SSP Thinks Film

Series Retrospective: Bourne

Posted on January 14, 2017 by Sam S-P

In the latest look back at a long-running series, I’ve decided to look at everyone’s favourite amnesiac assassin, Jason Bourne. Robert Ludlum’s antidote to Bond has been knocking around for a while, and has not let his author’s passing and Matt Damon’s temporary departure slow the pace.

The Bourne Identity: Universal

THE BOURNE IDENTITY (2002) The first, leanest, and in my opinion the best Bourne movie, IDENTITY stood out from fellow spy actioners in the early 2000s. Doug Liman might not be as dynamic a director as Paul Greengrass, but he coaxes two great performances from Damon and Franka Potente and his action is beautifully unfussy. The mythology is kept vague but implications are intriguing, assassins (notably a bookish-looking Clive Owen with a hunting rifle) could be brushed past on the street and you really believe Bourne could just melt away.

The Bourne Supremacy: Universal

THE BOURNE SUPREMACY (2004) Greengrass arrived in the Bourne franchise like a freight train. SUPREMACY’s plot is a little messier, but the momentum never ceases and the trend was set for immediate hand-held action that has only just started to fall out of favour twelve years later. Yes, you can blame this movie for sloppy, rating-chasing action movie editing (it looked good in 2004…) Some of the cast might be annoyed their characters were knocked off early, but their space is filled admirably by a more active Nikki (Julia Stiles) and the caring face of espionage Pam Landy (Joan Allen).

The Bourne Ultimatum: Universal

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM (2007) The most linear Bourne film, plot-wise, but ULTIMATUM boasts immediate, frenetic action and puts you right in the heart of everything that is going on. The camerawork can be more jarring than immersive at times, and while I quite like the conversations shot not just over-the-shoulder but from behind whole bodies with elusive glimpses of the tense participants, it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. They still don’t address how Bourne can get round the world without changing his face (I don’t care how many passports you have – it still looks like you!) but if you go with it it’s a thrilling conclusion to the story.

The Bourne Legacy: Universal

THE BOURNE LEGACY (2012) Then they made LEGACY. Or at least writer Tony Gilroy did. few writers can direct, and vise versa. This was more of a glorified placeholder for when Damon and Greengrass decided to come back. Jeremy Renner usually makes for a compelling lead or at the very least characterful support, but his Bourne-replacement Aaron Cross (I’m actually amazed I remembered his name without Wikipedia) is just vanilla up until a seriously stupid late plot revelation where he becomes a bit of an insult to a large portion of society. Add to this run-of-the-mill villains and constant reminders of a better film you could be watching (it takes place concurrently with Ultimatum) and you end up with a waste of your time.

Jason Bourne: Universal

JASON BOURNE (2016) It seems like Greengrass wanted to do a film about the Greek austerity riots and/or CIA/NSA surveillance, but then he remembered Bourne and decided to fold these real-world events back into the spy’s ongoing exploits to make sure audiences went to watch it. This soft reboot is certainly relevant and it moves along excitingly enough, but it’s consciously ticking boxes and it artificially creates a new mystery for Bourne to solve and asks you to suspend your disbelief a little too much.While it’s good to see him return, Damon clearly had to put in very little effort beyond getting back into lean, mean shape.

Would I watch more Bourne if they made them? Probably. Would I rush to see it now they’re clearly cattle-prodding it to keep the story going? Probably not. SSP

Review: A Monster Calls (2016)

Posted on January 11, 2017 by Sam S-P

Bark worse than his bite? (Sorry): Apaches Entertainment/La Trini

I read A MONSTER CALLS over Christmas in preparation for this. What took me so long?

Conor (Lewis MacDougall) doesn’t have the luxury of a happy childhood. Between his mother (Felicity Jones) losing her battle against cancer, his icy grandmother (Sigourney Weaver) outstaying her welcome and constant torment at school, Conor finds himself coping alone. Then, at his lowest point, a monster calls…

Having Liam Neeson on board to play the Monster and also someone else in the form of a photograph on the mantelpiece is a master stroke – here Patrick Ness adds a certain extra poignant factor to the self-panned screenplay adaptation of his story. Advantages of authors being part of the process of visualising their own work include but are not limited to, unparalleled understanding of the source material and the need to refine and improve what has come before. Having another pair of eyes guiding the ship doesn’t hurt either, and director JA Bayona keeps the whole thing simultaneously grounded and wondrous and gets the very best out of his cast.

It’s great to see Sigourney Weaver in a non-glamerous role. She begins as Grandma is described in the novel; a well-groomed and severe older woman, but as events unfold, protective layers peel away and she becomes worn away, real and human. But it is the tenderest of central pairings in Conor and his mum and MacDougall and Jones’ perfectly-pitched performances that keeps you rooted to this story. It’s a complex relationship for a thirteen-year-old to have with a parent, but one that rings painfully true. It is a simple truth at the heart of this tale, but not an easy one.

