Film review: CHRONICLE

I think it would be safe to say that the gimmick of "found footage" films are quickly wearing thin for me. Sure, it's been an interesting approach to make in a couple of horror films but, along with shakey-cam, I'm pretty much over the poorly framed, jerky, hard-to-watch camera-work. Not to mention the suspension of disbelief you have to enter into with each new found footage film; we're supposed to buy into the fact that someone is going to keep filming while a bunch of crazy-ass stuff is going-on around them and, more often that not, their friends are dying. Not to mention that each of the camera-wielding characters are preternaturally gifted at framing, lighting and recording amazing sound with shitty camera mikes.

It's a technique that has primarily been exposed in horror, with The Blair Witch Project famously kicking it all off back in '99 (though found footage films had been around for awhile before then). Each year seems to bring a new entry, from the Paranormal Activity and [REC] series to one-off films such as Diary of the Dead and The Devil Inside and any number of lesser known, low budget shit-fests. And, like I said, the gimmick is getting tired.

Then again... then again... There have been attempts in recent years to expand the "found footage" movie out of the horror genre where it has found itself trapped recently. Cloverfield gave us a found footage monster movie, while Troll Hunter was a fantasy-monster-adventure-horror flick. And now Chronicle is the found footage superhero movie.

Andrew initially begins recording his life because his mother is sick and dying, while his father is out of work on a disability benefit and often drunk and abusive. He wants to, I dunno, chronicle his sad little life and the abuse he gets from his father. Andrew's best (and, in fact, only friend) is his cousin Matt. Matt is on the opposite side of the spectrum to Andrew; where Andrew is socially awkward, withdrawn and suffers bullying, Matt thinks himself too smart and cool to be bothered with being smart and cool. Andrew is dragged along to a party by Matt in attempt to help bring him out of his shell. Instead, they and popular jock & all-round nice guy Steve discover a weird hole in the ground. This hole leads to a cave, which leads to a weird glowing crystal that zaps them and grants them all superpowers - telekinesis.

The three boys begin to learn how to use and control their newfound powers and find themselves getting stronger and closer to one another. They are all, somehow, connected. The movie never makes any big bones about this or tries to offer up an explanation for it, or any other aspects of their powers - which is a refreshing change from the over-explanation given in most modern blockbusters. These moments of discovery are easily the best moments in the film - when the trio learn to fly, they speed, loop and holler with joy through the clouds. This is also when the found footage conceit really works best, when there are moments captured you feel like you would actually capture yourself. The fact, too, that these guys enjoy their powers and have a blast using them - whether its flying or pulling pranks on unsuspecting folks - it feels far more real and honest than, well, any other reaction in other superhero films. I know if I ever gained superpowers and was able to fly around I would fucking love it.

Things begin to take a turn for the worse as Andrew, a confused boy filled with anger at the world and suffering abuse at home, begins to abuse his powers. In one of the creepier moments in the film, he uses his powers to dangle a spider in mid-air, before torturing and killing it. It's a powerful character moment and says more than any explosive demonstration could. Not even a sudden leap in popularity, helped along by Steve, does him any good. It all culminates in a massive psychic slugfest in downtown Seattle as Matt and Andrew go at it. It's a fairly knock-down, no-holds barred affair with the team making the most of their limited budget. It's a final battle that works as more than just pyrotechnics and noise, as there has been strong character work done by screenwriter Max Landis and the actors to bring us here.

However, as with the majority of these found footage films, is there some sort of unwritten rule that these characters have to be annoying dickbags? Andrew, the main character/villain/camera operator is a snivelling, friendless and largely charisma-free character. There are strongly established reasons for all of this, and Dane DeHaan is fairly fearless in the way he embraces the worst aspects of this character, but it really wore me down. I don't have to agree or like a protagonist but there has to be something there; some sort of reason as to why I should follow this person through the story. 

The found footage film is one that ultimately brings attention to itself, by having to explain why everything is being filmed and by having the characters continually address the audience, through the camera. You also have to believe in the innate and flawless skills of these (mostly first-time) camera-men. And in Chronicle the conceit is used fairly loosely - are we really supposed to believe that Andrew's dad wouldn't just simply smash the camera? One character is introduced simply for there to be another camera recording things when Andrew isn't around. Not to mention the fact that the entire conceit gets defenestrated come the final confrontation.

Chronicle is an interesting, intelligent and refreshing examination of the old superhero nuggets of power and responsibility but it never quite reaches as high as I was expecting. Part of that is down to the found footage aesthetic; perhaps if it had only been used sparingly and at certain moments I would have bought it more. 

