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La casa de papel (2017)
Overwhelmingly frustrating
Spoilers
Money Heist (English translation) is a well made, well acted, expensive looking production which does a great job of balancing tension, action and character. You get into the heist almost immediately and, unlike many shows, the flashbacks to planning sessions and earlier episodes in the characters' lives rarely overstay their welcome. It's an interesting premise, the bank robbers (in this case Spanish Royal Mint robbers) are the ones who need to buy time in order to complete their heist, and they are the ones deliberately delaying any possible resolution with the police rather than the other way round.
Yes it's not hugely novel. There are clear influences from any number of heist movies, from the senior cop talking to the senior robber of Heat, to the shadowy 'how to infiltrate your enemy' of any number of spy films. And, if you've watched the Spike Lee Joint Inside Man, a part of you must wonder at what point do the creators of Money Heist start paying Russell Gewirtz royalties, not to mention Clive Owen and Denzel Washington.
So what's the problem? Well, there's one major problem: the characters' motivation. But it's an issue so glaring that I gave up on the show half way through season two, feeling like I'd be conned out several hours of my life (it certainly takes it time in certain scenes).
Why is this? Well, from the start, it's suggested that the heist crew are a highly motivated, tightly knit group who have lived, breathed and bonded with each other for months in preparation for the heist. They have total trust in their man on the outside, the Professor, and absolute faith in his plan. The Professor himself is portrayed as an outright genius who has anticipated all of the counter moves by the police, to the point where early episodes of the show make seeming disasters turn into major triumphs for the heist crew. It's very well done and appears totally organic.
Which is why the Professor shooting off in order to cosy up to the lead investigator of the police, the woman running the counter operation, is so inexplicable. What is he doing? Why is he repeatedly exposing himself to the exact person who is best placed to identify him? When a single repeated phrase or unexpected piece of knowledge could reveal him in a heartbeat? And, by all that's holy, what on EARTH is the senior officer in charge of the negotiations doing drinking alcohol in bars, meeting a new man whose surname she doesn't even know, and sleeping with him DURING the heist!? There's no planet where that kind of behaviour is understandable and it causes the escape of multiple hostages and the death of the least characterised character in the whole show (seriously, he barely has five words during his entire involvement).
And this craziness extends to all the other characters. Tokyo is setup as this badass fiery warrior who flies off the handle a lot and seems to relish cutting off her nose to spite her face. Why is she selected for the heist? She has no special skills other than making unforgivable errors and she breaks all the cardinal rules: no personal details, no intimate relationships. Her lover, Rio, oscillates wildly from puppy faced devotion to Tokyo followed by adolescent pique and regularly gives away vital information to the police and the hostage.
Helsinki, the hard, gay, Serbian soldier who should be tough as nails and friendly as cancer is portrayed as a great big teddy bear. Denver, admittedly only present because his dad needs him there, shoots from 'stick it out till the bitter end' to 'we must leave now' whenever the show needs a second crazy robber to mess things up. And Moscow, his father, disappears for episodes at a time, but turns up in order to have a panic attack and get someone shot, before disappearing again. Critics of this piece will say Moscow has a task to do and that's why he's off screen, but that's no excuse to make him disappear for episodes at a time, that's just bad writing.
Meanwhile Nairobi is initially one of the few robbers keeping it together, but starts doing the same moronic actions midway through season two because the writers think 'we need someone to do something really stupid now and we've already pushed the other characters too far.' Which leaves us with Berlin. Inexplicably this rapist psychopath is by far the most sympathetic character throughout, maintaining the same set of principles (faith in the plan balanced by a desire to survive) from the beginning to the point where I stopped watching. And he gets repeatedly blindsided by every other robber, including the Professor, comprehensibly failing to do their job.
And the less said about the opposition (going through various stages of lovesickness, horniness, sexism, aggression, and occasionally stunning insights from a completely irrational basis) the better. Plus don't get me started on why the loudest, most awkward hostage, who has ADMITTED to being part of an escape attempt, continues to be allowed to wonder around unsupervised by the robbers.
All this adds up to one thing: bad writing, which is a real shame in a show with a very strong premise that is put together genuinely well. This is one of those programs in which the writers make characters do things not because the characters would do them, but because the show needs the error in order to generate tension.
My expectation is that, by the conclusion of season two, all the questions about why the Professor has seduced the lead investigator will be answered and everything will be neatly wrapped up, with a few deaths to make things painful for the viewer. But I can't keep watching a show that doesn't respect my intelligence and I genuinely believe you shouldn't either.
Do yourself a favour. Give Money Heist a miss.
District 9 (2009)
It's amazing what $30 million will get you these days
Transformers 2, The Dark Knight and Avatar. Just three action films from 2009 yet each with budgets believed to be in excess of $200 million dollars.
It's got to be pretty frustrating to the producers of those movies, if not their directors, that Neill Blomkamp has managed to create something that is, visually at least, every bit the CGI equal of those blockbusters (I admit Avatar isn't out yet but could it EVER be worth ten times as much as Distric 9?). Not only that but Blomkamp manages it with his first feature length film. It's an extraordinary achievement and one that shows that Peter Jackson, the producer and father figure to this experiment, is as good a pick of directorial talent as he is of actors.
Perhaps it was the fact that Jackson went from The Frighteners and Beautiful Creatures to Lord of the Rings that gave him the belief that Blomkamp was similarly talented and could handle the enormous transition he faced? Regardless, Jackson gave his protégé the keys to the sweetshop, not once but twice: signing Blomkamp to create the video game adaptation of Halo, which fell through through no fault of the director, after which Jackson gave his new friend $30 million and told him to make whatever he wanted! And hasn't the boy done good? It leaves me thinking that his Halo would've been the first ever computer game adaptation worth seeing. But I digress.
What is undoubted is the fact that Blomkamp has incredible vision as well as a brilliant realisation of the strengths and weaknesses of CGI. His entire film is saturated with effects shots - every single one of the aliens is computer generated, but there is hardly a moment when you're left thinking how fake it all looks, which is so unlike most modern action blockbusters, particularly Wolverine, shot earlier this summer for a vastly bigger budget yet with numerous eye jarring moments of hideously obvious CG. In District 9 the other worldly stuff is done by computer, everything else is real, especially the slums. That natural look underpins the story of the film, forcing us to notice how a movie about aliens in Joburg is actually a thinly veiled expose on the system of Apartheid in South Africa. A scene were the lead character goes into a Burger King equivalent sums this up perfectly - he marches to the empty, white only till while the numerous black people queue up.
Blomkamp also realises that the plot is the essential aspect of any film and his is a simple but well crafted thing. His everyman Wikus Van De Merwe is a petty bureaucrat, albeit one with a lovely wife, working for the company that is tasked with regulating the aliens that have landed, of all places, in South Africa. I believe Wikus isn't racist, or species-ist, as such, he just doesn't think of the aliens, or prawns as they look and are nicknamed, as the equal of human beings. He therefore feels no compassion for them in the slightest, a fact best demonstrated by his happy narration of a prawn 'abortion' - the burning by fire of several dozen alien eggs. He even laughs when we start to hear a popping sound. 'That's the eggs exploding' he explains with a broad smile.
In this he represents the typical white South African during Apartheid, or white and ethnically 'pure' German during the 1930's, or anyone else who's sat back and done nothing as extremists declaring their inherent superiority over other forms of life, including human life, rise into positions of absolute power. He doesn't necessarily condone the sub-human way the aliens are forced to live, but he would do absolutely nothing to change it, ignoring the things that he witnesses being done to the prawns and which he knows, in his heart, are being done far from where he can see. It's not a big jump to imagine the experiments he eventually discovers being done being translated to Nazi scientists performing their obscene tests on the Jews and other guests of their concentration camps.
This dichotomy in Wikus is crudely interrupted when he becomes exposed to an alien substance. It occurs during the serving, en mass, of 1.8 million eviction notices to the entire population of prawns, but that is not Wikus' big concern at the end of the day. No, it's his fast developing illness that worries him, especially when he begins to realise he is changing into one of the aliens! Throughout most of the film he is desperate only to be cured of what he views as an affliction. It is only in the latter stages, when he finally realises that his problem is his attitude rather than his mutating DNA, that he becomes a hero, as a pose to a villain.
This immense transition is handled unbelievably well by first time actor Sharlto Copley, a South African native who plays Wikus perfectly. Such a first time performance hasn't been seen since a young Edward Norton burst on the scene in Primal Fear and Copley deserves every plaudit going for his incredible job, though it's doubtful that a first timer helming a science fiction action movie starring an unknown, who is also a first timer, will win many awards come March.
That would be a shame and a missed opportunity. Distric 9 shows us what a good story, excellent direction, fantastic acting (from the lead at least) and a budget of just $30 million can actually get you. It is worth seeing just for that alone, Senors Bay, Cameron, Silver and Weinstein. It is also worth seeing because it's a brilliant film.
Dollhouse (2009)
Interesting if flawed
And so we come to the end of the first, and possibly last, season of Dollhouse, and, as expected, the conclusion generated far more questions than it did answers. Certainly there's a lot of potential to the program, as there has been to just about everything Joss Whedon has created, but I have to admit that I found Dollhouse considerably harder to get into and enjoy than the likes of Firefly - a show I both loved and which I thought had an emotional and intellectual depth equal to Dollhouse and anything else on television for that matter.
The reason for this is simple: the main character has no character. She's a Doll, meaning that she has no personality beyond what is imprinted on her, and her pre-Doll character is actually quite annoying – animal rights liberation doesn't seem nearly as relevant in these days of terrorism, financial turmoil and economic calamity.
That Eliza Dushku is excellent in Dollhouse is beyond question, as are the other Dolls regularly featured. Dichen Lachman as Sierra projects incredible vulnerability when acting as the Doll form of Sierra, though the characters she becomes while out on missions tend to be less convincing. Enver Gjokaj (Victor), on the other hand, is excellent throughout, making each role, and accent, he inhabits entirely believable. It will be very interesting to see where the writers take them both, especially Victor given his recent mishap, if a second season is commissioned.
Unfortunately that doesn't seem very likely. Dollhouse is an awkward program to get into, full of slow reveals and deeper meanings than what most audience members are looking for. Certainly adolescent males looking for beautiful woman, who are not overdressed, kicking ass and strutting their stuff would most likely have quickly looked elsewhere as there's only limited amounts of flesh or fighting and most of the latter, admittedly well choreographed, involved the excellent Harry Lennix and somewhat overwrought Tahmoh Penikett – I never really understood why he was so obsessed with the Dollhouse or Echo in particular.
So, in conclusion, I can say that I'd like to see more of the Dollhouse and its themes of identity and the essentially transient nature of self, how one person can so easily be completely different from one day to the next, without resource to science fiction machines. The show has its flaws, but they seem to be because of hidden depths only hinted at thus far. However, if the second season doesn't materialise I believe we will all be missing out on a show that could, with a more understanding network, have blossomed into something extraordinary.
Of course, that begs the question of why on Earth does Joss Whedon continue to agree to create programs for Fox!?!
The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)
Most anti American film ever!
This film portrays the American government and all its representatives as being so cavalierly aggressive it's beyond a joke! Even with George Bush as President, it is a 2008 movie after all, I can't imagine his reaction to first contact would be to allow gunfire at a race so technologically superior they're intergalactic. Similarly, the American claim of ownership of said race's ambassador is patently ridiculous. He's his own being, not a slave! They also try and shut out the rest of the world from Klaatu's arrival, suggesting that because he landed in New York he belongs to them, again highly suggestive of slavery. And, when this ambassador asks to go before the UN, which would symbolically be the most logical choice of venue even if that institution is terrifyingly inept, the Americans tell him he can't and endeavour to kidnap him! Surely, given the power of his robot sidekick, they should do what he says.
But no. Instead they repeatedly try and destroy GORT despite the only provocation he offers being a response of non-lethal force to a barely provoked, almost deadly assault by a random soldier on Klaatu. Surely they'd think it'd be best not to annoy the giant all powerful robot or his humanoid master? All these things are beyond belief and one little aside suggesting human evidence would guarantee the aliens as being either genocidal or slavers would nevertheless have to be borne out from interacting with them rather than attempting repeated preemptive first strikes. I'm amazed the film didn't offer more people, beyond only a few of the scientists and a small percentage of snatched news reports, who disagreed with abducting and repeatedly trying to kill the alien.
Similarly Jaden Smith is unfortunate to be saddled with a role summing up American antipathy towards other races, as well as the US' self perceived superiority to non-Americans. He spends the first 3/4 of the movie advocating preemptive death to the aliens, on little to no evidence. It takes Klaatu saving his life, more or less, to turn him around, at which point he suddenly ignores all the previous history and says how much he likes the aliens. Read into this what you will about US foreign policy, specifically their interactions with oil producing nations - especially recently discovered oil producing nations. I think Smith does remarkably well with such an unsympathetic role although it is impossible not to dislike his character almost in his entirety, hence why so many people are belittling the actor.
