Mark Russell

Alex Russell: WASTED ON THE YOUNG (WOTY)

A new film is cutting a tech-savvy path through schoolyard indifference. WASTED ON THE YOUNG (or WOTY , as the press kit so aptly shortens it) concerns bullying and high school hierarchy in an age with no time for anything longer than an acronym. Alex Russell plays Zack, a boy who rules the halls of his private school with a closed fist and an open pharmacy. But providing a convincingly sinister antagonist to the film’s main character Darren (Oliver Ackland) was no mean feat for a guy who confesses to being the brunt of much bullying in his own formative years. “I had to ground him. Find the light and shade rather than turning him into a moustache-twirling villain. I thought it was important to show that he’s also afraid. Whether or not he’s feeling guilt, I think that he, along with everyone else in the world of high school, is desperate to survive.”

Underscoring a Shakespearean web of alliances, betrayal and deceit, WOTY supplies a much more modern riff on the dangers of modern social networking. In the film, embarrassing and painful adolescent moments circulate near instantaneously, creating gods and monsters with a few mere keystrokes. Coming from the private school system himself, Alex feels the film plays on common emotional experiences. “No one was probably as bad as him at my school – he’s the height of what you’d expect from a bully. But the film is set in a heightened reality: rather than depicting the actual reality, it depicts what the reality for the kids is. It depicts how they feel.”

A strong part of this effect comes from having no adults appear on screen. The characters are caught in a bubble of influence that even Zack can’t escape. This reflects the perceived schoolyard reality: the inmates truly run the asylum. “[In real life] obviously a teacher might intervene here or there but ultimately, nothing changes. If there was a slapdash solution to a bullying situation on a Tuesday, on the Wednesday the victim is still going to be made to feel absolutely worthless.”

These hefty themes are carried screen-wards by a group with little feature experience. This lacking was counteracted through tireless preliminary rehearsals, a cache of ‘homework’ films for all concerned and a set that was run “like clockwork”. Every level of the script and its characters was explored and dissected in pre-production. “It was a collaboration – the beautiful thing about Ben is that he had a great vision but, like all great directors, he knew when to let things spark between actors.”

And WOTY certainly sparks. The noir-ish plot is laced with an ever-present thought – is this what our schools could become? “It would make my day if there would be more of an awareness towards the dark time kids go through at school. Sadly, I think it’s really underestimated and overlooked.”

WOTY opens at Dendy Canberra Centre on Thursday March 3.

Mark Russell's Top 10 Films of 2010

Twenty-ten brought us a fair swag of quality. As well as those in the list below (at least partially designed as a shameless attempt to show my impressively broad tastes), there are honourable mentions for The Town, Mother and Child, An Education and Up in the Air. These, as well as Animal Kingdom, Mother and Kick Ass, all feature particularly brilliant female performances, making it a year to sing it for the sistas. It was also the year ten films made it into the Best Picture category (still creating one of the weakest crops for a decade), and the year that a little independent war drama beat out the highest grossing film of all time. But despite all this, for me, it was the year Christopher Nolan showed us you don’t need alternative source material to make a great piece of cinema. Yes, there is still originality in Hollywood, it’s just hidden in our dreams. Merry Christmas y’all!

10.   Mother

Although undoubtedly the least of South Korean director Joon-ho Bong’s three internationally-released films, Mother still show-cases his great skill with character, comedy and suspense.  Anchored by an infinitely-superb central performance from Hye-ja Kim, it ratchets up the tension step by step and delves into a fascinating study of humanity. Inch by inch we see the depths a mother will go to in order to clear her son when he’s accused of murder.

9.       Kick Ass

What happens when normal citizens try to be superheroes? Not a gadget-happy billionaire but rather an everyday kid whose only real power is a slightly impaired pain threshold. Kick Ass is funny, action-packed and as slick as crude on a reef. It also created one of the greatest supporting characters of the year by giving us Hit Girl. This sharp-talking, ultra-violent little fiend worked her way into our hearts, and (in a more literal way) those of every henchman she met.