Film review: SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS

I LOVE that there's even an official
character poster for the frakkin' dog

My first choice for my next film was Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, to complete the Benedict Cumberbatch triumvirate. However, A Game of Shadows maintains some sort of consistency to the pattern: Cumberbatch of course plays the famous detective in the recent BBC miniseries and A Game of Shadows also continues the World War I through-line begun with War Horse - SPOILERS! - as Moriarty's big plan is to start WWI some 25 years early.

I enjoyed the first Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law starring Sherlock Holmes enough. It was no definitive edition of Doyle's famous sleuth, but it was a bit of rock 'em sock 'em adventure with a wonderful chemistry between the two leads; it was pulpy, a little silly but it had enough momentum to it to carry you through. Since that first film, however, I have gone back and re-read the original short stories and have become enamoured of the BBC series. Guy Ritchie's less nuanced approach to the Great Detective can only pale in comparison.

Jude Law's Dr. John Watson is soon to be married, while Holmes obsesses over a new, grand case involving many tenuous links, seemingly masterminded by one man: Professor James Moriarty. Moriarty, the Napoleon of Crime, is a villain who looms large not just over the Sherlock mythos but over literature in general and is one of the few people able to match wits with Holmes. He is an equal opposite number; the flip-side of the coin. Holmes is chasing him down and, once again, uses Watson in his deductive quest. A gypsy fortune teller in the guise of Noomi Rapace is also swept up in the cross-country gallivanting as Holmes et al chase Moriarty - as he travels about on a book tour no less! It all culminates, as we all knew it would, in Switzerland at the Reichenbach Falls.

There's plenty of running about in between, with Ritchie really pushing the use of speed ramping during action scenes. Because, I dunno, it's cool or something I guess. It's a technique that makes some story & character sense in the mental planning Holmes does before each physical confrontation - the audience can see precisely how Holmes goes about disabling an opponent. But when the action slows down and speeds up while shit explodes around the characters, it becomes more of an affectation with no real basis beyond looking cool.

The relationship between Holmes and Watson or, more specifically, the chemistry between Downey Jr. and Law seems decidedly more strained, more high-pitched than the previous film. Where in Sherlock Holmes you genuinely felt that these two were close to being a bickering old married couple who feel a closeness and affection for one another, in A Game of Shadows the feeling is more one of one-upmanship and yelling at one another. Rachel McAdams' Irene Adler makes a return from Sherlock Holmes, although really makes less of an impact than her character deserves while The Gypsy With No Tatoo seems to have just been brought along for the ride.

Both Holmes films have taken the "who" out of the central mysteries; there is never any doubt as to who is behind the dastardly deeds (Mark Strong in the first and Moriarty here), rather the mystery is in the "how" and "why". And, frankly, the "why" behind Moriarty's grand plan is really rather pedestrian and boring. Hell, he's just doing it all for the money. Woop-de-doo. It strikes me as really far too vulgar a reason for the greatest criminal mind in history to do what he does.

A Game of Shadows was enjoyable enough, with a number of nods and shout-outs to Holmes history. But it is a film I struggled to remember anything about a day or two after.

24.10: REAL STEEL

From Warrior to Real Steel... both ostensibly sports films, but both very, very different approaches. Where Warrior strove for a more grounded (though still heightened) world, Real Steel features boxing robots. However, in a further congruence both films have a surprisingly effective emotional core and both feature broken families, with an emphasis on flawed father figures.

In Real Steel that flawed father is Hugh Jackman's washed up boxer, Charlie Kenton. Back when boxing was still featuring human boxers, he was an up-and-coming star. With the advent of robot boxing though, his star quickly fades and he finds himself dragging a rusting old robot around the fringes of the sport, constantly trying to stay a few steps ahead of his creditors. This ragged existence of his is interrupted when his ex-girlfriend dies and Charlie has to take some sort of responsibility for his son - a son he doesn't know or want.

The extent to which the film goes to make Jackman's Charlie a complete asshole of a dad is actually really stunning and brave, especially in a Disney family film. Charlie Kenton is not only a guy who has had nothing to do with his 11 year-old son Max but who actively sells the kid to his ex-girlfriend's sister. Charlie needs money, the kid's aunt's husband has money and so Charlie brokers a deal. I mean, this guy is an asshole. But, y'know, at the same time he's Hugh "Wolverine" Jackman, a man with a very high charisma quotient. So Charlie still scrapes by as a charming sonuvabitch. The child-trading aside, Charlie has one summer to spend with his son before the smart-ass tyke goes to live with his aunt. So Charlie, not wanting some annoying kid slowing him up, tries to dump the kid with another ex. But Max is too smart for that; he's big in to robot boxing and wants to spend some time on the road with his dad learning about it. They're both incredibly clear-eyed about the father-son relationship - Max tumbles to his dad's selling of him fairly quickly - but the two of them come to know, appreciate and love one another.

