Ministry of Fear (1944)

Posted on September 15, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #70
Fritz Lang | 83 mins | TV | PG

I like cake. It’s all soft and sweet and tasty. But I don’t like cake as much as Stephen Neale, the protagonist of Ministry of Fear.

Neale (played by Ray Milland) likes cake so much that, as soon as he’s released from an asylum at the film’s start, he goes almost directly to a nearby fête to win a cake. And win it he does… though as he leaves with his prize, he’s told he didn’t win it after all. But Neale loves cake so much that he pays them off so he can keep it. Then he gets on a train to London — and he loves cake so much, he can’t resist tucking in straight away. At least he’s kind enough to give a piece to the blind man who shares the car with him. Except the blind man whacks Neale over the head, steals the cake and jumps off the (fortunately, stationary) train with it. Not because he loves cake too, but we’ll come to that.

But the blind man — who isn’t actually blind, as you may have guessed — hasn’t counted on just how much Neale loves cake. He jumps off the train too, giving chase. The not-blind blind man shoots at him, but that’s not enough to deter Neale from cake. It’s only when a Nazi bomb drops on the cake, destroying it (and the not-blind blind man) that Neale finally gives up. And even then he goes back to look for the cake later in the film.

Ministry of Fear isn’t really about cake, but the opening 20 minutes or so plays out more or less as above and it is rather amusing. Less amusing — and, in fact, part of the film’s biggest problem — is a ‘humorous’ epilogue that returns to the cake theme. I found it hilariously funny, but unfortunately for all the wrong reasons. The other part of the problem is the abrupt ending that immediately precedes this brief coda. On the bright side, everything is resolved and you can imagine the post-climax resolution scene for yourself, but it still leaves the tale’s telling cut short.

To say too much about what Ministry of Fear is actually about would ruin it, which I don’t want to do because in fact it’s a great twisty little thriller, a rather Hitchcockian ‘wrong man’ tale with a baked MacGuffin. You might need a decent suspension of disbelief to get through it, as Neale races round London trying to find out the truth behind the activities of a wartime charity and its army of little old dears, but doing so rewards with a tale where you can never be sure who is on whose side and where any character will end up.

Director Fritz Lang brings his customary expertise to proceedings, with several shots and sequences worthy of appreciation in their own right. The train cake theft and chase, for instance, could be thoroughly laughable thanks to the cake element and what’s clearly a studio-built wood/wasteland, but it’s atmospherically shot and, in its main burst of genius, scored only by the drone of a Nazi air raid taking place overhead. It makes for a more tense and effective soundtrack than most musical scores manage.

In spite of the potentially laughable opening and the need to suspend one’s disbelief — or, perhaps, because of it — Ministry of Fear is a most enjoyable wartime film noir in a Hitchockian mould.

Bhaji on the Beach (1993)

Posted on September 9, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #90
Gurinder Chadha | 96 mins | DVD | 15 / R

The debut feature from director Gurinder Chadha (of Bend It Like Beckham, Bride & Prejudice and Angus, Thongs and ~~Full-Frontal~~ Perfect Snogging fame) and screenwriter Meera Syal (of Goodness Gracious Me, Anita and Me and Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee fame) focuses on the experiences of a group of British Indian women. One might add “unsurprisingly”, considering the other works on their CVs, but I feel that would just open a can of worms, so moving on…

One gets the sense that, in 1993, Bhaji on the Beach was a break-out film that uncovered an area of British society and culture that had been largely concealed from the wider media landscape. It was no doubt bitingly relevant, showcasing a different set of cultural rules and expectations, not to mention the casual racism that I’m sure was as prevalent as it’s depicted. That’s not to say everything is healed and we no longer need to understand these things, but, viewed today, the film feels less “this is how things are” and more “this is how things were then”, emphasised by the ever-so-’90s costumes, cars, locations… It feels as much a period piece as, say, Ashes to Ashes.

