Review: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)

Posted on November 22, 2016 by Sam S-P
fantastic-beasts

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016): Heyday Films/Warner Bros

I was just the right age for HARRY POTTER. The books were coming out in the years when I was really into my reading and I’ve grown up simultaneously with the cast of the films. Even with the involvement of JK Rowling and director David Yates, FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM could have gone either way, but I’m extremely happy to report that it’s a colourful and thrilling ride.

Magizoologist Newt Skamander (Eddie Redmayne) arrives in New York carrying a case full of magical creatures and wouldn’t you know it? Some of them get loose. Newt finds himself on the run from the authorities with an unlikely group of allies as he chases his escaped beasts across the city and dark magical forces begin to gather…

As attached as so many of us were to Harry, Ron, Hermione et al, JK Rowling has come up with a compelling new group of characters to follow. Eddie Redmayne is a perfect fit for Newt Skamander; wide-eyed and keen but concealing a deeply buried melancholy.  Dan Fogler is a revelation as Kowalski, not just thankless comic relief and audience surrogate but instead serving as the film’s grounding point and beating heart. He has an adorable chemistry with flirty psychic Queenie (Alison Sudol) and the endearingly awkward and duty-bound Tina (Katherine Waterston) rounds out the quartet.

Rowling has gone town on the real-world subtext behind the spell-casting, but it never feels forced or out of place. The Magical Congress of the United States of America (MACUSA)’s obsession with keeping the muggle/no-maj world segregated from the wizarding one lends the film some staggeringly dark socio-political implications, especially considering the rise of certain real-world powers a decade after this film is set. It will be interesting to see how heavily allegorical Rowling chooses to make this new story as we march on towards real human conflicts.

Until the final reel, the film wisely doesn’t try to be an action movie, giving viewers time to process the magic and the imagination of a range of creatures evading capture. The production design team are amongst the most talented in the industry, with eye-catching and imposing physical sets and convincing and dynamic realisation of creatures and concepts in CGI. The central set piece of the film is not a special effect destroying a city (though that does unfortunately make an appearance) but is a scene following Newt and Kowalski wandering through the magizoologist’s vast nature preserve watching its inhabitants living harmoniously in their respective habitats. I was pleasantly surprised that this key sequence which places you in the middle of the environment as the camera steadily explores searching for the colourful residents worked particularly well in 3-D.

The key message here is always that animals aren’t dangerous; only people. Just like HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2, Beasts preaches respect for, and understanding of, the power of nature and warns of the arrogance of mankind thinking it can control and subjugate the natural world. At a key point Newt’s anguished wails of “They’re not dangerous! Leave them alone!” fall on deaf ears as the agents of the Magical Congress prepare to act with extreme prejudice to preserve the peace.

It’s hard to top some of the moments from Harry Potter, but the new setting for Fantastic Beasts provides ample opportunities. Newt’s visit to the gleaming multi-leveled gantries of MACUSA, detouring to a goblin-run speakeasy (complete with toe-tapping jazz lounge number) and the adorable kleptomaniac Niffler running amock in a bank vault rank alongside some of the strongest images from Potter, wondrous Hogwarts reveal and chilling Dementor introduction included. By the way, I really want my own Niffler (I mean, just look at it!) and I’m sure I’m not the only one out there who does.

By taking us to strange new places and populating this expansion of the wizards game world with weird and wonderful sights, Yates and Rowling have ensured a new lease of life in this beloved franchise. Personally I can’t wait for the next one, as long as they get the casting right for a young Dumbledore. SSP

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We Need to Talk About Warner Bros

Posted on November 19, 2016 by Sam S-P

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Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016): Heyday Films/Warner Bros

Warner Brothers have not had a good year at the movies. Between steadily disintegrating franchises like their relentlessly grim take on DC superheroes, villains and anti-heroes and complete non-starters like LEGEND OF TARZAN, it’s been ludicrously expensive with nowhere near enough to show for it.

Just look at the way the biggest movies Warners makes are marketed. I think SUICIDE SQUAD had one of my favourite movie trailers of all time: well-edited sonically and visually, entertaining and intriguing and showing just enough without ruining the surprise. Sadly the end product was clumsy and about as grim as the rest and every trailer for a blockbuster since has been “we can be funny like Marvel, honest!” Look at the ads for JUSTICE LEAGUE or KONG: SKULL ISLAND for evidence that they just want to be liked. They build trailers around (some admittedly good) gags, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the sole evidence of levity when the final films are released.