Yep, Real Steel is not just a movie about robots pounding seven shades of crap out of each other (helloooooo Transformers 3!) but features an emotional "A" story about an estranged father and son bonding. And director Shawn Levy - the man behind such classic "comedies" as Cheaper by the Dozen and Just Married  - manages to not club the audience over the head with enforced pathos and obvious emotional manipulation. It seems when he isn't troubling over the "comedy", Levy can get some emotional honesty from a film. Or, the fact that screenwriter John Gatins is no stranger to uplifting sports movies - Coach Carter, Dreamer, Hardball - could also have helped, even if none of them ever really caught on. In fact, it seems like Gatins has only written sports films; know your niche I guess. Through whatever thrice-damned alchemy they used, they crucially never overstep into the overwrought or cloying sentimentality that could have otherwise crippled the film. 

As Max's bot Atom - old, clunky, can take a beating but can't dish it out - progresses successfully through bout after bout, the plucky trio catch the eye of the robot boxing big leagues. Max is a smart and fired up kid - he won't sell Atom and he won't quit. He's a little bit of a jerk, but understandably so - his father did walk out on him and then try to sell him. He's also smart - smarter than his dad, as is constantly shown throughout the film - but he's also still just a goofy kid; he's fascinated by the robots because, c'mon! What kid wouldn't be? The connection Max makes to this old sparring bot he digs up is realistically childlike and unforced. A lot of this is down to Dakota Goyo's portrayal of Max and the easy rapport he has going on with Jackman. As someone who is more accustomed to the annoying kid characters that are so obviously designed to try and fit a "cool, hip and outsider" mold and just don't, Max is something of a relief.

Real Steel is far from perfect; I wouldn't call it a great piece of cinema and it makes no pretense of striving for that. I would, however, say that the film and it's makers are upfront and honest about what it is and what it's goals are. Much like one of Charlie's robots, Real Steel is a pieced together machine of other films. But the machine works so well, with a plucky trio at the heart of it all, you barely notice the gears. 

13.09: HANNA

An ace alternate poster by UK artist Jock

Joe Wright, it seems, is not a director that will do what people expect. This is the man who has previously brought us two English period dramas (one an Austen adaptation!) and a true-life tale about a mentally-broken musician. Now, with Hanna, he gives us an art-house thriller; the espionage film as music-video; Bourne as a not-so-sweet 16 year-old girl. 

The young chameleon more commonly known as Saoirse Ronan is the eponymous Hanna, a remarkable young girl raised in the frozen far North, removed from civilisation by her father Erik (Eric Bana). Erik (with a pretty great Russian accent from Bana) has been raising Hanna in hiding, for her own safety. There are covert powers that would love nothing less than for her to be wiped from the face of the Earth, and these are personified in the brittle and deadly CIA agent Marissa (Cate Blanchett). Hanna and Erik spend their days hunting, learning, fighting and testing. Erik is doing what he can to prepare Hanna for the day when she is ready - ready to be unleashed upon Marissa and the world. He has taught Hanna numerous forms of armed and unarmed combat, a vast array of languages and a host of other skills pertinent to a top secret agent. It's the kind of education that has taught her the theory of music, without her ever hearing any.

And then the day comes when Hanna is ready. The signal is sent, the black helicopters are on their way and Hanna is forced in to the world to kill Marissa and rejoin Erik. What Wright gives us is a chase/espionage/coming-of-age story as Hanna is quickly captured, escapes and hooks up with a vaguely hippy English family in Morocco. She hitches a ride with them and, through their daughter Sophie, catches a glimpse of the "normal" life she has been sorely missing. Marissa, determined to hunt Hanna down at any cost, employs the cruel, camp Isaacs (Tom Hollander - creepy and wonderful) and his henchmen. It's a propulsive plot, moving quickly across countries before climaxing in Berlin, amongst a host of symbolically decrepit playgrounds.