Reeves is typically bland as Klaatu, this film attempting to utilise that characteristic as other-worldliness but instead becoming bland itself. Connelly seems to realise about halfway through how awful the movie is. Cleese has a cameo so short you'll most likely still be wondering why the hell he was cast by the time his part is over. Kathy Bates looks like a cross between Roseanne Barr and Peggy Bundy and her role seems to have the foreign policy nous of the pair of them put together and divided by 42. And everyone else is hysterically bland and stereotypical.
This film lacks charm, it lacks wonder, it has lousy special effects and it feels more like a hungover student's last minute, you-tube linked global warming power-point presentation rather than anything genuine. It also has absolutely no humour whatsoever, from beginning to end. And because of that the characters all have to take themselves WAY too seriously. Similarly the preachy nature of this movie is down right insulting, almost as if the writers and looking at us and saying with a complete lack of irony: 'Well I've got my three Prius cars, what are you doing to help the planet?' Overall it just doesn't bear repeated viewing.
And I'm just amazed that there isn't more made of how staggeringly anti-American it is!
Burn Notice (2007)
Has potential but is wasting it
Burn Notice is an extremely good premise that is competently executed. It has a number of very good points, in particular its lead cast members who all seem to be enjoying themselves immensely. Sadly it also has two major problems:
1) The editing 2) The music
The former is so overblown it is practically seizure inducing. The second is similarly subtle. It either blares away throughout the show in a migraine causing manner or telegraphs the expected emotions for a scene so blatantly it makes you nauseous.
There are other annoyances:
Repetitive framing shots of Maimi combined with near endless shots of women in bikinis (I'd prefer more story/characterisation than these bizarre attempts at soft porn).
The main story, Michael discovering the reasoning behind his being burnt, is nearly always secondary to the case of the week and, while they are often entertaining, after a while you begin to feel the one off story lines are little more than a distraction from the main event. Some of the cases of the week tying in to the overarching storyline would negate this a great deal. Similarly we need a few more returning characters, perhaps even someone who comes back and tries to force Michael to do a new job (a certain DEA agent springs to mind).
Having three main characters with two secondary family members and a smattering of linking actors (like the money launderer) means that the same jokes and situations are regularly trotted out. More variety is needed. Campbell was a welcome addition but now seems to have DEAD/DUMPED ASAP written on his back. Also, what happened to our beloved wrangler? Where was the fight between him and Michael?
And lastly but most importantly: Michael has shown himself to be utterly cold in certain situations, regularly leaving people in circumstances he knows will get them killed (think of how many bad guys end up dying, off screen, by their employer's hand). This is BRILLIANT! Finally we have a covert operative like the early days of Sean Connery's Bond: coolly shooting disarmed people in Nigeria or tricking a guy into giving up a stash of women and sending that guy back to his master who kills him almost immediately. Yet, despite this hardness, Michael seems incapable of saying no (for any length of time) to ANYONE! You begin to get the feeling that if one of the bad guys came to him saying he really needed a rival killed then Michael would initially um and ah but would eventually agree to do the deed. The writers need to factor in a bit more than just Michael offering his help because he's a good guy, as he's already proved repeatedly that he really isn't.
Other than this I think the show is great fun and really worth watching. The hand to hand fighting is among the best I've seen, and is possibly the best (outside of Bourne and Daniel Craig's Bond) when it comes to taking out people with guns silently. There are genuinely good gunfights, explosions, a lot of beautiful women (most of whom have absolutely nothing to do with anything although some get involved), the car chases are exciting and not totally ignoring the laws of physics and the setups, though often convoluted, rarely become preposterous. All in all its pretty damn good...
...So, in conclusion:
Burn Notice, after its first one and a half seasons, is proving to be a fun series, but please start making it a bit more adult - show us more of the reasons for Michael's sabbatical, remove the adolescent editing and obsession with ogling teenage women and make the characters go through some proper hardship.
PS The killing of Toby Zeigler, sorry Richard Schiff, was a criminal waste. His kind of manic anger is perfectly suited to a spy-on-the-edge, it's a major pity he wasn't more involved. Oh and Sam really needs to be a bit more cut up about losing his money ticket!
Cloverfield (2008)
The template for many an inferior clone
This movie represents either the nadir or the zenith of modern film making. Shot on a tiny budge and with an unknown cast, a deceptively simple advertising campaign has turned it from just-another-monster-movie into what will probably become the most profitable film of the year. Whether it will make stars of its actors, director or anyone, other than JJ Abrams, is a moot point, people will be talking about Cloverfield for many years to come and, sadly, poor imitations will soon be crowding our screens, especially if the writers' strike persists.
So what makes Cloverfield so extraordinary? That can be summed up in a single word: restraint. Sure the viral advertising campaign that has garnered so many column inches since Transformers first aired was a massive operation, but it succeeded, just like the movie, because of restraint. Throughout the whole film there are only occasional shots of the monster and they're never stable or show the whole thing in relief. In retrospect, I'm not even sure what the monster looks like except that it has a tail! But that's nothing compared to the restraint in exposition. Everyone knows that the unknown, unseen menace is much more dangerous than an identified, quantifiable antagonist, but it must've been less apparent that you could shoot an entire movie without answering a single one of the obvious questions. What is this monster? Where did it come from? How did it come to New York? Why is it dropping off little insect things with some very nasty bites
? We don't even find out what fate befalls many of the characters, except the near certainty that several of them die. Yet this sparseness of information, just like the marketing for this movie, works to whet your appetite, not turn off your interest. Right now IMDb is getting a post a minute on its Cloverfield forum and that is only going to increase as the weekend progresses. Where Abrams takes his behemoth next will be the topic of much of that speculation, although I admit I haven't got the faintest idea what the answer is.
So, what about the film then? Sure it's puzzling, tantalising and motion sickness inducing, but is it any good? My answer is
again I'm not sure. You see, the fact is, I came out of this movie wanting more, which is Hollywood's idea of heaven. But I'm not yet convinced this film is that great. All the characters are fairly bland, their motivations not entirely believable. The monster does eventually get revealed, pretty much in its entirety, but also appears both indestructible and curiously focused on our hapless band of New Yorkers. And the helicopter really should've flown at a higher altitude. I can't stress that enough. IT SHOULD'VE FLOWN AT A HIGHER ALTITUDE! I mean come on, it was flying through an area about to get blown to hell and back.
That brings up the main problem with the movie. Cloverfield makes an excellent job of generating our suspension of disbelief for the monster: it has turned up, we don't know why and neither do the characters so let's just get the hell out of there! I can believe all that. I just find it less believable that cell phones could work in such a situation (the networks were jammed for days during and after 9/11), the military lay on helicopters for civilians who ignored the mandatory evacuation, the little monsters get a hold of just about everyone in the tunnel but only bite one of them, those little critters also wait until the night vision is switched on before attacking and so forth.
Little questions like this are the scourge of films like Cloverfield, but that doesn't mean they still don't detract from the experience of the movie. However, the fact is that this film still swept me away with its visceral thrill ride, although I strongly advise no one to sit within ten rows of an even medium sized screen. From the sitcom style build up where everyone is in tangles over their love lives to the sudden transition to terror when the ground shakes and the lights go out
everything is very immediate and, with no music and a shaky camera, very realistic.
Sure there are questions that occur, not least how incredibly close to exploiting 9/11 Abrams and his team have sailed with this movie, but those queries nearly all arise after the film has finished
during it, you have little to no thought but for what's happening on screen. In short, though I can't rate it as, from one moment to the next, this movie sinks from ten stars to six before shooting right back up again, I would strongly recommend that you go and see Cloverfield and decide for yourself. If nothing else, that will stop you from having the entire concept spoilt for you by other people
that, and the fact that this is a movie that definitely requires viewing on the largest screen available... and before every other producer in Hollywood tries to generate the clones that will, with depressing frequently, be turning up in multiplexes for ever more.
Sicko (2007)
Everything you'd expect and nothing you could predict
This movie highlights a great deal of damaging, terrifying details about the American system of health. There were lots of facts I was aware of and many more that I suspected, but nothing can prepare you for the sheer depths plummed by insurance and pharmacological companies to maximise their earning capacity. It is everything you'd expect and nothing you could predict...
The fact is I must warn you of something... Every time I see a Michael Moore film for the first time I tend to relapse to my late teens/earliest twenties during the height of my anti-Americanism. George Bush had stolen an election, fearmongering was reaching a level not seen since Goebbels and we, the UK, were entering no less than two wars, one of which was in a country renowned throughout history for being unbeatable and the second was in a place we'd encouraged to revolt and depose their leader ten years before only to allow Saddam Hussein to remain in power and gas/helicopter-gunship those would be freedom fighters... And we were being told that the people of both those countries were going to welcome us as saviours from oppressive Muslim regimes.
At times like that it is easy to let yourself go with the counter flow and label the likes of America with all sorts of negative adjectives, some more succinct than others. Around five or so years ago I did so gladly, almost rejoicing as the USA blithely rushed into war with the kind of rhetoric more indicative of insanity than foreign policy. It fed my superior view of America as a rednecked backwater of almost bucolic stupidity.
Things have changed for me, not least because of the 7/7 bombings. I have come to remind myself, not learn or accept but remind, that America has its fair share of brilliant thinkers and wonderful people, perhaps even more than its share. Sure it has its idiots and bigots and what have you, but so does England, France, Cuba and the rest. The only problem with the US seems to be that it gives its fools marginally more airtime than they deserve, but that is a personal opinion rather than an informed judgement. Regardless, America is the biggest, most important country in the world, at least till China gets its act together internationally, and sneering at the US changes this not at all, it only leaves the people doing the sneering looking very stupid when America gets things right.
But Moore tends to make this clearer thinking fall by the wayside when he opens up another front on the American dream, because there is no piece of propaganda more invasive and sickening than the American dream. Its capitalism as spun by the billionaires, the people with the biggest interest in keeping capitalism going and an almost pathological desire to make more money regardless of the moral and ethical principles they lose on the way.
Moore's gift is that he hits back at those people themselves, naming names and shaming everyone from Congressmen to HMO CEOs. Yes he may use spin to suit his needs: the NHS is wonderful in the case of acute trauma and disastrous at long term, chronic disease particularly in the elderly while the French do lose a great deal of their income to taxation. But explaining all that away takes time. Entire books can be churned out on either of those subjects, something which does not lend itself to aggressive documentary film making.
In order to get his points across, Moore has to hit fast and keep things interesting which does leave him open to charges of data cherry picking and other such allegations. However, he is pretty much the lone recognisable voice IN THE ENTIRE WORLD telling this side of the debate. Who else is prepared to criticise America in such a public way? Who else can fill cinemas with eager viewers hoping for a new perspective compared to the government endorse 'everything's fine in modern healthcare' message touted to the world? Certainly not the Democrats, who are just as indebted to big business as the Republicans. And certainly not the medical profession in America, who have the carrot of massive wages combined with the hefty stick of professional suicide, perhaps even assassination by their colleagues, should they speak out.
So I am prepared to forgive Moore his extravagances, as they are minor indeed with respect to the massive misdirection, chicanery and outright lies perpetrated by the businesses and governments in power... just hearing that politician going on about how much he loved his mother in order to justify freeing up regulation of prescription charges to the elderly... well, it made me sick to my stomach.
Sicko is a distinctly worrying documentary. Fahrenheit 911 hi-lighted Bush's inadequacies in the face of his daddy's cronies and Bowling for Columbine exposed the depths to which the government spins the US into bewildered, fearful submission... but those are both transient issues. Health is something that will affect every single organism that will ever lift throughout the universe. We will all die of something. You've just got to hope the doctors won't be sitting around debating your HMO while a preventable ailment to you or, God forbid, your child takes hold and kills or even maims you.
This is why Moore should continue to be heard, on this and his other subjects. While systems like this continue to leech of America's populace someone has to stand up and be counted from the other side. And if it's not Moore, who will it be? Hilary Clinton?
I don't think so either.
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006)
A fantastically entertaining dramatic program
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (henceforth Studio 60) could easily be called Behind the Scenes of the West Wing, given the similarity between the two programs. However, this show-within-a-show is the story of a Saturday Night Live (SNL) clone at a fictional network television station (called NBS) and is a different kettle of fish to Aaron Sorkin's most famous work. The story is fairly simple two explain
After two decades at the top the flagship entertainment program of the National Broadcast Station, Studio 60, is facing a terminal decline in standards. Rather than sharp observational comedy and cutting edge humour, in every sense, Studio 60 has entered a rut which caters almost exclusively to teenage boys... i.e. intellectually demanding satire is not the order of the day.
