With Harry Potter over with and the Twilight saga wrapping up later this year it’s time for another wildly successful teen lit series to make its big screen bow. I went into this adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ book of the same name more or less cold having never read the source material and only aware of the basic concept. Does this latest example of the 21st century phenomenon of fan bait hold up as a movie in its own right? Continue reading »
The last eighteen months of software releases on Nintendo’s ailing Wii haven’t exactly been loaded with must-haves, a fact that has made what few major new titles have arrived all the more significant. If Skyward Sword was the biggest Wii game of last year (and it was) then Xenoblade Chronicles was a fairly close second. The game is the first of three originally cited for a Japan only existence that Operation Rainfall lobbied to be given a western release (the other two being The Last Story and Pandora’s Tower) and hit European shores last August with the American release coming early in April. But the hype surrounding this game before launch extended to more than its significance as a Wii game. The entire Japanese RPG genre has been in poor health for years, struggling under the weight of tired storytelling and gameplay clichés with western creations going from strength to strength, even the almighty Final Fantasy has seemingly lost its way. With near universal-acclaim from critics who have cited it as the best JRPG in the last five, many even ten years, Xenoblade Chronicles is arguably one of the most important Japanese video games of the current console generation. Continue reading »
Crikey it’s been a long time since my last book review. Put than down to getting behind with blogging in the early part of the year and having too many movie magazines to read on the tube. But now it’s back to business as usual with another Tale of Redwall under the microscope, and this time it’s Eulalia!
The 19th book in the Redwall series, published in 2007, Eulalia! (the title refers to the traditional war cry of badger lords and Salamandastron hares) charts the story of Gorath the Flame, a young badger taken prisoner by the villainous golden fox Vizka Longtooth and his Sea Raiders who make efforts to press gang him into becoming a blind weapon of a slave for them. At the same time a pair of wayward young creatures, Mad Maudie (the Hon.) Mugberry Thropple of Salamandastron and Orkwil Prink of Redwall are ejected from their respective homes to learn some responsibility and overcome their habitual fighting/thieving delete as appropriate. Naturally worlds collide and the ensuing adventure, I’m happy to say, carries on the fine work of High Rhulain. Continue reading »
If you trace the history of popular science fiction back through the twentieth century you will eventually arrive at a series of books by Edgar Rice Burroughs known collectively as John Carter of Mars which stands as the grandfather of all of them. The series first appeared exactly one hundred years ago with A Princess of Mars and went on to influence absolutely everything from Star Wars to Avatar. If there is a sci-fi cliché chances are it started in John Carter of Mars. Now the property finally makes its big screen bow controversially minus the last two words of its own title.
The question of why the title was changed has sparked inevitable debate to accompany the incredulity of fans and the consensus is that the Disney bigwigs didn’t want the title to suggest the film was sci-fi in case it put people off. If this is the case it’s a little difficult to understand given that just three years ago a science fiction film, moreover one so heavily influenced by JC that works with an extremely similar plot became the most successful film ever made. There is another theory that reference to the red planet in a film’s title is itself a signpost to catastrophic failure, Mission to Mars, Mars Attacks! and Mars Needs Moms to name but a few. In fact just about the only really successful film set on the fourth rock from the sun was Total Recall which, tellingly, doesn’t make mention of the planet in the title.
Whatever the reason for Disney’s decision it doesn’t change the fact that this $250million budget movie isn’t raking in the cash it needs even with Pixar’s Andrew Stanton at the helm. Perhaps that has nothing to do with the title because the film that marks the centenary of one of the genre’s most important moments cannot stand as tall as some the creations it gave rise to.
John Carter is a maverick cavalryman in 1868 Virginia who avoids being pressganged into the Union Army by escaping into a cave rich in gold where he is mysteriously transported to a desert finding the place lacking some gravity. Turns out he’s on Mars or Barsoom as the warring locals call it and no sooner has he arrived than he’s again being pressganged to fight and make good use of his newfound superhuman abilities.
We’ll start with the positives, it’s a great looking movie boasting vivid and convincing production design that doesn’t overdo the details with superb use of CGI throughout from the excellently realised alien characters to the ambitious spectacle. Everything about the film convinces that it comes from a rich background of source material and that the mythology of this universe extends far beyond what appears on screen. Unfortunately the script didn’t receive anything like the same level of attention. A brief piece of back story at the opening doesn’t go nearly far enough to paint the picture of the planet necessary to invest yourself in its fiction. And that’s not the only problem.
