective opaque ending (such as Mulholland Drive’s) is like a hand reaching out to you, but you then must work to reach out yourself and grasp that hand. A bad one is like 3D: the hand is reaching out to you, but when you reach out to take it you find there’s actually nothing there; it was just an illusion.* I rather suspect Tiny Furniture’s guff about still hearing the ticking clock is that 3D hand.

That said, even as I write this, something struck me. But it’s terribly pretentious (in the full dictionary-defined sense) and so not much better. And weeks after watching the film, I can’t even remember it.

It’s difficult to know what to make of Tiny Furniture. I thought I was going to despise it, yet despite there being no clear sense of storyline, plot or even genuine thematic point, and additionally finding all of the characters to be unrelatable and largely unlikeable, I found it moderately engrossing. It’s not really good, but it’s strangely not bad either.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

* I’m really quite proud of this analogy. I’m totally using it again. ^

The Expendables (2010)

Posted on December 9, 2012 by badblokebob

As The Avengers is to superhero movies, so The Expendables is to ’80s action films. More or less. I mean, this isn’t a character team-up, just an actor one… but these actors played essentially the same characters all the time anyway.

It’s also the kind of film that uses The Boys Are Back In Town on its end credits in a non-ironic way.

Set very much Now (it begins with a fight against Somali pirates), with no acknowledgement of the fact these guys might be a bit past it, the story concerns Sylvester Stallone’s gang of mercenaries being hired by a mysterious chap to overthrow the dictator of a small island somewhere that speaks Spanish. That’s about all you need to know, because the point of The Expendables is to have people shoot, punch, kick, stab and blow each other up. And that’s fine.

You see, this isn’t a reconstructed action movie, or a revisionist one, or an attempt to progress the genre in any other way. There’s an attempt to inject some kind of heart or introspectiveness into the characters, but nothing much out of the norm for the genre, and certainly nothing significant in the “I’m too old for this” department. (There’s an extended cut that adds even more of this, which sounds frankly unnecessary.) I think that annoyed some viewers, but maybe they should’ve more carefully considered what they were watching. This is a film that headlines Stallone and his modern-day equivalent Jason Statham, with a main cast fleshed out by ‘names’ like Randy Couture and Terry Crews. Hardly Al Pacino, or even Bourne-level Matt Damon.

What you do get is a film that revels in its action-movie-ness. I mean, most of the characters have great (read: daft) action movie names: Barney Ross, Lee Christmas, Yin Yang, Toll Road, Hale Caesar, Paine… How is that not a film aware of its own absurdity? How can you not enjoy that, even a little? Then there’s all the homoeroticism. Stallone goes for the full on camp look: bulging muscles, collagened lips, perma-tanned mahogany, little goatee, beret… Statham gets an early subplot with a love interest; Mickey Rourke is said to have a string of totty; Stallone almost has a love interest, but kind of rejects her at every turn. I’m sure you could easily entertain yourself by reading the film as him being in the closet — pair up his references to previous hurtful relationships with his animosity towards Schwarzenegger, for instance. Makes you wonder what Barney and Lee get up to on those long autopilot flights to and from the island…

Everyone gets their chance to shine, including those lesser names in supporting roles like Couture (pulling off something Stallone’s character can’t), Crews (with a wonderfully loud gun) and Steve Austin (kicking Sly’s ass). There are cameos from Bruce Willis (watch the gag reel — it seems he could barely be bothered to learn his lines) and Arnie (I know he was never a great actor, but was he always that bad?) They’re fun though, and help contribute a couple of memorable lines.

The main joy of the film is, of course, the action. There are plentiful big explosions, blood-spurting deaths, highly choreographed one-on-one punch-ups… It takes a bit of time to get going in this regard, too concerned with trying to give us a plot where we don’t need one and shadows of character development where we don’t want it, but when it kicks in it’s entertainingly bombastic. Particular stand-outs include a plane-based attack on a pier and the crazy climax, an everyone-on-everyone brawl that features a whole building exploding as just one small part.

