FILM REVIEW: CLOUD ATLAS

CLOUD ATLAS (15)
Starring:Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Ben Whishaw, James D'Arcy, Jim Sturgess, Susan Sarandon, Doona Bae
Director: The Wachowskis, Tom Tykwer
Running time: 172 minutes
Released by: Warner Bros.
Out: 22nd February

In his gladatorial outing Russell Crowe says that what we do '...echoes in eternity'. In Robin of Sherwood it was said 'Nothing is ever forgotten...' Such are the broad themes of  Cloud Atlas, likely to be the most ambitious films to hit cinemas this year.

From a galleon sailing the high seas of the 1800s, to a love that dare not speak its name - except through music -  in the 1930s.... to a potential 'china syndrome' in 1970s San Francisco to an OAP revolt in contemporary London... on to a future Seoul and then to a post-apocalyptic island.... Cloud Atlas takes a range of characters and timescapes and weaves a story which illustrates the ideas of cause and effect; how little events have massive consequences and how lives separated by centuries can resonate and determine the fate of millions.

Adapted for the big-screen from David Mitchell's acclaimed novel, it was tempting to think this was a karma-crash waiting to happen. Cloud Atlas was a complex book that shouldn't work as a film. Its scope was too big, its canvas too varied. It merged so many forms, had so many disparate threads and narratives that any self-respecting pundit could only come to the conclusion beforehand that the best case scenario would be to avoid outright critical derision and that it simply wouldn't find an audience outside the festival circuit.

And yet, subjectively flawed though a project of this scope may almost inevitably be, it must otherwise be considered a triumph on so many other levels... not least because it's been a long time since I saw a film of quite this sense of  sheer, unapologetic ambition. Too many films mistake the word 'epic' as shorthand for something big and loud and yet Cloud Atlas truly fits the description. Its creative vision, cinematic style, expansive - but not sterile - CGI all come together to produce a film that genuinely feels as if every frame has been considered.

The mixture of genres on show - everything from futuristic sci-fi and period drama, to farce and tragedy - may frustrate audiences looking for an easy formulaic pigeon-hole to unspool before their eyes and certainly the film doesn't always feel entirely even-keeled, but this is a movie that very much IS the sum of its parts and all those parts seem excellently executed individually and weaved together well. Each time-period, from which we jump back and forth, is lovingly realised. The future Neu Seoul is perhaps the best metropolis since Blade Runner and provides a backdrop for some of the film's biggest kinetic action moments.

Casting its diverse actors in a multitude of different parts reinforces the idea of the same souls moving through time and experiences towards something more. But it does run the risk that audiences will be lifted out of an immersive experience as they play 'I-spy'. Some of those performances work better than others, but the cast is clearly relishing the opportunity to stretch themselves. That's helped and hindered by prosthetics of different qualities, but for the main part it's a tribute to the efforts involved that you probably won't catch every actor in every role they appear in.  In an uniquely expansive ensemble piece, it's probably Hugh Grant who makes the most of shaking off the stereotype: safe to say he wouldn't have been most people's idea of a post-holocaust Orc-like cannibal.

The Wachowskis made the Matrix trilogy a landmark in special-effects but also one that felt devoid of any real soul under its pseud-religious imagery. Here, the siblings and co-director Tom Tykwer give us something just as dazzling but has a beating human heart at its centre.   Sure, the criticisms will be that it's too long, too complex and too diverse for a modern audience, that it meanders where others hurl themsleves forward. If so, that ultimately says more about the way that contemporary viewers are often spoon-fed formula and bland product designed only to sell merchandise. Any flaws aside - and it's clear it's wide remit won't suit everyone - it is impossible not to marvel at the ambition shown here, ambition which largely pays off on both a visual and emotional level.

It's Love, Actually meets Blade Runner by way of a handful of other separate genre movies that the film tilts towards and even outright homages at times... and it's worth every second.  This may be sprawling and truly 'epic', but it is like no other movie you'll see this year and also a quite stunning piece of film-making that deserves to be supported and rewarded.

10/10

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COMMENT: ACTION STARS - DAZED OF FUTURE PASSED...