There are canny references throughout to sympathetic monster movies (KING KONG, Universal’s FRANKENSTEIN) which might have been a bit presumptuous if A Monster Calls couldn’t proudly stand side by side with its subgenre fellows. We also get thematic and aesthetic links to other modern fantasy allegories like PAN’S LABYRINTH, being as it is another tale featuring a child’s experiences front-and-centre but presented in a very adult fashion, though Bayona perhaps chooses to blur the lines blur a little more between realities than del Toro did.

The animated sequences with Neeson’s narration are the perfect realisation of the book’s stories, and the film wholeheartedly embraces the unique advantages of working in a visual medium. The three tales the monster tells to Conor are living ink, bold and graphic but never fully tangible to fit with Ness’s themes of avoiding confrontation of difficult situations and as tribute to the work of Jim Kay who illustrated a run of the novel. It was a tall order to visualise squiffy dreamland physics and the horrific jumps between reality and unreality with such aplomb, but somehow it works as a compelling tapestry.

You can almost hear the production design team screaming “don’t do an Ent!” so the Monster instead appears as a yew tree tangle in rangy humanoid form with Liam Neeson’s sharp profile and formidable glower as his booms forth his dialogue. He is frightening, as any monster should be, but he is also engagingly, and humanly, irritable, and somehow his outbursts that shake the earth and bring forth an internal inferno soften him and bring him closer to our human protagonists – he’s just as fallible an occupier of grey areas as the rest of us.

I honestly didn’t think A Monster Calls would get me. The book brought forth tears but I found myself not quite shaken with the same emotional force as I was on the page. Then the final couple of scenes came and I’ll admit I bawled. I’d have personally played the ending slightly differently in the way it’s put together on screen, but that’s really splitting hairs and it remains a spiritually satisfying conclusion and a promise that a better life is to come for Conor. You’ll have to catch this at some point as it may very well be a future classic. SSP

Posted in Film, Film Review | Tagged A Monster Calls, Drama, Fantasy, Felicity Jones, Film, Frankenstein, Guillermo del Toro, JA Bayona, King Kong, Lewis MacDougall, Liam Neeson, Monster Movie, Movies, Pan's Labyrinth, Patrick Ness, Sigourney Weaver | 1 Comment

Film Confessional: Gods of Egypt

Posted on January 6, 2017 by Sam S-P

A far deadlier Riddles in the Dark: Summit Entertainment/Mystery Clock Cinema

I have a confession to make…I actually quite like GODS OF EGYPT. I enjoyed watching the film that made Alex Proyas aggressively lambast film critics for not giving him a chance, pretty much from when the first trailer dropped. I can see it’s a flawed work, but it’s flawed in fascinating ways.

You can’t fault Alex Proyas’ bonkers ambition. You can never fault his ambition. Unfortunately he’s only ever produced two knockout movies in a fairly lengthy career (they were the dark and emotional THE CROW and the dark and emotional DARK CITY). All his others tend to be interesting on their own terms and aesthetically striking but with drawbacks.

Gods of Egypt could be called just about anything but dark; the brief given to everybody who worked on the project was “Planet Egypt”. This shows. Think of this like the 60s Greek mythology adaptations like JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS but dipping into a different culture and adding a liberal splash of FLASH GORDON. I know there were complaints of whitewashing from the off, and while I can understand this criticism it doesn’t bother me anywhere near as much as it did in Ridley Scott’s EXODUS, which was a fairly serious dramatic re-telling of a religious story firmly rooted in a real time and place, where nobody should have been white. Here the story is nominally Ancient Egypt-set, but it’s a romp, it’s a colourful fantasy where real-world logic rarely intrudes.

Whatever it is, the film is jam-packed with ideas. We see Ra’s (Geoffrey Rush) space-barge dragging the sun over the side of a flat earth shortly before its pilot pauses to battle a space monster; then there’s the sight of Set (Gerard Butler) riding to war in a chariot pulled by flying scarabs and a god being mobbed by the spirits of the dead as she falls into a dark, swirling vortex the moment a protective charm is removed. The film’s batty internal logic works; if gods lived among us they would do everything grandly and opulently, humanity would be regarded as little more than a nuisance.

I was generally impressed with the designs of the sets and of the creatures (the sphinx above is a particular highlight), though I question whether the gods’ true forms should have been bio-mechanical, because as soon as you have living metal titans duking it out on top of a pyramid, your thoughts tend to jump straight to TRANSFORMERS. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Butler don’t seem to have bothered changing characters since the last “historical” epic they took part in, and don’t exactly stretch themselves, nor does Chadwick Boseman’s putting on a plummy English accent as he contemplates the meaning of a head of lettuce, not that this material ever asks them to. Also, after all these years, is the use of forced perspective really the only way to have different scales of character appearing in the same scene? The gods and the mortals never look like they shared the same soundstage, never mind the same world.