It is said that big budget films like these need three things to succeed; big action, big special effects and a big star. John Carter manages one and a half. The effects as stated are top drawer but the action is somewhat less compelling. There’s spectacle all right but nothing on the level you’d see in something like The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, meanwhile the main man is the unknown Taylor Kitsch who looks the part but isn’t as sympathetic as he needs to be. Early scenes on Earth show him as a borderline sociopathic loner whose resourcefulness isn’t enough to make him likeable as Kitsch growls his way through most scenes. He’s difficult to really care about and that’s half the battle lost right there. The rest of the cast are a bit better, Lynn Collins gives a spirited turn as Princess Dejah Thoris of Helium managing to handle both action and some outlandish lines with aplomb and looking damn good doing it while Mark Strong proving himself Hollywood’s go to villain again is on Machiavellian autopilot and still walks away with it.
But the main problem is that the complex depth of the fictional world is just too much work to penetrate. The fish out of water device is wasted and the clear exposition necessary to be able to feel satisfied by the plot is missing. The result is that it’s hard to know what the various factions are fighting about or why you should care and that’s unforgivable.
Verdict
There’s spectacle to spare but it comes at the expense of clarity and any kind of hook for emotional investment. John Carter is a mess of alien names and moderate action scenes that waste the source material’s obvious richness.
As I start building up my collection of Disney DVDs to a state more befitting of a self-confessed animation nut the reviews for Mouse House features are coming thick and fast. I’ve made no secret in the past of my opinion that the studio’s so-called ‘wilderness years’ following Walt’s death are unfairly named. The period yielded more than a few gems the best of which is this delightful retelling of the classic English legend which played on constant repeat in my VCR growing up. In fact it may well be the single film above all others I’ve seen the most number of times. I could probably quote the entire script.
It’s a very familiar tale. King Richard the Lionheart is off crusading with his tyrannical brother John ruling in absentis putting the squeeze on the poor inhabitants of Nottingham by hiking taxes. The hero of the downtrodden is Robin who ‘borrows a bit from those who can afford it’ to feed the poor when he isn’t lost in reveries about a ‘high-born lady of quality’ called Marian. The USP here is that all the classic characters are presented as anthropomorphic animals, a move that gives the characters just as much personality as the bouncy script and top-drawer voice cast.
The delegation of species to characters gets it spot on practically every time, Little John is a bear, Friar Tuck a badger, the Sheriff of Nottingham a wolf and if you can’t guess what animal the Lionheart and his brother are translated to Lord help you. Best call is Robin as a fox, an animal that totally fits the hero role and if scavenging urban types are anything to go by works well as an outlaw too, and who can argue that Maid Marian is a foxy lady?
They’re all memorable characters too, Robin himself one of Disney’s best heroes, a dashing, flawed and happy-go-lucky fox of the people given life by Brian Bedford’s spirited vocal performance. He’s funnier than the average protagonist too. Phil Harris brings the right kind of resourceful confidence to Little John while Monica Evans delivers a likeable Maid Marian who can more than hold her own in a pie fight. The supporting characters also hit the spot, such as the hilarious Clucky and the pompous Sir Hiss, the list is almost endless. Prince John scores the lion’s share (sorry) of laughs courtesy of a quite wonderful Peter Ustinov who becomes the first Oscar-winning actor to voice a villainous Disney lion (see also Jeremy Irons as Scar) and walks away with the film in the process.
There’s a nice balance between comedy and adventure. a light-hearted and easy-going first half gives way to a much bleaker and desperate second culminating in one of the great Disney climaxes. The jailbreak final act deftly handles comedy and peril, adventure and action, with mounting tension and scene after scene of brilliance; Nutsy and his studious dedication to getting the time wrong, Robin’s determination to pinch every last bag of gold from under Prince John’s nose and of course our hero’s desperate and undyingly exciting escape from the castle, one of the best moments in any Disney film.
Sometimes the plot dawdles particularly in the first half but there’s always some great character comedy to keep things amusing. Some have commented that the Americanisation of this quintessentially English story is worthy of criticism. A fair observation, the archery tournament free-for-all manages to turn into a game of American Football but the spirit of fun in which it’s all done is what gives the film its vibrancy.
Most of the songs are also gold, the opening credits melody Whistle Stop inspiring football chants some decades on, if you don’t like Phony King of England you’re probably not very nice to know and Not in Nottingham is heart-breaking. Love gets some stick for being a bit mushy but I still like it. Most of the incidental music also hits the spot, guiding both comedy and excitement.
