FILM REVIEW: KILLER JOE

KILLER JOE (18)

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Juno Temple, Gina Gershon, Emile Hirsch, Thomas Haden Church

Director: Wiiliam Friedkin

Running time: 102 minutes

Released 29th July

Released by: Worldview Entertainment


Chris (Emile Hirsch) is an inadequate at life, destined to be forever in debt to one person or another and blaming anyone but himself for what he considers bad fortune. Kicked out by the wife that he's beaten once too often, he finds himself back at the cheap, messy, beer-can spilled Texas trailer home slovenly occupied by his father Ansel (Thomas Haden Church) and stepmother Sharla (Gina Gershon). Chris needs to find $6,000 quickly or the best he can hope for is every bone in his body being broken slowly by a local loan-shark. Ansel doesn't have too dimes to rub together, so Chris suggests a plan.


Chris has overheard from his mother's new husband, Rex, that she's just taken out a life-insurance policy of $100,000 -with her teenage daughter Dottie (Juno Temple)  named as the sole beneficiary. Chris has always been unhealthily protective of his sister, recognising her fragility and otherness, perhaps caused by her mother trying to kill her as an infant. But now he sees an opportunity. If he can have their mother killed ('who would miss her?', he argues) then he can pay off his debts and give the rest of the family more security.

To this end he finds a police detective, Joe Cooper (McConaughey) who has a nice sideline in contract killing but zero tolerance for idiots or double-crosses. Joe says he'll do the job, but when Chris and Ansel explain they won't have the money until after the deed is done and the insurance paid out, he's about to walk... until he spies Dottie. Perhaps, he'll take the job after all. But with a leer in his eye, he'll want a 'down payment'...


"There's a casual air to the sex and violence that follows...punctuating the film like a prisoner's emotionless, guilt-free shank... but it's an explicit, film-noir study of grotesques rather than pure titillating torture-porn... " 

William Friedkin, a legendary director famous for the likes of The Exorcist, The French Connection and Rules of Engagement, but with less notable entries in recent years, is clearly wanting to re-establish his credentials with controversy and it should be said immediately that, from its opening moments, Killer Joe pulls none of its explicit punches. A Gina Gershon entrance has never been more in your face than here and there's a casual air to the sex and violence that follows it, punctuating the film like a prisoner's emotionless, guilt-free shank. With films that quite deliberately aim to shock, the results are always going to divide. I've found films like The Devil's Rejects to be wholly unpleasant, reveling in a sordid nastiness that makes one wonders why anyone would want to create it to begin with, never mind watch it. Killer Joe has more merits than that - it's an explicit, film noir study of grotesques rather than pure titillating torture-porn, but it is still a raw-nerve, scab-picking experience that often leaves you shifting uncomfortably, whatever the other technical merits it can offer.

A colder analysis confirms that this is, without doubt, McConaughey's picture. He's always been a good actor, first cited as a young Paul Newman-a-like, though too often side-lined into mediocre rom-coms that service his innate real-life Texas charm but little else. Here he gets to flex a muscle that shifts between taught stillness and spasms of brutality. Joe is the kind of character that owns a room merely by entering it, a man for whom the most mangy and aggressive neighbourhood mutt falls suddenly silent. It's a tribute to McConaughey that in some of the movie's key scenes he draws the eye and makes you want to look away simultaneously. You'll hate Joe and then hate yourself for watching. You aren't an audience, you're a voyeur to a sociopath with a badge, but still arguably the sanest man in the room.


Juno Temple is also impressive in a very difficult role, one that exposes her character and performance  to both physical and mental challenges. Though not a newcomer, this is the kind of brave role and bravura casting which should catapult the young British actress - barely in her 20s - ahead of those taking the much safer, if higher-profile route to Hollywood. She imbues Dottie with both strength and frailty and walks the line with her character as impressively and subtly as McConaughey does in other ways with his title role.


It's not big or clever to spoil a movie's ending, but it seems only fair to say that anyone expecting things to be tied up with a nice bow at the end may have to live with disappointment. Perhaps reflecting its origins as an equally controversial stage play by Tracy Letts, the ending feels more random and unfinished than most movies and may frustrate the audience more than anything that has come in the previous ninety minutes.

As a showcase for performances this is certainly impressive, but in all other ways, Killer Joe is a difficult film to recommend, populated by damaged or damaging people who are authors of their own misfortune - and for whom it is hard to generate any real or lasting sympathy for the loss to the gene-pool. I respect the workings and the movable parts within its cinematic frame but I can't say I actually liked the bigger, dirtier, whole and, frankly,  I may never look at KFC the same way again.