We've deliberately held off reviewing The Last Stand, Bullet to the Head and A Good Day to Die Hard individually as it seemed much more interesting to contrast and compare the almost simultaneous return of three action icons to the screen. Once upon a time they were the public faces of Planet Hollywood, now within a month of each other, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis are all at the local multiplex and, in different ways, trying to recapture the action demographic.

Bullet to the Head takes the ignorance is bliss route, seeking to convince us that absolutely no time has passed since the 1980s when Stallone was at his prime. It takes the approach that the central character may be older and more weathered, but essentially he's capable of doing anything he could before.

It's a buddy picture of sorts that matches Jimmy 'Bobo' Bonomo (Stallone) with Taylor Kwon (Korean actor Sung Kang)  - the former an assassin, the latter a cop, who have both lost partners and are seeking revenge on a common enemy. The plot proceeds as you might suspect, with distrust and pragmatism fighting for supremacy. In truth you might expect better from the director Walter Hill - the man behind The Warriors, 48 Hrs and The Long Riders, here very much on auto-pilot and delivering the basics.  Ex Conan and Stargate-Atlantis star Jason Momoa provides the muscle they must both face to do so.

Even if the face and gait are heavier, it's fair to point out that Stallone still looks like a man who could take you down with one punch and the physical one-on-one scenes are well-choreographed set-pieces that drip with blood and sweat. What lets him down here is the retro-feel f the script, one that is based on a French graphic-novel but feels as if it has been sat ready to be made by any passing action star in two decades. Intentional or not, it's SO formulaic that it positively aches with familiarity  and provides no real surprises.  There's adequate support from the like of Christian Slater and Sarah Shahi but they are cookie-cutter characters asked to do nothing but fulfill basic plot points. It's like putting on a pair of old slippers that feel familiar but are barely held together.

Squint at the screen long enough and Arnold Schwarzenegger's aging sheriff in The Last Stand could be Clint Eastwood and the film's script makes no secret of that similarity. This somewhat bespoke vehicle is built for a veteran with a certain legacy to give it backbone.

Arnie is Ray Owens, the sheriff of a town on the US-Mexico border; happy with the quiet life after a long career that saw too many fatalities along the way. Now he writes parking tickets and shoots the breeze with the locals. That all changes when it becomes clear that there's something strange going on near the narrow county-line chasm that separates the two countries and the news that a notorious criminal, Gabriel Cortez (Eduardo Noriega)  has broken out of police custody and is heading in that direction. There seems little that the sheriff, his skeleton staff and enthusiastic locals can do to stall the fugitive - especially as said bad guy is well armed and backed by a small army of mercenaries -  but honour demands they try and soon we're in the middle of a contemporary western.

The story may be familiar, but there's a solid balance of humour and drama to pull this off. While one might expect Schwarzenegger to fall back on old cliches, he positively embraces the aching bones and weathered face and makes them part of the performance. This isn't a guy who is trying to be the action icon he was, but to convince us there's still some chapters left in his playbook.  To a large extent it works, entertaining the viewer enough that they'll overlook the formula and just enjoy the romp.

A Good Day to Die Hard takes the big-blockbuster franchise approach and suffers the predictable fate, facing the law of diminishing returns - scraping together aspects of previous installments, squeezing them into a dirty vest and hoping that audiences will presume it's just an overlong a music video with an AK-47 soundtrack.

To be blunt, this feels undeniably lazy, an uninspiring, unimaginative film that doesn't require a suspension of disbelief so much as an attention-span of about five minutes and the ability to leap plot-holes that would put Prometheus to shame The first Die Hard might not have been the height of realism, but if feels like a documentary compared to the outright macho-silliness on show here. Gone is the brave underdog taking on a gang of bad guys we met in the 1980s, here comes the indestructible super-hero who literally  jumps off buildings in a single bound and manages to flip the bird to helicopters as he plummets to the ground unscathed (watch closely, I'm not kidding). None of which would matter if only its star didn't look so unimpressed himself.

The ironic thing is that when he's committed, Willis can be a good, convincing actor and a solid leading man... and his age hasn't changed that perception - merely his film choices.  But whether it's the leaden, illogical script, the video-game mentality, the shallow direction by John Moore (Max Payne) or just an innate apathy, here Willis does the absolute minimum to get through the film -  grimacing, frowning, pontificating on fatherhood and bonding with his estranged son in the way that only a cold brewski and a high-calibre weapon can manage. Ridiculous levels of property damage ensue and take us from central Moscow to a certain infamous nuclear reactor in the space of  a few minutes and geography-ignoring  limited running-time. Here we find the kind of cinematic radiation where some ned to wear protective suits, the McClanes wear plaid and one minion runs around with a bare tattoo'ed chest. Yes, it's THAT stupid.