Disney’s Robin Hood represents everything that makes animation special, a fusion of joy, fantasy and colour with all the touching moments the medium is so good at producing. It gets overshadowed by more famous moments in the studio’s back catalogue but that can’t change the fact that this is one of its brightest creations.
Verdict
Endlessly rewatchable, possessed of a unique and unconquerable spirit of pure fun without forgetting the important parts of the legend and the aura of heroism surrounding the famous character. Pure, unadulterated bliss.
Is there anything Intelligent Systems can’t do? The creators of Fire Emblem and the Paper Mario games apparently not satisfied with their status as Nintendo’s most reliable and talented creator of RPGs have taken it upon themselves to provide the 3DS eShop with the killer app it needed. Since its release late last year Pullblox (aka Pushmo) has won the universal praise of critics and players and propelled itself to the top of the online store’s ‘most downloaded’ list.
Pullblox is a puzzle game that seems simple on first glance but hides ingenious complexity and is devilishly challenging. You play as tubby little sumo hero Mallo who must rescue children trapped inside Pullblox. These are murals made up of different coloured blocky shapes that can be pulled out to create platforms for Mallo to stand on. Each block can be pulled out to three different depths and must be manipulated strategically to give you room to move higher blocks pulling either from the front or the side. It’s a simple concept and you’ll breeze through the straightforward early stages but before long the level design gets devious giving your brain a very thorough workout.
It’s all about spatial awareness, planning ahead and being able to visualise in three dimensions and it’s seriously stimulating stuff. The 3D nature of the puzzles gives the stereoscopic 3D some clear relevance and keeping it on helps you tell how far you’ve pulled blocks out although smart use of colours make it quite possible to see this if you prefer to have it off. You will find as you play that different levels require different approaches to success, and the designers find plenty of mileage and variety from the basic concept with ingenious level design.
Once you’ve cleared a few dozen challenges a couple of new ideas are introduced to shake things up, including manholes which transport you from one part of the level to another as well as coloured buttons that propel every block in the puzzle out to maximum when pressed. This brings another layer of strategy and complexity to the game just as the idea is starting to get samey and gives the designers license to create more and more elaborate challenges.
It’s tremendously accessible with crucially thoughtful controls. Mallo waddles along at a steady gait and jumps with important precision. If you move close to the edge of a block Mallo will teeter on the edge to give you a chance to move away, only falling if you want him to. Make an irreversible mistake or take a fall and you can rewind time and undo as much as you want. The gameplay has been designed for maximum convenience and it makes it easier to concentrate all your efforts on working out how to crack the puzzle.
The amount of content on offer goes above and beyond the call of duty for a budget title. There are well over two hundred levels, I’ve spent eighteen hours chipping away at them and still have about forty to go and that’s without having even tried the level creator feature which will extend the life even further through the medium of shared user created content.
It’s a triumph of a game and comes about as highly recommended as budget titles ever do but for all its brilliant execution Pullblox is a bit of a one-trick pony that can’t offer anything like the variety of something like Professor Layton. That said there’s joy to be found in the many Nintendo mural levels in which you manipulate retro Nintendo sprites and it’s genuinely hard to imagine how the game could be improved.
Verdict
Presentation – 8
Rounded and crisp visually with a wonderful depth of content made admirably accessible.
Design – 9
Early levels belie massive complexity later on. The thought that has gone into working out the level design is clear.
Gameplay – 8
Smart and thoughtfully conceived and simple enough to get into and master quickly with tight controls.
Graphics – 7
Typically colourful, bright and appealing but lacking anything special to make the visuals shine.
Sound – 7
Many toe-tapping tunes will entertain you while your brain is at work but the game isn’t about the audio.
Difficulty – 9
Enough simple levels for casuals and younglings to enjoy but a huge wealth of absolutely daunting and brutal challenges later on.
Longevity – 8
The many many levels and high degree of challenge combine to make this a game that will absorb a huge amount of your time.
Overall
Brain-bending, intelligent and essential gaming with an unprecedented amount of content. If you own a 3DS you have no excuse not to download this delightful gem of a puzzler.
What better way to follow up my review of The Little Mermaid, the film that brought about the Animation Renaissance than with an account of one of the few films that can be considered more important, the animated feature that started it all?