With their inability to effectively compete with Marvel (even by copying their formula) I wouldn’t be surprised if Warners started shifting focus onto the next best thing. After BATMAN their next most profitable franchise is easily HARRY POTTER, and wouldn’t you know it they just announced FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM (a spinoff/prequel based on a glorified pamphlet) will now be five films.

We obviously don’t know yet how WONDER WOMAN or Justice League will be received, but if they turn out as terrible, over-stuffed and misjudged as BATMAN V SUPERMAN then there will have to be a Plan B. Fantastic Beasts and the exploration of the wider JK Rowling wizarding universe is Warner Bros’ backup mega franchise. Upcoming spectacle will apparently include a still uncast younger Dumbledore (has to be Jared Harris surely?) fighting Johnny Depp as dark wizard Grindelwald, which could be interesting. As long as the studio doesn’t keep mandating the release of sub-par cuts of the films to facilitate the cynical and greedy release of (just about) superior extended cuts further down the line, I don’t have much of an objection to seeing fewer miserable superheroes and more plucky wizards. SSP

 

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A Few Thoughts More: X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

Posted on November 16, 2016 by Sam S-P
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X-Men: Apocalypse (2016): Fox/Bad Hat Harry

I stand by my original review of X-MEN: APOCALYPSE, but now I’ve watched it again I have a few more thoughts.

I don’t have any real issues with the film’s opening. The original Four Horsemen aren’t given much opportunity to make an impact in the film’s fun opening action scene but their powers and appearance make them stand out for the brief time they’re on screen, unlike the thoroughly played-out CHARIOTS OF THE GODS? basis for the rest of the film’s setup.

They’ve never quite got Cyclops right in these movies. James Marsden was hardly in the original X-MEN trilogy and Ty Sheridan just turns him into an average stroppy teenager. Maybe that comes from retroactively making Scott the younger Summers brother in this take on the X-family. Cyclops should be a morally  unshakeable boy scout like Captain America or Superman, he should be there to lead his team and make sure they do the right thing and don’t hurt anyone unless they absolutely have to. Fair enough, his power is highly destructive and difficult to control, but he seems to have next-to-no problem-solving skills, no concept of strategy; he just runs in and hopes for the best. The end fight just amounts to the X-Men shooting their respective colour-coded beams of light at the big bad and there’s nothing creative about that.

Jean Grey’s (Sophie Turner) re-introduction once again wastes her potential as a character and as a concept (what if the most powerful being in the universe was a good girl…for now?) and makes me all the more hopeless that we’ll ever see a proper adaptation of THE DARK PHOENIX SAGA, my favourite run in any comic book series. It’s bombastic, it’s layered and out-there (literally – the X-Men take the fight to space and try and save the whole universe) and it’s nowhere near safe enough for a big studio to bet on.

Mystique should never have become a hero. FIRST CLASS gave her a logical motivation, but removed her edge. In DAYS OF FUTURE PAST she only occasionally seemed to remember what she was trying to achieve. Jennifer Lawrence is a fine actor, but I’m not convinced Raven was the right fit for her and she just looks tired and listless here.

Magneto’s arc works well enough, and Michael Fassbender sells being the unluckiest and angriest mutant out there, but I want him to move on to newer and better things now. For all the ways they botched his characterisation, having Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) as the embodiment of an uncaring god works for this story. Magneto confronts him over his absence when their kind needed him most and he does not have an answer to give him, but a sliver of faith remains with Erik. The scene where the first mutant takes his would-be protege to confront his demons at Auschwitz felt heavy-handed when I first saw it (it still is that) but thematically it’s punchy and it gives him the only even vaguely logical reason out of the Four Horsemen to follow their deity.

By now most of you will know that Hugh Jackman makes his penultimate appearance as Wolverine, his cameo being the one and only reason for the plot to take a detour to Alkali Lake. Last time I think they struck the right balance between fanservice and moving the story forward, but here this balance goes askew and the film is drained by over-compensating spectacle in an effort to top Days of Future Past.