The perspective is definitively female — no bad thing for a medium where, almost 20 years later, there are still few female directors, and those that garner the widest recognition tend to do so in typically male genres. This also arguably helps it transcend a potentially exclusive cultural specificity: topics like unwanted pregnancy, abusive husbands and parental expectations are certainly relevant to a wider audience. Indeed, there’s certainly evidence that the film was constructed with such an audience in mind: when the women settle down for a traditionally British ‘picnic on the beach’, we’re given a close-up to show they’re eating samosas and bhajis instead of sandwiches and what-have-you. If all the talk of pregnancies, abuse and racism sounds a bit serious, there’s also a good degree of humour and an appropriate lashing of sentiment.

The low budget occasionally adds an unfortunately amateurish feel to the film’s construction. Chadha clearly has vision and skill — the numerous daydream/nightmare sequences show this off in spades — but some dialogue scenes are either unimaginatively shot, or in some instances plain flat. Just a pinch of the talent applied elsewhere would serve to give them a necessary kick. Similarly, a few of the performances err on the weak side, to exactly the degree where some viewers won’t even be bothered while others may be frequently irritated.

As a very low budget, very indie, very ’90s film, Bhaji on the Beach has aged rather; yet for that it’s still an enjoyable, informative and affecting feature. It’s no surprise both Chadha and Syal have gone on to bigger things.

On Film4 tonight, Sunday 27th July 2014, at 1:10am.

Bride & Prejudice (2004)

Posted on September 9, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #82
Gurinder Chadha | 107 mins | TV | 12 / PG-13

I don’t imagine Bride & Prejudice is going to convert many people who aren’t already predisposed to liking it in some way. That’s not to say it’s not good or doesn’t have potential crossover appeal, but it still has a whole list of things that will put certain viewers off.

Melodramatic love story/stories? Check. A couple of over-acted comedy characters? Check. Characters bursting into song? Check. Bright, colourful, extravagant song-and-dance numbers? Check.

I can’t comment on how much it’s like a Bollywood movie because I’ve never seen one, but it’s a little bit what I’d expect one to be like; albeit a Westernised one, as it’s mostly in English, with some significant British and American characters, and runs comfortably under two hours. Another point of reference that came to mind was Moulin Rouge, though it’s not as MTV-style fast-paced as that, and the songs are originals rather than repurposed pop/rock numbers. Also Mamma Mia, though I don’t wish to bring about the negative connotations — it’s well sung and not as cheesy.

The other main facet is that which is (hopefully) obvious from the title: it’s a Jane Austen adaptation. It’s easy to think we’re in no rush for another version of Pride and Prejudice, what with the iconic 1995 BBC series and the Oscar-nominated Keira Knightley film, not to mention the numerous adaptations predating either of those, but Bride brings plenty that’s vastly different to the table. It converts the novel very accurately (as best I can tell, having only seen screen versions), retaining both the characterisation and the majority of the plot in a similar sequence of events.

On the surface it’s completely different, of course, transplanting everything from 19th Century England to modern-day India, complete with vibrant song & dance numbers, email correspondence and aeroplane-fuelled globetrotting. There’s no danger anyone will confuse this for a straight adaptation. But for all that it is a faithful retelling, the characters and their actions unmistakably Austen’s.

That said, while most characters are fundamentally unchanged, others are suitably modified. Nitin Ganatra offers a very different Mr Collins (here, Mr Kohli), for instance. Removing the awkward creepiness of the usual interpretation, he’s instead Americanised — brash, mannerless, over-enthusiastic — but still odd, unlikeable, and undesirable.

Little of the plot requires such modification, perhaps thanks to the culture it’s been grafted onto — the predominance of arranged marriages wouldn’t really work in a ’00s British setting — and those bits which are changed are relatively minor. Lydia (here, Lakhi) runs off with Wickham for an afternoon at the London Eye, rather than eloping; Georgiana (here, the slightly more modern Georgina) was impregnated at 16, less legally complicated than the novel’s 15.