The score by the Chemical Brothers pumps throughout - especially during Hanna's initial escape through tunnels and airducts large and small. It is defintely a case of the score becoming an organic part of the action, the visual and aural feeding and feeding off one another. And Wright proves himself a more than capable action director - the centrepiece being another of his long one-takes involving Eric Bana, a subway and multiple agents being taken down with surgical efficiency. These scenes are also constructed with more thought and care than any other CG spectacles you care to name; these action sequences all speak to character and themes and are meant to be more than just "cool shit".

Hanna is not a perfect film, with a couple of missteps taken, and it will not redefine the action or espionage genres but it is something special and unique. And, in this ever-franchising world, that is something to be enjoyed and celebrated. 

04.09: RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

Up until last year I had only ever seen the original Planet of the Apes, and I had seen that years ago. The pre-eminent thing I’d heard of the Apes series had been how the budget had been slashed and slashed and slashed for the subsequent sequels. As such, I didn’t really expect much from it. Then, last year, my partner and I sat and watched the entire series of films (on VHS no less!). I was actually astounded at how good they (mostly) were, and how they all strove to say something about our society as humans then and now. It iss a bonkers series, no doubt about it – the second film ends with the entire planet blowing up after a nuclear warhead is set off by a bunch of religious nutters who worship it (hmmm...) – but there is some serious intelligent thought behind it all. Planet of the Apes is a stone-cold cinematic classic and my favourite of the sequels is easily Conquest of the Planet of the Apes – where the slave apes, led by the hyper-intelligent Caesar, throw off the shackles of slavery and revolt against their human masters. There is some barmy sci-fi in there, but the film is really aiming to say something and seems to carry a real anger inside it.

The news that Fox were, once again, aiming to restart the Apes franchise filled me with more than a little trepidation. But then I began to hear great things about the script and how they were using Conquest as a jumping off point (rather than throwing out the baby, bathwater and logic as Tim Burton did). The end result; with a fairly great cast, astonishing performance capture from WETA and honest intelligence, is really very, very good.

The film begins in the jungle, as a family of chimpanzees are hunted and captured. I think it’s important to note here that no real apes or people in ape costumes were used for the entirety of the film. Every single ape is a performance captured digital creature and they look astonishing. Though some of the other visual effects come across a little hokey, the money has been spent in the right place with the apes. These captured apes are brought to San Francisco where they are used for medical drug trials – in this case, a possible cure for Alzheimer’s developed by brilliant bio-chemist James Franco. One female ape, “Bright Eyes”, shows particular promise with the drug not only working but enhancing her cognitive functions too. However, she rampages through the facility and Franco’s experiment is shut down. It is only afterwards they discover Bright Eyes was only trying to protect her child – a child Franco takes home. Franco and his father, once a pianist now deteriorating with Alzheimer’s himself (Jon Lithgow), name the baby ape Caesar and Franco raises him as his own son. Caesar grows into an intelligent, active young ape confused about his place in the world.

It is only when the adult Caesar, in the act of protecting Lithgow, attacks a neighbour and is placed in an animal shelter that the film really gets going. The shelter is run as more of a prison by Bryan Cox and his evil twerp of a son, Draco Malfoy. It is here that the majority of Caesar’s arc takes place, as he experiences firsthand the cruelty and callousness of humans towards apes – as he feels abandoned by Franco and as he witnesses fellow apes being carted off to the biotech lab where Franco works. Caesar first takes control of the apes, and then plans the breakout and ensuing revolution.

Director Rupert Wyatt (The Escapist, this being only his second feature film) keeps the pace up and helps to really make Caesar the star. There’s a reason I haven’t named any of the human characters – because I can’t remember their names and they barely matter anyway. To a studio flick aimed at restarting a franchise, Wyatt brings a number of deft, intelligent touches – the leaves falling as the apes move through the trees and the cutting across large swathes of time. There are some holes in the story (and considering the number of hands the script went through, it’s not a big surprise) but they only become apparent afterwards, if you really think about them. For the rest of the film, you are fully engaged in this smart story of a young revolutionary who helps raise his people up against their callous and fearful oppressors. He just happens to be an ape.

08.06: SUPER 8

My friends and I have been making our own short films since we were, about oh, 14. While we weren’t using 8mm film stock, we were using VHS-C and, later, 8mm videotape. Editing was done in camera, or with two VCRs before we got access to some school Macs. The results were… well, about what you’d expect from a group of young, inexperienced genre lovers. I think those early films of ours contain an equal share of great and cringe-worthy moments. But the passion and fun is always there.