3/5

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FILM REVIEW: GOD BLESS AMERICA

GOD BLESS AMERICA (15)

Starring: Joel Murray, Tara Lynne Barr

Director: Bobcat Goldthwait

Running time: 105 minutes

Released 4th July  (Cinemas) 9th July (DVD)

Released by:StudioCanal

"Do you remember when eating rats and maggots on Survivor was shocking? It all seems so quaint now..."

Middle-aged Frank Murdoch (Joel Murray) is having a bad day. After falling asleep in front of a television spewing hate-speech and brain-free commercials, it starts by simply having to listen to the uncool chatter around the water-cooler, as fellow-workers chortle at the previous night's talent-free TV talent show... and gets progressively worse as the secretary has him fired for looking at her, he hears his ex-wife is getting re-married and his bratty daughter won't come to stay with him unless he buys her a new phone. Coming home to yet more vapid television he dreams aimlessly of killing his obnoxious neighbours and anyone who makes his day even harder. The next day... his doctor informs him he has an inoperable brain-tumour.  Frank is tempted to end his own life, but first... he needs to make a statement.

God Bless America ramps up a gear with the arrival of teenager Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr in an engaging, provocative, star-making performance)  who positively encourages Frank to be mad as hell and not take it any more. Witnessing Frank's ultimately effective, but fumbling, shooting of spoilt-rich-girl-reality-star 'Chloe', Roxy believes she's found a kindred spirit/devil in Frank and encourages him to begin a crusade against cultural apathy and irritants rather than just being remembered as a poor loner who probably killed a TV star out of sexual frustation. Against his better judgement - and feeling he has nothing to lose - he lets Roxy travel with him and before long the bullets and blood start flying as the duo get dynamic with their enemies, domestic and iconic.

"Despite some  early promise, the film feels like a wasted opportunity, a vanity project to venting rather than a rallying call to anger. Its grand-gignol isn't grand enough and its reach exceeds its wrath... " 

The film, directed by Bobcat Goldthwait - a million miles from his Police Academy acting days - feels like a mash-up combination of Falling Down and Natural Born Killers by way of Mark Millar's Hit Girl (with perhaps a touch of Leon) - skewering modern culture by having two unlikely individuals team up and taking it to violent extremes... not so much lampooning the borders of modern life as driving a monster-truck through them at high speed while chewing gum and flicking the middle finger. It's part guilty pleasure, part messy bucket-list and therefore comes with the obvious accusation of having its cake-and-eating-it.  

And that's the film's problem. Satire has to be precise, slicing with the precision of an ironic scalpel and here the director positively swings wide with a heavy club, hoping to hit a home-run but often sending the ball flying in disparate directions. From scene to scene it's not always clear when Goldthwait is having satirical fun or merely venting his spleen and creating the cinematic equivalent of putting a :) or LOL at the end of each tirade to give it the weaker parody-as-punctuation defence. (A scene where Roxy rants about Diablo Cody's film Juno - the writer being "...the only ex-stripper with too MUCH self-esteem" - is a nicely scripted-line, but it's hard to tell whether Goldthwait is using the reference with love, irony or  pure venom - and that echoes through the entire production). Yes, there's some nicely-pitched pitch-black humour to be applauded here, but there are also scenes where we have to wade through what amounts to a rant to get to it. As much as Frank and Roxy have a list of most-deserving targets, so does Goldthwait but the film doesn't have the precision gun-sight it so desperately needs. Unlike the far superior and less manic Falling Down, where Michael Douglas' outrage grows organically and somewhat understandably over a single day, God Bless America goes for more lazy, obvious victims. Thinly-veiled Kardashian and American Idol characters are already parodies of themselves and here just feel TOO disposable for us to care as much as we should.


On the positive side, the central performances from Murray and Barr themselves are notable, each hinting at more beneath the service than the script itself demands and the film is bound to give them the greater attention they deserve. Barr captures the damaged teenager ingenue vibe perfectly and Murray maintains sympathy for his character by being able to articulate the anger and frustration to which the rest of the film plays lip-service.

Though not without its merits and despite some early promise God Bless America is a only an adequate enough time for its hundred minutes and feels like a wasted opportunity - a vanity project to venting rather than a rallying call to anger. It's grand-guignol isn't grand enough and its reach exceeds its wrath, stroppily sauntering to a climax that looks like the budget ran out. One could argue that it's deliberately skewering itself in its stylistic-choices, but that feels more like a get-out clause than an intended metatextual sleight of hand. Ultimately, the film turns out to have less to say than it first appears. What is it rebelling against... what have you got?

Just before reviewing God Bless America, a glance at the television revealed a real-life news network running a feature on 'Horoscopes and your Health' in which one of the perky presenters and the great unwashed were informed that 'Your digestive system is very influenced by the sign of Cancer...'  followed by pundits sending their entire staff to claim they'd second-guessed the outcome of the US Healthcare Bill.