As I said, Bride & Prejudice certainly isn’t for everyone, but for those that can accept its musical, colourful, comical style and familiar plot (the curse of any version of a much-adapted tale), it’s a wonderful entertainment.

Dragonslayer (1981)

Posted on September 5, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #73
Matthew Robbins | 104 mins | TV | PG / PG

Back when he was still directing The Hobbit, Guillermo del Toro spoke a bit about his plans for Smaug, the dragon antagonist of Tolkien’s tale. Talking about the lack of “landmark” designs for dragons, there was one he did single out (I’ll give you one guess which it was)…

One of the best and one of the strongest landmarks that almost nobody can overcome is Dragonslayer. The design of the Vermithrax Pejorative is perhaps one of the most perfect creature designs ever made.

Indeed, the realisation of the spellcheck-bothering dragon is definitely one of the film’s high points. It’s an impressive creation, brought to the screen in those wonderful pre-CGI days through a total of 16 puppets, which included a 40-foot hydraulic model and the first use of “go-motion”, a computerised version of stop-motion designed to add motion blur. Of course it has that veneer of ’80s effects work, which is either nostalgic or amateurish depending on your point of view (and, most likely, age). Some of it looks expectedly dated — it’s nearly 30 years old after all, and hasn’t benefitted from the attention lavished on the likes of Star Wars (even discounting all the CGI Lucas has pumped into that) — but largely it remains effective.

Vermithrax Pejorative is a long time coming, however, wisely kept off screen by director Matthew Robbins. It’s not that the monster shouldn’t be revealed, just that, like Alien, it carries more power when glimpsed in parts and flashes, and the wait to see it builds the tension. It’s worth the wait, and it’s not as if the rest of the film is worthless.

Aesthetically, it’s got that nicely dirty, realistic feel to its depiction of the Dark Ages, which has been rather lost as swisher filming techniques have come along to make everything oh-so-stylised, particularly in genres like fantasy. The rough, practical effects add to this feel, in a way CGI is unlikely to do (not that it couldn’t, I’m sure, but it would have to be exceptionally well managed and I can’t think of an example).

A very young-looking Peter MacNicol leads the cast, being sporadically (shall we say, kindly) fresh. He’s been better served in character roles since. According to IMDb he’s embarrassed by the film and doesn’t include it on his CV. Particularly when one considers the kind of work he does now, it’s quite easy to see why. Being a US-produced medieval-ish fantasy film, everyone is English — except the two leads, of course. They’re all fine but, like every high-concept fantasy blockbuster, this is more about the adventuresome hijinks and giant monster than character development. Similarly, an interesting subplot about the move from The Old Ways of magic and superstition to The New Ways of Christianity feels like a good idea that hasn’t been fully integrated, made up of little more than a couple of passing nods and a negatively-inclined inclusion in the coda.

Dragonslayer is a little scrappy, in a way — the narrative, the acting, the effects — and yet, for that, it’s a minor treat. I don’t know what The Youth Of Today would think of it, but as someone who in his childhood watched many examples of this kind of film on video from the small rental place in town — films like The Princess Bride, The NeverEnding Story; you could even include big-hitters like the Star Warses or Ghostbusters — it fits nostalgically into that era. And there’s a lot to be said for nostalgia.

Snake Eyes (1998)

Posted on August 24, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #86
Brian De Palma | 94 mins | TV (HD) | 15 / R

Kick-Ass, Knowing, National Treasure 2, Matchstick Men, now Snake Eyes — I feel like I’m seeing a lot of Nicolas Cage of late. (To be precise, it’s five films in as many months.) It’s not a conspiracy, I assure you, just an almighty coincidence.

Unlike in Snake Eyes, in which it’s no coincidence that a top boxer throws a fight seconds before the US Secretary of Defense is assassinated right behind dirty cop Rick Santoro (Cage), all in a lovely 12-minute opening take. And there’s plenty more to it than that, but I wanted the sentence to be halfway legible. Who did it? Why? How’s it all connected? Who’s involved? Such are the questions to be answered in the ensuing near-real-time neo-noir.