However, when the producer of the show bursts in on a live performance and says this, in a heavily Network inspired rant, the powers that be at NBS, personified by Steven Weber's oily Jack Rudolph, turn to their brand new President, Amanda Peet's Jordan McDeere, to solve the crisis. She's so new she isn't supposed to start work till Monday, but with scarcely a raised eyebrow she immediately sets about rejuvenating Studio 60, starting with the rehiring of two former employees forced into quitting by Rudolph several years before.
These men are Mathew Perry's Matt Albie (head writer) and Bradley Whitford's Danny Tripp (producer). They were fired from similar positions for complex reasons gradually revealed over the course of the series and are reluctant to return to their spiritual home. However, when Jordan reveals that Danny recently failed a drugs test, he's a recovering addict and alcoholic, meaning he cannot direct a film Matt has written because of legal and insurance reasons, these two best friends return to the show and set things to rights.
The overall arcs of the numerous story lines, not to mention the evolution of the various relationships between the dozen or so central characters, are both complex and involving. Interestingly, the SNL aspect of the show usually acts as a MacGuffin, with each episode's various problems affecting the creation of the weekly program, but actual screen time from the 'real' Studio 60 rarely being shown to us. Studio 60, what we see rather than the live program, is about the behind the scenes relationships that are constantly in a high state of flux because of the turbulent nature of live television and the volatile nature of the people creating it.
All the characters are well cast and the dilemmas they face feel real and are interesting. From Matt's ex-girlfriend, the female star Harriet Hayes (Sarah Paulson), who is strongly religious and therefore often finds herself and her faith the object of ridicule and angry debate, to Weber and the rest, the actors are uniformly excellent. However, particular mention should go to Perry who manages to act in a way that doesn't remind you of Chandler Bing every time he's on screen, despite even going so far as to dress up as the eponymous Friend at one point, right down to the backwards baseball cap (when they did that nauseas 'What if?' sequence an alternative time line where Chandler quit his job to write comedy
). This is a relief to say the least.
All the other roles represent various Hollywood clichés but they evolve in unexpected and interesting ways. From the black actor Simon Stiles (DL Hughley) whose callow nature, on the surface, hides a personality forged in South Central gangs and violence. To the gay liberal type of Nathan Corddry's Tom Jeter, whose younger brother is on his third tour with the air force in Afghanistan. There are few simple stereotypes and although the characters tend to act in a predictable manner, it is predictable because of who they are, not because of what the television viewing public except from such people in such situations.
There are problems with Studio 60, although they really aren't enough to justify the loss of interest and subsequent cancellation. The program is extremely liberal and suffers from the occasional moment of excessive syrup. It is also clearly from the man who brought us the West Wing, exemplified by the near constant walk-and-talk segments and similar camera techniques. Perhaps most unforgivably, for a public pumped chock full of hype, it isn't laugh out loud hysterical, at least not very often, which perhaps explains the lack of success
Studio 60 is a drama. Like the West Wing, and any other quick witted program set in the real world, or at least Aaron Sorkin's version of the real world, it has amusing moments that make you laugh. However, while programs about the President of the United States are expected to have a certain amount of gravitas, programs about Saturday Night Live probably aren't. Instead of a laugh out loud, behind the scenes expose of SNL, Studio 60 is a thought provoking ensemble piece about producing television.
If you're prepared to engage intelligently with it there is a great deal to appreciate, from excellent performances to first class production, clever twists to challenging developments, sharp comedy to intense solemnity, light humour to tense drama. The class in writing, acting, production and everything else about Studio 60 is obvious in nearly everything about it and, most importantly, it's put together with both intelligence and heart. For that reason alone it's worth seeing, a mentally and emotionally engaging 22 times 40 minutes of television that I found highly addictive.
However, from the perspective of a casual hour of fun television it's far too challenging and that, sadly, is most likely why it didn't succeed. This isn't Saturday Night Live, it's a program about what Saturday Night Live could potentially be. Sadly, like the show it's based on, Studio 60 suffered for the universal dumbing down expected in television today.
Casino Royale (2006)
Back, bad and blond... the new Bond is better than ever!
In 1995 a relatively unknown Irish actor was cast to play a really very well known spy. The result was Goldeneye and that film represents, for me, one of the best Bond movies since the early Connery films. Sure Moore was good at the beginning, Dalton was perhaps the closest to the books and OHMSS had the best plot, but Goldeneye did something those films didn't: it reinvented Bond for the 90's (which was quite a big ask of the earlier films I admit), turning a sexist, out of date character into a modern action hero, albeit one who wasn't totally divorced from the shenanigans of his past: Brosnan still cracked hackneyed jokes in the middle of his numerous battles, emerged from explosions and firefights with nary a scratch or crease about his immaculately tailored person and treated women as a sort of temporary distraction. However, thanks to the Irishman's undeniable charm and good looks, combined with one of the best villains of recent memory, Goldeneye was both a success and a springboard for the resuscitation of the franchise. The film could have buried Bond, instead it spawned 3 pseudo-sequels that did increasingly well at the box office despite getting progressively worse.
That progression, most obviously in the hopeless Die Another Day, eventually lead down the inevitable road to self parody with Goldeneye's suave, sophisticated, lean and deadly Bond becoming the cheeky, winking, aged and creaking caricature of Die Another Day, a transition that most of the actors who play the character eventually end up undergoing - though Brosnan deserves a huge amount of credit for the way he sends this transformation up in the Matador. A change was needed and who better to do it than the man who'd 'just' reinvented the franchise - Martin Campbell.
With Goldeneye's director on board and scripting being polished by the double Oscar winner Paul Haggis the scene was set for a whole new look, but that required a whole new Bond. Brosnan was jettisoned, rather callously it must be said, and rumours about his replacement abounded. Clive Owen was everyone's favourite but he clearly had no interest in taking the part (his squirming when quizzed on the matter by Jonathon Ross some time ago was genuinely excruciating), while the role has always called for a talented unknown rather than an established thespian (hence no Ewan McGregor). In the end the producers made the courageous call of Daniel Craig who was, heavens forbid, BLOND! How could they?
Well, Craig was a truly excellent actor whose pre-Bond credits eclipse those of every other performer who has played the role bar none. Despite his melanin shortage he was perfect for the role and, despite all the media stories to the contrary, he fills Pierce's boots to bursting, adding a hardness, physicality and danger that the affable Brosnan often lacked. Complimenting this inspired choice for the main role is the movie's other great 'find.' Eva Green is another actor who has been plying her trade to excellent reviews over the past few years. Only 26, she appears considerably older and mature without losing an ounce of sexiness compared to the other, frankly underused Bond girls in this film. She handles her scenes, as well as her character's metamorphosis alongside that of Bond's, exquisitely and walks off with many of the films best lines, particularly when she is sparring with Craig.
Of the other actors we see considerably less and they suffer for it. Only Judi Dench, returning as M, gets much to do beyond the usual, her bantering with Bond being one of the highlights of the film for me, as is her transformation from irate headmistress to more maternal figure by the end of the movie. No one else really gets a look in, especially the other two Bond girls, one of whom barely even speaks! Mads Mikkelsen is forgettable as Le Chiffre, a character who not only has a facial disfigurement but requires a puff of his inhaler every time he moves, something that destroys any sense of danger he manfully tries to exude. All in all it is a waste as there are a couple of moments where his potential is darkly hinted at. Still, it was not to be.
That is because this is the film that defines Bond's origins. A full on Bond villain would distract from that, hence the muted Mikkelsen. Instead we see Craig do many extremely visceral and impressive stunts, none more so than in trying to track the incredible Sebastien Foucan during the excellent Parkour scenes early on. Unfortunately, the other action scenes, the Venetian conclusion aside, aren't as good, although they knock most of the efforts from all the previous films into a cocked hat. The emotional content is amped us as well, with the aforementioned Green matching Craig all the way, unlike any previous Bond girl, other than Diana Rigg, while one scene, between Mikkelsen and Craig towards the end, shows just how far Bond has evolved since Connery.
Concisely put: this is a Bond for the Bourne generation, where the darkness and yearning at the heart of a super-spy is of as much interest as his cavalier disregard for life and women. Like Bourne, this new Bond is hard but not indestructible and certainly not unmovable. Of course there are problems with Casino Royale. The theme song is bland as all hell while the standard Bond credits sequence is long overdue a place on the cutting room floor. It's overlong, with several near endings that one feels could've been better handled with a tighter script. Most of the secondary characters are completely undeveloped and the actual card game devoid of much sense of excitement. However, these are minor niggles and the new incarnation of Bond is a far more interesting character than those that have gone before and one who we will hopefully see much more of in the future instalments.
Saat po long (2005)
A great piece of chop suey marred by delusions of grandeur
Let me get this right out of the way from the off: Saat Po Long (SPL) is an OK film. It has fights, it has Sammo Hung as a bad guy (surprising), it has Simon Yam as a good guy who has become fairly bad in his quest for justice (usual), it has Donnie Yen as a hard as nails cop (enough said) and it has Jacky Wu as Hung's very effective right hand man. The secondary policemen characters also fair very well with their stereotypes: the hard boiled, highly strung one with unresolved parental issues... the divorced man trying to reconnect with his daughter... and the young, brash one... They never approach their roles with anything other than 100% commitment. Which is where the problems start.
This is a chop suey film, pure and simple. The chief bad guy, Sammo, is acquitted at the start of the film thanks to his subordinate, Wu, running down Yam's car and killing the witness inside along with various other people, though Simon and that witnesses' daughter are left alive. Soon Yam finds he also has a malignant brain tumour which he has a slim chance of surviving. Anyways, Simon naturally does the logical thing and focuses on bringing Hung down once and for all, even sneaking an informer into Sammo's gang. But, after three years, Yam has little to show for his obsession. Sure he's knocked over any number of Hung's drug hideouts but he's not after Sammo's cash supply and, with just 3 days left to retirement, he still hasn't got his man.
Enter Donnie Yen. Undoubtedly brilliant at martial arts, Yen is less good as an actor and this film really tries to wring some tear jerking performances out of its stars. Unfortunately it's really rather difficult to take it seriously when, after a good 30 minutes of extrapolation, the fighting starts. Prior to this the storytelling has come fairly quickly and should be recounted for the sake of explaining some of the directions this film goes. Put simply: Yen is coming in, Yam is on his way out... some of Sammo's money has been stolen by the members of Simon's team... Yam's informer has been found and iced by an incredibly badly dressed subordinate of Hung... the slaying was filmed by a slightly retarded guy (I think that's what he's meant to be)... there's another bloke who's retarded thanks to being punched by Donnie years before... and Sammo's seemingly barren wife has finally borne him a son... So far so... huh?
Yes, with all these strands of plot coming and going, including all the personal histories of the five policemen, some of which is almost painfully badly shown with one phone call after another coming to each man in turn, SPL has a lot to cram in to 90 minutes and cram it does, with the inevitable disappearance of answers to certain important questions. Similarly the places the characters go in this film are really very dark indeed, particularly as the policemen, with a reluctant Yen brought on board, start to alter the evidence of the informer's death to show that it was Sammo, rather than badly dressed subordinate number 2 (more on number 1 shortly), who pulled the trigger. Sammo is a psychotic gang boss, given to showing real rage, not to mention an impressive range of acting. Simon's 3 subordinates happily help their boss force a suspect to kill himself and, when Donnie does join them, the 5 men are soon buying guns and swapping evidence with amoral abandon. Yen's eventual departure from the force to bring justice on Hung's organisation is also fairly over the top. And, most jarringly, much of these rapid changes of attitude and utter ruthlessness are hamfistedly juxtaposed with moments of light heartedness and reminders that, at heart, all these men just want to be happy...
So, as a drama, SPL fails, despite its noble effort at being an emotive movie. However, once the fists start flying, it really comes into its own. In fact, it truly reminds me of another overly serious chop suey film: Jackie Chan's Crime Story, which is a very similar movie with overwrought drama brought together with over the top action. But, like Crime Story, if you're prepared to forgive SPL a little it is highly enjoyable as a guilty pleasure. This is partly thanks to Jacky Wu, badly dressed subordinate number 1, who is soon slicing and dicing his way into the movie, having only appeared for a moment in the first half as a knife wielding assassin. By the time Yam and Yen are left alone we've been treated to some well shot and well choreographed action which was enhanced by direction that created a real sense of ominousness in each situation. When Simon and Donnie decide that the time has come to take Hung down, we're ready for some hardcore martial arts and none of the leads disappoint, Yam doing his stock one man war with his usual skill while Yen's duels with Wu and subsequently Hung have a refreshing spontaneity to them. The conclusion of the fighting is also incredibly surprising.