I say all this so you can have an idea of the frame of reference I approach a film like Super 8 with. Super 8 is the latest from geek-tease filmmaker JJ Abrams, and features a group of young teenage friends making a movie in 1979. One of the boys, our hero Joe Lamb, has just lost his mother in an industrial accident. He and his dad, Deputy Lamb, don’t really understand one another; Lamb Snr. doesn’t understand his son’s interest in monster make-up and horror & sci-fi films and is none too keen on him spending the summer making a zombie movie. The director of the zombie flick is Joe’s best friend Charles, a demanding kid who hassles and wrangles the others into the movie. There’s also the young pyro Cary, star Martin and general gopher Preston. Into this mix of young males, Charles brings in Alice Dainard to play the wife in his movie, to cram in an emotional core. Alice’s drunken dad was sorta kinda responsible for the death of Joe’s mum; he was too drunk to turn up for work, so she took his shift. Despite this, Joe and Alice share a connection. I can see a fair amount of me and my friends in this young group of filmmakers, though they’re obviously heightened. There’s the joy of hanging out together, all making a movie because you just love hanging out together and making movies. And it’s when they’re all together, shooting a scene at midnight at an old train station that HOLYSHIT BIG TRAIN CRASH EXPLOSION KABOOM POW CRASH BOOM PAH!

That train crash you’ve seen in the trailers? Well, this is nothing like what you’ve seen in the advertising – in a very, very good way. And it signals a hard right turn for the film – it’s here that Super 8 changes from a late-70's set coming-of-age film to a late-70's set coming-of-age film with a whacking great alien monster marauding through it. And while keeping back the images of the alien in the advertising is understandable, Abrams keeps obscuring it throughout the actual film, which only serves to become distracting. I can see what he's going for - a Jaws-like effect - but there's no big reveal, no huge Ohmygods moment so it doesn't really work. The creature in fact looks like a smaller cousin of the Cloverfield city-stomper; that is, not particularly memorable. Perhaps Abrams is envisioning Super 8 as being in the same shared universe as Cloverfield – but why?

In any case, the alien is not the star of the show nor the focus of the tale. The kids are. And the young actors making up the group of film-making friends are mostly great and hit that same sort of chemistry that made hanging out with the Goonies such fun. Joel Courtney as Joe is quite the young find managing to carry the emotional centre of the film superbly. And Elle Fanning (yes, younger sister of Dakota) is outright fantastic as Alice. Abrams peppers the adult characters with fine character actors like Kyle Chandler, Dan Castellaneta, Ron Eldard and Michael Hitchcock.

For Abrams' first original feature film (after two TV show adaptations) this is a solidly entertaining adventure. While the alien will never enter the hallowed halls of classic movie monsters, Abrams has otherwise made a cracking film; I could, in fact, have just watched this as a coming-of-age tale without the alien altogether. I'd be interested in seeing what Abrams can do away from the relative safety of genre films; this is the man who created Felicity after all. It feels like Super 8 is a step in that direction with the sci-fi element being Frankensteined on, but only a step.

There is an obvious Spielbergian quality to the film; Abrams is directly referencing and calling back to the early films of Spielberg. Which is not to say Super 8 is some sort of slavish homage (Superman Returns); this is still through Abrams' lens: instead of an absent father, there is a struggling father. And where Spielberg’s “kids” movies took place in the time period in which they were made, Abrams has gone back to the time period of his own childhood; the time when Spielberg was making these films. Does Abrams think there is no innocence anymore? Are kids today too interconnected via technology? Or, is it just a little bit of nostalgia and a call back to his childhood? I think it must be a little from all of those.

What Abrams doesn't manage to take from Spielberg though, is his elegance. Spielberg's films, for all their whiz-bang special effects, always have a real heart at the centre of them with everything intertwining and leading to the emotional pay off come the end. Abrams goes for the big metaphor, but doesn't quite pull it off; it doesn't quite all come together. But the man knows how to shoot a scene, and really goes to town (so to speak) with the destruction visited upon the small town. If only he weren't so enamoured with the lens flares. My gods, the lens flares. It's a stylistic tic we could do without, thanks. In Star Trek they were similarly omnipresent, but at least they made sense within the context of the film: the Enterprise was bright and shiny and new and decked out like an Apple product. I thought perhaps they might be the sort of lens flares caught on a cheap super 8 camera. Nope. It's just a thing he does now.

Lens flare aside, Super 8 is a surprisingly entertaining film. Yes, it harkens back to similar films of yesteryear either produced or directed by the Beard and it does so with nostalgia and respect while being it's own beast. I can't help but be reminded of my own times being covered in fake blood/covering others in fake blood and having a helluva great time doing so. I thought it an interesting dichotomy though that this is a movie about kids working with film (the super 8 of the title), but was projected digitally. 

