Film Review Roundup 1st February 2012

Tags

A Monster in Paris, animation, Coriolanus, Daft Punk, Interstella 5555 - The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem, Jude Law, Leiji Matsumoto, Mark Strong, Ralph Fiennes, Robert Downey Jr, Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes, Vanessa Paradis, Vanessa Redgrave

I’d like to be able to give full reviews to every film possible but the backlog has really been building up lately which can only mean one thing, roundup time and four mini-reviews for the price of one.

In Cinemas

Coriolanus

I saw this one with Ryan and Tom’s sister Harri, or rather most of it as I confess we were rather late to the cinema, our bus having not stopped where it was supposed to. Ralph Fiennes, who I’ve always greatly admired for his performance as Amon Goeth in Schindler’s List stars and for the first time directs a lesser-known Shakespearean tale about a Roman war hero who struggles with the position of power he is given. Removed to the modern day and a vaguely eastern European setting that fits the story well the film’s triumph is in making one of the Bard’s obscurer plays extremely easy to follow, understand and appreciate. Fiennes is as intense in the title role as you’d expect from him, Vanessa Redgrave soars as his fierce and loyal mother and the supporting cast are all on fine form. Gerard Butler’s never been better.

A Monster in Paris

This fairly unambitious French CG toon makes good use of clean animation and some catchy musical numbers to elevate the 1910-set story about a cocky delivery driver and his timid cinema projectionist buddy’s accidental creation of a giant singing flea. Vanessa Paradis voices glamorous nightclub singer Lucille (who goes straight into the cute animated ladies hall of fame) and literally takes centre stage casting the flea in her musical show. A likeable bunch of characters and decent script give this one some credit and there are some great sequences to accompany the tunes but it’s not ultimately that memorable. Nice though and one animation connoisseurs like me should definitely give a look.

On DVD

Interstella 5555 – The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem

My surprise Christmas present from my cool flatmates turned out to be a DVD copy of this unusual film that combines two of my favourite things, anime and Daft Punk. The French house band approached their favourite Japanese animator Leiji Matsumoto to create a sci-fi silent film for their album Discovery. The story follows an alien music band who are kidnapped and brought to Earth to be a maniacal record producer’s next big thing while loveable spaceman Shep sets out to rescue them. Some of the story sequences fit the thumping tracks better than others, the standout would be Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger but there are plenty of other highlights. As a film it’s an interesting curiosity that works reasonably well but is unlikely to demand any repeat viewings among casual audiences. If that’s you subtract a star. For anyone like me, who loves both animation and Daft Punk it’s a tremendous treat.

Sherlock Holmes

Having reviewed this film’s sequel A Game of Shadows HYPERLINK #1 not took long ago it seemed a bit redundant to give a full review to the original too so here it is in the roundup instead. Robert Downey Jr’s Holmes and Jude Law’s Watson successfully apprehend Mark Strong’s satanic Lord Blackwood who is hanged for his heinous crimes. But when he seems to rise again from his tomb London is gripped by paranoia and history’s most famous consulting detective must put an end to his chaotic plans. The character chemistry and CG recreation of Victorian London charmed audiences and the film remains better than the recent follow-up.

Film Review: Hugo

Tags

Asa Butterfield, Ben Kingsley, Chloe Grace Moretz, Christopher Lee, Francis de la Tour, Hugo, Jude Law, Martin Scorsese, Ray Winston, Richard Griffiths, Sacha Baron Cohen

It’s been quite some time since my last review but never fear there are plenty on the way and this one for that rarest of things, a U certificate film directed by Martin Scorsese would have been posted sooner had I not been struck down by a very nasty case of food poisoning the night after watching it. Last time I take a risk with a ham sandwich. Anyway I’m still plugging away with Skyward Sword and have nearly finished re-reading Mattimeo not to mention my first decent paycheque in a while has given me justification to buy a trio of animated films on DVD so you can expect reviews for Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, The Secret of Kells and Coraline in the not too distant future. For now it’s time to look at a family film that celebrates the magic of old cinema from a director best known for his hard-hitting gangster movies.

Martin Scorsese certainly grabbed people’s attention by going so clearly against type  and making a film you can take the kids to see (rather like Robert Rodriguez did with SPY Kids) but I’m very glad he did because Hugo is rather delightful. Asa Butterfield plays the titular Hugo Cabret, the orphaned son of a clockmaker (Jude Law) brought by his reprobate uncle (Ray Winston) to work maintaining the clocks of a Parisian railway station. With his uncle long since disappeared Hugo lives in secrecy in hidden places behind the station’s many clocks, stealing food to survive, dodging an orphan-hunting station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen) and working hard to repair a broken automaton bequeathed to him by his father.

One thing Hugo is not is an adventure film, something that may come as a surprise to anyone who has seen the trailers. It’s more of a mystery film that focuses on Hugo’s attempts to find meaning in his life by mending the automaton to reveal its secrets. Sure there are adventurous moments, including a couple of comical chase sequences but this is much more about character and setting than excitement. And the setting is a memorable one presenting the period Parisian station as the kind of magically enticing semi-steampunk place that reminds you of the most enchanting kid’s stories you loved when you were little. There’s a sense of community about it that reminds me of Spielberg’s The Terminal, a film many like to mock but I rather enjoyed but the slightly sentimental presentation of a fairytale centre for transport works far better here. It’s best illustrated by the burgeoning friendship between two minor characters played by Richard Griffiths and Francis de la Tour that is inhibited by the latter’s overprotective dog.