In an age that drives Frank to distraction, it all brought a whole new meaning to Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

3/5

God Bless America will be in UK cinemas for a limited run from 4th July  and available on DVD and download from 9th July. A special showing with Bobcat Goldthwait in attendance takes place at the Prince Charles Cinema in London on 4th July. Tickets are available through: www.princecharlescinema.com

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TV REVIEW: THE NEWSROOM

Let's be honest. We live in an era where it seems a majority of hour-long drama is actually adverts / commercials telling you what they think you need, surrounded by moments of melodrama that ask you not to think at all. Laugh as this guy falls over (again), cry as this woman finds out she's being cheated upon (again), wince as a reality star murderises the language in a single sound-byte (again)... then buy something. Buy two somethings. Postage included if you purchase now. If television was ever meant to be a tool of education, it's now more of an infommercial for brain-pacifiers. The fact that the word 'infommercial' even exists proves it.  


What is scarier is that such apathy and opportunism has also infected the news services, or more accurately  the attention-spans of their viewers. The explosion of 'Breaking News' (tm) has become a comma not an exclamation mark, a hum not a fanfare, available in any hue you prefer and played on a repeat cycle of  it's-not-important and we're-all-going-to-die. 

So in many ways, a contemporary drama about the presentation of news was inevitable. It was also somewhat inevitable that the man behind it would be Aaron Sorkin.

Despite the fact that we've seen variations on the theme  before, in projects  from Network, Drop the Dead Donkey, Broadcast News to period dramas like The Hour etc, there's been much anticipation of The Newsroom, if mostly because it's the latest ensemble drama to come from the creator of The West Wing. You didn't have to align yourself with the Bartlett administration's politics to recognise that Sorkin's walky-talky award-winner was the way that politics should be practiced, even though they rarely are. The same mentality now comes to the realm of news-presentation.

Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) is a news-anchor who has become the broadcast equivalent of a comfortable pair of shoes. He deflects personal questions, avoids partisan comments and deliberately walks a line that offends nobody but excites no-one. Back in the day he was respected as cutting-edge, but now he's merely treading water. However, during a university panel session he loses his cool. In front of an audience equipped with smart-phones and access to YouTube he points out to the other smug panelists and complacent audience that America isn't the 'best country in the world' it's just one of them - and goes on to list the things that people have let slide over a generation of neglect and apathy. It could be the greatest, he argues, but currently it's failing.  The comments go viral.


When he returns to his offices after a three-week enforced break, he finds his job on the line, his staff poached and old flame Mackenzie MacHale (Emily Mortimer) as his new Executive Producer. Mackenzie thinks Will just needs to be as regularly engaged and in-your-face as he was at the panel. He needs to care again. Will just wants to keep his job and - when he can remember their names - yell at his staff.  In the midst of an argument about both their imminent futures and an under-staffed news-room, a report comes in that an oil-rig in the gulf  has blown up... they are about to have a re-baptism of ire.

"After the empowering speech at the start, the climax is not quite as big an achievement and moral victory as it's made out to be... however it's a start..." 


The Newsroom isn't (yet) on a par with The West Wing, a show that came storming out of the gate and changed the US national zeitgeist overnight. Instead, it's got more in common with another of Sorkin's outings, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip which managed only one season in 2006. That show was set behind the scenes of a comedy show akin to Saturday Night Live and though great fun, always felt like something of an awkward fit, rarely straying into what went on in front of that fictional show's cameras. In the ratings it got pounded by the all-out comedy of 30-Rock. Ultimately, The Newsroom is the love-child of Sorkin's previous forays. It's the politics of The West Wing and the showbiz side of Studio 60. It's fertile ground and Sorkin should be the guy best suited to farm it.

The pilot highlights Sorkin's strengths and weaknesses. There's no doubt the dialogue is snappy and quick-fire, the earnest, essentially decent characters coming out with the retorts and responses of the kind that we mere mortals only think of too late - and then kick ourselves for missing.  But, yes, The Newsroom pilot perhaps feels just that  little TOO polished, to the degree that the characters and their foibles seem like archetypes in a drama about journalists rather than actual journalists. Daniels does tired and irritable well, making McAvoy a grump that we want to like more than we do, but that's something to build on. We may admire her spunk as much as Will hates it, but Mortimer's Mackenzie is just TOO much vintage His Girl Friday, more Lois Lane than C J Cregg. In fact, all the women on show seem to get lip-service empowerment rather than the real thing. Equally that eponymous news-room is way too clean and quiet - even on a quiet day it should be buzzing like its life depended on it, which it often does.  In a drama that centrally complains (quite rightly and topically) that we've become a world where we demand the news reinforces our existing beliefs and prejudices rather than informs and educates us, the show initially seems more about the characters' interplay than the situation they have to handle. The West Wingers were confident, even when annoying, the Newsroomers are somewhat smug, even when interesting.