10.04: SUCKER PUNCH

Produced for the Zack Snyder series
at Mondotees

One thing you definitely cannot fault in Zack Snyder’s first original film is the visuals. Whatever else you say about the film, whatever else you think about the man, you cannot say Snyder doesn’t know how to make action look fantastic. The man knows what he’s doing with a camera. And yes, his infamous speed-ramping is in full effect here but that’s the thing: in Sucker Punch it is a full effect, it’s no longer a distracting director’s tic. A shame then that Snyder the writer cannot tie everything together so neatly.

Emily Browning (all grown up from her adventures with Lemony Snickett) is the protagonist, Baby Doll. The film starts with the raising of two theatre curtains and a slow-mo, dialogue free prologue: 1960’s, dead mother, evil step-father, little sister, accidental death, Baby Doll incarcerated at Lennox Home for the Mentally Insane (Mentally Insane?! Love it). Boom bam boom and we’re away. Once there, she’s set up by her step-dad and a crooked orderly for a lobotomy. She escapes into a fantasy where the Asylum is... a burlesque house. And from there she gets a group of girls together to plot an escape. They all have Roles in the plan, and aren’t much more than pretty caricatures. The plan consists of obtaining four items and to get these items, Baby Doll dances to distract the men-folk. Which then leads us into the third level as the obtaining of the items is played out in big geek fantasy set-pieces. The majority of the film plays out in these two “fantasy” levels with the “real” serving more to bookend the film.

So that tells you the plot, such as it is. But what Sucker Punch really is, is a culmination of ideas, images and assorted other bits and pieces that have been swimming around in Snyder's head. This is a mash up of everything from Moulin Rouge (repurposed pop songs, the burlesque house) to samurai films (the first action fantasy with giant robot samurai) to Hellboy and steam-punk (steam-powered WWI zombie Germans) to Lord of the Rings and fantasy (orcs, knights and dragons) to manga/anime (mecha) to future sci-fi (robots on a speeding train). The obvious question is, of course: how are all these geek-centric fantasies relevant to a young girl in the 60’s? They’re all incredibly cool looking, and Snyder impresses with the sheer amount of passion and detail in these scenes but they fit the director more than they do the character of Baby Doll.

And there is no real dramatic weight to these fantasies: in the very first sequence, Baby Doll is tossed around by these giant robot samurai with nary a scratch on her and no real threat to life or limb. And because these fantasies don’t feel like they relate to the character of Baby Doll or to the first or second level of action they're hard to ascribe any sense of peril to. And you have a tough time relating to anyone in the film because they're all of the broadest archetypes and Baby Doll herself is incredibly passive for a large portion of the film. Abbie Cornish's Sweet Pea feels somewhat more real and relatable (although this could just be down to the kick-ass performance of Cornish herself), even if she is the Angry Reluctant One. You could certainly have an argument around the depiction of women in the film. While all the girls are types rather than actual characters, the same is true for everyone. But in these "fantasy" sequences of Baby Doll's, are the scantily clad women self-empowered and fully confident, using their sexuality as a weapon? Or are they dressed to titillate; to be a part of the fantasy, rather than fight it?

Ultimately, I feel like it's another symptom of the story, themes and characters not connecting. You get the sense that Snyder is reaching for something more with this film, but he just doesn't quite grasp it; it doesn't all come together in a cohesive whole. But it's not all bad. The images offered up here, especially in the third level fantasy sequences, are stunning. The work of a master visualist. The train sequence is easily the stand out set-piece, being an extraordinarily well choreographed and executed piece of balletic mayhem. And, unlike the other sequences, I found it had some real heft to it; that, at this point in the game, the stakes were actually higher. And that's another point: Sucker Punch would work really, really well as a video-game. And I don't mean that in a derogatory way (though the story-telling may certainly be on that level). Much like Matthew Vaugh with Kick Ass, Edgar Wright with Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and even Christopher Nolan with Inception, Snyder has taken the language of video-games and successfully transposed it to film. And hey, look at the title of this blog. Look at the url. Of course there are bound to be some things I enjoy and appreciate in this film!

One of the things I found most interesting, leading up to the film's release, was the advertising. Throughout the campaign, the tagline has been "You will be unprepared". When, really, the whole point of the advertising has been specifically to prepare you for it. I was prepared for Sucker Punch. I was just a little let down.