The script is appropriately naff for a high-concept B-movie; somewhere between Tolkien and Shakespeare but more cloth-eared (“Every night the battle between chaos and creation must go on, otherwise the world will be destroyed”). This isn’t really a criticism, in fact it’s part of the entertainment value. I don’t really understand why Proyas got so defensive over the negative reviews the film received. It’s not high art whatever the director thought, but I think it will have a life as a bit of a cult gem. There’s nothing wrong with producing trash if it’s fun, if it’s memorable, and I don’t think you should be ashamed of every now and then turning out a product like this. It’s less problematic if you treat is as pure escapism and far more enjoyable if you switch off your brain and have fun. SSP

Posted in Film, Film Feature, Film Review | Tagged Alex Proyas, B-movie, Chadwick Boseman, Dark City, Film, Flash Gordon, Geoffrey Rush, Gerard Butler, Gods of Egypt, Jason and the Argonauts, Movies, Nicolaj Coster-Waldau, Ridley Scott, Shakespeare, The Crow, Tolkien, Transformers | Leave a comment

Looking Back and Looking Forward: 2016, Part 2

Posted on January 1, 2017 by Sam S-P

Here are the very best, and the very worst films I’ve seen this year. MOONLIGHT, LA LA LAND and MANCHESTER BY THE SEA aren’t out in the UK for another few weeks, so don’t look for them here. Absent also from the best are most of the blockbusters, and none (bar animation) rank among my best. No not even ROGUE ONE quite made it (FANTASTIC BEASTS and DOCTOR STRANGE were better anyway). So without further ado…

The Best:

Adult Life Skills (2016): Pico Pictures

5. ADULT LIFE SKILLS A lot of people will have missed this little gem. It’s charming and genuine and doesn’t sugar coat how profoundly losing a family member affects people. There are cute little finger puppet film pastiches scattered throughout, but the focus is always on telling an honest story of real, rough-around-the-edges people going through difficult times.

Hell or High Water (2016): Film 44

4. HELL OR HIGH WATER Between black-as-pitch jokes, a humanist worldview and stunning scenery, David Mackenzie’s contemporary cowboys ‘n’ outlaws allegory is a bit of a stunner. Jeff Bridges gets to play a little with one of his go-to personas and Chris Pine shows his hitherto untested range as an idealistic criminal.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016): Vertigo

3. HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE A very New Zealand take on a road movie. It’s keen to be self-deprecating but also shows great pride in its setting and is director Taika Waititi refuses to stigmatise those with difficult upbringings or unconventional lifestyles. What could have been a heavy social drama becomes uplifting, bittersweet and hugely enjoyable. Sam Neill and Julian Dennison make for a perfect pairing.

Nina Forever (2015): Jeva Films

2. NINA FOREVER Another little indie that deserved a wider release, but may well become a cult classic, is one of the beautiful and creative meditations on grief I’ve ever seen. Abigail Hardingham and Cian Barry are talents to watch, as are the Blaine Brothers who thought up this whole sexy, funny and twisted comic-romance-horror affair. It profoundy affected me and may well stay with you too for a long time.

Zootropolis (2016): Disney

1. ZOOTROPOLIS The best script of the year and perhaps the film that captured the mood of early 2016 the most succinctly (sadly things got even worse as the year went on) came from Disney, and followed a bunny in a uniform. It’s one of the best-looking things Disney has ever produced, and has plenty to keep kids glued to the screen, but it also has more food for thought and enlightening real-world commentary than any other major studio release this year.

The Worst:

Get a Job (2016): CBS Films

5. GET A JOB I’m not surprised it took three years for this to be released straight to video in most countries. There’s probably an interesting film to be made exploring the challenges of a graduate wanting to break into online content production along with everyone else if his generation, but this is not it. The characters are repellent or dull, the jokes baseline and everything about it smacks of “that’ll do” filmmaking.

Suicide Squad (2016): Warner Bros

4. SUICIDE SQUAD I think I said in my original review that this wasn’t quite as bad as DC’s other 2016 superhero movie. Having seen it again, I take that back. On some very basic filmmaking levels (sound, editing, acting) SUICIDE SQUAD is worse. It’s also so miscalculated and stylistically mangled, generic and boring following an ad campaign promising vibrancy and anarchy. But it retains the #4 worst spot on this list slightly above the next movie for one reason above all others.

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Batman v Superman (2016): Warner Bros

3. BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE That reason is that Suicide Squad cost around $175 million. BATMAN V SUPERMAN cost at least $250 million. Hollywood filmmaking can’t carry on like this; it can’t keep exponentially growing outwards and leaving a howling void at its centre. I don’t mind mega-budget blockbusters when they justify their existence, but when they’re this wasteful, this dour, monotone and downright depressing, when I’m looking to get nearly three hours of my life back I have to wonder when it will end.

Grimsby (2016): Columbia

2. GRIMSBY Sacha Baron Cohen is perhaps one of the best out there at mean comedy. In addition to being mean though, he’s usually entertaining and with a point to make. This is him on autopilot, taking jabs at easy targets, putting the bare minimum of effort into creating a work made up only of ugly stereotypes and doing horrible things with elephants. it’s even worse when it tries to be an action movie or be uplifting. Cohen’s career choices can be hit-and-miss, but what was Mark Strong thinking degrading himself to this?