Sorkin's whole point - in a pilot that's even neatly entitled 'We Just Decided To...'  - is that ALL that journalists and news services need to do to provide a better service is to actively WANT their service to be important rather than self-serving and spoon-feeding. Perhaps Sorkin is right, but the pilot doesn't really make it difficult for our new ensemble to rise to that occasion. A big news story breaks, two high-placed sources leak information, the cast get on the internet and voila, Mackenize goads Will  into pummeling a couple of insipid PR guys rather than letting them off-the-hook. After the empowering speech at the start, the climax is not quite as big an achievement and moral victory as it's made out to be. However, it's a start. 


This IS a pilot, tasked with introducing us to our new media heroes and so one has to cut it some slack. And, truth be told, even less-than-perfect, slightly coasting Sorkin is still miles ahead of most of the other dramas out there. The West Wing  was a pace-setter, demanding (and believing) its audience could keep up. Until its last act, The Newsroom's pilot lacks some of that innate raw urgency, especially on a show that's on a US network (HBO) that isn't afraid to take risks and cater for adults. This time, audiences will walk through it rather than need to run.  But they'll enjoy the experience.


The Newsroom is no Network, but it has pedigree, potential and purpose.  With a US debut of a healthy 2.1 million viewers but mixed reviews, Sorkin must cut down some of the obvious testifying and meet us halfway with the manic urgency the room requires. If so,  he should have another hit on his hands. 


4/5


The series is now showing on HBO in the US and begins its UK broadcast on Sky Atlantic on July 10th

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FILM REVIEW: ABRAHAM LINCOLN ~ VAMPIRE HUNTER

ABRAHAM LINCOLN - VAMPIRE HUNTER (15)

Starring: Benjamin Walker, Rufus Sewell, Dominic Cooper, Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Director: Timur Bemambetov

Running time: 105 minutes

Released 20th June (UK)  / 22nd June (US)

Released by:Twentieth Century Fox


"Apart from that Mr Lincoln, how was the theatre..?"

When little ankle-biter Abraham Lincoln saves his childhood friend Will from neck-biter and slave-owner Jack Barks, he sets in motion a series of events that will shape his own life and that of the nation. Abraham's family are turned out onto the street and Barks extracts a punishing revenge. Abraham, now played by Benjamin Walker  - looking like a youthful Liam Neeson ( a role he played in Kinsey) -  bides his time but when the moment comes to kill barks, our hero begins to realise the forces he's dealing with. Saved by the versatile Henry (Dominic Cooper),  his new friend teaches his charge how to hone his talents and then points him in the right direction of serving a greater purpose. It's not an agenda with wholly holy motives and some of them hardly come as a surprise. Henry warns him that being a Vampire Hunter is a lonely life, one that must be fuelled by truth rather than revenge and that anyone Lincoln might be tempted to love could become a liability or food for the vampires that have their own plans for this new nation.  But moving to a new town and taking up the law-books brings him into the social circle of Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who will also have a profound effect on his life as well... it will also bring him to the attentions of those with less honourable intentions...

"Timur Bekmambetov typically directs proceedings like some historical ballet-buffed Svengali on crack and takes the advice of his central character about the balance of creating a larger-than-life (undead?) legend rather than a mere story..." 

With its sense of utterly outrageous action - violent and blood-soaked, but as much tongue-in-cheek as axe-in-hand - Abraham Lincoln is a positive rhesus-negative romp of the first order. Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted, Nightwatch) typically directs proceedings like some historical ballet-buffed Svengali on crack and takes the advice of his central character about the balance of creating a larger-than-life (undead?) legend rather than a mere story. Not for him the delicate melody, more the drum section accompanied by electric guitars. His version of history has a more entertaining and less-forgiving soundtrack.

Narratively, there are a few niggles. After establishing his childhood and youthful misadventures through to his courtship and marriage, we then take something of a big jump forward in years and find Lincoln ensconced  in the White House itself. This amounts to putting a beard on our hero that should be as iconic as the statue which sits afoot the monument in modern Washington, but for the most part... just looks like someone took the glue-pot out and missed with the toupe. Those around him age at varying rates, not always on purpose, either merely getting the chin-merkin treatment or a few grey hairs. For better or worse, it  simply feels like we've lost a good twenty-minutes of back-story.

Equally, its broad-strokes means some supporting character development gets lost in translation. The often under-used Alan Tudyk as Mary Todd's suitor seems to be set-up as a potential antagonist then disappears completely as do the bounty-hunters who are after the adult Will ( Anthony Mackie). Equally it's not always clear who knows about young Lincoln's night-terrors and when they find out, some going along all too easily before direct revelations are made.  Rufus Sewell simply gets to be the big-bad, no more no less, but it's a role he's perfected over the years and he's clearly having fun with the sneers and general intimidation speeches.