26.03: IF GOD IS WILLING AND DA CREEK DON'T RISE

I did not make it to anywhere near the amount of films I wanted to at the recent Documentary Edge Festival in Wellington. There were various reasons ranging from being too damned busy to just being not damned bothered. The one I did make sure I saw however was Spike Lee's examination of New Orleans 5 years after Hurricane Katrina and more recently, the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. If God is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise is really two two-hour HBO specials, played together and is the follow-up to Lee's When the Levees Broke (which I unfortunately missed at an earlier Documentary Festival). Lee canvasses a wide range of people: going back to folk he talked to in When the Levees Broke, regular folk just trying to get on with their lives, New Orleaneans still displaced from their homes, mayors, the ex-Governor, intellectuals, journalists, actors, emergency workers... You get the idea. And the best thing he does is just let them talk. He does not try and insert himself into proceedings, doesn't ambush people in positions of power or goad anybody. He's just there, occasionally encouraging, occasionally questioning but otherwise, this is just the people of New Orleans and those associated with her recovery. 

Lee kicks things off with a suitably angry performance by a spoken word poet and this gives you a real sense of the frustration, anger and broken promises endured by these folk. But Lee isn't just focusing on this: we cut directly to the jubilant build-up to the New Orleans Saints at the Super Bowl - the first time they had ever made it. The sense of joy and anticipation, from the crowd at the stadium to the people crammed into bars is palpable. And when the Saints win... it's an explosion of carnival revelry and just a huge exhalation for a city that has faced a lot in recent times. 

But as great as the Super Bowl win is for the city, there are plenty of people still hurting. There are those who still bear the scars of Katrina; physically yes but, more often, emotionally and psychologically too. From projects dwellers who are kicked out to make way for condos, to people who have lost family or their support systems (such as schools). New Orleans seems to be a city whose infrastructure is still struggling to get it back on it's feet. And, as someone describes it in the film, Katrina is like a nuclear bomb that has exploded in the psyche of New Orleans. And this is, of course, when the new Governor decides to shut down the only dedicated mental health facility in the city. There are, sadly, many more tales like this in the film. And they're all told with such passion and honesty by the people involved (or, what you suspect may be honesty. With some of the political figures involved you can just never be sure as to whether they're covering their own asses or not).

The second half (or Part Two if you will) focuses on the wider tragedy of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It's a surprising shock to be reminded, helped by footage of the pipe gushing, that this went on for near to 3 months. This is a large scale environmental disaster that no-one outside of Louisiana seems too concerned about cleaning up. Not only does it directly affect people's lives and livlihoods but it has destroyed (and continues to do so) the wetlands and marshes that are such fertile breeding grounds. The fact that this happened, and that one of the most powerful, wealthiest countries in the world cannot get it's act together enough to help these people out... it's infuriating. This goes beyond thinking that some people just gotta help themselves. It's well and good to do that, but when you're life is destroyed by something entirely outside of your control, you need a little help sometimes.

Lee employs studio and location interviews. The studio interviews tend to suffer the most from... almost a tic; Lee frequently cuts from a frontal close-up on the subject to a profile. Often in mid-sentence and it really only distracts and annoys. But in the larger picture, it really becomes a minor quibble. Because what Lee has assembled here is akin to a patchwork quilt, or a kaledioscope: there is a full-range of people and views & impacts covered with an, at times, remarkably acute focus. This is a, well, it's a huge film that manages to take a lot in in it's 4 hour run-time. And this has made it very hard to write about - unlike a lot of recent documentaries there is no "narrative". This is just people - from artists to parents to activsits to teachers to journalists to emergency workers to mayors to governors to celebrities to Lee himself - trying their best to pick themselves and others up and march on. It is angry, joyous, shameful, disturbing and hopeful. Seek it out.

10.01: TRON: LEGACY

It has been some time since I last saw the original, 1980’s Tron and it seems a strange film to have a sequel to some 20 years later. It does have a cult following, and has influenced a fair few people, but it has nothing anywhere near the name recognition of, say, Indiana Jones. That said, and my less than fantastic experience at the cinema itself aside, I found I actually enjoyed Tron Legacy. It has its problems, yes, but not CGI-gopher problems.