If Fox are going to continue to release X-movies that don’t star Deadpool then they need to take a step back, realise what they’re good at and prioritise character development over beefed up visuals. There’s always going to be superpowered fisticuffs and fireworks, but there’s no need to be bigger than the last time on every attempt. Bigger isn’t always better; you just need to be different. SSP

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Review: For the Love of Spock (2016)

Posted on November 11, 2016 by Sam S-P
"For the Love of Spock" - A Documentary Film

For the Love of Spock (2016): 455 Films/For The Love Of Spock Productions

I’m not the biggest STAR TREK fan in the universe. I was always more into that other franchise from a galaxy far away. That said, I enjoyed most of the movies and saw a handful of episodes, but even I knew what a big deal Spock was, and is, to so many. A deeply personal take on the man and the character from his son was probably the most affecting form that FOR THE LOVE OF SPOCK could take.

Love, affection, admiration, resentment. Adam Nimoy is the son of Spock, otherwise known as actor Leonard Nimoy. This documentary is how he saw his father, how he interpreted his unique impact on the world of culture and fandom and how he chooses to remember him today. 

Though Adam Nimoy admits that a film about his father must be one about the character of Spock (and vise versa) we never escape the ordinariness of the man. He went from selling fish tanks for plush offices, where he “cornered the market” to any number of real jobs before hitting it big as an a actor. He had a fascinating and unlikely story, and one well worth telling.

Nimoy’s own admiration of Lon Chaney, the Man of a Thousand Faces is fascinating coming from a man who became, perhaps above all others on television, known for one alone. He famously struggled with the all-encompassing nature of this persona, publishing first a book titled I AM SPOCK and afterwards another, I AM NOT SPOCK.

“Prior to Star Trek I never had a job that lasted more than two weeks”. In archive footage, Nimoy’s cackle at reading Variety’s review of the Trek pilot, describing William Shatner as “wooden” is wonderful. These little moments bring the whole thing alive. The cast of Trek all had well-publicised clashes with Shatner, but you get the sense that his relationship with Nimoy leaned more towards the “love” side of “love-hate”.

Shatner: “He could sustain a note…off-key, but he could sustain a note!”. Adam Nimoy isn’t above poking fun at his dad, splicing together the music video for Leonard’s famously awful Bilbo Baggins song and footage of the crew of the enterprise looking bewildered. He also has a pretty frank chat with George Takei about the existence of Kirk/Spock slash fiction on the Internet.

Adam Nimoy is a vibrant director. Like his dad his career path was not immediately apparent, practicing as he did as a lawyer before embarking on his filmmaking path. His style ranges from Ken Burns-esque tracking into stills to livelier and more colourful montages like the Flower Power sequence where he describes how his parents differed. He clearly doesn’t mind being on camera and makes no pretense that this is anything other than a very personal take on his father’s life and times. His emotions are laid bare, particularly in a scene where he revisits old correspondence, and old memories, from when their relationship was at its most trying. It’s also, as Spock would say, fascinating to see Adam experience a convention for the first time and seems to come away equally moved and bewildered by fans’ obsession with his dad.

For the Love of Spock is, at its core, just one man’s take on another. Adam Nimoy doesn’t hide his negative experiences with his father, but will proudly proclaim how strong their relationship became in Leonard’s later years. This isn’t an exposé, but you don’t get the impression that many would have particularly bad things to say about Leonard outside his own family, who suffered for his art. What comes through is an abiding feeling of love, the Nimoys’ love for one another, the fans’ love of Leonard and Leonard’s love of his profession and the phenomenon he was such an essential part of. SSP

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You finally really did it

Posted on November 9, 2016 by Sam S-P
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Review: Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016)

Posted on November 7, 2016 by Sam S-P
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Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016): DreamWorks Animation/China Film Co

The road is littered with third movies that don’t live up to expectations. One of the only great lines in this summer’s X-MEN: APOCALYPSE acknowledged that “the third one is always the worst”. I think that KUNG FU PANDA 3 actually comes out slightly better than the previous instalment and is worth a watch even if it never recaptures the near-perfection of the original.

Po, the panda Dragon Warrior (Jack Black) continues his quest to accidental enlightenment. When vengeful villain Kai (JK Simmons) escapes from the spirit realm, only Po can hope to stop him, and reconnecting with his past, and his long lost father (Bryan Cranston) might just hold the key…

From a gorgeous and inventive opening featuring the surprise return of a previously departed character, Kung Fu Panda 3 proves to still have a special something in its imagery. This sense of wonder isn’t really maintained throughout, but there’s enough to keep you watching.