In the 1930s and before the idea of extending a cartoon, those quirky little oddities for kids made from moving pictures, into a feature length film was foolish, an idea marred by a fundamental flaw. Surely the audience for that kind of entertainment, children, wouldn’t have a long enough attention span to sit through a continuous story in excess of an hour. It was this thinking that led to one of America’s foremost animation studio’s ambitious project being labelled ‘Disney’s Folly’.
It’s not quite accurate to refer to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as the first of its kind. A good half dozen animated features had been produced in Argentina, China, Egypt and Germany since as early as 1917. The great original was Argentina’s El Apóstol which used cutout animation to tell a satirical story. Disney’s feature debut is the first full-length American film and the first in Technicolor. When the film finally debuted it was an unqualified success, gave birth to the tradition of American movie animation, inspired eight theatrical reissues and launched the long and glorious history of Walt Disney Studios.
But it so nearly wasn’t so. The lengthy development was fraught with inevitable problems and opposition from key parties. At one point the whole project rested on the decision of a single man, a banker who had the power to sign over the investment money the studio needed to complete the film. Disney screened portions of what they had already done for him, detailing their plans for the much needed cash. It wasn’t looking good during the screening which the impassive fellow watched in unmoved silence but when it came to his verdict he is quoted as saying ‘you’re going to make a pile of money’ and with that the rest of the history of animation happened.
But how does this three-quarters-of-a-century old film stand up today? Watching in a cynical modern world in which Shrek has lampooned this kind of saccharine storytelling the film still holds up remarkably well, in some areas at least. In others it is very much of its time, its sugar-sweet heroine is hardly a feminist icon, created to be the damsel in distress as needed, a picture of absolute innocence and naiveté to the extent that she is almost comical, especially in the way she conforms to all the most antiquated gender stereotypes. Snow cleans, cooks, sews and sings and her prettiness is openly displayed as her chief redeeming feature. That said it is possible to misread her character as backward. There’s a purity and an honesty in her character that cannot be called outdated and it’s not like the film was created with any kind of gender politics in mind.
Much like The Little Mermaid a modern appreciation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs depends on ones tolerance for cuteness. There are so many gentle forest animals with big eyes and bigger grins performing household chores in the happiest of ways it’s a bit silly. The leisurely pace and simple plot hide nothing approaching depth or greater purpose. The reason the film still works so well and endures as a family classic is because the things it excels at the most are timeless.
The laughs are all charmingly played particularly whenever the dwarfs are in frame. Doc, Bashful et al are the beating heart of the film which doesn’t really get going until they turn up, each character designed, scripted and voiced so perfectly you could guess most of their names without having to be told, the variety and simple appeal in each diminutive man never gets old. Then there are the songs which, though mostly candy-cane sweet, are undeniably catchy and have been influential on popular culture. You’ll have to go a long way to find someone who doesn’t know the first line of Hi-Ho and Whistle While You Work is so iconic that even people who have never seen the film could probably hum it note for note. Most of all the film is a wonderful example of all the things that make animation the unique pleasure it is. Half of the colours on show hadn’t been invented before and the detail in the motion still outshines some present-day films. It’s hard to find a film happier to belong to the medium it does.
It doesn’t end there either because there is some real darkness to balance out the cutesiness. Who can forget the wicked Queen’s remarkable transformation scene? And the drawn-out tension in the third act as she tempts Snow with the poisoned apple has lost none of its potency. The simple fairytale will never date, the story is so well known that I haven’t even bothered to describe it, you already know. Not everyone will be convinced the film stands up in the cold light of more sophisticated achievements but the heritage of the film cannot be denied. If you love animation you owe that to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Verdict
The mixture of fairytale tropes, luscious animation and memorable musical numbers maintain this ancestor of films like Tangled as a family favourite. Elements have dated but for fans and most importantly kids it remains top-drawer.
It might be a little too girly or sugar-sweet for some but that doesn’t change the fact that Disney’s 1989 adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid is one of the most important animated films ever made. For twenty years following Walt Disney’s death the studio and the wider animated film medium had been enduring a period of creative stagnation, an era known as the Wilderness Years. Classic films were few and far between and, surrounded by less than inspired titles marred by lazy writing and underworked animation. While I firmly believe that Disney’s output in this period is actually rather underrated there’s no question that the early nineties saw a creative resurgence in the industry that has continued ever since. Disney produced hit after hit and in 1995 new kid on the block Pixar arrived announcing itself with the fantastic Toy Story. Disney started to lose the plot with the new millennium but Pixar was there to maintain the animation industry’s longest period of continued excellence, something the mouse house is getting back to doing themselves with their recent revival through films like Tangled. The years of success are commonly called the Disney Renaissance but it’s actually been a Renaissance for the entire animation industry, one that looks set never to end. All this can be traced back to The Little Mermaid, the picture that kick-started the revival.