With the end of the chop suey the film is pretty much over, though with only the most cryptic of epilogues that fails to offer an explanation for what happened in the aftermath of the, quite frankly, bloodbath the film ended up as. In essence this sums SPL up: it is an atypical Hong Kong action/fighting film that over stretches itself in its desire to be a proper movie, thereby resulting in some clumsy delivery of what, in better hands, may well have been a strong story, though credit must go to writers and directors for trying something so ambitious. Still, in the end, they may want to try taking the three genres, drama, action and fighting, one at a time in future before attempting any further blends.
Brick (2005)
Bright, novel and intelligent, but almost too clever for its own good
This highly regarded independent movie is very interesting, transporting the film noir detective story to a modern day American high school. The plot centres on Brendan, Joseph Gordon-Levitt looking almost unrecognisable from his 3rd Rock from the Sun days, who is a scarily intelligent but socially introverted guy who deliberately eschews life in and around his school. He eats lunch by himself and cares for no one... except his former girlfriend Emily, Emile de Ravin, who recently left him to take her shot at becoming part of the cool crowd. Brendan was fairly devastated by her departure, but more because he believed she'd be corrupted and destroyed by her new 'friends' rather than his own concern at being alone.
Unfortunately, he turns out to be absolutely right. Unexpectedly given a location to go to meet Emily, Brendan arrives there and gets a telephone call from Emily in which she's crying and clearly terrified, talking about bad bricks and the like. Brendan tries to calm her down and get her to explain herself but instead she suddenly cries out in panic and disappears. Moments later a large black vehicle roars past Brendan, the driver flicking a cigarette out the window as it goes by. Brendan rightly guesses that the car and its occupants are what scared Emily into fleeing, but he can't find her to ask and the next time he sees her she's dead.
Hiding the body, Brendan sets out to find his girlfriend's killer. This involves him finding out just who she was hanging out with and infiltrating them to determine which of the more sordid circles Emily had dropped in to and who had led her there... To do this he enlists the help of the Brain, Matt O'Leary, a bright and geeky kid who doesn't seem to have anything better to do than act as an information conduit for Brendan. With the Brain on board, Brendan can then start shaking a few trees and reminding people why they respected him despite his lonesome existence at the school.
Brick works well as a detective story and film noir, with its own, sometimes less than transparent slang, glaring, monotonous but strangely eloquent protagonists and a lack of simple black and white distinctions... there are no good people involved amongst the leads and even Brendan isn't painted as a hero, just someone solving an intellectual challenge that's important to him. The high school setting works well and provides moments of amusement, particularly with the very occasional intrusion of parents into their children's' sordid, noir world.
However, it is these moments of levity that puncture a lot of Brick's cool. You are meant to believe in Brendan as the Philip Marlowe of this scenario, with the girls as double crossing schemers and the young men as, mostly, hardened criminals or cynical hacks. But it's rather hard to do that when one of the bad guy's mother comes in with an offer of milk and cookies. Similarly, within this film's world the teachers represent the law, but a shadowy and noirish version of it where the principal is a shady chief of police who is quite prepared to blackmail the 'honest' man on the street/quad, in this case Brendan, into providing information that will lead to arrests/the student criminals.
But the real police are out there somewhere and this undermines any threat the principal represents. When he threatens Brandon the worst he can do is expel him and report him to the police. He has no power of arrest, no weapons and little backup. In other words, he's less a threat and more an explanation as to why Brendan doesn't simply tell the police about Emily and explain to them the most likely culprits for her death. This doesn't make much sense in the spirit of the film and detracts from the feeling that Brendan's revenge is a necessary thing.
Another thing that doesn't make much sense is the language used throughout. Even Brendan is confused by some of the terminology and we, the audience, are often left ruing the absence of any subtitles when a particularly strange bit of rhyming slang or (il)logical extension leaves us more mystified than impressed. Fortunately, this problem is rectified in part by the sheer intensity of many of the performances, Gordon-Levitt playing his role with ice cold demeanour that hides the fire within, fire that is all the more powerful when it emerges because of the iron like self control it has had to burn through...
Femme fatale Nora Zehetner is alluring but dangerous, as is the thespian wannabe Meagan Good. Noah Segan and Lukas Haas are similarly good as Dode and the Pin, the latter being the elusive, almost mythical crime boss of the school while the former starts off as hired muscle but quickly develops into a vulnerable, fleshed out and essential character. But it is Levitt's film, through and through, and he is ably directed by Rian Johnson, whose original script is very good as well, even if the resolution isn't quite as complicated or clever as the events that lead up to it.
All in all Brick is well worth seeing. It has energy, intelligence and dark humour to burn and, bar a little too much in the way of overcooking the language and stretching the scenario a little unconvincingly, you seldom remember that they're meant to be kids at school (there don't seem to be any lessons at all for example). So I recommend it, in the spirit of such mind bending films as Momemto, though I will warn you that this is not the kind of film to see after a few drinks... in that case it'll just be very confusing!
The Matrix (1999)
Jaw droppingly brilliant
1999 had a great deal to go for it cinematically. Unfortunately, much of what we were all breathlessly looking forward to turned out to be more cold bath than hot stuff... case in point the first of the disastrously bad Star Wars prequels, the Phantom Menace, which apparently is the most successful Star Wars film ever...
However, one film did live up to its hype, perhaps because it wasn't rammed down our throats for months in advance with advertising, marketing and cults far in excess of anything seen before or since... That film was the Matrix. This is not to say that the Matrix was under budgeted. With funds in excess of $100 million it was an enormous gamble by Joel Silver, throwing Keanu Reeves into another Sci-Fi superhero role when the world had only recently recovered from Jonny Mnemonic. But the Wachowskis stood by their nth choice man and Silver stood by them as they tore around Sydney blowing up helicopters and generally misbehaving. No one knew anything about it. Most of the industry insiders, those who even knew about the Matrix, predicted a massive flop. They were wrong. The Matrix kicked ass!
Thanks to a brilliant advertising campaign, (remember asking yourself just what was the matrix!?!) the film opened to full houses and, more surprisingly, rave reviews which were completely justified. Using seemingly brand new effects, like bullet time, as well as the novel incorporation of tried and tested tools, such as wire work, the Matrix took what could have been your average superhero and made him a human being who was both fallible and liable to fail. At no point in the movie does the conclusion feel foregone and, with the brilliant twist around Cypher, there is a real sense that Neo mightn't succeed... and when he does it all the more enthralling because of it.
Credit for all this lies with the Wachowskis, who seemed to have every single moment planned out to perfection before filming. Similarly Reeves deserves praise, for taking advantage of his perceived weaknesses as an actor to create the Anderson/Neo character. Lawrence Fishburne is also great, delivering a performance perfectly balanced between seriousness and pantomime, while Carrie-Anne Moss' Trinity provides much of the soul of the Matrix, especially given that she's no damsel in distress. Of the remaining actors both Weaving and Pantoliano deserve much praise for their roles as bad guys, the latter doing remarkably well to make as odious a character as Cypher three dimensional while Agent Smith has to be the coolest villain since Darth Vader. Finally we shouldn't neglect Joel Silver in all this. Producer of what must have seemed like the biggest loss maker since Waterworld, Silver instead gave us one of the best films of the 1990's and a movie that will continue to excite future generations of action fans. His courage in bringing the Matrix to our screens should not be forgotten, although the missteps made with the sequels are not entirely forgivable.
All in all the Matrix represents the culmination of a great deal of work and thought that, should any of the principle people involved have not believed in it 100%, we would probably have never even seen, let alone enjoyed. The film is second to none for juxtaposing philosophy with martial arts, but drives across its messages about Mankind's over reliance on technology without making the audience uncomfortable at being preached to. Overall there is very little that can be held against this movie and, despite the rather debatable suggestion that violence can be the answer, it works well for the younger and older crowds alike. If you haven't seen it then I cannot recommend it enough, but that is unlikely to be the case for many of you!
Crank (2006)
Like the man who fell out of the penthouse of a skyscraper...
...And every floor down said: 'So far so good,' Crank is a movie about a guy with a pretty much guaranteed death by the end of the film but who seeks to see the current upside in that his unavoidable termination hasn't happened quite yet...! However, whereas our apocryphal skyscraper observer might seek to reflect on the good things that have happened in his life, Jason Statham's brilliantly named Chev Chelios is not one to accept the inevitable quietly.
Chevy is a hit man who wakes up the morning after his latest job, which went off with nary a hitch before the film begins, with a bad feeling of near-deathliness. A saunter to the giant TV of his incredible apartment reveals a DVD nearby which he is instructed to play, in no uncertain terms. Turning on the home movie reveals a junior hit-man plus his buddies, the idea of a lone, silent, inconspicuous but deadly assassin like Leon clearly having never occurred to the characters in this film. These guys have killed Chelios the night before. However, they have used a Chinese poison that blocks the adrenaline receptors in his body, or something, the science is only vaguely alluded to and in terms that suggest the writers have read the idea somewhere but can't quite remember the nitty gritty. Regardless, Chevy is destined for a slow, agonising death as his heart slowly stops... unless he keeps his excitement levels up.
Before you can say adrenaline junkie Chev is driving like a maniac to beat up a pub full of black men and snort cocaine off their bathroom floor. Yes, Chelios quickly realises, with a little help from a bizarre doctor character whose relationship with Chelios doesn't really make much sense, that the way to survive is to keep pushing his body to produce adrenaline, hence the increasingly outlandish stunts and situations he finds himself in. Like the doctor character the story suffers from huge plot holes and doesn't really make that much sense, but neither does driving your car through a mall, flipping it onto an escalator and fleeing the scene... yet it's still entertaining...
Crank is all about the entertainment. There's scarcely a serious moment in it and most of the actors seem to be having a ball with their tongue in cheek roles. Amy Smart is sexy but goofy as Chelios' dimwitted but gorgeous girlfriend Eve, who quickly finds herself up against it, in more ways than one, as she gets dragged into the reality of his murky life. Cantillo is OK as the man who has killed Chevy but now finds his target gunning for him. Sanz does the oily, greasy big bad boss thing pretty well and Toakam, as the doctor, is refreshingly open and laconic about Chelios' problems. Sure, other than Smart and Statham I've never heard of any of these guys, but they do their jobs well with the right level of wry amusement.
This leaves Statham near permanently on centre stage and fortunately he's pretty damn good there. Having showed he can do the whole laddish thing in Lock Stock and Snatch, while the two Transporter films demonstrated his action credentials, Crank gives Statham his first decent leading man role and he fits into it as if it were tailor made for him, particularly as he doesn't have to use his nauseatingly bad American accent this time. He perfectly encapsulates the kind of hip-hop gangster hit-man his character is, someone way off of reality but which the audience is prepared to accept because he's cool without being too in your face.
Chelios drives and runs around the city of LA with his goal of revenge against his murderers firmly in mind while also seeking out the doctor for any sort of potential cure. We see the darkness at the centre of his life and his desire to start anew with the hapless Eve, but also his absolute conviction that revenge is completely vital. There are laughs galore as well as fine tuned action and the two writer/directors, Neveldine and Taylor, whose backgrounds are in stunt work and music videos, deliver it all pretty quickly. A couple of their jumpy effects annoyed me and they could've done with a little more coherency in places but, given that this film came out of nowhere really, they've done a bang up job.
All in all Crank is a great, fun movie. It's not going to trouble anyone come the awards season, save perhaps MTv, but that's not necessarily a bad thing as, in my recent memory, I can't remember a film that was so purely entertaining. I strongly recommend it to anyone who likes their action... although be warned, the occasional sight of Statham's arse sticking out from his hospital gown are not for the faint hearted!
Demolition Man (1993)
A surprisingly good action film.
The title would appear to say it all... let alone the poster. STALLONE! SNIPES! DEMOLITION MAN! It sounds about as subtle and entertaining as a sledgehammer to the head... only this film is much more than just two big action stars slugging it out. Demolition Man, lord knows how, somehow pulls off the very difficult trick of bringing several styles together: action, comedy, thrills, spills and even some philosophical debate! Yet none of these aspects of the movie are too raw or overdone. What we get is two action stars, one just entering his prime while this remains one of the other's few recent films of any worth, engaged in a typical cop vs bad guy movie, but one that doesn't ignore everything else in favour of these two characters.
Much of the credit for this lies with Sandra Bullock. Her friendly, ballsy prettiness, which is so often miscast as sexy female lead or hard nosed bitch, is perfect in this movie as the naive but spunky Lt Lenina Huxley, one of the few cops in modern day California with any desire to actually fight crime. Her fellow officers, all of whom seem brilliantly cast, regard her desire for action as almost offencive and openly say so, though in the future it seems that anything like a personnel character attack, such as mockery or sarcasm, have been ironed out.