The director does like his wire-work and uses it at every single opportunity, throwing not just everything at the screen but also as much debris and collateral damage into the air as he can muster in one go. For most of the time the now obligatory signature of slow-motion chaos and the sheer number of  decapitated bodies distract nicely, but there are the odd moments when it feels just a tad self-indulgent. However Bekmambetov has an A-List effects budget at his disposal and is clearly going to use every dime, whether it all ultimately makes sense or not.

The 3D (now becoming obligatory for the summer tent-poles)  is used well in the action scenes but when combined with what appears to be the bleaching and tinting of colours in some scenes, it isn't always easy on the eyes around the screen's edges. See the film in 2D and you might miss a bit of the air-cutting three-dimensional knives and blood, but you will benefit from a brighter screen and enjoy the ride as much.

Interview with a Vampire meets Wanted, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is perfect for the hot, steamy nights (or, let's be brutally honest, damp British evenings)  where you wish to switch off the brain and over-indulge on the eye-candy. It's history written not just large but flamboyantly and mischievously - just like the Seth-Grahame Smith mash-up that inspired it (Smith also wrote the screenplay). Forget the deep questions about the human condition, this is the outing where things get bitey, blood goes splatty and vampires go 'splodey. Disbelief must be firmly suspended from on high throughout, but go into the cinema prepared to be entertained by the silly and the profane and this is a good a mainstream roller-coaster and guilty pleasure as you'll get this season. 


4/5

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FILM REVIEW: RED LIGHTS

RED LIGHTS (15)

Starring: Cillian Murphy, Robert De Niro, Sigourney Weaver, Elisabeth Olsen, Joely Richardson, Craig Roberts.

Director: Rodrigo Cortes

Running time: 113 minutes

Released 15th June (UK)  / 17th July (US)

Released by:Versus

Margaret Matheson (Weaver) and Tom Buckley (Murphy) divide their time between teaching classes at the local university that examine the way hucksters fake paranormal events and investigating such events themselves.  Each have their own agendas for exposing frauds for what they are. As Matheson tells her students, she'd be willing to believe in the paranormal if - in thirty years - she'd come across any event that defied more mundane explanations. In her view, there are always the 'red lights', the giveways that things ae not what they seem.

When reclusive psychic Simon Silver (De Niro) announces he's coming out of retirement, Buckley sees the opportunity to test one of the most infamous mentalists in the business. Silver's been a recluse for years - an investigating journalist out to expose him died at one of his tapings and Silver's been away from public view ever since - but the media quickly latches on to what could be a million-dollar come-back for the showman. Matheson's not interested. She's come across him before, when he exploited the fact that her son is in a brain-dead coma, and warns Buckly that while she's convinced he's a fake, he's also a dangerous and resourceful man to be crossed.

Buckley ignores her and then , for very personal reasons, decides to bring him down at all costs. The problem is that it appears that Silver is a man of many resources and very strange things begin to happen around Buckley and those he loves. The stage is set for a very public showdown...

There's a certain sense of ambition to the story and the first half of Red Lights keeps us interested, not over-playing its hand and keeping its own counsel as to where its secrets lie. It's a fine line to walk, but we're not sure if Silver is a dangerous supernatural force or merely an astute and ruthless charlatan. That's not to say that - like the title could infer - there aren't danger signs that this could all veer off track.  Sadly, this is yet another entry in the ever-swelling ranks of films that have interesting set-ups yet stumbling third-acts.

If you believe the adverts running on UK television then Red Lights is the new The Sixth Sense. This is a dangerous boast to make and one setting a benchmark from which the film falls considerably short. The classic M Night Shyamalan/Bruce Willis feature was a tour-de-force at hiding its spooky truths in plain sight (and then watching audiences go back and see how the dots were joined). Red Lights, with a quite different scenario, can argue that it leaves some narrative breadcrumbs throughout, but the difference is that while there's SOME logic to the conclusion based on these, everything else around it rings less true. The central  idea is fine, but the supporting structure gets more precarious and less convincing as we progress.  By the end, instead of a clearly intended 'Oh, wow!', it's more 'Oh, really?'. Audiences are unlikely to want to re-watch the movie for an ending that isn't satisfying. That end will divide the audience. My opinion would be that it goes for style over substance, effects over cause and lighting over logic. It lacks Sense's sense or impact. 

Over-all, Red Lights feels like a potentially solid premise but filmed from a script that needed several more drafts before being ready for the screen. De Niro's menacing mentalist simply doesn't have any of the real gravitas we're consistently told he has - his 'act' on screen looking particularly hokey and lacking charisma (especially towards the end). Is he a clairvoyant, a psychic healer, a mind-reader or a simple spoon-bender... the film seems unwilling to paint his character in anything other than pale paranormal broad-strokes and cliches. While some scenes in the first half build the tension very well indeed and promise much, they are off-set by other scenes that border on the silly or pure melodramatic. The dialogue is also somewhat flat, dripping in portentous tones, but sometimes merely for the hell of it. While its quick-cut camera-work works well for mood, there's little content to back it up and if ever a film could be described as 'uneven', this is one of them.