We get a few funny moments, like Mantis’ (Seth Rogen) exclamation of, “Ow! My claw…thingy!” and the revelation that Tigress (Angelina Jolie) “is flammable, apparently”. There are more than enough jokes in here to please young ‘uns, plus a few that will please their parents as well. The Kung Fu Panda films have always tried to straddle that divide, perhaps even more so than SHREK, and they largely succeed here.

“I like who I am” –  it’s a nice message, though it’s the same self-acceptance message that drove the plots and key character arcs in ANTZ, Shrek and the previous two Pandas. It is put slightly more poetically here as “I’m not trying to turn you into me, I’m trying to turn you into you”.

It’s a tale of two flawed fathers idealised by their wide-eyed son. Absent parents and especially estranged dads are so common in family animated fare that we could have probably gone without exploring that relationship again, but at least they change the dynamics a little with Po’s story. I love the conceit of an adoptive dad having to advise a bewildered biological pops who has come back into the picture, and this makes for James Hong’s best role in ages returning as an increasingly emotionally worn Mr Ping, Po’s goose dad. Bryan Cranston can do better as we’ve seen on multiple occasions, but he does just fine here and has good chemistry with Black.

I love the idea of the main villain throwing a tantrum because he’s been forgotten by the world. JK Simmons has a lot of fun here, and Kai is just a brute on the hunt for all the power just because, but his childish behaviour at least makes him a little more colourful than the villains who proceeded him.

There is no place for a panda with a learning disability being the butt of a joke. It’s 2016 for heaven’s sake – what kind of a message does that send to kids? They just about got away with fat jokes in this series, but there is no place for marketing a disability as something goofy and amusing. Everyone involved should know better.

You’d be justified in suggesting that the storytelling here is retroactive. It deploys retconning liberally to give us somewhere else to go, and it feels far from organic. Of course Pandas are powerful chi healers, but have forgotten this skill after generations of comfortable living. This is like learning that the hobbits secretly harbor power on the level of Gandalf’s, buried under all the second breakfasts.

Kung Fu Panda 3 is a perfectly satisfactory end to Po’s story. The characters have been on a journey, the mythology of this world has been steadily expanded and it was always beautiful to look at. Unfortunately, DreamWorks Animation have announced more chapters are on the way, because apparently they learned nothing from Shrek’s steady decline. Ah well, that’s Hollywood folks! SSP

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Review: Hell or High Water (2016)

Posted on November 4, 2016 by Sam S-P
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Brothers in arms: Film 44/OddLot Entertainment

Where this this one come from? HELL OR HIGH WATER arrived with plenty of established talent involved, but very little fanfare. It turns out to be one of the best releases this year, and among the most enlightening and relevant.

The Howard Brothers (Chris Pine and Ben Foster) are on crime spree spanning Texas. Only soon-to-be retired lawman Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) stands in their way. But are they really just in it for the money and the thrill of the chase? Tanner may be, but his younger, wiser brother has another agenda.

The film features career-best turns from an intense Chris Pine and a chunky and unhinged Ben Foster. They bring the brotherly banter along with a convincing portrayal of affection (reluctant or not) you can only have for a sibling. Tanner is the muscle; a blunt instrument prepared to do whatever it takes to come out on top, and Toby is the brains; more cautious and forever trying to keep his volatile older brother in check. They have some lovely moments together, whether celebrating a heist gone well or bickering over the narrowest of escapes and always with deep abiding love. Jeff Bridges does what he does best with added lower jaw acting as a cop pained to be approaching compulsory retirement. Marcus has the usual Bridges swagger, but it’s a pretty melancholy turn from the former Dude; he sells this old-timer putting a brave face on going through the most terrifying experience of his life: staring down the prospect of doing nothing for the final stretch of his existence.

Hell or High Water’s opening shot – a long take of a deserted parking lot then tracking a bank employee as she takes the long walk across and through the doors – is just stunning. I saw this film in an intimate little indie cinema and the whole (tiny) audience was enraptured from this very first, very confident, moment. It was a surprise when David Mackenzie followed up intimate and brutal prison drama STARRED UP with a Western (or Southern) but you can pick up his strutting confidence behind the camera from the sure hand with which he guides both full-blown shootouts and close-scrutiny character work.