The Do-Over (2016): Netflix

1. THE DO-OVER Stop giving Adam Sandler work. Stop encouraging him. He needs to understand that he can’t keep getting paid for bringing us cinematic detritus. Netflix actually gave him a four film deal of which this is only the second (imagine where he’s going with the other two). Sandler of course plays his idea of the coolest guy in the world and David Spade gets all the jokes Sandler thinks he’s above. Lowlights include gags about how scary gay guys are, how dementia is snicker-worthy and how the easiest way to make an impression on a woman is to hit her with your car. You actually feel ashamed of yourself for sitting through the whole thing, and Sandler should feel likewise for making it.

I already anticipate next year to be a far better one at the movies. Judging by this year’s releases from Warner Bros, WONDER WOMAN could go either way, but I do sincerely hope it turns out great. GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 looks like a safer bet, and even the risks like a long-awaited TRAINSPOTTING sequel promise to be interesting at the very least. For me I’m most looking forward to WAR FOR THE PLANET IF THE APES, which follows on from one of my absolute favourite films of 2014, and of course STAR WARS: EPISODE VIII, helmed by one of my all-time favourite directors Rian Johnson. Happy New Year everybody. SSP

Posted in Film, Film Feature | Tagged Abigail Hardingham, Adam Sandler, Adult Life Skills, Animation, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Blaine Brothers, Blockbuster, Chris Pine, Cian Barry, Comedy, David Mackenzie, David Spade, Disney, Doctor Strange, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Film, Get a Job, Grimsby, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Hell or High Water, Horror, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Jeff Bridges, Julian Dennison, La La Land, Manchester By the Sea, Mark String, Moonlight, Movies, Netflix, Nina Forever, Rian Johnson, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Romance, Sacha Baron Cohen, Sam Neill, Star Wars: Episode VIII, Suicide Squad, T2:Trainspotting, Taika Waititi, The Do-Over, War for the Planet of the Apes, Warner Bros, Wonder Woman, Zootopia, Zootropolis | Leave a comment

Looking Back and Looking Forward: 2016, Part 1

Posted on December 27, 2016 by Sam S-P

2016 has been a terrible year in the multiplexes, not to mention a particularly black one for art and entertainment in general. Blockbusters have rarely been so lacklustre or downright awful. Mercifully the indie film scene has had a far more successful time of it over the past 12 months, proving that there is still hope yet. Take as evidence my list of favourites of 2016, with nary a blockbuster in sight. Want more? Check out my full reviews for each film and of course let me know what you think of my choices.

The Best:

Arrival (2016): FilmNation

10. ARRIVAL Clever stuff with emotional weight behind it to keep it firmly rooted to the earth even as it shoots for the stars on a conceptual level. Another effortless success from Denis Villeneuve and Amy Adams’ best turn since THE FIGHTER. It doesn’t matter if you don’t fully understand it; you’ll be talking about it for a while.

Under the Shadow (2016): Vertigo

9. UNDER THE SHADOW Between this and A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT, it’s been a killer couple of years for Iranian horror. Whereas the aforementioned vamp pic was intentionally disembodied, in its own twisted world, this is firmly rooted in its time and place, and the real-world horrors of war remain for scarier than a malevolent djin.

The Neon Demon (2016): Icon

8. THE NEON DEMON The most beautiful ugly film of the year, possibly of the decade. Nicolas Winding Refn can do little wrong in my eyes. He’s out to provoke you in style, and by golly does he with this bold and disturbing film that wouldn’t look out of place projected onto a gallery wall. Not an easy watch, but a thought-provoking and occasionally bewildering one.

My Beautiful Broken Brain (2016): Netflix

7. MY BEAUTIFUL BROKEN BRAIN The most moving film of the year is an unflinching and beautiful journey alongside a young woman, Lotje Sodderland, as she battles to keep herself herself following a sudden stroke. The fact that the subject is a filmmaker herself lends this story immediacy and a style all its own, and eventually getting Lotje’s hero David Lynch’s backing didn’t hurt either.

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016): Paramount

6. 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE The pleasant surprise of the year. This works precisely because it refuses to be limited by the film it shares a tenuous connection to. The only limitations are those that Dan Trachtenberg and his writers put in place to create a taut three-hander of a chamber piece exploring paranoia and delusion.

The Worst:

Special Correspondents (2016): Netflix

10. SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS Ricky Gervais should not direct, and he needs to stop writing himself as some kind of a catch for women just because he’s British. This one had a good concept exploring media and truth, it just wasn’t followed through. The characters are detestable (which is fine) but they’re not interesting (which isn’t fine).

The Fundamentals of Caring (2016): Netflix

9. THE FUNDAMENTALS OF CARING The intentions behind it, of exploring the difficulty of of being a carer, and receiving care, were pure, but the execution was misjudged and the end result patronising. The performances almost save it, but a solid cast lead by Paul Rudd and Craig Roberts just aren’t enough on their own. Something so earnest shouldn’t come across as so simplistic and borderline mean.

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Ratchet & Clank (2016): Vertigo

8. RATCHET & CLANK There’s little for anyone here aside from bright lights and colour. The game’s style of humour doesn’t work long-form, in-jokes are either mishandled or fleeting, the animation is sub-par and out of an impressive cast on paper, only Jim Ward’s vocal performance as once and future green space berk Quark brings any joy.