And in traditional violent action movie style, it was even cut for UK cinemas. How thoughtful. Said edit was two seconds to get a 15; the BD (and DVD? I don’t know) is uncut. The edited moment was a stabbing, of which there are many, many examples in the film; but this one was deemed sufficiently worse than the others. Can’t say I blame the distributor making that cut — a tiny omission no one would notice, which gains three years’ worth of action-hungry teens with plentiful disposable income, your precise target market.

The Expendables, with its name-packed cast and throwback values, aims to be the action movie to end all action movies. It’s not quite that, but for those who enjoy the genre it ticks enough of the right boxes. It’s not reinventing the wheel, it’s not modern or cutting edge, but I don’t think it was ever truly aiming to be. It’s straightforward brain-in-neutral entertainment for Blokes, and as that it delivers suitably.

The UK TV premiere of The Expendables is on Channel 5 tonight at 9pm. It’s repeated on Wednesday 12th at 10pm.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

M – British version (1931/1932)

Posted on December 7, 2012 by badblokebob

2012 #58a
Fritz Lang | 93 mins | Blu-ray | 4:3 | Germany & UK / English

Let’s establish one thing right away: this is unquestionably an inferior version of Fritz Lang’s masterpiece, M. Never mind that it’s an old, unrestored, thoroughly battered print; it’s the conscious changes that — unavoidably — lessen the film.

1) Cuts. It’s several minutes shorter than even the restored German version (which in itself is seven minutes shorter than Lang’s original cut).

2) A re-cut ending that attempts some kind of jollity: instead of Frau Beckmann’s tearful warning outside the court, we get a reprise of the opening shot of children playing. The message is less “watch out for your kids!”, more “childhood saved!”

3) Some moments have been re-shot to replace German text with English. On occasion this barely matters (a close up of a newspaper article, for example, or the murderer’s letter to the papers), but on others it ruins Lang’s original work, the worst offender being the shadow falling across the “Missing” poster near the start. Alternatively, in Masters of Cinema’s accompanying booklet Robert Fischer notes that these text changes also provide us with “the only instance where [the British version] comes up with a genuinely creative idea worthy of the original”.

4) It’s mostly dubbed into English. The bits that aren’t have been re-shot. Primarily, there’s a phone call between the police commissioner and the minister, which is really quite poorly performed — watch out for an unintentionally comical bit with the wrong end of a pencil. These two actors are also edited into another scene, a large meeting which their characters attend, and it’s glaringly obvious where Lang’s work begins and ends and the basically-shot bits (flatter angles, simplistic sets) have been dropped in. The director of the English re-shoots isn’t specifically credited, but it certainly wasn’t Lang: Fischer’s examination of M’s export versions informs us that it was the localised version’s “Supervisor”, Charles Barnett.

Despite this, the British version isn’t without merit. After all, much of Lang’s work survives the localisation process, meaning his quality and skill still shines through, and there’s that one re-shot text bit. But then, why bother? You can watch the original and get all of it.

No, the only thing worth watching for (other than pure curiosity) is a re-shot trial scene featuring Peter Lorre’s first performance in English. It’s a typically great turn from Lorre; not quite of the same calibre as the German original, but a worthy alternative.

There’s no way anyone would reasonably recommend this variation of M over the original, but it does hold interest as a curio. It may leave one wondering how and why this practice of exporting films — where multiple versions in different languages were shot at the same time, rather than dubbing/subtitling later — died out. Cost, I imagine. Despite producing interesting asides like this, it’s probably a good thing it did.

My review of the original version of M can be read here.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

The Sum of All Fears (2002)

Posted on December 6, 2012 by badblokebob

2012 #22
Phil Alden Robinson | 119 mins | TV | 2.35:1 | USA & Germany / English | 12 / PG-13

Paramount had a burgeoning franchise on their hands in the early ’90s with adaptations of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan novels. He first appears in The Hunt for Red October, where Alec Baldwin’s incarnation of the hero is thoroughly overshadowed by Sean Connery. Then Harrison Ford took over starring duties for a pair of successful follow-ups, Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. Why they didn’t lead to more, my quick look on IMDb and Wikipedia doesn’t tell.