Let’s start with the opening take. It’s a fake (there are eight cuts), which is pretty obvious, but it’s still a nifty way of starting the film. As well as being the kind of thing I always like to see, it sets up nearly everything we need to know for the rest of the film. Almost every element of the conspiracy is tucked away in there somewhere, from the blatantly obvious to the tiniest detail we won’t even notice. It’s just one of many long takes director Brian De Palma deploys throughout the film, including one that sails over various hotel rooms for no reason other than it looks pretty cool. Which is fine — there’s nothing wrong with looking cool, especially in a crime thriller film set in an Atlantic City casino.

Another thing I always like is real-time. I don’t know why, but there’s something pleasing about a story that unfurls in exactly the time it takes to tell it, that doesn’t skip over characters getting places or cheat our sense of relative time for a nifty editing-based twist (which I’m not saying can’t work — just look at Silence of the Lambs — but there’s also a skill in avoiding it). Perhaps there’s just a thrill in the logistical challenge of making the concept — which is highly unnatural to film and TV — work. The first season of 24 paid much attention to it, to good effect; later seasons didn’t and, in my opinion, suffered. Johnny Depp-starer Nick of Time also used it, though I can’t remember much about that except it was total rubbish. Snake Eyes doesn’t stick to its real-time as rigidly as 24, but it was good enough to satiate me. By the time it begins to deviate significantly from the concept, the story’s got so involving that it no longer matters.

And another thing I always like is a bit of noir. Snake Eyes fits the bill, with ‘heroic’ characters of questionable morality, voluptuous femme fatales, vicious villains, double dealings, punch-ups in shadowy alleys, and dozens of other generic signifiers that I’ll leave it for you to discover and/or remember. I was rather surprised to discover it wasn’t on Wikipedia’s era-encompassing list of film noir (until I added it): I’m not always that good at identifying what counts as post/neo-noir (one might ask “who is?” considering the genre’s broad/nonexistent definition), but I’d say Snake Eyes is pretty much undoubtable in its noir-ness.

Based on IMDb scores and Rotten Tomatoes ratings and whatnot, it seems Snake Eyes isn’t very well regarded. Honestly, I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s too stylised for some tastes — not everyone will like the long takes, the flashbacks, the point-of-view shots, the split screen, or Cage’s usual OTT performance — but I enjoy all of these things when used well, and here they are. Cage, for instance, isn’t permanently OTT, finding the character’s more realistic side when called upon; his style doesn’t always work, this is certainly true, but here it’s a match.

If there’s one significant flaw, it’s that the ending is too much based on convenience and coincidence; and someone in the editing room should’ve paid more attention to removing all references to the original, deleted ending in which the casino got flooded. I have no idea why that was removed — maybe someone thought it was a bit ludicrous. But it sounds more satisfying than what was included, which, as noted, relies on a handy spot of coincidence and at least one action that seems out of character. I can forgive it though, because I liked everything else. And the post-climax montage is a suitably downbeat ending to our hero’s story — another noir trait there.

Snake Eyes certainly isn’t perfect — as well as the above, I’m sure some take issue with its occasionally implausible conspiracy plotting — but if one accepts that it’s set in a slightly more noir-ish world than our own, and that half the fun is to be had from De Palma’s visual trickery, I think there’s a lot to like. And like it I did.

Snake Eyes is on BBC One tonight, Sunday 26th April 2015, at 11:35pm.

Matchstick Men (2003)

Posted on August 21, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #84
Ridley Scott | 111 mins | TV (HD) | 12 / PG-13

Matchstick Men ends with a twist. One of those great big changes-everything-you’ve-just-seen numbers that have a habit of making a film notorious. Yet I’m almost loath to mention it, because I’ve never read a review, preview, summary or what-have-you of the film that mentions there’s a twist. Maybe I’ve just been reading the wrong pieces; maybe no one cares; maybe they’re all just playing along trying to keep it secret. But not me, because I bloody hated it.