Dad’s Army (2016): Universal

7. DAD’S ARMY The TV show was rarely laugh-out-loud funny, but it had wit and warmth. This film seldom even raises a smile. It’s another case of putting together a good cast and giving them practically nothing to work with. Nobody comes out unscathed, but at least Bill Nighy got to try out a slightly different character to his usual. It’s a waste of actors and not a fitting tribute to the real Home Guard or their previous portrayers.

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Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016): Fox

6. MIKE AND DAVE NEED WEDDING DATES This manages to be insulting to both genders and not all that funny. Putting aside the trashy (potentially entertaining) premise of advertising for “nice” wedding dates, movies like this need to be carried by the charisma of their performers. But even Zac Efron and Anna Kendrick can’t elevate such weak, charmless material. No comedy film’s funniest moments should be the outtakes over the credits.

I hope you enjoyed the first part of this list. Please join me next time for Part 2, where I will discuss my best of the best, worst of the worst and what we have to look forward to in 2017. SSP

Posted in Film, Film Feature | Tagged 10 Cloverfield Lane, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Amy Adams, Anna Kendrick, Arrival, Bill Nighy, Blockbuster, Craig Roberts, Dad's Army, Dan Trachtenberg, David Lynch, Denis Villeneuve, Film, Independent Film, Jim Ward, Lotje Sodderland, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, Movies, My Beautiful Broken Brain, Nicolas Winding Refn, Paul Rudd, Ricky Gervais, Special Correspondents, The Fighter, The Fundamentals of Caring, The Neon Demon, Under the Shadow, Zac Efron | Leave a comment

Review: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

Posted on December 21, 2016 by Sam S-P

I rebel, therefore I am: Lucasfilm/Allison Shearmur Productions

Was the emotionally bereft GODZILLA remake just a blip for Gareth Edwards? Thankfully yes it was. There is more genuine humanity, imagination and enjoyment to ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY than there was not only in the ill-advised giant lizard retread, but also in the vast majority of the blockbusters released in 2016. It’s a bit of a treat for STAR WARS fans too, both fleshing out a gap in the timeline and providing new sights to behold.

Born rebel Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) is recruited by the Alliance in their fight against the tyrannical Galactic Empire. Her long lost weapons designer father (Mads Mikkelsen) may hold the key to the destruction of the Empire’s superweapon, The Death Star, and Jyn must lead a team of spies, assassins and outcasts to retrieve this information before time runs out for the Rebels and for the galaxy.

Finally someone plays with the style of Star Wars. We’re straight into the story sans opening crawl, scene transitions are liberated from the archaic wipe edit (finally Star Wars is edited according to the action rather than the action working around the edit) and character-fleshing flashbacks are incorporated. This was the perfect time to do this: we’re in mostly uncharted waters here, and if Lucasfilm will continue to hire distinct directors to helm these spin-offs, they should be free to make them their own and make every film it’s own thing. Edwards brings with him a more hard-edged documentarian aesthetic, following our heroes a pace behind through crowded and sweaty alien markets and throwing us in the thick of frenetic, brutal battle scenes. I said the opening of THE FORCE AWAKENS was like Star Wars meets SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, Rogue One is more Star Wars meets PLATOON. Edwards gets just the right balance with paying heed to what has come before as well, with chunky, grimy technology and pleasingly terrible 1970s hairstyles.

Felicity Jones as Jyn is a grounded and empathetic lead who kicks some serous ass without any force gimmicks. Alan Tudyk playing towering reprogrammed Imperial droid K-2SO as a mix between deadpan comedian and passive-aggressive child was a master stroke (thoughts out loud on Jyn: “I find her answers vague and unconvincing”, “Do you want to know the odds of her betraying us? They’re high…Very high!”). Ben Mendelsohn’s cold and brutal autocrat Krennic is often undone by his frustration at not receiving credit for his hard work, and sees straight through a deception early on (“Oh look, you wife: back from the dead!”). I wouldn’t say the whole cast are given much to do, with rebel leader Cassian’s (Diego Luna) edginess dropped by the wayside quickly and Forest Whitaker and Mads Mikkelsen acting as glorified (admittedly well performed) plot devices. What I can’t deny is that a certain dark lord’s brief appearance will give you chills and thrills.

Here’s the thing: massive space battles rendered with next-gen special effects are stunning, but bringing a long-gone actor from A NEW HOPE back from beyond the grave with the same? I’m not so sure. It’s undoubtedly a very sophisticated effect, but it’s almost too good, too detailed, and something certainly triggers the uncanny valley sense. I found myself not really listening to the dialogue in these important to the plot scenes, which was an issue. Elsewhere archive footage and outtakes from the original film are used, which work perfectly fine for brief shots.