This is because, in Demolition Man, the future is a happy place (ish)! The story concerns Stallone's John Spartan, a fairly rogue cop who takes down bad guys left, right and centre but does so with so many deaths and explosions, not to mention buildings destroyed, that he inherits the nickname Demolition Man. Spartan is a real movie alpha male, ignoring orders and making his own rules yet always getting the job done. So far so typical. When downtown LA, which has become a riotous hellhole by 1997 (a future date for the movie's real world opening), Spartan goes in to take out Wesley Snipe's Simon Phoenix, a psychotic killer who has taken a tour bus full of people hostage. Spartan goes in and gets Phoenix only, somewhat inevitably, the building is destroyed... however the hostages were apparently still inside.
Spartan is imprisoned in behavioural modifying cryogenic sleep (you're freezed and they change your brain's synaptic pathways while you're asleep) for 75 year, along with Phoenix, who goes in indefinitely (which suggests quite a high prison population given the hell that California was stuck in during the movie's opening!). However, prisoners still have occasional parole hearings. At one Phoenix escapes, having somehow learnt the verbal password to his cuffs along with numerous new skills and abilities. Quite how or why is unknown... He breaks out, killing numerous guards and the prison warden.
This is hugely problematic for the new San Angeles police force (the location being what's left of California after the Great Quake of the early 21st century) as they haven't had to deal with a murder for over 20 years! Their comically inept reaction to the emergence of a killer like Phoenix in their Utopian society is where a lot of the film's humour comes from and the writers turn a one joke movie into a hysterical two hours, particularly when Spartan is unfrozen to catch Phoenix. Stallone's fish out of water routine is skilfully handled, not least the hilarious moment when he can no longer stop himself from knitting Lenina a sweater thanks to the behavioural modification of his mind! It's a great joke and is not alone, particularly some of Bullock's one liners such as, on Spartan's seemingly aggressive ribbing of an aged colleague, 'That's how insecure heterosexual males talked to each other in the 20th century.' Gags like this, as well as the general quality of the writing and the bedrock concept of this movie, make it really worth watching.
Other than the three principle leads there is excellent support in Benjamin Bratt, Bill Cobbs, Bob Gunton, Dennis Leary and, perhaps most surprisingly, Nigel Hawthorne an English thespian who only took the role so that he'd be allowed the lead in the cinema version of the Madness of King George. Hawthorne, who sadly died in 2001, gives a brilliant turn as the seemingly benevolent mentor of San Angeles, delivering such lines as 'You are fined one-half credit for a sotto voce violation of the Verbal Morality Statute' with a grace and aplomb far in excess of what the movie must have read like, yet perfectly in keeping with the irreverent style.
Sadly, the greatness of this movie doesn't last forever. The plot makes sense but falls apart slightly when Phoenix's hidden master is revealed and turns out to have absolutely no clue how dangerous the man he sprung from prison is. Similarly, when Phoenix starts thawing out his mates they don't paint the sky red like you'd expect
their involvement being peripheral at best with some quite recognisable actors given little more than expendable henchman roles. The final fight is pretty off key as well and doesn't really do the tension Stallone and Snipes generate much justice, although it does involve some pretty nifty effects given the year this was made.
However, all in all Demolition Man is something of a gem of an action movie, involving a clever premise intelligently handled and with some great lines delivered by actors who are on form. It doesn't dip much and is a very satisfying couple of hours, complete with all the prerequisites of a futuristic action movie (guns, explosions, love interest and so forth), with a lot more than I was expecting having just watched it again for the first time in years (such as great lines, good acting and excellent pacing). Overall I highly recommend this film, particularly if you've seen it before and only vaguely remember it as another so-so action film. It will surprise you... in a good way!
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
Profoundly disappointing
This sequel to 2003 surprise blockbuster has been marketed as more of the same. Unfortunately this is not the case. Like the original Matrix, Pirates 1 came out of nowhere to knock everyone's socks off, a very original, funny, action packed if slightly overlong film that created several lovable characters, none more so than Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow. In that film he was the centre of just about everything good and the film suffered whenever Sparrow was off screen. Sadly, in their feverish attempt to cash in on Depp's new found mega-star status, the producers have failed to keep in mind what made his character so popular: his charm. In this film the rumbustious, rapscallion nature of Sparrow has been taken away, leaving a rather camp damp squib in its place: a charming, debonair but scheming pirate metamorphosed into an unamusing caricature of himself.
Sparrow just isn't funny in this film. In fact, for some reason, the producers have decided to actually skip past the scenes in which he could've stolen the show (again)! Instead of having Jack talk/lie/cheat/manoeuvre his way around various obstacles, whether it be two slow witted marines, an officious soldier or what have you, here we see Depp mostly AFTER he's been successful. You're not shown how he does it and, because of this, you don't really empathise with the ridiculous situations he gets into. Case in point: when Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) tracks his acquaintance down for various reasons, Depp has managed to talk himself into the position of chief of a tribe of cannibals. But you never see this happening! Instead Depp's humour is limited to running like a homosexual stereotype and occasionally saying 'Bugger!' a line which wasn't really funny the first time and loses all appeal by the fifth repetition. This means that the film is overly reliant on its story to keep you occupied and, here's the kicker, you only get to see half! Yes, again like the Matrix, Pirates 2 and 3 are actually Pirates 2a and 2b, and, after watching for well over 3 hours (150 minutes of film plus adverts and trailers), it comes as a bitter blow to realise that this movie doesn't have a resolution. In fact, rather like the Matrix sequels, the main character is in seemingly inescapable peril... but unlike that film (Reloaded) his mates have all abandoned him!
So how do all the other actors fair? Well, rather like Oceans 12, it looks like they all had a lot more fun making the film than before. Bloom is slightly darker, Knightley is allowed to do more than get rescued and Davenport (the pompous but competent British antagonist of the previous film) is allowed to let his hair hang loose... But, again like Oceans 12, this funness, for the actors, leaves the audience desperately trying to piece together the gaps: how does Elizabeth learn to fight? How does Norrington get in such dire straights? Why does Will fall for EVERYONE'S tricks EVERY SINGLE TIME? At best these things are vaguely alluded to in terms of time passed, hurricanes and other non-specific references, but seldom do you feel that there is a genuine link between Pirates 1 and Pirates 2a.
Finally we come to Bill Nighy's Davy Jones whose chest, of the title, is the object of everyone's desire. But Jones isn't a genuine bad guy! Unlike Geoffrey Rush's Barbossa in the first film, Jones is merely a man looking to retrieve what's his. He's a Scot who captains a submersible ship called the Flying Dutchman and he can summon the Kraken (none of which is explained), but in reality all he ever does is to ask for what's his by agreement. There's not much to dislike. Similarly, like the rest of the film, his back-story is jumbled at best. Why would a Scot name his ship after another, rival country? How did he become the weird looking fellow he is? Why exactly has he placed his heart in a box!?! And so forth... again, other than the occasional, badly scripted explanation, we're not really told anything about Jones and what we do learn is fairly incomprehensible... Naomie Harris herself mentions that there are various stories with some unifying themes but that they all mean the same thing even if they don't and... yes, I got lost pretty quickly too. Oh and what ever happened to Anamaria and the two funny British soldiers? They, like many others, had either disappeared before the start of Pirates 2 or found themselves out and about with nought but a vague reference to miraculous escapes...
Suffice it to say that Pirates 2a comes across like little more than a massive effort to make some cash. The two sequels cost upwards of $200m so it's understandable that Bruckheimer doesn't want people to be able to miss the third if the second one is rubbish, but it still makes a bad film feel even worse. It's not as funny, endearing or clever as the first movie and at 150 minutes (+ sequel/ending) it's a damn sight longer. Overall I'd suggest it's worth a DVD rental at best and even then you're better off waiting until the sequel is available as well as a good six hours to watch them both in. This movie was a great disappointment to me and I can't imagine it will leave any relatively objective viewers particularly impressed. As for the generally good reviews I've read and seem to contradict, I'd like to point out one thing: remember how great we all wanted the Phantom Menace to be? Remember how we all went: 'It's not so bad?' Remember how we felt when we finally gave in and admitted it was rubbish? In time, like with the Matrices 2a and b, I think the Pirates sequels will be similarly reviled.
United 93 (2006)
At times almost too horrifying to watch but definitely worth seeing
As far as I understand it, this is the first 'proper' movie about September the 11th 2001, and boy is it emotive. British director Paul Greengrass, who is no stranger to controversial, intensely real films (such as Bloody Sunday), has fashioned an incredible cinematic experience that is almost more powerful because of our knowledge of how events on the day unfolded.
As I'm sure I need remind no one, 11/09/01 (UK date) was when four flights within the US were hijacked almost simultaneously. As air traffic controllers, military representatives, politicians and the public looked on helplessly, three of those planes flew into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre of New York and one wing of the Pentagon. A fourth plane, United 93, crashed in Pennsylvania. This film is about that fourth aircraft.
What this movie shows so horrifyingly well is the complete chaos the hijackings caused. As soon as the first aircraft stopped responding to hails from ground control after a garbled message about 'We have the planes,' hijacking was instantly suspected and the powers that be informed. But no one knew what protocol to implement, no one was sure who was responsible for what and, most definitely, no one in the loop suspected that the planes might be used as weapons in their own right...
This oversight, an oversight as the possibility of hijacked commercial aircraft being used as missiles had been considered by US military strategists, meant that it wasn't even possible to deploy fighter jets to defend America from this new, horrendous threat. Even if the fighters had been in place the President was out of contact and only he was regarded as sufficiently senior to give the order to shoot down civilian aircraft. As the film goes on to tell us, in a text epilogue, by the time any orders on the rules of engagement had been set the four planes were already crashed.
However, it is unfair to blame Bush for this disaster, not least because it would have taken an astronomical degree of recklessness to OK a shoot-to-kill policy on all potentially hijacked aircraft. The President cannot be faulted for being unaware of the impending crisis and, from the perspective of this film, it seems that the blame (other than for the terrorists and their masters) such as it is, lies with the intelligence services, but they don't warrant a single mention throughout. No one else had considered the possibility of hijacking with any seriousness because, in fairness, the last hijack on US soil had been ages beforehand (most hijackers wanting to get into the country, rather than out of it) and, with several thousand planes in the air at any one moment (the sheer volume of traffic mentioned is staggering) the people responsible for air traffic control had to concentrate on other aspects rather than potential terrorism.
Instead we follow the ordinary men and women on the ground and in the air... determining that multiple hijackings may be underway, trying to find out what to do in the situation, only to lose sight of the planes when, to the utter shock of all concerned, it turns out they've flown into the twin towers. Perhaps the most harrowing moment is when the second plane, picked up visually by the New York air traffic controllers, is seen to fly straight into the second tower. All the emotions and memories of September 11th itself are brought bubbling back to the surface, though not because of insincere sensationalism.
Instead this film eschews cheap theatrics. The ground staffs are not instantly capable of dealing with the crisis, the plane crew do not battle the hijackers like true American heroes (even though they were forewarned of the potential for hijackings), nor do the passengers stand up as one to fight the terrorists... instead we get a far more harrowing perspective: reality. It is only when the passengers realise the terrorists are flying the plane, the pilots are dead and, with surreptitious calls to their loved ones on the ground, that the hijackers are most likely intending to crash the aircraft into an American city, that they take action. There is no 'Let's roll!' moment of patriotic heart thumping, instead it's much more of a 'If we don't move now we won't move at all so let's roll...' In this the film is intensely real and intensely good, with the few moments of heroism being reduced to the likes of a woman giving her phone to another passenger after making a final call to loved ones (this touched me almost to the point of tears), or the people risking incurring the terrorists' wrath (and the potential detonation of what looks like a bomb around one of the hijacker's neck) so that they can meet in the rear and form a strategy to be diffused to the other passengers via a horribly fallible version of Chinese whispers.
The acting, by unknowns or the people who were there on the ground playing themselves, is universally fitting and good. Even the terrorists are three dimensional characters, not inhuman monsters. Similarly there are no attempts to glorify or degrade anyone, not even the easy target of the President or the CIA. Instead we get a simple film about an appallingly simple story: how four sets of men bluffed their way into control of four different planes and martyred themselves to a cause that most likely has already forgotten their names, if not their actions. Whether this is 'good' in terms of film making or morality (the 'should this movie have been made?' debate) is now a moot points. It has been made and should now be watched by everyone who thinks they know everything about Islam, martyrdom and September the 11th. United 93 is not glamorous or exploitative. It is merely a horrifying and objective look at one of the worst days in mankind's recent history.