Mackenzie created such an uncomfortable atmosphere in the confined corridors of a prison, but here he uses space to a more comic effect with Marcus knocking loose a lampshade by the simple act of taking off his hat in the pokiest of motel rooms and Tanner making a serious misjudgement by trying to rob a bank across the street midway through breakfast. In Hell or High Water the dread comes from open, exposed spaces. The desolate-beautiful Texan landscapes spell trouble for anyone making their way across them and every character who meets a nasty end meets it in the glare of the Texan sun.

The noirish, knowing script by Taylor Sheridan (straight off the equally excellent but much more sombre SICARIO) married with desolate Southern imagery results in what can only be described as cinematic poetry. The waitress’s barking of “What don’t ya want?” to her customers and a Texan would-be vigilante sneering  “You gotta find the tree” that he’s determined to hang the bank robbers from (Marcus chuckling response: “Gotta love West Texas!”).

This is an anti-financier treatise. The two great evils in modern America are arguably prejudice and greed, and both have taken a fully justified beating on film over the past couple of years, and the latter corrodes and destroys everyone it touches in this story. You want these brothers playing Robin Hood to get away with it – the banks deserve to be punished and played at their own game. Though it’s explained to us, the mechanics of Toby’s plan are a little hard to get a good fix on. You can see how his crime spree could benefit his estranged family, or hurt the money men, but not both. You still get the message though and Hell or High Water remains engrossing and character rich, packing an important message along with this thrilling ride through gorgeous scenery. SSP

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Ash vs: or, why Living Dead has already left Walking Dead behind 

Posted on November 3, 2016 by Sam S-P
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Ash vs Evil Dead (2015): Renaissance Pictures/Starz!

In 83 episodes over 6 seasons, THE WALKING DEAD has captivated audiences the world over with grim character work, creeping dread and excessive zombie killing. I am no longer one of those captivated – the pilot was great and there were some compelling moments spread across Season 3 and 4, but I threw in the towel and gave up halfway through Season 5 due to the sheer monotony and tedium of the enterprise. After only 10 episodes (hoping to continue with Season 2 shortly), here’s a few reasons I already think ASH VS EVIL DEAD has surpassed its less groovy cousin.

It’s short and sweet. 10 episodes at 30 minutes apiece (pilot aside), Ash doesn’t waste time and much like CLONE WARS and REBELS reclaimed STAR WARS’ serial origins, this series doesn’t try to take EVIL DEAD beyond very fun and colourful schlock. Compare it to Walking Dead which goes on and on and on, always aspiring to be a filmic prestige show but has long outstayed its welcome.

It’s scary. Evil Dead has always been scary. Early on Sam Raimi realised that his home-made makeup and gore wouldn’t frighten anyone on its own terms, so he made up for that with creative camerawork, unsettling sound design and a genuinely terrifying premise that marked his undead out. The makeup is better now, but we also see on multiple occasions in the films and in this series, the Deadites go back and forth between their possessed and normal states. When a loved one is gone, they’re only a moment away from tricking you into dropping your guard by seemingly returning to normal. They prey on emotion and humanity’s willingness to believe there’s a hope their loved ones can get better. Walking Dead offs characters for good and doesn’t even often allow them to come back as zombies.

It cracks a smile. Evil Dead has always been funny. As compelling as Walking Dead was to begin with, as good as the performances still are, you can’t always be stoney-faced, even in the face of the apocalypse. Our heroes may be facing death round every bend, but our idiot protagonist Ash (Bruce Campbell) is never going to leave his ego behind, and a bit of goons slapstick (against an version of Ash, a demon baby or a possessed old lady) or barrel-scraping chat up lines help break pace and add colour.

Violence this extreme is funny. The zombie kills in Walking Dead are brutal and extreme, but our heroes are so supernaturally gifted at defending vulnerable areas and getting timely headshots that any jeopardy is quickly diminished. Dismemberment, disembowelment, disintegration, even death by firehose is doled out with a complete straight face. Ash knows its a ridiculous show, its characters know what they are doing and what is happening around them is funny as well as scary, which really helps with the tonal dissidence.

Our idiot protagonist screws up, but his friends will save him. We’ve seen the Evil Dead movies, we know when the icky stuff is going to hit the fan. No matter how much of the same he’s been through, how many times he somehow scrapes through, Ash remains wonderfully unaware. He’s good at killing Deadites, but throw enough at him or just wait for his middle-aged body to let him down and he’s toast. This would result in a short series if Ash didn’t have anyone else to rely on, but luckily the writers gave him good egg Pablo (Ray Santiago) and streetsmart Kelly (Dana DeLorenzo) who know only to trust Ash so far.