The twist, that is. The rest of the film is pretty good, but the twist undermines it — and not just because I knew it was coming. I don’t wish to sound boastful, but I knew it was coming before I even started watching, guessed from the little I did know about the film from one or two reviews and (sort-of-spoiler warning!) that they’d cast a 24-year-old as a 14-year-old. I spent the whole film hoping that my predicted twist wouldn’t come to pass, but, with crushing inevitability, it did. I didn’t guess every element of it before I began, though I picked up most as the film went along, and those that I didn’t get weren’t surprising either.

Is it easily guessable? I don’t know. It was to me. Perhaps I’ve seen too many heist-type movies or TV shows (watching several seasons of Hustle covers that one easily), or perhaps just too many films with twists, or perhaps it’s just my writer’s brain at work — the latter does have a tendency to make many films guessable. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter, because a guessable twist can still work. This one doesn’t.

Twists are fine. Twists can be great. As I said, you can guess a twist is coming and it can still work. A really good twist works even when you know for certain it’s coming; its existence raises what you’ve seen, makes it all work even on repeated viewings when the element of surprise is obviously gone. Matchstick Men doesn’t have that kind of twist. It has the kind of twist that undermines everything you’ve just seen. Not because it’s illogical — it isn’t in the slightest — but because it tramples over the film’s emotional resonance, in my opinion.

I don’t want to give away the twist here because, even if it’s a rubbish one, that’s a bit unfair on the film. I’d encourage you to watch it anyway and see what you think. And there are reasons to watch it anyway, even if some of the best ones are at least partially tossed away at the end.

Good things, then. The performances. Nic Cage can be awfully mannered and OTT quite often, but here it works. His character is inherently implausible — an obsessive-compulsive agoraphobe who’s also a con artist — but he plays it well, replete with tics and habits. It could easily be a caricature or spoof of the afflictions, and at times it threatens to tip the balance — when we see him obsessively cleaning to a jaunty “isn’t this funny” score, for instance — but the line is successfully trod most of the time.

Alison Lohman is also exceptionally good as a 14-year-old girl. It took a scene or two to convince me, but after that I was plenty on board with it. It occasionally takes some effort to remind yourself she was 24. As the third lead, Sam Rockwell plays a typical Sam Rockwell part. He does it very well, naturally, and there’s nothing to fault him on, but he’s been better elsewhere. The rest of the cast are absolutely fine but not exactly called on much — this is Cage’s film, and to a lesser extent Lohman’s. They have the emotional journey, the film’s heart-and-soul around its long(-ish) con ‘plot’ (which could just be lifted from any episode of Hustle… except it’s not even that complex).

It’s also, as you may have noticed, A Ridley Scott Film. It doesn’t feel like one. It has a ’00s-US-indie aesthetic in every regard and consequently feels like the work of a first-or-second-time young-ish director. Perhaps this is to Scott’s credit, but on the downside it lacks any distinctive qualities. I suppose it’s not fully at odds with the rest of his career — even when you try to pick a genre Scott’s known for, you often find only two or three examples of it in his CV; and there are several genres you can do it with — but if you hadn’t told me it was a Ridley Scott film I’d never have guessed, and I’d wager no one else would either.

Matchstick Men was a lot better than I’d expected, because most of the coverage I remember shoved it aside as a middle-of-the-road side project for Scott. It’s definitely better than that, if still not the “sweep the Oscars” success Ebert seems to think. But I wish they’d stuck with the decision to cut out the twist, not because I object to how it leaves our hero (which was the reasoning, apparently), but because it undercuts an awful lot of what’s good in the film and consequently left a bad taste in my mouth, all for the sake of some aren’t-we-clever-ness.