Friday Night Lights (2004)
Visceral and moving, this is an exemplary sports movie
There have been many movies made about American sports over the years, but few pack as powerful an emotional wallop as this one. Friday Night Lights is a real eye opener in many regards. Instead of the vainglorious pros or troubled geniuses, or any other single sporting clichés, what we have here is a far more real evaluation of life in a football mad world. That world is Odessa, Texas and the residents of Odessa take supporting your team to new levels.
The story concerns Odessa's 1988 football season, the last season for a group of young men playing football for Odessa before they graduate from high school and leave to go to college, find a job or whatever (I think - I don't know much about American football or education). But that future is the least of their concerns. Winning the championship is expected of them and that expectation weighs hard... as Lucas Black comments at one stage: 'I don't feel like I'm 17 at all...' Black is the quarterback of the side and a good, strong player but not someone who is ever likely to reach the pros. Still his life is dominated by football, that and his sick mother.
However, Derek Luke's wonderfully arrogant Boobie Miles does have a very good shot at the pros, as a wide receiver who can run, catch, dodge, sprint and even pass... Unlike his peers, and despite the fact that he can't read too good, the universities are queueing up to sign him, assuming he's as good as they've heard and stays fit. The other young actors in the piece represent other sporting stereotypes, though none of them ever appear hackneyed or insincere.
Garrett Hedlund is Don Billingsley, the son of an Odessa legend, a heritage he is ill equipped to deal with, particularly given his father's alcoholism and the unrelenting pressure Billingsley senior places on his son to succeed. Jay Hernandez is an intelligent football player and the only person, other than Boobie, likely to get far from Odessa, though thanks to his brains rather than his brawn. Lee Thompson Young is the wide receiver backup to the backup, someone on the periphery of the team and unlikely to ever get his chance to shine... Lee Jackson is the unrelenting Preacher and defencive star, a boy disguised as a man whose stare and attitude are as intimidating as his flying blocks. Finally there's Billy Bob Thornton, the coach, Gary Gaines, and, although he's not on screen all the time, his magnetic presence is what drives this movie to its dramatic heights.
This film is not really about football. It is much more about a small, poor community's relationship with their team, their pride and joy, and the pressure this relationship puts on the young players and older staff of that team. From the beginning Coach Gaines is being told how to do his job... play this person here, have you thought about that guy there and so forth. Paid more than the school's principal, and in charge of a stadium the cost of which could've paid for education rather than a single team's pursuit of one prize per year, Gaines has a great deal of responsibility and, when his star player takes a tumble in the first game of the season, with the match already long won, the difficulties begin in earnest...
Boobie, taken out after scoring or creating six touchdowns, is put on the subs' bench only to be called back in when his replacement isn't ready to go (he's lost his helmet). Seconds later Boobie is on a stretcher and, we later discover, has suffered that cruelest of fates: a career destroying injury. Without him the team go from the supposition of total victory to the very real possibility of absolute failure and, midway through the movie, the Odessa Panthers' progression to the knock out stages of the competition hinges on a coin toss... Well you can guess how that goes but the final conclusions of their season are less than certain.
But that's not with this film is about, as I've said before. Instead it's the pressure of a whole community's desires that is the driving force and the inner workings of these young men as they try to live up to those expectations. Far from disappearing after his injury Boobie subsequently develops into a much more interesting character: trying to get fit again, seeing doctors about his knee, playing again... By the time of the final, climactic match against a Dallas team, a far larger outfit than the Panthers, Boobie has gone from an arrogant jock to an emotional centre of a powerful movie... his tears when he finally bids goodbye to his locker, not to mention the emotions he shares when he returns for the final, not to play but just to be with his team, are gut wrenching indeed and will strike a chord with anyone who's ever seen their hopes and dreams destroyed.
All of the other young characters go through similar arcs and, to describe them all, would take too long and doubtless not do them justice. Instead let us finally focus on Coach Gaines... Thornton's portrayal of the man, with a job seemingly as tough as any in the pros, is spot on, from accepting the blame for Boobie's injury, despite not being responsible, to enduring a constant stream of abuse from the Odessa residents as the season starts to slip away from the Panthers. It is his weather worn, gentle face that anchors proceedings and, with the glorious, if not triumphant, conclusion of this movie it is his quiet changing of the guards at the end which best sums up Friday Night Lights... after a long a turbulent season he simply has to throw away the old name badges and pull out the new ones before leading next year's team, with a whole new load of emotions and stresses, to championship glory.
The Incredibles (2004)
The best of Pixar's films and that is truly Incredible
When Pixar announced that they'd recruited Brad Bird to direct their new film it was treated with surprise. Sure Bird had been a major part of the Simpsons, he'd been instrumental in creating one of the best recent cartoon features (the Iron Giant) and sure he was a breath of fresh air to the Pixar formula. But why try and fix something that is not only not broken but is positively bursting at the seams with creative energy, commercial viability and critical acclaim? The naysayers, and there were a fair few of them, urged caution and sat back to see if Pixar would make their first misstep after a series of blindingly brilliant films that had knocked their competitor from a perch that had been regarded as impregnable.
Disney's misfortune had been our, the viewing public's, great reward. From their childish cartoons we'd suddenly learnt to appreciate and even prefer other possibilities, most specifically computer generated films. Toy Story had come out of nowhere to deliver a killer blow to Disney's tired remakes and uninspired sequels. Ignoring realism in favour of a fun, flexible world where reality existed but didn't automatically infringe on the entertainment, the geniuses at Pixar created a film that didn't try and reinvent the wheel but gave it such an overhaul that the finished product really did look completely new.
By realising that people don't like computer generated images, particularly of human beings, which always look and move too perfectly for us to ever accept them, Pixar instead showed us a world of cute toys and giant, fairly irrelevant humans. With the voices incredibly well cast and the images sharp enough to impress without trying to blitz us with colour, Toy Story demonstrated just how excellent CG could be, provided it was married to a good story aimed at kids and adults alike. From there Pixar went from strength to strength, both at the box office and in the reviews. So, again, we must ask: why did they seek the change? We may never know exactly what happened. My understanding is that Brad Bird approached Pixar with the story and they offered him the directing stint by way of reflecting how impressed they were. This rings slightly false in that you wouldn't entrust millions of dollars to a screen writer to make a live action film and the money and directorial duties are by no means reduced for 3D animation. Therefore I think that Bird was given the gig for other reasons, most specifically that the Pixar team were worried that their tried and tested formula was becoming too obvious - mismatched buddies must retrieve something/someone precious from a perilous situation. Regardless, employ him they did and The Incredibles was the result.
The Incredibles represents Pixar's best, most adult film and was both a critical and commercial hit with adults and infants alike. It contained all the action and special effects one could wish for, but kept them based around a solid, emotional core of plot, characterisation and witty story telling. Like most, if not all, Pixar films, The Incredibles was designed by adults for adults who were looking to entertain children, rather than by adults looking to exploit children (Disney should take note here and, given that they've recently acquired Pixar, it looks like they've done exactly that). This meant that the film was just as interesting to parents (and uncles) as it was to children, doubling the audience size and making the later, night showings at cinemas just as popular as the daytime ones. In foreign countries, France for example, many of the adults actually ignored the dubbed, local language versions in favour of the original English, for fear of missing some of the brilliant, adult orientated jokes (Bomb Voyage can't possibly have been as amusing in French as he was in English for example).
All this comes from Bird's screenplay and it is from there that The Incredibles bursts forth, ahead of the pack. Bird fused numerous, diverse elements to tell the story of a dysfunctional family of superheroes. Mr. Incredible, Bob Parr, is a former superhero forced into retirement, along with all other super heroes, through legal action , an idea I have long considered given how litigious modern society has become. Bob and his wife Helen, the former heroine Elastigirl, disappear to start a family in suburbia.
After 15 years and three kids Bob is fast approaching a midlife crisis. Other than helping the occasional client dodge the pitfalls in the insurance company he works at the only fun he has is illegal hero work found by listening in on the police radio network with his friend Frozone, another former superhero voiced superbly by Samuel L Jackson. Bob is heading for emotional meltdown when, through an unfortunate series of events, he finds himself approached with an offer for true heroism...
The first half of the film, Bob's emotional emancipation followed by his attempted breakout and its consequences, gives way to the action filled second, which I won't spoil by delving into, save to say that it incorporates more than Bob. There is brilliance a plenty, the jet fight was one of the most tense scenes I've ever experienced, while at no point do you end up seeing action purely for its own sake. Each action has a far more important reaction, not least in terms of emotional growth. Numerous issues are analysed and a very positive message of family, confidence without arrogance and just being there for other people are subtly advocated.
All in all I can't recommend this movie enough, particularly as it may well be the last great Pixar film. With Disney's takeover of the company we now have the bringing together of bland, tasteless, star heavy, plot lite films such as Shrek 2, Shark Tale and the like with the genius of Pixar. We can only hope that the heart and minds of the latter win out.
Series 7: The Contenders (2001)
A sensational satire
I don't know about you but I'm pretty much 'realitied' out. If I see another behind the scenes, fly on the wall or real people confined to a televisual prison program I think I might well have to tear up my TV licence... and with Big Brother 7 (I think) on its way here in England that might well happen (although, now that I think of it, BB 7 might well end up sharing some unintentional similarities with Series 7 of the Contenders... more on this shortly).
To tell the truth, I have never liked any reality TV shows. Instead of showing you something positive they seem to rejoice in the negative and encourage only the worst sort of backstabbing, vindictive and childish behaviour we should be discouraging, rather than rewarding. Unfortunately the trend doesn't look to be slowing down any time soon and this is a very worrying possibility.
In recent years there has been a counteract against the reality TV boon, best personified cinematically in Battle Royale (which is close if not quite a reality TV satire) and, bang on the money, Series 7: the Contenders (henceforth Series 7). There are other voices of sanity out there, particularly in books (see Ben Elton's Dead Famous for a brilliant example), which seek to satirise reality television, but only the medium itself can really show us where the end will finally happen, television and real life of course...
Series 7 represents a logical step in reality TV. With audiences losing interest in physical and psychological hardship of volunteers, an alternative will have to be found. Therefore why not have a lottery based killing game where five people, along with a sixth champion of the previous game, must compete to slay each other within the limits of a small town in American. As I'm sure you can guess, this barbaric program has yet to be made but it is highly likely that television executives have thought long and hard about the possibilities... it wouldn't take a genius to think of the boost in ratings that, for example, Death Row inmates given a chance to win their freedom if they kill five of their fellow cons in some sort of last man standing style battle royal. Those men would all be scheduled to die anyway, so why not make it for entertainment rather than just justice...? Such a possibility, very fortunately, hasn't yet come to fruition, nor am I aware of any attempts to do so, but one only has to imagine such a show to see that it would be very possible to make it and, moral concerns aside, it really would sweep all before it for audience popularity.
Series 7 represents such a program to the nth degree and, very accurately, portrays the emotions a disparate group of the lottery 'winners' might feel upon being selected. I won't dwell on the film itself, simply because I don't want to spoil the humour and utterly spellbinding violence it creates, particularly the juxtaposition of both aspects... you find yourself giggling at an 8 month pregnant woman's attempts to psych out a 50 year old nurse, only to feel the laughter die in your throat as the same woman garrotes, drowns and shoots three people, amongst others, seconds later...
The closeness of Series 7 to the formats of other 'reality' shows is striking, from the hideous melodrama, 'I'm going to win' speeches and sad, pathetic individuals more needing sympathy and a bit of cash than the fame they crave. When this is held up alongside the same people brutally killing each other it makes for a very real and chilling portrayal of reality television, particularly in America though by no means limited to that country. These people don't have to fight. They don't have to kill each other. THey certainly don't have to put up with being videoed, attached to GPS monitors and hooked up to microphones 24/7. If it was me I'd blow the cameraman away and go from there... but these people obey the rules of the game, even though the show purports to have no rules, and hence are hostages in a very real sense.
This is best demonstrated by the subtle allusions to the fact that the game may well be fixed. By a staggeringly remote chance, Dawn (the pregnant woman) ends up face to face with a former school friend... one of the competitors claims the show is faked... one man suffers a 'self inflicted stab wound to the back' while fleeing... and footage of various situations disappears and must be 're-enacted' by actors. These are just some of the issues mentioned but, as we are supposedly watching the TV show rather than a film about the show, the details aren't explored, which is a place the film falls down a little. Other problems are the TV gimmicks, like sudden 'what will happen next?' montages every 10 minutes or so. Sure, this would happen on TV, but in a film (I saw this at the cinema) it gets quite annoying. However, these quibbles are mostly minor.
Anyone who is addicted to reality TV shows and people who genuinely despise them will find something here, although they might not like what they see. As for the Series 7 scenario...? Just how implausible do you think it is? I only ask because, in one of the series of Big Brother in Australia, one of the 'cast,' while making out with another member of the cast, asked her whether she was excited. When she gave her answer he then picked up a knife and held it to her throat.