The plot moves well, even if it doesn’t deviate much from the Star Wars formula. It meets and sometimes exceeds your expectations of action and spectacle, but being a Star Wars film the finale is of course a race against time to destroy something in space. Joining the Rebel Alliance also seems to be a large part about who you know as well as you heart and resolve, as the Rebellion top brass don’t seem much interested in Jyn aside from how they can exploit her familial connections. It’s a galaxy of coincidence, but we’ve always known that. Rogue One hits the right notes, throws in some surprises and gives us time enough to spend with a compelling new group of characters. As another spin-off/prequel in an industry seemingly producing little but, it’s certainly out in front of the pack. SSP

Posted in Film, Film Review | Tagged A New Hope, Alan Tudyk, Ben Mendelsohn, Blockbuster, Diego Luna, Fantasy, Felicity Jones, Film, Forest Whitaker, Gareth Edwards, Godzilla, Lucasfilm, Mads Mikkelsen, Movies, Platoon, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Saving Private Ryan, Sci-fi, Star Wars, The Force Awakens | 4 Comments

15 Years On: The Fellowship of the Ring

Posted on December 19, 2016 by Sam S-P

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The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001): New Line/WingNut/Saul Zaentz

There are three film franchises that have impacted me above all others. First, there came STAR WARS, which kept me happy throughout my first decade (on VHS – sadly I’m too young to have seen the original trilogy on the big screen). Then, in winter 2001 the way fantasy films looked, sounded and felt was changed forever with the releases of HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE and THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING in close succession. There’s no denying the impact of these touchstones, particularly of the veritable mountain climbed in adapting Tolkien into a blockbuster, but just how well have they aged? Without further ado, let’s take a look back at the opening chapter of Peter Jackson’s ambitious fantasy epic on its fifteenth anniversary.

In the first chapter of the granddaddy of grand fantasy storytelling, nine companions quest across Middle Earth to return the banished Dark Lord Sauron’s Ring of Power to the land of Mordor and destroy it. The ring bearer Frodo’s (Elijah Wood) burden is great, and many dark forces are drawn to the power of the One Ring, but the quest must succeed for Middle Earth to survive.

Getting all your exposition out of the way at the beginning can really save you, and your audience, an almighty headache further down the line. The prologue to Fellowship is about as elegant and attention-grabbing as such world-building sequences can be. The themes, the scale and the stakes are established from the off and the later Council of Elrond scene is much less drawn out without the need to reestablish the treat and the concerns of the various races when it’s done so cleanly in the first ten minutes.

As thrilling as the sweeping action scenes accompanied by Howard Shore’s soaring score can be (Balin’s Tomb especially still holds up today), it is some of the littler moments that are the most satisfying. This is one of the well-realised cast of characters ever assembled, and it’s all down to the harmonious ensemble. Look to Gandalf (Ian McKellan) uttering that famously ominous rhyme to Frodo by firelight; Bilbo’s (Ian Holm) sobbing apology to his nephew “for everything”; the Fellowship’s pain in grief at the apparent demise of their guide; Sam’s (Sean Astin) unwavering loyalty to his friend.

The special effects still look pretty good, with only the forced perspective used for making similar-sized actors look a different scale to each other starting to look ropey to the modern SFX-trained eye. Real locations and hard graft from Weta Workshop and the art department win the day and give the film staying power that the more CG-ed THE HOBBIT surely won’t have when as many years have passed.

The casting couldn’t have been better, and every member of the Fellowship inhabits their role completely. I’ll admit that I was never especially convinced by Aragorn and Arwen’s forbidden romance, and this has not changed over time, particularly with Viggo Mortensen and Liv Tyler turning in far more accomplished performances since. If there’s a real love story in Lord of the Rings, as we all know, it’s between Frodo and Sam. Sadly, we had to wait until the concluding chapters of Rings before we’re given a compelling female character at all (Cate Blanchett’s Galadriel is more of a plot device), which is clearly why Jackson and his writers created Tauriel for the Hobbit: an attempt at balance.

Fellowship has aged remarkably well midway through its second decade. Every time I revisit this towering tale I’m very hard-pressed not to see it through to the end. For me it still holds wonder and its lasting effect on the shape of the contemporary film industry can’t be disputed. Pretty much every fantasy post-2001 that wasn’t Potter tried to be Lord of the Rings, which wasn’t always a bonus. Fair enough to bring back the impressive locations of New Zealand and Weta’s army of armourers for NARNIA, but SNOW WHITE and ALICE IN WONDERLAND never needed battle scenes or grand themes. Nor did The Hobbit, for that matter… SSP

Posted in Film, Film Feature, Film Review | Tagged Alice in Wonderland, Cate Blanchett, Elijah Wood, Fantasy, Film, Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Howard Shore, Ian Holm, Ian McKellan, Liv Tyler, Movies, Narnia, Peter Jackson, Sean Astin, Snow White and the Huntsman, Star Wars, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Viggo Mortensen, Weta Workshop | 1 Comment

Review: Spotlight (2015)

Posted on December 13, 2016 by Sam S-P

Spotlight (2015): Participant Media/First Look Media/Anonymous Content

For many, SPOTLIGHT was the surprise winner at last year’s Oscars. The true events the film is based on might be ripe for dramatic adaptation, but with its low-key performance and style, and actors that did not subject themselves to physical extremes, it was still a dark horse. And yet it was by quite a way the most deserving, the only, winner.

In 2002, journalists from the Boston Globe’s daring and prestigious Spotlight team broke one of the most earth-shattering and shocking stories to ever be printed. This is the story of a decades-old coverup and the efforts by a group of brave and unrelenting reporters to expose the truth of just how much the Catholic Church and their army of lawyers were hiding.