Our idiot protagonist occasionally makes a sane decision. Despite being a complete moron, Ash has a survival instinct and is usually the first to point out when a situation doesn’t feel right. He may be an idiot, but he’s not an idiot. Chainsaw first, ask questions later seems to be his mantra (see the dinner table scene with Kelly’s definitely-deadite-mum), unless there’s a woman he thinks he’s got a chance with involved. Ever try the Walking Dead Stupid Character Decision drinking game?

It steadily expands on the mythos. Walking Dead had a revolving door of characters aside from the core leads, but every series amounted to the same thing: stay in a “secure” location for a while before things go south and the journey continues. It’s basically ANIMALS OF FARTHING WOOD with zombies. From a solid foundation, Ash builds on the world Raimi created, introducing new interested parties (a nice XENA reunion with Lucy Lawless’s scene-stealing killing machine Ruby), demons as well as deadites and leaves the world in a more interesting place than we found it by the end of Season 1. SSP

 

 

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Halloween Series Retrospective: A Nightmare on Elm Street

Posted on October 31, 2016 by Sam S-P

Time once again to look back on a long-running franchise in its entirety. There’s a lot of NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET movies. Not quite as many as its slasher fellows HALLOWEEN and FRIDAY THE 13TH, but Freddy sure did refuse to stay dead, even when they promised he would. Here’s some thoughts on them all, dire remake aside. Happy Halloween. All together now! “One, two, Freddy’s coming for you…”

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A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984): New Line Cinema

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984) The epitome of Wes Craven’s genius as a horror filmmaker. We still don’t know all that much about dreams; what they are, what they mean. They do hold a power over us and the introduction of demonic murderer Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund at his most twisted and terrifying) who makes you hope you’ll never sleep again makes the very most of this. Original imagery, creeping dread and some of the most memorable movie deaths of all time helps make this Craven’s opus and the film that built New Line.

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Freddy’s Revenge (1985): New Line

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2: FREDDY’S REVENGE (1985) A lot of people put this one down, even picking it as the worst of the series. I think that’s really unfair. True, it’s not in the same league as Craven’s iconic original, but what is? It adds some sharp elements the mythology, boosts Freddy’s power set, and more importantly, is still still tense and scary. Who cares if it’s a bit (OK more than a bit) trashy and exploitative? That’s the slasher genre!

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Dream Warriors (1987): New Line

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS (1987) Let’s be frank here: it’s just rubbish X-MEN isn’t it? There is so much potential in the concept of a team of kids fighting back against Freddy in their dreams, but that promise is largely squandered here. The budget isn’t good enough to execute the concept of the dreamers using powers (as originally scripted) with enough pizazz and a film, a superhero-asylum-horror, it really should be scarier and more thrilling.

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The Dream Master (1988): New Line

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4: THE DREAM MASTER (1988) Dull, dull, dull. We’re given a wet and uninteresting new protagonist in Alice (Lisa Wilcox) and the film has no style to speak of and very few scares. At this point the wider plot of the series was clearly just being made up as they went on and the mythology becomes stodgy and incomprehensible. About the only thing to recommend in Dream Master is a single image of how Freddy is killed this time round. Apparently he eats souls now, so they are induced to revolt against their host in an effect that hasn’t aged well, but is still striking.

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The Dream Child (1989): New Line

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 5: THE DREAM CHILD (1989) A good dollop of the Gothic, a pretty clever premise, the trippiest of the series’ imagery and a killer pulp comic set piece makes this one memorable. It’s also very obviously rushed, cheap-looking (with decent enough cinematography) and terribly acted, even by the standard of adults pretending to be teens. I still don’t know why the nun needed to be released from her mortal shell and how she beats Freddy. If I’m honest I’d forgotten we’d seen her before in an earlier film.

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Freddy’s Dead (1991): New Line

FREDDY’S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE (1991) Opening on a Nietzsche quote followed by a Freddy Krueger quote: good gag. If this was made now, and/or more time had passed between instalments, this could be considered an early example of Hollywood’s favourite way to revitalise a named property: the soft reboot. By this point there’s nothing scary about Freddy; he’s just a gurning goon messing with a new generation of dumb kids who don’t know the rules yet. It only gets worse when the 3-D gimmick comes in (it’s always been gimmicky, always will be) and they try to rationalise Freddy, one of the all-time great evil-just-because villains.