(On a local angle, the high point is perhaps noting that the first face we see on screen here is actually ex-Look North presenter and now mainstay BBC anchor Sophie Raworth, solemnly giving the exposition and global set-up for the Russian trial that frames the early part of the film...sadly, it's all downhill from there)

So, on points and possibly against expectations, it seems to be Schwarzenegger that emerges through the testosterone haze as the front-runner. Both Stallone and Willis are too tied to the past to be moving forward, grasping at old demographics and denying the passage of time while the 'Austrian Oak' seeks to branch out and bring his existing fan-base with him to new horizons.

These action stars may or may not be considered 'old dogs' by some, but the 'new tricks' have never been more needed.

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FILM REVIEW: HITCHCOCK

HITCHCOCK (15)
Starring: Sir Anthony Hopkins, Dame Helen Mirren,Scarlett Johansson,Toni Collette
Director: Sacha Gervasi
Running time: 98 minutes
Released by: Fox Searchlight
Out: 8th February

Film director Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) is looking for a film that will excite him. He has a strong, if difficult reputation, one that often puts him in opposition to the studios for whom he works - providing some major hits but also running up the bills. So when he settles on a adaptation of Robert Bloch's novel Psycho, it will not be a smooth adventure. Few see it as a viable project and certainly not one that audiences will expect. The voluminous auteur disagrees and is willing to put everything on the line. His wife Alma Reville (Helen Mirren) is her own subtle powerhouse, never needing the spotlight, but willing to support her husband's endeavours as well as stand-up to him as needed. Soon the question is not whether Psycho will even get finished, but whether this latest project will test their friendship, marriage and trust to breaking point.

There's a real problem with doing ANY sort of biopic with how much you say, how much you don't and how much you merely surmise. Even in the most compelling stories there will be a need to compact, prioritise and form a structure into which an audience will be drawn. So, in many ways, all films (perhaps even documentaries as well), are - in part - works of fiction or a sequence of overly selective truths.

Hitchcock isn't, by any means, an impartial look at the famous film director. It is, to use that oft-offered multi-purpose phrase ' a dramatisation' of real events, offering its take, reasoning and slant on a key period in his life . From the opening moments, where Hitchcock himself addresses the audience,  this feels like a story that the director would tell if he was reluctantly strong-armed to pen it himself. It doesn't, in any way, paint him as an angel - often he's clearly his own worst enemy and the victim of his own paranoia (both personally and professionally) - but the eventual feel of the piece is a troubled man, weak to his own vices and happy to manipulate those around him in the name of art, but ultimately a gruff, driven man with an undercurrent of decency. We see a misunderstood peccadillo'd genius and his underestimated wife rather than a lecherous bully and would-be philanderer with his overly-patient spouse.

To that end, while the drama itself is perfectly watchable as a story about relationships and populated by a strong cast, there's a consistent feeling of it being synpathetic fiction. Hopkins, smothered in prosthetics, gives a performance in which he's playing Hitchcock, not being Hitchcock. Mirren fares better, bringing her unique air of impatient authority to Alma - but this is also helped by the very fact that most people will not have a clear picture of her before seeing the film, really there's no comparison available.  Scarlett Johansson  is fine as his star Janet Leigh - trying to get ready for the infamous bloody shower scene at the Bates Motel -  but limited by the script, which is also a problem for Jessica Biel as Vera Miles.

It's interesting to see the battle to get Psycho made - modern audiences likely to be unaware that Hitchcock risked going bankrupt in his efforts to get the film made by a studio that was worried his star was on the wane and that the horror/thriller subject-matter wouldn't be suitable for big financial success. Again, Hitchcock is the under-dog we're told to cheer for at the same time as we're supposed to be frustrated by his acidic bark.