Legacy opens with the night that Jeff Bridges’ computer genius Kevin Flynn disappears, leaving his young son Sam orphaned and in charge of the company. For most of the scene we don’t see Jeff Bridges’ face and then, as he is leaving, he turns to Sam and BAM! Unsettling young Jeff Bridges face! Yes, it looks somewhat better than what was done for Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart, but there’s still something disconcertingly unreal about it. That plastic unreality only serves to jar you out of the scene. And I’ll come back to that…

Of course, Sam Flynn grows up to be something of a computer genius rebel, with little interest in running his dad's company. Garrett Hedlund is fine, if not a stand-out in the role. But really, these first minutes are all guff in service of getting Sam to his dad's old workshop and, from there, zapped into the Grid (and where the film switches to 3D). From there he's picked up and tossed into the Games. It's kind of nice to see that even digital dictators will control/distract the populace with the old "bread and circuses". The scenes played out in the Games are some of the best in the film - there's a sense of danger and excitement as Sam gets his head around the rules of this world. And, of course, light-cycles*. 

It's here that we are introduced to Clu - the younger, eviller Kevin Flynn; the Program who would rule the digital world. That creepy weird unrealness about the younger "real world" Kevin Flynn? It kinda works for Clu: he is a digital creation and the unreality serves the character; like a weird scar on a Bond villain.

Once Sam escapes Clu and his Games though - with the help of Olivia Wilde's wonderful Quorra - the plot becomes needlessly complicated. Not complex, just complicated. And really very Serious. Once Sam finds Flynn the Older - now a zen calm digital Dude - we start to tackle betrayal, genocide... heck you could even talk about a whole Paradise lost situation. And this is all back story exposition. Dark stuff for a hopeful Disney franchise starter.

That aside though, Jeff Bridges seems to be having a ball of a time returning to the character of Kevin Flynn (and villain Clu). Flynn is like a heightened version of Bill Gates - he's a visionary computer programmer but advanced to comic-book levels of realism. Olivia Wilde is understadely great as the lone-survivor Quorra, with gradients of steely determination and wide-eyed naivete coming through. And Michael Sheen, as an Aladdin Sane-era David Bowie bar owner almost upends proceedings with an entirely unhinged performance. 

Things do slow down considerably and the plot begins to make very little sense (but, hey, whatever. I've certainly seen worse in big event films) but it does always look and sound very pretty. It is also more fun than I was expecting. 

Oh, but is anyone else a little confused as to why it’s called Tron? As wasn't the protagonist in the first one Kevin Flynn? And the character of Tron barely makes an appearance in Legacy.

*It's interesting reflecting on this part now, as it shows an entirely different direction the film could have taken. In the light-cycle sequence, Sam is part of a team and easily takes the lead, helping out the Programs on his team to defeat the bad guys. It's easy to imagine in a different draft how this would have been a sign of Sam possibly leading a Program Resistance movement against Clu. This is me just spit-balling of course. 

09.01: THE TOURIST

Florian Henckel von Donnersmark's follow-up to his incredibly well received The Lives of Others has come in for a fair amount of critical flak (just see Ricky Gervais' opening monologue from the Golden Globes). It's an interesting choice of film for the director: from a sombre, Academy Award winning film set in Communist East Berlin to a Hollywood produced Venice set caper starring Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp. And while it may not be entirely successful, it's nowhere near as bad as everyone seems to be making out.

Johnny Depp is hapless math professor Frank; he's the kind of man who enjoys a good ole' trashy airport thriller novel and who is looking for an escape from his ordinary life. Angelina Jolie is Elise, the beautiful, glamorous woman who saunters into his train carriage and offers him adventure. She's under constant surveillance by Her Majesty's Bobbies in the Financial Crimes Division - her boyfriend is Alexander Pearce, a notorious criminal in hiding (he nicked a stack of cash from a gangster - but he's only being chased for non-payment of tax). She has to make the coppers believe Mr. Depp is, in fact, said crim. Which is all complicated by her growing attraction to him and the arrival in Venice of the gangster what Pearce nicked the dosh from.

The film so wants to be like a fun, breezy Hollywood caper film of the old-school; like something that may have once starred Cary Grant. That seems to be the general vibe everyone is going for, albeit with Depp as more of an "every-man" character than Grant usually played. But there's the rub: Johnny Depp is an actor who has made a career of playing the odd-ball and it's somewhat strange to try and buy him as anything but. I guess, here, he is the down-to-earth-oddball? Not really one, not really the other. Which kind of sums the movie up, really (not necessarily a bad thing).

Ultimately, I don't know that I've got all that much to say about The Tourist. There's some pretty people, some pretty locales with some nice set-pieces and that's really about it. The film isn't trying to be anything more or less than that, but I don't know that it fully succeeds with it's sense of fun. Sure, it is actually a bit of fun, especially if you enjoy watching Depp and Jolie, but I don't think it is as light, as effortless or as joyous as it really could have been.