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New Nightmare (1994): New Line

NEW NIGHTMARE (1994) New Nightmare is a whole other thing. The return of Wes Craven to a franchise he grew to despise (when he wasn’t doing it) and the start of the horror maestro’s meta phase, for me this is the best Nightmare since the first. Heather Langenkamp, still remembered for playing Nancy in the original Nightmare, is having terrible dreams and comes to realise Freddy is breaking into the real world and haunting her and her son. It’s pretty self-aggrandising stuff, suggesting that Craven was keeping a real evil in check by making movies, but it’s clever and scary and the effects and nasty imagery mostly hold up today. SSP

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Review: Doctor Strange (2016)

Posted on October 30, 2016 by Sam S-P
doctorstrange

Talk to the beard: Marvel/Disney

The problem with Marvel is that a lot of their characters have the same origin story. “Arrogant prig becomes selfless hero” is almost as commonplace as DC’s “Death of family gives hero guilt-driven purpose”. Stephen Strange’s story may not be all that far removed from that of Tony Stark, or even Thor, and his film’s first act might feel very BATMAN BEGINS, but DOCTOR STRANGE offers so much more in terms of imagery and concepts that you don’t really mind.

Brilliant but arrogant neurosurgeon Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is brought crashing down to earth when a car crash leaves him barely able to use his hands. In a desperate search for a solution, he travels to Tibet and comes under the tutelage of the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) who leads an order of sorcerers who protect time, space and reality itself from inter-dimensional threats. Will Doctor Strange answer the call to become something more in time to stop renegade sorcerer Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) from performing a dangerous ritual?

From the first scene of the film (an eye-popping magical heist and chase) director Scott Derrickson is making a bold aesthetic statement. Christopher Nolan (who may have been influenced himself by Steve Ditko’s imagery from the original Doctor Strange comics) ain’t got nothing on this. From entire cities flipping and folding, shards of reality punching through our field of vision, a fistfight inside a reversing timeline and some good old-fashioned psychedelic mind-melting, rarely does much time pass without seeing something you’ve never quite seen like this before. As far as I’m concerned, the hallmarks of distinctive modern special effects to create the otherworldly are DARK CITY/THE MATRIX, INCEPTION and now Doctor Strange.

Cumberbatch was born for this role, making surgeon Strange a strutting Sherlock and the magic user he becomes endearingly inept at first, but never above using his previous arrogance and competitive streak to try and get ahead in his new and unlikely profession. Chiwetel Ejiofor hints at a lot more going on below the surface of his calm, collected but pained Mordo, Mikkelsen brings deadpan humour to Kaecilius’s interactions with Strange and Rachel McAdams’ Dr Palmer refreshingly reacts to strange goings on like a real person would, and doesn’t instantly forget her ex was a terrible person when he rocks up in a snazzy new uniform. Swinton is convincing as an ageless bastion of knowledge, but could have made her weirder. Swinton could always make things weirder if she wanted to.

It helps that Marvel commit to adding flashes of fun everywhere, from a great recurring gag which has Strange compare formidable arcane librarian Wong (Benedict Wong) to other famous mononymous celebrities. Even the most intense action scenes aren’t lacking in a few gags, especially when Strange is still a novice and tends to win more by fluke (or very protective sentient cloak) than his skill.

I would say that the visual onslaught is at times a bit much. I hate to compare this, likely the best big-budget extravaganza of the year with WARCRAFT, which…wasn’t, but once again human beings can only take in so much information via our eyeballs. The opening set piece works, as does the concluding sequence for its sheer ballsinesss, but there is so much going on in the scene that ends the film’s second act where Strange and Mordo chase Kaecilius through the highly malleable “Mirror Dimension” that I was struggling to process everything I was seeing in time.

Doctor Strange may not be the most thematically demanding movie out there, but it’s got imagination in abundance and personality to spare, plus every now and then it’s nice to have a film that is pure, unadulterated escapism. The way the Marvel Universe(s) are left at the end of all this certainly offers up some interesting narrative and character possibilities in the future. The only major issue I can foresee in Strange joining the wider action is that his powers are in essence limitless, giving him license to do anything. There are other characters out there where the same could apply, which could result in quite the battle if they find themselves in direct conflict. I can highly recommend this, my favourite blockbuster this year. SSP

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