'How about now?' he wondered. This man was subsequently taken out of the BB house but the question remains... how far will TV executives go with reality TV? Series 7: the Contenders shows us the depths to which it could stoop eerily accurately.
Transporter 2 (2005)
Dear oh dear
I have a confession to make... I enjoyed the first transporter film! It involved car chases, martial arts action and all sorts of implausible things that kept me entertained for the majority of the running time. It was relatively short, had some pretty cool moments and was generally a bit of ridiculous fun that needn't be taken too seriously, although the concluding chapter sold the first half short (the final fight and resolution of the movie left me thinking 'They're ending it like that...!?!').
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the sequel, which suffers blisteringly from a syndrome I like to call sequilitis... a perilously common and highly contagious disease, with its epicentre in California. It leads to movies, which can be described at best as 'ok' or 'just above mediocre,' being unnecessarily dragged through another 90 minutes where everything is faster, bigger and more explosive. It can even happen to the better class of film, witness Godfather 3... Anyhow, here we have what may well become a test case to compare against all future sequels...
Now I've once sat down to watch an Uwe Boll movie... I endured at least ten minutes of Plan 9 from Outer Space... Whoever made Lost in Space got £5 of my pocket money (circa 1998)... And I once watched an entire episode of Corination street... All these were experiences I have tried, and failed, to forget, from the awfulness of the dialogue to the woodenness of the acting, the preposterous scenarios and the long list of other problems they all share. It is now time for me to add another 'film' to that list: Transporter 2.
This movie lacks just about any redeeming features. Clearly none of the production crew have even heard of the concept of physics while the director, who was also responsible for the Luc Besson penned snore-fest Danny the Dog (titled 'Unleashed' in the UK), doesn't seem to have the slightest clue as to what he's meant to be doing. He merges CG that a kid with an Etchersketch could improve upon with gun play that John Woo would say 'Now come on, that's really too over the top!' His wardrobe department deserve to be taken out and shot while the casting people may be lucky to escape such a fate...
Everything about this film sucks and Luc Besson would do well to stop penning any more of this dreary garbage. He's turned his once promising career into a litany of cinematic trash, producing, writing and being involved in dozens of films a year, none of which are worth watching. This isn't even the most recent catastrophe, with Revolver, Angel A and many other poorly planned rush jobs helping to fill videostore bargain bins across the world. The director of Leon and Nikita really should know better.
So too should everyone else involved. An audience really isn't going to accept that a car can fly upside down, clip a bomb on a passing crane, land on the other side of a bleeding one hundred foot wide (maybe more) river as the bomb explodes... and then drive off into the next scene... it's not just impossible it's insultingly preposterous and the dodgy CG only serves to further deny us any feeling that we're watching a film crafted with any degree of love or skill.
Instead we're inundated with ridiculous notion after ridiculous notion... implausible scenario after implausible scenario... and so on and so forth. From a female villain who goes out in nothing more than lingerie, a see through shirt and two fully automatic, laser sighted, silenced pistols, to a horrendously unsympathetic family who you practically want to die of a biologically impossible disease... no one emerges with any credit.
The exception, to a very small extent, is Jason Statham and it is he who gives the movie its only all right moments. Called upon to do nothing more than pretend to drive, look moody and occasionally beat people up, he shows as limited a range as he did in the first film... but is hardly being called upon to do much more. A couple of the car chases are OK, one or two of the 'one men versus a lot of other people' fights are quite cool and his demeanour throughout does allow us to believe that his character, Frank Martin, really would take this course of action. Other than that it's nothing but bad news...
Matthew Modine is wondering where his career disappeared to... Amber Valletta clearly regrets getting involved... Kate Nauta will not be gracing any films soon (God willing)... and the rest of the cast are generally asking themselves quite how they became embroiled in such an awful movie, Keith David and Francois Berleand, for example, are two men way above this kind of crap. Overall I can't warn you enough not to see this film, it's got practically nothing to recommend it and you'll only feel cheated of 87 minutes of your life (plus whatever the cost of the rental). Please don't waste your time... it's far more precious than this pile of rubbish.
Banlieue 13 (2004)
Fast moving and great action but boy oh boy is the plot rubbish!
When one sees Luc Besson's name involved with anything you learn to expect a great many effects, cool moments and some ridiculous plotting. Banlieue 13 (henceforth B13) shows this perfectly.
What we have is pretty simple. In 2010 certain districts on the outskirts of Paris, the suburbs (banlieue), so brilliantly characterised in 1995's La Haine (which anyone interested in film should see if they haven't done so already), have become untenable. The schools, post offices and most other public buildings are closed, with the police on the verge of moving out as well. A blooming great wall has been erected around each area and inside everything's gone to hell, with criminals and drugs rampant. But we're not interested in the social and economic situation, oh no...
Instead our attention is initially on Leito (French devotee of 'Parkour' or freerunning David Belle), a young man who lives in the very worst suburb of Paris: banlieue, or borro, 13. In the opening stages of the movie he is destroying a very large bag of heroin he got a hold of through unknown means. Fat French criminal K-2 (Tony D'Amario) soon arrives, with a bunch of goons driving very ostentatious vehicles. K-2 murders a few of Leito's mates and looks for the man himself. We are supposed to believe that Leito is the boss of his building, a position he backs up with shotgun wielding guards, but believes in cleanliness, schools and such like. This contradiction is difficult to understand: how would someone with no criminal tendencies get into such a position? Regardless, in it he is and, when K-2 turns up at his door, it is time for Leito to spring into action.
This he does really rather effectively and suddenly the ridiculousness of the situation we've been shown fades into insignificance. Apparently 90% of the movie's stunts and Parkour were done without the benefit of wire work. For insurance purposes the actors were fitted with equipment to stop them falling to their deaths, but those wires were purely for safety, rather than enhansive, purposes. Regardless, what happens next is truly incredible, as Leito runs, jumps, swings, rolls and practically flies across the roofs, stairs and walkways of a number of buildings as he endeavours to escape the attentions of K-2 and his goons. The fact that they keep catching up with him doesn't make much sense, nor do their Parkour skills either (if it was me I'd have been left for dead after approximately 5 seconds!) but Leito has to evade capture for a good five minutes. He does so successfully and it's all very impressive.
Of course this leaves K-2 in the unfortunate position of having to explain to his boss, Taha (Bibi Naceri), how he and 12 guys failed to capture one unarmed Frenchman. Fortunately K-2 has the brilliant idea of how to get Leito under their control: kidnap his sister. This is done, but doesn't go quite according to plan as Leito simply turns up and captures Taha, liberates his (incredibly attractive) sister and flees with her and Taha to the police. Unfortunately they're moving out and, instead of arresting a drug kingpin, they arrest Leito and let Taha leave with our hero's sister, who is first knocked unconscious and then carried out to be doped up with heroin.
Leito is not too happy about this but is in jail and can do nothing (quite why Taha doesn't have him killed in prison isn't answered). However, hope returns for the boy from B13 when he is sprung by French police captain Damien (Cyril Raffaelli- who is perhaps best known to martial arts movie enthusiasts as the smaller twin in Jet Li's Kiss of the Dragon). Damien is introduced in emphatic style by taking out a nightclub full of goons before being tasked with retrieving a clean nuclear bomb that has someone found its way into Taha's hands in B13... Yes, that sentence is not a mistake, it is the genuine plot of this film...
Anyhow, Damien and Leito form a very uneasy partnership and go about trying to get back the bomb and Leito's extremely stoned sister. Much fighting and action ensues and it's all fairly cool stuff. At 75 minutes in length B13 knows better than to outstay its welcome and the massive plot holes don't really distract from what we've paid to see: Raffaelli and Belle doing their martial arts and gymnastics. If that's what you're interested in then I recommend this film. However, if you were looking for a new version of La Haine please look elsewhere, this movie treats the complex notions and interplays between the rich and poor of France with an almost comical, adolescent incompetence that could prove insulting to anyone who has to deal with these problems (like the whole of society)... However, with a beer in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other, there can be little fault found with this movie and, as an advert for French martial arts film making and freerunning in general, you can't find much fault with it. Enjoy!
Shooting Dogs (2005)
This film should be mandatory viewing for anyone over the age of 15
The civil war and genocide of 1994 in Rwanda remains one of the major unknown catastrophes of recent times, despite the European colonial mistakes that were mostly responsible for it. In just a few months the majority Hutu population slaughtered almost a million of the minority Tutsi people in an act of barbarianism practically beyond comprehension. Although the world was well aware of what was going on, with an UN contingent present in the country from the very beginning, we did nothing to stop this horrendous atrocity from happening. In fact, when the possibility arose that Western people could be at risk we simply cut all links and ran, hiding behind sanctions and rhetoric as the Tutsis were slaughtered. Of course the complexities of intervening in a civil war meant that rash action had a very real possibility of inflaming the situation, with a not insignificant number of countries neighbouring Rwanda less than enamoured of the Tutsis themselves. Nevertheless, our inactivity remains as a black stain on the conscience of the West, particularly the UN. Shooting Dogs shows us a very human perspective of what we allowed to happen.
It starts with the relatively calm and peaceful lives of Joe (Hugh Dancy) and Father Christopher (John Hurt), the former a GAP student teaching in the Rwandan capital, the latter a Roman Catholic priest. Joe is a well off young man trying to give something back to the world while Christopher is an established ex-pat and someone who has seen a little of what can happen during a coup d'etat. They run a school and church in a compound guarded by UN troops who are observing the recently formed system of rule whereby power is shared between the Tutsis and the Hutus. In the school the predominantly Tutsi students have little to worry them and there is no sense of us and them: the groundsman Roland is a Hutu and everyone seems perfectly at ease with him... And then the Hutu Rwandan president is killed when his plane is shot down.
Building up to this we have the occasional moment of concern. Some consensus is happening whereby all Tutsi homes have to be identified. Hutu politicians are making ominous noises. Hutu children think nothing of throwing stones at a 'cockroach' Tutsi and the captain in charge of the Belgian troops of the UN (Dominique Horwitz) seems nervous about the situation, particularly his mandate for when he can engage the enemy: he is only to fire if fired upon and if he wants to use his heavy machine guns he requires written confirmation from the Secretary General of the UN...
What happens next is the stuff of nightmares. Shooting Dogs offers little explanation of why the massacre occurred, although there are allusions to the previous Tutsi dominance of many years where the Hutus were little more than slaves. Regardless, with the death of the President, the Hutu people rise up as one and begin to slaughter their Tutsi brethren. It makes for grim viewing, though nothing we see is particularly gratuitous. In fact, the calmness of the Hutus as they go about their genocide is far more disturbing than the savageness one might have expected. Added to this are the transparent attempts at duplicity by a Hutu minister which indicate there is more than mere racist opportunism at work.
Within a day the Hutus are all up in arms, called by national radio to destroy the supposed Tutsi aggressor. With nowhere to go many of the Tutsis are slaughtered. Some make it to UN controlled bases where, in the case of this film, Father Christopher insists they are given shelter... but how long can Capitaine Delon remain in position with his troops, especially after the Tutsi Prime Minister is slaughtered, along with her UN guard...? The meat of the film concerns Joe and Christopher's attempts to impose some sort of order on their chaotic surroundings. They achieve tiny miracles to fuel their hope and that of the people around them: finding some medicine for a sick child for example. But their every success is instantly dashed as the Hutus gather around the school, simply biding their time till the inevitable UN pull out. The monstrous, carnival spirit of the Hutus is particularly abhorrent, as they sing and dance in anticipation of the slaughter, blowing whistles and waving their weapons in the air.
We, the audience, are left in little doubts as to what is going to happen, and the slow realisation that dawns on Joe and Christopher is almost as painful for us as it is for them. Based on a true account, shot on location and staffed by many survivors of the massacres, Shooting Dogs pulls few punches. From a woman hacked to death while clutching her new born child to the mere second's hesitation before the Hutu man buries his machete to silence the baby, this movie chills and saddens in ways far beyond any fictional horror. The fact that it grieves more than it sickens is thanks to the low key direction and, mostly, restrained performances throughout. Neither Hurt, Dancy or anyone else allows themselves to cut lose into monologues, instead they try to contain their emotions so that no one else might see the fear they feel until, finally, we have the great question that the two men must answer: do they stay or do they go when the troops finally leave? To stay is to die at the blade of a machete. To go is to suffer the awesome burden of the survivor. But at least you will survive to tell the rest of us what went on...
This tragedy happened, it was reported to us and we read it, yet we simply tut tutted and turned to the sport section of our newspapers. Now, with films like Hotel Rwanda and Shooting Dogs we are finally being shown just what we ignored. It should practically be compulsory for us to view it.