Stop the film about when Roy wakes up in a hospital bed. Imagine they got away with it and he went to live happily with his daughter. It’s not just a nicer ending, it’s a more whole one too. And then imagine that film on my end-of-year Top 10, because this one won’t be.

True Lies (1994)

Posted on August 12, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #62
James Cameron | 135 mins | DVD | 15 / R

Quite how I’ve not got round to seeing True Lies until now is a little beyond me. Perhaps — no, definitely — if they’d re-released a better edition on DVD I’d’ve bought it and seen it then; but they never did, and so it’s taken ’til now to reach the top of my rental queue (not that my rental service works that way) and ‘force my hand’, as it were (because it’s certainly been on TV enough over the years).

True Lies is unusual on director James Cameron’s CV — though not, as things turned out, on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s — in that it’s a funny, daft comedy, a spoof of other action films. Where it differs from most spoofs is that it’s also a proper action movie. Most action-comedies can’t manage the former because they’re classed as the latter, with the limiting cast and budget to match, but Cameron’s background means he can put all the thrills, explosions and effects of an action movie into a comedy/spoof plot. Multiple boxes thoroughly ticked.

The comedy is quite broad — in particular, Tom Arnold is too OTT as Schwarzenegger’s sidekick — but it’s definitely a comedy, as opposed to an action movie that’s aware it’s a bit silly. Situations are pushed to extremes, clichés are played up, things go wrong in a way they’re liable to in real life but rarely do in films, action sequences are played for laughs as well as genuine excitement… The advantage to Cameron is he’s allowed to do some audacious things that might get laughed out in a straight actioner. The demise of the villain, for instance, is a great idea and great fun, but would be a step too far normally; but here that’s OK, because it’s allowed to be funny as well as cool.

Things go on a bit long in the middle, perhaps, when it gets bogged down in Harry dealing with his marital issues. But it’s a James Cameron film, of course it’s long in the middle. That said, it doesn’t feel like a James Cameron film — it’s far too funny. OK, sometimes it’s trying too hard to be funny rather than actually being funny, but a comedy is not what you expect from the rest of Cameron’s filmography, and it doesn’t feel distinctly ‘A James Cameron Film’ in the way that his Terminators, Aliens, Avatar, or even Titanic, do.

Other flaws emerge thanks to the film’s age. All the computer stuff feels a little dated now, but then that’s life (or rather, technology). It places the film firmly in that era of technological-ish thrillers that seemed to emerge as home computing was becoming more common, which makes the naïve computer sections actually a little nostalgic. Less forgivable are some really obvious stuntmen who stand in for Schwarzenegger. I don’t know if stunt people have always appeared so blatant — perhaps we’re just spoilt by the recent trend for actors to do everything themselves (and even if they don’t their face gets CG’d on).

True Lies isn’t perfect then, but the humour is funny enough and the action plenty exciting, particularly the famous Harrier Jump Jet-based finale. You can’t ask for more than that. Well, you can, but this’ll do.

Final Destination 2 (2003)

Posted on August 9, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #76
David R. Ellis | 86 mins | TV | 15 / R

Final Destination 2 is daft. The concept’s daft, the new additions are daft, the characters are daft, and most of all the deaths are daft. And that’s why it’s an awful lot of fun.

If you’ve seen the first film (or read about the series ever) you’ll know the setup: girl has premonition of Big Accident — which, as a viewer, we’re treated to in all its gory detail — does something to save herself and group of strangers from dying in said accident, then they’re all picked off one-by-one by Death. We never actually see Death, but there’s no doubting that this isn’t just a helluva coincidence — there are rules and everything.

The rules don’t really matter. I mean, they do to the characters, and therefore to the plot — the whole climax is dependent on one of the new rules which, in spite of criticism from some fans (yep, the Final Destination series has fans), is actually a reasonable extension of the concept — but they don’t really matter to the viewer. What matters to the viewer is the deaths — the increasingly creative ways the writers/directors/producers/effects guys/stunt team/whoever have dreamt up to off the various characters. If this sounds unpalatable, the series probably isn’t for you.