Murphy and Weaver are fine with what basic material they are given and they play the film's initial slow-burn mystery pretty well. However the script tends to have them emphasising the very weaknesses it should be avoiding.  "Where did you come from?" she asks him at one point. The question is left hanging unsubtley in the air with a virtual sign that screams 'We're coming back to this later!'   Several actors - Richardson (as Silver's assistant), Olsen (as Buckley's love-interest) and Roberts (as a tech-wise student) most noticeably - might as well not be there at all , their roles so sketchily written and apparently superfluous to proceedings that you presume their presence must be leading up to more - and yet they don't get the onscreen pay-offs they need. They are simply padding and it shows, badly.  Even those supporting actors given more focus such as Toby Jones, feel like caricatures there to serve the plot.

In the end Red Lights, directed by Rodrigo Cortes, does not firmly pass go and is a missed opportunity that could have been saved with more due care and attention. Cortes does the visual side well, but less so the words. Instead we have a film that I'll predict will do mediocre box-office (out in the UK now, a limited release in the US next month) and be rushed to DVD before the end of the year.

2/5

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FILM REVIEW: BRAVE

BRAVE (U)

Starring: Kelly Macdonald, Billy Connelly, Emma Thompson, Kevin McKid, Robbie Coltrane, Julie Walters, John Ratzenberger

Director: Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman

Running time: ---

Released 18th June (US), 17th Aug (UK)

Released by: Disney/Pixar

If there are some words synonymous with quality, Pixar must surely be one of them. Whether the stories are aimed at your particular demographic or not, there’s simply no denying that they’ve set a benchmark for the use of family-aimed animation. The Toy Story franchise, The Incredibles, Monsters Inc. and the quite wondrous Up! (the latter telling a more nuanced life-long love-story in its first five minutes than Twilight could manage in three movies)… are just a few examples from their extensive, award-winning library.

The latest title to join them in the firmament is Brave.

Merida (Macdonald) is the young flame-haired daughter of Fergus (Connelly) and Queen Elinor (Thompson). Living in a traditional Scottish castle (one that has thankfully avoided too much glaring Disney fairy-dust, in favour of traditional moss and damp stone), her father allows her much of the freedom her wilder spirit requires – such as racing through the deep, dark woods and mastering archery from the back of her trusty steed - while the Queen tends to roll her eyes and wish her daughter would have a higher degree of etiquette. Kids, today, eh?  However times are changing and Fergus knows that the various clans must join together if they are to survive. As tradition demands, the clan leaders are invited to attend a meeting, bringing their sons – and Merida must choose a husband. Naturally the teenager is horrified at her mother’s instance that she must accept this destiny, fearing her wild spirit will be quashed in the same way her red hair is being squeezed into a more demure bonnet for the ceremony.

Fleeing into the wood she comes across a witch/wise woman (Walters) whom she persuades to help her change that destiny. The problem is that Merida is more earnest than specific and the result of the wish may have tragic consequences for her entire family. Unless she can find a way to reverse an ancient curse within two sunrises, it won’t just be Merida’s destiny that has been changed forever.

This latest Pixar outing could well be described as the company’s first true ‘fairy-tale’- equally the first to put a female character front and centre. All the rest have been contemporary or abstract stories, but Brave is firmly grounded in the highlands of Scotland. Of course, it’s full of the traditional Scottish stereotypes, played to the hilt (kilt?) with a manic glee, exaggerated slapstick and humour, but they are used in such  respectful , fun and entertaining ways,  that I would challenge anyone to find reason to be truly offended. It's been done with a certain amount of love and respect for the tropes and familiars and tweaks them all. Indeed, when I watched the film recently  in Edinburgh itself, the audience positively embraced it.

And for every slapstick pratfall, there’s an equal measure of pathos; for every obvious joke, there’s another that is more nuanced.  (This must be the first Pixar movie to ever even subtly reference The Wicker Man). While it tilts to the needed whims of a moral fairy-tale format, it also doesn’t feel SO bound and trussed to them as to be boring. This is no tale of a celtic ingenue waiting to find her completion by being swept off her feet by a Prince. Merida needs a bow, not a beau.

Rumours that the original plan for the central story was considerably darker (original director Brenda Chapman, who shepherded the original idea, left after production started and Mark Andrews took over) can be felt peeking through from time to time.  Again, this is not your basic average everyday ordinary run-of-the-mill ho-hum fairytale.  The lessons learned here are satisfying but not without some cost and while this is a period piece with a mother-daughter relationship at its heart, there’s a modern flare to attitudes within. As with every Pixar movie, there’s something for all ages within and a story playing on several levels.