Inside Man (2006)
Standard twisty-turny thriller but with a brilliantly novel twist of social commentary and humour
This is a great movie... there's very little that can be held against it. Spike Lee has taken what appears to have been your everyday suspenseful thriller and made it into one of the best films of the year thus far. Fast moving but heavy on characterisation, thrilling and suspenseful but playful and clever, socially aware but seldom preachy and always with a wry undercurrent of brilliantly unexpected humour, all in all this film kicks ass!
To sum up the basic plot: Clive Own is the man who has planned the perfect bank robbery, you know this because he tells you he's done it, the only question is whether we're hearing him before or after the heist... The principle is fairly simple. Along with three other masked associates he has developed a scheme that is supposedly full proof, involving misdirection, the creation of chaos and the possibility for great reward in more ways than one... Denzel Washington, along with the excellent Chiwetel Ejiofor as his partner, is the black detective tasked with overseeing hostage negotiations. Willem Dafoe is the put upon police captain in charge of the whole goddamn mess, Peter Kybart is the very put upon mayor of New York dragged in to proceedings, Christopher Plummer is the very rich owner of the bank with a very guilty secret buried there (he is also fairly put upon) and Jody Foster is, quite frankly, the horrendous bitch employed by Plummer to keep his secret safe. She does much of the putting onto the other characters...
All the players, aside from Foster who appears to be having the time of her life playing the opposite to all those sensitive souls thrust onto her since Taxi Driver, are on very familiar territory and they clearly enjoy their roles, perhaps with the exception Plummer, thanks mainly to the numerous jokes, gags and other material they get to perform in front of, where I watched it, a cinema packed to the rafters. Whoever produced this film (Universal I think) has really gone all out to get the punters in and it helped the movie a great deal. Having a full house encouraged that kind of group bond where the jokes and situations appear that bit funnier.
It could be that phenomenon which made me enjoy Inside Man so much, but I certainly didn't mind the obvious plot holes and massive leaps of faith required of our suspension of disbelief. At any one point in this movie the various protagonists would be undone by one single person failing to act absolutely according to plan... this includes both Denzel Washington and Clive Owen, whose characters are both on extremely thin ice... Owen due to becoming a hostage taking bank robber and Washington because of a recent question over some missing funds from a case he worked.
However, I was totally prepared to accept the ludicrousness of the situations presented to us, which was highly unusual for me. The reason? Spike Lee. The self styled king of modern, black, American political cinema takes the hackneyed plot of just another thriller and turns it into a massive diatribe against the hypocrisy of modern New Yorkers. Instead of the colour blind, metropolitan city the Big Apple is currently portrayed as, in recent years, where films suggesting all isn't right socially are seen as either trying to blacken a good city's name or as years behind the times, Lee uses this new medium, for him, of the thriller to turn an eye on what he sees in the New York of 2006.
The cops are mostly racist, bigoted and incompetent, attitudes Washington and Ejiofor's characters are not exempt from. At various points during the movie the police show extreme measures against hostages who are simply honest citizens of New York, perhaps best summed up with their taking down of a dark skinned bank teller ('My God, it's an Arab!' 'I'm not an Arab I'm a Sikh...!'). Similarly, the various women involved do not enjoy a fun time with New York's finest either. Funnily enough, though, for a man so interested in modern, ignored bigotry, Lee fails to offer any moments where homosexuals are involved in proceedings. It could be that this is deliberate and that New York really has become totally acceptant of gay men and women... or there could be another reason for the absence. Regardless, the lack of a particular branch of intolerance is in no way felt at the time due to the constant bombardment on the numerous divides that still exist between the two sexes and the numerous racial groups... as one police sergeant very aptly puts it; 'I'd rather be an old bigot than a handsome corpse...!' this said, of course, to that hero of good, honest, black characters, Denzel Washington!
Inside Man is resplendent with these images, angles and wry amusement. Laugh out loud moments are plentiful and the overall story arc is quick enough to maintain an interest without sacrificing on developing an empathy between the audience and the protagonists. Lee has taken his shot at a mainstream piece of cinema and has most likely satisfied an adequate commercial cross section of the audience without alienating or betraying his political roots. This film is altogether excellent and the acting, though unlikely to trouble anyone next awards season, is in tune with the piece. Similarly we have a director reigning in his most ardent voice but not silencing it completely, allowing a very fresh perspective on a standard and lacklustre genre. This gives us a whole new look at two simultaneously over and under subscribed subjects: the thriller and the modern New York city. To my mind it was high time we had both! All in all I highly recommend Inside Man.
V for Vendetta (2005)
The best movie out this year?
And so we come to the Wachowskis' first non-Matrix project since Bound and one can't help thinking that they could've picked a concept a little further away from their established territory. V for Vendetta represents a radical lack of change in direction for the brothers but, when they're on this sort of form, one can forgive them for treading familiar paths. Of course, this is not to say that Andy and Larry are purely responsible for V for Vendetta, credit must go to James McTeigue, whose first sortie into direction, albeit heavily under the influence of the Wachowskis, shows an excellent grasp of his craft.
V for Vendetta, henceforth just V, is an astonishingly stylish film, bringing together all the darkness and rich, vibrant colour one would expect from a graphic novel adaptation and linking the images with, mostly, a fitting and enjoyable innovative cinematography. At no point are you left thinking 'This is much more than a comic book adaptation,' but when the images are this good you don't really care. However, you cannot live on style alone and McTeigue, with his two parental peers overseeing him, delivers on the heart aspect of V well. By focusing on Natalie Portman's Evey we get a human perspective of the dystopic world of an English fascist future. To Evey V is initially every bit as intimidating as the government that oppresses her and killed her family. Her fear of V and her desire to be normal again are both realistic and sympathetic, the latter being much harder to show without turning the audience against Evey. However, this trick is performed with real skill and little obviousness about it so that we don't hate her for her wish to be free of V.
Unfortunately, where the film doesn't work is equally clear. Portman's accent, as has been widely reported, is awful and must be chalked up as a clear negative. It would've practically been better, although anathema to purist readers of the original source material, to have Evey be an American living in London rather than endure Portman's mockney twittering, which is every bit as irksome as Dick Van Dyke or Don Cheadle in Mary Poppins and Oceans 11/12 respectively.
Why then not simply have cast someone else in the role? Well the answer to that is also simple: Portman is fantastic as Evey, imbuing her with a full range of emotions as her character endures everything from torture to love during the roller-coaster ride she inadvertently joins. The accent aside, Portman's Evey almost drips with sincerity and heart, two qualities without which, as I've mentioned, the film would have failed drastically.
And what of Hugo? Well Agent Smith is on well trodden ground with this film. Covered up throughout by an expressionless mask, Weaving does his best to instill V with a character and mostly does well, creating the mixture of great strength and intense vulnerability that all superheroes, which V is albeit in the antiheroic Batman style, must have to appeal to an audience who are instinctively jealous and distrustful of their powers. Weaving does what is required to the best of his abilities and pulls off the impressive coup of making us emote with someone who is, effectively, little more than a robot whose moral outrage has enforced his descent into supposedly terrorist activities.
Overall this movie is both great fun and thought provoking, rather like the original Matrix film. It's portrayal of a future where the merging of a totalitarian government with a pliant media keeps the entire population under control is extremely pertinent to today's climate of fear the likes of George Bush and Tony Blair are trying to create, backed up by the people in charge of corporations, which are also represented in V as the main beneficiaries when human populations are afraid and therefore consume more. You could write, or read, books on how prevalent this attitude is at the moment and it is nice to see a Hollywood blockbuster so openly tackle the subject, though it does so with half an eye on the stopwatch...
...Which is why the film works so well. Andy and Larry may have blundered hugely with the Matrix sequels but here they have constrained themselves and, although V is a long movie, it never feels slow. Similarly for a modern action flick there is a surprising dearth of slow motion fight scenes. Yet, despite this, you never feel yourself losing interest or itching to press some sort of cinematic fast forward button, thanks to the chemistry and sincerity of all involved and, equally importantly, the way the film pans out. The pacing is generally excellent and the tension, when it comes, is all the more powerful because of the holding back on the CG, special effects and violence. V's final battle, for example, would never have worked emotionally if he'd spent the whole film doing equally, or more, impressive things. Instead we have a payoff that, like the final scenes of the original Matrix, is utterly engrossing and highly emotive.
Beyond that there's not much to say. There are problems beyond Portman's accent
V's wordiness jars the nerves a little and the lack of an expression on our antihero becomes frustrating too. At over two hours the movie is a little overlong and the final conclusion perhaps a little too pat. However, these issues are relatively minor and often forgotten when the next scene swings by. The excellent Stephen Rea deserves much credit here for the way he takes an explanatory character (someone simply present to explain/'discover' V's motives) and makes a real person out of him. Most of the other support is top notch too.
Therefore I strongly urge you to see this film and, hopefully, enjoy it as much as I have. To those of you out that who might hesitate, after the Matrices Reloaded and Revolutions, take heart
the Wachowski's are back on form.
Serenity (2005)
Let's hope for a shiny future
There are problems with this movie... Occasionally it looks low budget, sometimes props are clearly props, there aren't any recognisable (read bankable) stars, the story needed a fair bit of suspension of disbelief, every now and then the sense of scale is off and there are problems tying the film in with the series. But I've still given it ten stars... Why? Because Serenity is one of the best examples of modern film making! Now that is quite an inflammatory statement but I will try and provide some reasons for it.
Put simply, Serenity represents the antithesis of a typical Hollywood film: low budget (relatively), no stars and made by someone who might well have 'TV program creator' stamped on his tombstone. These are all things that are anathema to your average studio executive. So why did Serenity get made? There are two sides to that: the creators (Whedon, Minear, the actors and so forth) and the fans. Both sides desperately wanted Firefly to continue and their combined pressure, along with other fans (Enterprise's so I've read) managed to create enough buzz to have this anti-film commissioned. That is a staggering achievement.
What is equally impressive is how gripping and mind blowing a yarn Serenity is. Following on, very loosely, from the series (which I saw afterwards and must admit I prefer, albeit only by a small margin) Serenity is a film that takes you on a fast moving, funny, touching and unpredictable ride grossly in excess of most of what Hollywood has created in recent years. Whereas the studios have gone for the safest bets they can (as per usual), often ramming poorly made films down our throats with marketing allowances way in excess of Serenity's entire budget (Revenge of the Sith or War of the Worlds spring to mind), Serenity represents a radical departure, telling a story that deserved to be told without taking any of the easy ways out that might have made it more profitable - recasting the leads for example.
Instead every actor present is a relative unknown and they all seize their opportunity with an enthusiasm and love for their roles sorely lacking from bigger budget pictures. You can genuinely feel their affection for each other and the Firefly 'verse, as well as the older films that inspired it - Nathan Fillion's Han Solo, sorry Malcolm Reynolds, reminds us of everything the Star Wars prequels missed. On top of that the various new comers do very well indeed, Chiwetel Ejiofor epitomising clinical coolness as the monstrous Operative while David Krumholzt seems right at home as the computer super geek of the future, Mr. Universe. Everyone involved gives their all and it is reflected in the final product.
Joss Whedon also deserves a huge amount of credit for his daring decisions, most notably the hardship he puts his leads through. Few punches are pulled and, although some of the risks work better than others, at no point do you feel that this film is boringly predictable. Added to this is a relatively straight forward narrative structure and progression which gives ample room for the acting, script and special effects to be shown off without jeopardising the story. Some of these effects do look less than real, that is true, but the whole film is put together so lovingly and so effectively that you tend to give it a lot more leeway than you would a marketing behemoth. Of particular note is the clever use of CG. Instead of the routine, CG everything we've come to expect from Sci-fi films, Serenity uses its computer generative effects as sparingly as possible and usually to make something visually stunning. You know that you're looking at something fake, but the fact that they're not expecting you to say 'Oh that's real' means that you can accept the splendour and paper over the occasional crack, if you're prepared to.
Critics of this film site many of the things I've mentioned in the first paragraph as reasons for their dislike but I disagree. To me, it is the rough edges that make this film what it is. It isn't polished to a high sheen, paced at breakneck speed or filled with blinding images to confuse the audience and cover up the deficiencies in the plot. Instead it's just a story of (relatively) ordinary people in the future, living lives not unlike how ours would be, should we be in the same situation, and treasuring the things we love: companionship, truth, loyalty and other, unquantifiable qualities. Everyone involved is committed to the process and, if you let it, you are as well. That is because, unlike so many of today's films, Serenity is made with one thing the majority of the others lack: heart, and because of that it deserves to be ranked far ahead of all the insultingly simple, star heavy and plot lite pieces of cinema which are inflicted on us by a movie industry jaded by its pure desire to make money. If they took a moment to see what you can create should you go for quality over quantity we would all benefit.