To say any more about the deaths, then, would be to ruin the film. Trust that they are suitable inventive, occasionally surprising — there’s a neat twist in who the first handful of victims are — and the build up to each littered with red herrings and misdirections. Screenwriters J. Mackye Gruber and Eric Bress and director David R. Ellis (previously of Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco — you can see how he got from that to two Final Destinations and Snakes on a Plane, right?) are all too aware that half the fun for the viewer lies in guessing what’s about to happen, and so scatter clues and hints to give us a fighting chance… something they don’t afford many of the characters, of course.

I use the word “characters” loosely. Most exist to be bumped off. Normally this would be dull, and if you’re really interested in where this concept might be taken — and, let’s be honest, it’s a potentially interesting and explorable concept — their lack of depth or interest may be distracting. But Final Destination, as a series, doesn’t promise depth or insight; it promises death. Inventive, funny death. Everyone one of them, incidentally, made me laugh out loud. Which is kind of sick, really; but it’s the ridiculously convoluted way each demise is brought about, and the OTT gore with which they’re inevitably executed, that meant I couldn’t help laughing at the filmmakers’ particular brand of audaciousness.

So yes, it’s all daft. And it’s probably a watch-once affair, because once you know what’s coming half the fun’s gone. (This is presumably why they’re doing OK in churning them out — audiences aren’t as interested in revisiting the films as they are in seeing the new ways people can be massacred.) But on this one viewing — which is pleasantly brief at under 90 minutes — I had fun. Daft fun of dubious morals, but fun nonetheless.

Final Destination 3 is on Channel 4 and 4HD this Sunday, August 15th, at 10:50pm.

Get Smart (2008)

Posted on July 30, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #65
Peter Segal | 110 mins | Blu-ray | PG-13 / 12

Get Smart, as you likely know, was a TV series in the ’60s, which makes one wonder how it’s taken so long to get to the big screen. I guess it didn’t have the same fanbase or perceived relaunchability that led to an endless array of big-screen versions of ’60s/’70s series in the last decade or two — Mission: Impossible, Starsky & Hutch, Dukes of Hazzard — indeed, with the likes of Miami Vice and The A-Team, these big-screen-remakes are now moving on into the ’80s. Is Get Smart too late for the party?

Well, not really, because what does it matter which decade it came from — this isn’t a continuation, it’s a modern-day relaunch with current stars (or ‘stars’, if you prefer) and a modern sensibility. Though, in fact, Get Smart acknowledges its roots with a series of relatively low-key references that won’t bother anyone who’s never seen the series (like me) but I’m sure are pleasing for those who have. It also suggests it is a continuation of the series in some ways, despite the main character sharing a name with the series’ lead… but look, it’s just a comedy, let’s not think about that too much.

Get Smart, ’00s-style, is mostly quite good fun. Not all the jokes hit home, but enough do to keep it amusing — which is better than some comedies manage. Even after three Austin Powers films it seems there’s enough left to do with the spy genre to keep a comedy rolling along, even if Mike Myers’ once-popular efforts occasionally pop to mind while watching. And to make sure things don’t get dull, there’s a few action sequences that are surprisingly decent too, considering this is still primarily a comedy.

Some of this is powered by a talented cast: Carrell is Carrell, which is great if you like him, fine if you don’t mind him, and probably a problem if you dislike him; but Anne Hathaway and Alan Arkin manage to lift the material more than is necessarily necessary. Dwayne Johnson also shows he’s remarkably good at a humorous role, which is a little unexpected. How has a former WWE wrestler, whose first acting role had more screen time for his piss-poor CGI double than himself, turned out a half-decent career? The world is indeed full of wonders. As the villain, however, Terence Stamp is ineffectually wooden at every turn. Oh well.