The screenplay of Spotlight (by director Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer) isn’t showy, with people talking how real people talk aside from byline-worthy proclamations such as warning that “The Church thinks in terms of Centuries”, a story about “a bunch of lawyers turning child abuse into a cottage industry”. Most people, even those who write for a living, aren’t eloquent and reversed in their day-to-day. They make mistakes, act overly on emotion and even journalist I’ll wager struggle to remain impartial.

“How do you say no to God?” What a question. It makes the atrocities committed by the modern Catholic Church all the more inexcusable when you realise that those whose faith is an integral part of who they are had very little power to fight back against abuses of power. Sometimes all you really need is a good story. The best journalists know this well. With the story that Spotlight uncovered, you have scandal, you have human interest, horror, and a race against time. The victims’ grief and state of being isn’t in the least sensationalised, but dealt with sensitively and as a fact of life.

The film doesn’t glamorise or exaggerate the profession of journalism. Tempting as it might be to turn this into a thriller, it remains a slow exposé. It’s two hours of watching people gathering research, doing shorthand and resisting the temptation to break a big story before they have all the facts. Arduous as this sounds, it’s riveting stuff brought to life by a terrific cast, chiefly Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams and Brian d’Arcy James. I never thought trying to convince lawyers to release key sealed files in a time frame could be so tense.

While I am completely against the publication of names of perpetrators until there is a reason to do so (the number of celebrities and normal people wrongly accused among those rightly convicted in the past few years is testament to this) the film does get across the need for stories to break in order to give more victims courage to come forward. The blame is clearly mostly at the Catholic Church’s feet, but lawyers and journalists also come under fire; the former for serving evil when it suits them and the latter for not acting quickly enough. It’s a low-key film throughout and there’s no real late-game twists, but there is a revelation that certainly changes your perspective of the situation.

Of the Best Picture nominees last year, none other than Spotlight should have won. THE REVENANT dazzled on a technical level, ROOM hit me right in the soul and THE BIG SHORT was really smart and really knew it (I just realise now I never reviewed it. Short version: glossy, rapid-fire and with amusing cameo-led vignettes to explain financial complexities. I still don’t understand financial complexities). Spotlight tells the story that needed to be told and does it with dignity. SSP

Posted in Film, Film Review | Tagged Brian d'Arcy James, Drama, Film, Josh Singer, Mark Ruffalo, Movies, Oscars, Rachel McAdams, Room, Spotlight, The Big Short, The Revenant, Tom McCarthy | 1 Comment

Review: Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016)

Posted on December 8, 2016 by Sam S-P

Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016): Disney/Roth Films/Team Todd

Six years ago it seemed like Tim Burton had found the perfect material to marry with his distinctive visuals and irreverent take on the world: Lewis Carroll’s Alice books. The resulting film, ALICE IN WONDERLAND, may have been colourful but it was also misjudged, overblown and not all that nonesensical. Half a decade on and a sequel directed by James Bobin has appeared. Who actually wanted this?

Alice Kingsleigh (Mia Wasikowska) is brought back from her globe-spanning trade mission to Victorian patriarchal society with a thump. As her influence and her freedom dwindles in our world, things are no rosier on the other side of the looking glass, where in Wonderland her friend the Hatter (Johnny Depp) is dying. Alice must pay a visit to the embodiment of Time (Sacha Baron Cohen) to find a way to save Hatter and change Wonderland at large for the better.

ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS opens on an action scene that is flashy but brings with it deeply uncomfortable imperialist implications. There’s only one reason why an English trade ship with noble patronage would be running afoul of Chinese pursuers in this time period, and it sure as hell wasn’t for exceeding their luggage allowance.

In a case of sledgehammer symbolism, Alice goes from being a real-life sailor to a sailor on an ocean of time when the plot kicks in in earnest. Time has a nice quip about mortality and living in the moment that is at odds with the rest of the leaden script,”Everyone lets go of everything eventually”. At one point Time’s minions combine for added strength, as we see seconds become minutes and become hours. I liked the visualisation of all of Time’s realm, from his clockwork castle to his very Terry Pratchett’s Death take on observing the living and patiently awaiting their demise and the way the dead are consumed by clouds of rust.

Just as Through the Looking Glass becomes more about time rather than nonsense, it owes far more to HG Wells than Lewis Carroll. It’s a time travel adventure rather than a nonsensical romp. It works on a level of spectacle for what it is, but doesn’t deliver on some pretty basic levels. Alice spends most of the film trying to find out what is the matter with the Hatter, and to a lesser extent the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter), but both turn out to be very ordinary answers. Unfortunately, whereas THE TIME MACHINE explored the themes and story potential of the rapid passage of time to great dramatic effect, you really can’t understand why Alice is prepared to break time to save her friend, especially when every scene that is supposed to build character through exploring their shrouded past is painfully uninteresting. The Hatter has daddy issues and the Queen harbours a grudge; are either if these really revelations?