Fast forward almost a decade to the early ’00s, and Paramount tried to re-launch their potentially-lucrative IP with a beginning-of-his-career younger version of Ryan (all the better to appeal to the young-skewing demographic who by then attended cinemas most), with man-of-the-moment Ben Affleck as the lead. Despite some financial success (nearly $200m worldwide from a budget of $68m), the critics weren’t impressed, and it seems they were listened to. Incidentally, another ten years on, they’re about to try the exact same thing again, with Star Trek’s Chris Pine the man-of-the-moment playing a young Ryan. Better luck this time, chaps.

But I digress — what of The Sum of All Fears? Well, actually, it’s a solid little thriller. A bit plodding at times, but engrossing enough. It doesn’t always adhere to believability, and it’s occasionally unclear what sort of timescale it’s all taking place in, but if you let that wash over you it’s fine. There’s A Big Twist in the middle that would easily have been one of the best bits about the film, had they not blown it in the trailers. Even still, it’s a bit audacious and I still didn’t quite believe it would happen until it did.

Ben Affleck is Ben Affleck, which means a lot of people won’t like him but he’s OK. Morgan Freeman brings instant gravitas to his role, though it’s not his most likeable or memorable part.

I can see why this failed to launch a new franchise. For one thing, a storyline about a terrorist attack on US soil coming less than a year after 9/11 was always going to be tricky. Even without that though, it’s a thrillery-thriller (as opposed to an action-thriller) made at a time when mass audiences were making a move to kids/family-aimed franchises as the main revenue stream for cinemas and Hollywood studios. There’s something in that about the general dumbing down of blockbuster entertainment and the increasing (and ongoing) infantilisation of mainstream American cinema, but The Sum of All Fears isn’t the greatest rebuttal, so it’s a case best left for elsewhere.

As I’ve said on films like this before — and, I suppose, as is indicated by my three-star rating — if you like this kind of film then The Sum of All Fears makes for an adequately entertaining two hours. Otherwise, it’s nothing special.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)

Posted on December 2, 2012 by badblokebob

2012 #28
John Singleton | 103 mins | TV | 2.35:1 | Germany & USA / English | 12 / PG-13

I never thought I’d watch, and certainly not enjoy, the Fast and the Furious series, but a few years ago (after the second film hit cinemas, I think — which would be almost a decade!) the first seemed to pick up a bit of praise from movie magazines and/or websites that were generally to my taste, so I gave it a go. I quite liked it, in the mode it was intended — a brain-off good-time action-y movie. I thought I was done there though, thanks to the much-maligned sequel — mainly because of its ridiculous title, which is still great fodder for a quick joke whenever a sequel is announced and people speculate on what it might be called. But sometimes, something compels you to give something a go…

Here, then, we find poor acting, a plot done by the numbers, and a style that sometimes feels like a rap video writ into a film. Oh dear. Yet the chases and other car-based action sequences are pretty coolly done, and there’s more of them than I remember there being in the first film. That’s a definite plus — really, it’s all you want from a film like this.

The drivers do a lot of trash talking… usually when they’re in cars by themselves. Oh dear. Then again, I regularly talk to myself when I’m driving alone, so either the film’s fine or I’m appearing in a trashy B-movie. Or just think I am. In a way, these poorer qualities — the dialogue, the acting, and so on — are part of the experience of the film, and somehow manage to endear it. So bad it’s good? At points, yes.

It’s worth noting it was directed by John Singleton, who started out with the acclaimed social drama Boyz n the Hood. How he’s fallen: via stuff you’ve never heard of to the Shaft remake, this, and most recently the poorly-reviewed Taylor Lautner From Twilight-starring Abduction. Well, each to their own.

Talking of crew, the music (well, the score) is by David Arnold, the recently-deposed Bond maestro. It was somewhat pleasing to see his name appear in the credits because I thought I could hear Bondian bits creeping in; I thought they’d just nabbed bits of the score from Die Another Day or something (such borrowing is not unheard of these days: I didn’t mention it in my review in the end, but I noticed during the credits that Unstoppable borrowed three cues from AVP, of all things).