The film is a fantasy romance, pure and simple. Sixteen-year-old mermaid Ariel has an angelic singing voice but she’s usually to busy exploring her fascination with the things that sink below the waves from the human world to remember to attend concerts. On an illicit trip to the surface she saves the life of dashing Prince Eric from a storm and promptly falls in love, etching her wondrous voice into his heart in the process. With her father forbidding her to return to the world above she pays a rebellious visit to the tentacled sea witch Ursula who agrees to turn her human for a price – her precious voice.
The film’s success are down to three key fronts, Disney’s smart return to the hits of their Golden Age by delving into romantic fairytale, an increase in the production values visible in the colourful animation and the best repertoire of songs the studio had produced in decades. The story evokes the fundamental appeal of escapism, the fantastical undersea setting, the young protagonist pining for something more, the fish-out-water comedy, literally. The tone is cheerful in extremis but the necessary tension and darkness is there provided par excellence by Ursula, one of the most deliciously fabulous baddies in Disney history.
As the light story unfolds every scene is given lift by the wonderful array of colours on show. The studio’s recent previous output like Oliver & Company and The Rescuers looks bland by comparison. The visual direction and exciting set pieces combine to give the film an epic feel that had been largely missing from the company’s films for some time. This was the way it continued in other fairytale films that followed including Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. Alan Menken’s delightful music found an enthusiasm and sense of fun that was both fresh and mainstream, each crucial song from Part of Your World to Poor Unfortunate Souls memorable in its own right.
It’s also got some cracking characters. Ariel just about transcends the blandness that sometimes holds back protagonists with her wide-eyed exuberance and rebellious streak while Prince Eric is handsome and gallant but has enough personality to distinguish himself from previous Disney Princes. The aforementioned villain gets full marks as does rasta-crab Sebastian who goes down as one of the most entertaining comedy sidekicks around.
There’s no denying that the film is more for girls than boys but it’s not like there’s nothing for we of the less fair sex to enjoy, namely the cute redhead in the lead and while the cutesiness is enough to put many off I’ve lost count of the number of times my buddy Ryan and I have spontaneously broken into renditions of Under the Sea. Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin probably have the edge over the earlier picture but The Little Mermaid is still among the best Disney films and the question we connoisseurs of animation must ask is where would the industry be now without it?
Verdict
The film that started the animation Renaissance remains superb value as a fairy story, a romance and an adventure. Iconic songs, great character comedy and pretty pictures combine with timeless results.
2009 might very well have been the best ever year for animated films. Pixar produced the Oscar winner with the beautifully told and very emotional Up, Disney started to rediscover their old magic with The Princess and the Frog and elsewhere we were treated to Fantastic Mr Fox, Coraline and The Secret of Kells. One that went under the radar for a lot of people including me was a crazy little CG animated movie called Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
Adapted from a 1978 book by Judi Barrett the story surrounds Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) a young scientist with a mad imagination for invention (spray-on shoes, monkey thought translator, ratbirds). His latest crackpot contraption is a machine that turns water into food which he accidentally launches into the stratosphere where it draws in cloud matter and produces gastronomic rain. With chirpy weather girl Sam Sparks (Anna Faris) reporting these extraordinary events to the world it starts to look like Flint’s invention could end up rejuvenating the failing economy of his island home town Swallow Falls with tourism but with meal requests flooding in from the townsfolk there’s a danger that he might lose control of the machine.
The amount of fun that’s had with the concept is an absolute joy from the superbly realised first dramatic food storm onwards. Expect nacho cheese hot springs, an open-air steakhouse where meat lands on people’s plates and in one standout scene a snow day of ice cream. But the bonkers doesn’t end with the only-possible-in-animation concept. Where some toons are nutty Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is absolutely out of its mind, the insane story enhanced by a bat-shit crazy script and colourful cast of cooks and the results are hilarious. Every joke is expertly prepared, timed and executed and if you’ve even a shred of humour you’ll be laughing out loud all the way through.