The characters are uniformly memorable thanks in no small part to the top-notch cast, not least of which is Ben Kingsley’s cruel and enigmatic toy seller. His goddaughter Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz) takes pity on Hugo and defies the embittered old man to help him achieve his aims with the assistance of Christopher Lee’s sweet bookseller. Only Sacha Baron Cohen’s station inspector doesn’t quite hit the spot, looking exactly like Arthur Bostrom in Allo Allo and affecting an unrecognisable accent. Still his character hides more depth the child-catcher exterior suggests. The two child leads are both fabulous, effortlessly charming with every line they deliver, conveying character and emotion with real skill, the kind of young actors you wish they could have found for the Harry Potter films.

It’s by no means a perfect film, it takes a long time to really get anywhere with the plot as charming as the first hour is it never feels like it quite knows what it wants to be until it settles on a mystery about Georges Méliès, the real world director of, amongst many others, A Trip to the Moon, the film that features that famous image of a rocket hitting the man in the moon in the eye, credited as the first ever science-fiction film. This is where the film finds its emotional grounding as it remembers with unchecked fondness the magic of early cinema. Anyone that shares that sentiment will be enchanted but it’s possible that youngsters that might lack the knowledge to appreciate the direction the plot takes this way might be lost.

It’s this affection for the mechanics of classic cinema that justifies the presence of 3D which is probably the best I’ve seen in a live-action film (my buddy Ryan who watched the film with me didn’t agree on this point, indeed he didn’t rate the film much at all). The opening shot of the camera swooping down over Paris into the station between two platforms is the highpoint that the film never reaches again but the visual presentation fits with the effect well. It’s still not a patch in the 3D in Tangled.

I think this one might be divisive. I found it reverentially magical but Ryan didn’t/ It felt to me like a particularly Chistmassy film and I think it won’t have any trouble finding its audience but not everybody will be convinced by the slow pace and general lack of excitement. I can’t say I enjoyed it as much as Super 8 but still thought it was great even if I will probably forever associate it with horrendous food poisoning.

Verdict

It doesn’t necessarily do what you expect and there are faults to be sure but excellent characterisation and performances and a world full of intriguing mystery combine to give the reverential story the right amount of charm.

Film Review: Contagion

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Contagion, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Steven Soderbergh, Thriller

Steven Soderbergh’s latest is a ‘what if?’ movie. Taking the moderate levels of public concern over the outbreaks of swine and bird flu and presents us with a starkly believable and downright scary vision of how it might have panned out if a highly contagious respiratory virus went pandemic.

The film opens with Gwyneth Paltrow, one of an impressive ensemble cast, looking pretty under the weather. With echoes of films like Psycho and Scream which also killed off a major star early on she quickly snuffs it courtesy of some disturbing seizures(stop yelling ‘spoiler’ it happens in the first few minutes). Before we know what’s what the mystery illness that brought about her death is spreading around the world and hysteria slowly starts to build as various medical authorities desperately try to track down the origin of the virus and create a vaccine.

More than just the spread of the disease the film smartly examines the public reaction to the pandemic and the focus of this part of the story is a snaggletoothed Jude Law affecting an inexplicable Aussie accent playing the part of a conspiracy blogger with delusions of grandeur who preaches against the honest efforts of the scientists striving for a medical cure and promoting a homeopathic remedy. His plot line adds an interesting extra element to the film and goes a long way to creating a believable spectrum of people’s responses to such a crisis.

The several other big stars each have a part to play, Matt Damon is a widower who does everything he can to protect his daughter from the illness, Kate Winslet is the front line expert trying to contain the spread of the disease, Marion Cotillard plays detective trying to track down its origin while Jennifer Ehle is the lab scientist is search of the vaccine and there are numerous other high profile cameos and cast members that lend the film their star quality to great effect. No-one really takes the lead although Damon might be seen as the everyman hero but it’s much more about the effect the concept has on the audience rather than the acting.

Early shots as the virus is starting to spread linger on the myriad things we touch every few seconds with potential contagion-spreading results and the sense of how easily the virus can be spread is extremely effective to the point where it can really build a sense of paranoia. Coughs and sneezes in screenings of Contagion have reportedly caused worried heads to turn and the brutal reality of the concept is pretty scary. It’s meant to be exhilarating rather than entertaining and it definitely succeeds.

The only glaring flaw of Contagion is in how it ties up. The film limps to a pretty plodding conclusion which is okay as it admirably avoids any kind of cinematic, popcorny climax, which, frankly, would have felt nicked from a different film but some of the individual plot lines play out into an unsatisfying nothing, particularly Marion Cotillard and Jude Law’s stories. Despite this the things the film does well it does well enough for this not to really matter and you will leave the cinema very aware of who you might be in touching distance of, and that’s mission accomplished.

Verdict

Tremendously effective in its depiction of the terrifying reality of a lethal pandemic that will leave you paranoid. The all-star cast are great to watch but it’s the disease itself that you will remember.