In the UK, the film was cut by 11 seconds to reduce some violence and get a 12 certificate; later, it was re-rated uncut at 15. This is the kind of thing that really bugs some people — cue rants about the controlling nature of the BBFC — but, in instances like this, I couldn’t care less. For one thing it’s the distributor’s choice, not the BBFC’s. That’s not always wholly placating — see Casino Royale — but, sometimes, why care? So we lose “3 kicks, a stamp and a spit, all delivered to a prone man” — so what? The scene’s still in the film, there’s just less of it. I agree with people’s frustration when cuts are major, but in cases like this, perspective is needed.

Ultimately, 2 Fast 2 Furious is like cheap fast food: you know it’s made of trash, high in fat and sugar, liable to rot something in your head — and just really bad for you fullstop… yet it’s an enjoyable guilty pleasure once in a while. If you don’t identify with that feeling then you’re a better man than me, and you’ll probably never like this film.

By rights I should give 2F2F 2 stars — it would even provide the opportunity for some kind of gag connected to its title. But, no. I don’t know if it just caught me in the right mood or if it has something surprising under the hood, but I wound up rather enjoying it. It’s junk food, but sometimes that hits the spot.

2 Fast 2 Furious is on ITV2 tonight at 10:50pm, and again on Friday 7th at 10pm, and probably regularly after that too.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

16 Blocks (2006)

Posted on November 6, 2012 by badblokebob

2012 #54
Richard Donner | 98 mins | DVD | 2.35:1 | Germany & USA / English | 12 / PG-13

A Bruce Willis action movie? You know what you’re in for here, don’t you? Well, not quite. 16 Blocks casts Willis as less John McClane and more John McCane: old, fat, drunk, limping. He’s a copper still, but the kind of detective whose primary duties are being left to watch over an apartment full of bodies until uniform can show up.

The conceit of the film is that this man is assigned to transport a witness the mere 16 blocks from the police station to the courthouse. Some corrupt cops don’t want him to. Normally Willis would just fold and let them… but, for whatever reason, he decides enough is enough, and it becomes a battle against time and said former-friends to get Mos Def’s witness to testify.

I love a real-time thriller; I don’t know what it is about that concept, but I love it. (I was in heaven for years thanks to 24, until they seemed to stop caring about anything approaching realism.) For that reason, I wish 16 Blocks had hewn closer to its premise. Having to traverse precisely 16 blocks in real-time? There’s a precision in that the film could have exploited. Instead it pretty quickly abandons the notion that they’re traversing exactly 16 blocks — they go up, down, sideways, possibly even backwards; no one actually keeps count, despite it being the bloody title! And it’s sort of in real-time because, well, it can’t really avoid it. But I think it could have played on both of these factors more, and I think it would’ve been better for it.

For me, it really lost its way just over an hour in, when our heroes (spoilers!) end up in a hostage situation on a bus. It’s not bad, but it feels like writer Richard Wenk (who’s gone on to co-write heights of culture like The Mechanic and The Expendables 2) ran out of ways to keep the setup going, so jumped on a new one. Plus in many respects the characters that populate the high-concept are just stereotypes. There’s the useless drunk cop who suddenly steps up; the wisecracking career small-time crook who wants to turn good; David Morse playing the kind of role he always plays (well, he is good at it). At least casting action-man Willis as the drunk copper gives it a different flavour, and Mos Def gives his usual surprisingly-good turn as the crook.

For fans of an action-thriller (something which I most definitely am), 16 Blocks is a very solid entry in the genre. It doesn’t pay out too heavily in twists (though I get the impression the makers think it does), but there’s still an occasional mild unpredictability and a certain speed to proceedings that keep it engaging. Still, I can’t help but feel a more high-concept rendering of the opening conceit would’ve yielded stronger results.

100Films.co.uk

100% movies. Except when it's about TV.

Category Archives: 3 stars

Moonfleet (1955)

Cowboys & Aliens: Extended Director’s Cut (2011)

The Return of the Musketeers (1989)

RoboCop (1987)

Tiny Furniture (2010)

The Expendables (2010)

M – British version (1931/1932)

The Sum of All Fears (2002)

2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)

16 Blocks (2006)