Johnny Depp has extenuated his speech impediment to make up for his lack of character. His makeup seems to have gotten worse since last time too. At least seeing the Hatter family photo with their orange wing hair gave me a laugh and he’s more a plot device than a big player in this one. Mia Wasikowska needs to move on and continue to pick braver and more challenging projects that stretch her. Sacha Baron Cohen has a lot of fun with a thick German accent and time puns, and the character design of Time as a clockwork cyborg with mutton chops is memorable and pleasingly offbeat.

It’s slightly better than the first one, but aside from inventive visuals and a token effort to make Alice an early champion of women’s rights, Through the Looking Glass is not really worth your time. Or as Cohen’s character would say, this movie is not worth your Me. SSP

Posted in Film, Film Review | Tagged Alice in Wonderland, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Fantasy, Film, Helena Bonham Carter, HG Wells, James Bobin, Johnny Depp, Lewis Carroll, Mia Wasikowska, Movies, Sacha Baron Cohen, Terry Pratchett, The Time Machine, TIme Burton | Leave a comment

Review: The Legend of Tarzan (2016)

Posted on December 4, 2016 by Sam S-P

Fine figure of a man: Dark Horse Entertainment/Jerry Weintraub Productions/Village Roadshow Pictures et al.

If there’s a film I never expected THE LEGEND OF TARZAN to remind me of, it was THE LONE RANGER. Both films are beautiful looking genre pieces with entertaining set pieces and shudder-inducing cultural insensitivity. Johnny Depp should never have been allowed to play a Native American and you’re never going to get around the Colonial awkwardness of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ wise saviour of Africa being white. There is no good way to tell that story today.

John Clayton III, Lord Greystoke, otherwise known as Tarzan (Alexander Skarsgard) is called back to Africa to look into a sinister operation to replenish the Belgian Empire’s coffers. Together with Jane (Margot Robbie) and George Washington Williams (Samuel L Jackson), Tarzan must find out who is behind the devastation of the Congo and lead the natural world to fight back.

I’ll give them credit for this: they finally get past the ridiculousness of the loincloth by not having a loincloth. In the flashbacks Tarzan is naked ( used for comic effect, but as a man raised by apes would be) and in the present he wears trousers because he’s been part of the Western world for a while by then. The Victorian London we are shown along with the portrayal of Africa is a rough outline at best. Brits, Americans and certain Congolese tribes are nice, principled people (politicians aside), the Belgians and more violent Congolese tribes are cartoony baddies. I wasn’t asking for subtlety in a Tarzan story, but some shades of grey would have been beneficial.

Alexander Skarsgard does a lot better with the primal, animalistic behaviour (highlight: his display of kitten-like affection with a pride of lions) than he does with any truly human behaviour. When he’s not being an ape-man, he’s just some muscles shoved into hilariously small suits. Samuel L Jackson plays a fascinating real person who should not have been relegated to a supporting player/comic relief in a Tarzan movie. There’s a gag that is completely beneath Jackson and the remarkable man he is portraying. Jane is American now for some reason, so I don’t really understand why they didn’t allow Margot Robbie to use her natural Australian accent. Speaking of Jane, pointing out the damsel in distress convention does not make you not a damsel in distress when you spend 80% of the film captured. Christoph Waltz and Djimon Honsou are given criminally little to work with beyond props (including some rather insulting religious icon appropriation).

The visuals are nice, if a little hamstrung by the usual in-house Warner Bros grim and grey filter. Tarzan brutally battles an alpha gorilla in the film’s stand-out action sequence, and the animals and environments are all pretty convincingly realised.

The film’s finale is completely unnecessary. It’s like LORD OF THE RINGS meets the end of Guy Ritchie’s SHERLOCK HOLMES. You get an enemy army charged by unexpected reinforcements, ridiculous man-on-animal action and the demolition of Colonial architecture by the forces of nature.

Uncomfortable historical context, iffy acting and unnecessary action ramping aside, the thing that kills The Legend of Tarzan is that you can’t be made to care. The flashbacks to Jane’s first encounter with the Ape Man try to flesh out their relationship and add some poignancy, but when we’re brought back to the present the characters have become bland and completely lacking in chemistry. I can only imagine that director David Yates, usually such a reliable pair of hands, was already looking towards FANTASTIC BEASTS and was unable to give this project his undivided attention, because I can’t imagine why else this ended up so mediocre. We all have our off days, and that’s what The Legend of Tarzan is: a $180 million off day. SSP

Posted in Film, Film Review | Tagged Alexander Skarsgard, Christoph Waltz, David Yates, Djimon Honsou, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Fantasy, Film, Guy Ritchie, Johnny Depp, Margot Robbie, Movies, Samuel L. Jackson, Sherlock Holmes, The Legend of Tarzan, The Lone Ranger, The Lord of the Rings | Leave a comment

SSP Thinks Film

Series Retrospective: Bourne

Review: A Monster Calls (2016)

Film Confessional: Gods of Egypt

Looking Back and Looking Forward: 2016, Part 2

Looking Back and Looking Forward: 2016, Part 1

Review: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

15 Years On: The Fellowship of the Ring

Review: Spotlight (2015)

Review: Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016)

Review: The Legend of Tarzan (2016)

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