What really makes the film inherently likeable, however, is how nice it is. You’d expect Carrell to be the looked-down-upon wannabe-agent bumbling loser, promoted when there’s literally no one else and still a constant failure, only succeeding (if he does) through fluke. But no — he passes the necessary tests, but isn’t promoted because he’s too good at his current job; when he does get the promotion, he shows an aptitude for spying, fighting, and all other skills, and the other characters acknowledge this. They respect him, in fact, both at the beginning and later as an agent — again, you’d expect Johnson’s character to be the smarmy big shot who either ignores or specifically brings down a character like Carrell’s, but instead he’s one of his biggest supporters. (That he turns out to have been A Bad Guy All Along, Gasp! is beside the point.) The office bullies don’t actually have any power at all and are frequently brought down to size. It makes a nice change from the stock sitcom clumsy-hero-who-eventually-comes-good with irritating-and-condescending-higher-ups on the side, the pedestrian and unenjoyable fallback of too many comedy writers.

Still, Get Smart isn’t without striking flaws. The subplot about a mole in CONTROL (alluded to above) is atrociously handled, not least the ultimate reveal. Perhaps director Peter Segal realised it was pretty easy to guess who it would be and just assumed the audience would be ahead of the story, but that ignores the fact that the other characters barely react to one of their best friends being unmasked as a traitor. It’s all a bit “curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal”, only without a smidgen of the humour that one-liner provided.

But the opening half-hour or so is the film’s biggest flaw. By the time the mole plot is resolved you can almost let it slide, but being faced with a weak opening is more of a problem. Some moments in it work, but there’s the odd jump in storytelling (Max comes across the destroyed CONTROL so suddenly I assumed we were about to discover it was a dream or simulation), or an extended period with either no or too-familiar gags. Once it gets properly underway things continually pick up, but it’s asking a little too much from not necessarily sympathetic viewers.

Still, despite early flaws and the occasional shortage of genuine laughs, Get Smart is redeemed by a proficient cast and generally likeable screenplay. It’s not exactly a great comedy, but it is a pretty good one. Comparing it to the scores I’ve given other comedies recently, that bumps it up to:

Mulan (1998)

Posted on July 28, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #64
Tony Bancroft & Barry Cook | 84 mins | TV | U / G

I realised recently that I haven’t seen an animated Disney film produced after The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which I saw on rented video thinking I was probably getting too old for the Mouse House’s output. Now I’ve grown up, of course, I know you’re never too old for a good Disney. As Mulan seems to be one of their last to gather significant praise before they slipped into their ’00s rut, it seemed a good place to begin catching up on what I’d missed.

It’s easy to see what critics and/or audiences liked about Mulan. There’s a few good, catchy songs — though sadly no villain’s song, which is usually one of the highlights — and some lovely animation — though I feel it’s been rather outshone by the similarly-styled Kung Fu Panda in this regard. There are decent action sequences too, fast-paced and fluidly animated, which helps make what could’ve been a Girly Film into something palatable to both genders (I remember being distinctly unimpressed with Pocahontas when forced to see it in the cinema).

The other thing that stands out about Mulan, particularly now, is how very Americanised it is. That’s nothing new for Disney, of course, but it feels a little odd these days. When we’re so used to increased attempts at appropriate cultural reverence from Hollywood movies, it’s almost uncomfortable to hear such American accents from clearly Chinese characters. (It’s this kind of thing that has caused uproar for The Last Airbender in the US (quite aside from it supposedly being a load of cobblers). How times change.) Eddie Murphy’s Mushu (who now comes across a little like a proto-Donkey) is particularly incongruous in this regard. I suppose it’s no worse than, say, Aladdin, or The Jungle Book, or all the Euro-set films.

With a ‘princess’ overcoming her assigned place, a pair of cute/humorous animal sidekicks, a princely husband-to-be, and a vicious villain in need of defeating, the tale of Mulan has certainly been adapted into the Disney mould. It may not be their best effort, but it’s still a strong one.

Mulan is on Channel 5 today, Sunday 4th May 2014, at 5pm.

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