One thing that should not go without mention is the tremendous soundtrack. It includes the score by Patrick Doyle, the closing credit theme by Mumford & Sons  and also Julie Fowlis, who I’ve had the pleasure to see and hear perform her material live, contributing two songs (Touch the Sky and Tha Mo Ghaol Air Aird a Chuan) - they are both  memorable – the kind that you’ll find yourself humming casually days without annoyance. They're currently on my iPhone.

It would take a stony heart to find any serious fault with Brave.  If it lacks a singular completely knockout moment, it still hits every single target towards which it aims its quiver of whimsical, magic-dipped arrows. The animation is of the top-most quality - the sheer technical achievement of the CGI hair of both Merida and the menacing bears that appear in the woods is amazing and some of the landscapes and backdrops are almost photo-realistic. The voice-cast are clearly having fun. Wisely, Andrews and Pixar head-honcho John Lasseter took onboard suggestions from their Scottish cast (Connelly, Macdonald and also Kevin McKidd finally able to use his native cadence and dialect) over the specific language and the team united to resist other Disney executives who wanted the language to be made more gentle to international ears. (Hence, Connelly’s  omnipedal Fergus still has a ‘manky leg’ and one of the chieftans’ sons is a ‘numpty’).  It may still represent a more global view of Scotland than the natives', but there’s not a single ‘dude’ or american twang to be heard throughout.

The only problem that Brave could considerably have is that the poster depicting Merida’s flame-coloured locks flowing in the wind will undoubtedly bring unbidden the similar-framed visage of troubled Mirror newspaper  magnate Rebeka Brooks (ironically complaining of timely witch-hunts herself!). Rid yourself of that comparison as quickly as possible and Brave totally excels in its aim. Forget Snow White, think Princess Bride. 

Beautiful to look at, great to listen to and all-encompassing enough for you to see without the kids if you so wish, Brave is another winner for Pixar. Screened with the equally charming Pixar short ‘La Luna’, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more engaging all-ages movie this summer. It opens in America on 18^th June and in the UK on 17^th August…

5/5

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FILM REVIEW: PROMETHEUS

PROMETHEUS (15)

Starring: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Idris Elba, Guy Pearce, Charlize Theron

Director: Ridley Scott

Running time: 124 minutes

Released 2nd June 2012

Released by: Twentieth Century Fox

In 1979, Ridley Scott gave us the crew of the Nostromo. The likes of Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), Dallas (Tom Skerritt), Kane (John Hurt) and Lambert (Veronica Cartwright) were ordinary people, a blue-collar scientific crew out in the black and unknowingly on their way to a close encounter with one of the greatest screen monsters of all time. Thirty years later, most people who've seen it can tell you the characters' names or at least the people who played them.

In 2012 - circa 2077 story-wise - there are seventeen members that make up the crew of the Prometheus, but perhaps the most telling problem about the film of the same name is that mere minutes after exiting the cinema, I'm betting you don't remember most of them, even some of those with lines.

It's the end of the century as archaeologists Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and partner Charlie Holloway uncover ancient hieroglyphics on the Isle of Skye. It provides the last element in a possible star-map, pointers to a solar-system far beyond the naked eye. Several years later, the mighty Weyland Corporation has funded a trip to the stars. Accompanying Shaw ( a believer in higher powers) and Holloway (who only has time for what he can touch) are a group of engineers and scientists who are also there for a variety of reasons - some theological, some financial, almost all pragmatic. Of course, these things never go well and the crew of the Prometheus are about to uncover some home truths about how life may have started and how it may end.

“It's all been a theological lap-dance - seductive in its premise, suggestive at the outset, but never following through on its coy glances and winks to the faithful. Lindelof claims that some of the answers have been saved for further chapters - but unless those far-from-certain additional films are going to be free to those already shelling out for Prometheus tickets, that's not remotely fair. It's a galactic bait-and-switch..."

Scott, a veteran and accomplished film-maker - his impact on the film industry is undeniable - insisted that the film was not an Alien prequel in the most obvious sense.. and in some respects making sure the movie didn't have the famous prefix'd branding is entirely an understandable choice. Despite the trailer, this isn't after all, a film that is predominantly about acid-blooded monstrosities stalking a crew for ninety minutes - quite the other way around, actually. No, Prometheus wants to be, to say, something else entirely - to profoundly speak to the greater questions of life, the universe and everything.  There are two wrinkles with this  1) You don't get to build a project around such weighty issues and then say providing answers isn't important (a trademark, unfortunately, of screenwriter Damon Lindelof, late of LOST) and 2) you shouldn't seek to make a film that stands apart from its parental franchise and then consistently trade off the very moments that got you here (for which one has to cast some blame towards Scott).