Much of it is achieved by the excellent voice cast who bring perky life to the characters, among them Mr T as an athletic cop and doting father. Anna Faris brings the right kind of cute to the smarter-than-she-seems weather reporter while Bill Hader makes Flint Lockwood into one of the great cartoon heroes, a genius whose overenthusiasm is his undoing, hiding a naiveté brought out in little moments. His struggle to win his dad’s approval is formulaic but played well but it’s his sheer breathless determination that makes him shine.
It’s a real surprise of a film, bursting with colour, loaded with visual gags and digs at movie clichés and full of completely crackers ideas, pun intended. One minute you’ll see a giant jelly castle, the next there’ll be a man wearing an oversized cooked chicken but it’s paced sensibly and never overwhelms offering little character-driven sub-plots to allow it some quieter moments of conflict. A good thing too because if the film was nothing but shots of foodstuff falling from the sky into eager children’s open mouths it might have got a bit much building up to the cataclysmic ending. So much effort and love has clearly gone into every aspect of the film’s creation that it deserves a lot more attention than it ever received.
Verdict
Possibly the most brilliantly bonkers animated fun-fest of the last ten years but if subtlety’s your thing you might want to look elsewhere. Your loss.
Proving that you don’t need big stars, a famous license or a megabudget to craft a genuinely fresh and engaging blockbuster, Chronicle comes out of left field to become a surprise critical hit. The story involves three high-schoolers, philosophising Matt (Alex Russell), political Steve (Michael B Jordan) and cameraman Andrew (Dane DeHaan) who explore a conspicuous hole in the ground whilst at a rave finding inside what can only be described as a huge star-shaped mass of Kryptonite which gives all three telekinetic powers. Pretty soon their playing catch, building Lego towers and blowing up girls’ skirts, all with no hands, forming a unique if slightly fractious bond.
For a significant stretch of the running time the film plays for laughs getting great mileage from the practical jokes and stunts the trio pull in shopping centres and car parks. The three charismatic leads are wonderfully naturalistic, effortlessly convincing that this really is how three American teens would react to such superpowers, and it’s enormous fun (watch out for Steve’s priceless reaction when Andrew saves his life at one point). The pick of the bunch is clearly DeHaan as the socially awkward main character who has no trouble getting us on his side thanks to his deft characterisation and excellent handling of scenes depicting Andrew’s miserable home life (terminally ill mother, drunken bullying father).
The other selling point is the way it’s filmed, Andrew having just bought a camera to ‘film everything from here on out’. Although it shares many of the tropes of the found footage genre I didn’t read it that way. I think the context is perfect, if you and your mates get superpowers you’d film yourselves testing them out right? The camera becomes our window into their private world and is worked into the script like a fourth character. The story is even used to dispel one of the prohibitive quirks of the found footage genre, Andrew uses his powers to make the camera float meaning he can film himself. It’s also worth noting that the film is shot on more than one camera within the story and therefore can’t masquerade as found footage at all. Instead the camera works as a framing device to highlight camera culture in an the age of YouTube and video blogs, something the film openly references. It’s not enough for there to be kids with superpowers there needs to be a record of it even though they’re keeping it a secret, after all the title, when expressed as a verb instead of a noun means to record.
The concept really comes into its own in the thrilling and inventive climax which I won’t spoil except that suffice to say things go a bit awry as Andrew struggles to keep to Matt’s rules. The film has been called a live-action Akira and while it could never be as pulverising as that movie I heartily agree with this observation. In fact now that Chronicle exists that live-action New York set remake of the anime classic is not only a huge mistake of an idea but an entirely redundant one too.
Verdict
In a year set to be dominated by huge superhero flicks Chronicle might just have stolen some of their thunder. Creative, entertaining and very well played, this is a must see.
It might be a little too girly or sugar-sweet for some but that doesn’t change the fact that Disney’s 1989 adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid is one of the most important animated films ever made. For twenty years following Walt Disney’s death the studio and the wider animated film medium had been enduring a period of creative stagnation, an era known as the Wilderness Years. Classic films were few and far between and, surrounded by less than inspired titles marred by lazy writing and underworked animation. While I firmly believe that Disney’s output in this period is actually rather underrated there’s no question that the early nineties saw a creative resurgence in the industry that has continued ever since. Disney produced hit after hit and in 1995 new kid on the block Pixar arrived announcing itself with the fantastic Toy Story. Disney started to lose the plot with the new millennium but Pixar was there to maintain the animation industry’s longest period of continued excellence, something the mouse house is getting back to doing themselves with their recent revival through films like 