A decent, inoffensive mainstream film, with some inventive scenes and funny moments but one that comes out in the wake of the far superior and more biting  HBO film 'The Girl' (with Toby Jones in the Hitchcock role, Imelda Staunton as Alma and Sienna Miller as a harassed Tippi Hedren), it will be interesting to see the impact the film has at the box-office. One suspects, despite the cinematic cast, it may attract an older and more niche audience familiar with cinematic history but may resonate less with younger demographic or those, ironically, seeking something like Hitchcock's own work rather than this behind-the-scenes social drama. .

7/10

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FILM REVIEW: I GIVE IT A YEAR

I GIVE IT A YEAR  (15)
Starring: Rafe Spall, Rose Byrne, Simon Baker, Anna Faris, Minnie Driver, Jason Flemyng, Stephen Merchant
Director: Dan Mazer
Running time: 97 minutes
Released by: StudioCanal
Out: 8th February

Josh (Spall) and Nat (Byrne) meet, fall in love and quickly decide to get married. Their friends raise a few eyebrows, mutter about 'rushing into things' but are generally supportive and always happy to attend a good party.  Can this blessed union work out?

Nine months on... and perhaps the couple should have listened. They're now at marriage-guidance and trying to work out whether to stay together or not. Into Nat's high-end life-style comes a slick American client Guy (Baker) and Josh reconnects with old-flame and environmental activist Chloe (Faris). Are Nat and Josh with the right people or do they need to call it a day?

There are few genres out there that divide audiences more than rom-coms. Somewhat flippantly (and wrongly)  labelled 'chick-flicks' they are tricky-beasts - varying in quality but often, by necessity, playing a well-trodden formula to a knowing demographic. Judged individually, as they should be, each entry probably relies more on the chosen cast  than the originality of plot.

So perhaps we should at least applaud the fact that the makers of I Give it a Year approached the 'romantic comedy' from a different perspective, tracing not a 'growing love affair' but a possible 'falling-out of love affair' as their template.

"Yeah, I sort of wanted to do something that was a reaction to the traditional route of British romantic comedies and they all felt very familiar," director Dan Mather (writer of Borat, Bruno, Ali G etc)  told us at a recent screening of the film. " Every script I ever did it was like, ‘Can’t you just make it more of a romcom? Just make it a bit more traditional and a bit more nice’. And I thought it would be nice to have my cake and eat it in a certain way and do an anti-rom-com but one that didn’t feel too sort of bitter and cruel compared to my bitter, cruel personality..."

Sadly this reversed-Richard-Curtis-esque endeavour must have sounded more original on paper than the result, because what we see is not the 'anti-rom-com' as advertised, but  something that isn't hard enough for the cynic, not emotive enough for the romantic and not consistently funny enough for the laughter-seeker..

It's hard to put a finger on exactly why it doesn't come together. The cast are proven performers giving it their all. The script has some moments that should work and some of the situations should be innately sympathetic, but somehow, something goes horribly wrong in the mix and ultimately the whole package is delivered with such a massive lack of subtlety that it often feels like you're being hit over the head with an awkwardly updated 70s sitcom rather than having your humerus tickled. The result isn't irony, it's ambivalence... we don't care enough about anyone. It's not 'bad', it just veers from crude to corny with as much lack of certainty and conviction as the couple at the heart of the story.

A prime example is the Best Man's speech delivered by Stephen Merchant's Danny. The speech goes on far too long and what's meant to be an obliviously tactless character simply becomes moronic, mean and bullying to the extent that  - as the film goes on - we're not laughing with him or at him, but aching to punch the character in his smug little face. If this was on television, this alone would have you reaching for the remote-control.

Perhaps the direction (it's hard not to feel Mazer's cynicism about love seeping through the celluloid) or simple miscasting IS to blame because this is a film that somehow makes Anna Faris look dowdy, The Mentalist's Simon Baker seem bland and Rafe Spall act like Hugh Grant on a coffee-bender. Despite the odd moments of  fun, they've all been SO much better elsewhere...but here they mostly fail to convince. (Ironically, supporting players Minnie Driver and Jason Flemyng probably get the superior zingers in their much more limited screen-time...)

For a film that's supposed to be about finding your soul-mate, this all feels like a fleeting fumble rather than destiny and the film ends up missing that essential ingredient needed - heart. I Give it a Year is simply not the sum of its disparate parts. I'd give it a miss.

6/10

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