After a promising first thirty minutes - intriguing and beautifully shot, Prometheus is then unbound and undone by ever-devolving 'moments', casual dialogue and throwaway themes from previous Alien outings - and even some other familiar, inferior sci-fi films. (Mission to Mars, we're not just looking at you). They are stapled together like a bad caesarean, providing the perfunctory punctuation for a story not really built to hold them. Yes, we get familiar alien pods and abominable abdominals but it's as if Scott has been forced to squeeze them into a story to pad out the pacing, sprinkling them into the narrative and then wandering off in search of something else he wanted to say. He never gets there.

On the plus side: even if you see the film in 2D, the visual effects ARE outstanding - one thing Scott has always been able to do is provide the environments that stimulate the mind. His outer space is as clean and cold or as rough and dirty as you could want. Equally, he's got a cast with proven acting chops. The problem is that his ensemble are given little more to do than play out familiar cookie-cut characters who fail to act either remotely professionally or consistently within the confines of the story. Noomi Rapace - the Girl with the original Dragon Tattoo) is a good actress, here asked to carry a role that will inevitably be compared to Sigourney Weaver's Ripley and yet it IS an unfair comparison as she simply doesn't have the same level of material to get her teeth into. Michael Fassbender's artificial 'David' is a nicely and deliberately restrained performance - arguably and ironically the best performance in the entire film - but the character's cold pragmatism is as restricting as it is potentially interesting. His agenda is vague and inconsistent, there to provide a metaphor for life-forms built by others - an analogy eventually as unsubtle as the film's title. Elsewhere, Charlize Theron is an obligatory ice-queen with daddy issues though arguably the most sensible of the human crew, Idris Elba is a captain who's so laid-back he may never get up again and Logan Marshall Green is the kind of gung-ho archaeologist that only exists in a Hollywood script-writer's keyboard (and walks around doing a spot-on impression of Tom Hardy).  Notably, Guy Pearce as trillionnaire Weyland is good, but unrecognisable under layers of prosthetics, making his casting somewhat redundant.

It could be argued, with some merit, that thirty years of expectation are almost always guaranteed to sink a project at the box-office - that after an opening weekend of peaked interest  it won't and can't  live up to the promise. It was unlikely Prometheus would live up to those expectations, but it is quite astonishing just how far it falls short and how much it pays mere lip-service to what it wants us to find profound. I have no snarky axe to grind - I wanted to like Prometheus and fully appreciated it wouldn't and shouldn't be just another 'Alien' outing. But while not truly, offensively bad in the sense of a Transformers 3 scaled debacle, it is in its own way, just as inexcusably and frustratingly lazy - an array of strange plot-holes, abrupt narrative dead-ends and conflicting abstract ideas with no specific gravity despite the pedigree and packaging. In his movies, Michael Bay gives us inappropriately sweaty oil-jobs instead of plot, while Scott's turn-ons are dark tunnels and birth metaphors. Neither are able to cover the fact of what's missing. The result is not so much a epic of pre-Biblical proportions as a colouring-in book for Scientologists.

By the time the credits roll, you'll suddenly realise you haven't cared that much about any of the underwritten and cliched characters (potentially more interesting back-stories referenced but consistently kept at arms-length); that you've seen all these archetypes before (and better) and apart from a few 'ewwwww' type scenes, this is a film amazingly lacking in momentum. If it's all about big ideas, then you really DO need bigger pay-offs. It's all been a theological lap-dance - seductive in its premise, suggestive at the outset, but never following through on its coy glances and winks to the faithful. Lindelof claims that some answers have been saved for further chapters but unless those far-from-certain additional films are going to be free to those already shelling out for Prometheus tickets that's not remotely fair. This isn't a TV pilot, or advertised as a 'Part One..' - it's a tent-pole feature-film and thus deserves to have some self-contained framework.  Instead, it's a galactic bait-and-switch... and with Lindelof admitting he may not even be the one to write such possible sequels, did he EVER have an answer to the BIG questions he posed? If not - THERE'S your biggest tell and example of inadequacy. Even the emperor's new clothes were rentals.

Praising the film's ambitious big questions, appreciating the startling canvas it is painted upon and acknowledging its intentions are all well and good, but judged solely on the finished product that Scott lays before us, there's really no excuse for Prometheus squandering the innate fires it was given. It wants to reach for the stars and explore its origins and has a vast array of talent and tools at its disposal to do just that. Instead, it spends far too much time contemplating its own navel before rushing to a deja-vu denouement (largely already spoiled in every way in the trailer and posters) that attempts to join dots to the original franchise but literally misses by a light-year or so.

Sadly, what we ultimately get is not dark-matter stardust, but doesn't-matter fluff.   A B-Movie populated by A-List special effects and A-List actors, released as a major summer blockbuster... yet pleading to be simply judged like an indulgent arthouse release.

Very, very disappointing.

2/5

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