8.       Animal Kingdom

The best Australian film this year by far and the best Aussie gangster flick...pretty much ever.  From the brilliantly-twisted opening sequence, to the endlessly pitch-perfect performances, to the rich cinematography; Animal Kingdom gave it to us in spades. Jackie Weaver was a particular highlight as the criminal dynasty’s sinister matriarch but everyone brought their a-game.

7.       Toy Story 3

A yearly top ten wouldn’t be complete without a Pixar entry. The near-perfect-strike-rate studio hit it out of the park again, with a nostalgia-powered film that never once felt twee.  The trilogy rounded out with flair, bringing closure to the epic adventures of Woody and Buzz. Some dark themes and real emotion proved once again that Pixar do it right – no condescension to the kiddies makes a great experience for all.

6.       Brothers

Brothers gave me the biggest kick in the guts with a hundred minutes of emotional brutality.  Each role was brilliantly drawn and acted, and gave us a new window into modern warfare.  Don’t go looking for twists and turns in plot, this was a character piece, but what characters! Expect claw-marks in the armrest from the final act.

5.       Scott Pilgrim vs The World

The real indie hero of the year, this film subsequently managed the most dramatic ‘love it or hate it’ effect too. If you didn’t get it, you really didn’t get it with many of the <ahem> older set finding little charm in its comedy/action stylings. But I couldn’t get enough.  Michael Cera may be a one-trick pony, but it’s a helluv an endearing trick.

4.       Fantastic Mr Fox

This was the first film to really wow me in 2010 – chronologically at least. The ‘vintage’ look and Wes Anderson direction all pointed to a hipster’s wet dream. It’s supremely entertaining, the voice-casting is perfection, it does justice to the Roald Dahl source material and we’re left with a fun and oh-so-cool cinematic offering.

3.       A Single Man

Fashion metaphors are a little beyond me so I’ll just say that designer Tom Ford’s first foray into directing was, um, hot... Every frame is exquisite as he charts a sixties professor’s depression and loss after the death of his lover. The restraint is beautiful, both in the simple love of lines and in the ninety-something-minute running time.

2.       The Social Network

Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher. That sentence (or fragment, as Microsoft Word’s wavy green line smugly states) is enough to make a grown man moist.  One of the smartest writers in Hollywood, paired with one of its most stylish directors – things were bound to be good.  But The Social Network was so much more. This film gave real meaning and drama to facebook (who would’ve ever expected to read that sentence?).  It’s also cemented Jesse Eisenberg as one of the great upcoming talents.

1.       Inception

Here it is. The big daddy. Number one with a mind-bending bullet. Inception gave us immense, epic action balanced by an incredibly complex plot and wonderfully high-concept. Director Christopher Nolan had dirty-sex with our synapses through a heist film where our very ideas are the bounty. The internet-breaking blog-storm this film stirred up, combined with the revolutionary idea of putting studio money behind a strong, original idea; shifted 2010’s cinema landscape.  Fucking brilliant.

Due Date

Peter Highman (Robert Downey Jnr) has to make it from Atlanta to Los Angeles in time for the birth of his first child. But the road home features a particularly large speed hump in the form of an Aspberger’s-level, man-child - acting hopeful Ethan (Zach Galifianakis). When Ethan gets them both on a no-fly list, Peter is set on a road-trip that just might teach him a few life lessons along the way... yeah.

Despite having The Hangover writer/director Todd Phillips at the helm, as well as sporting that film’s highest draw card in Galifianakis, Due Date is a pretty poor follow-up. The two central characters are infinitely dislikeable and often we’re not really rooting for them to win the day, but rather seeing their troubles as karmic retribution. Most baffling of all, Peter’s heavily pregnant wife (Michelle Monaghan) is so patient and kind, the polar opposite of Peter, that we can’t imagine how they ever ended up together.

The awkward comedic tone isn’t quite at the level of The Office, instead lingering somewhere between annoying and mildly amusing. Many of the jokes fall flat with few emotional highs or lows attached to them. It’s not really offensive enough to have shock value but it’s not endearing enough to have heart. In short, this is a decidedly monotone bit of celluloid.

Both of these actors are incredible talents but what we’re watching doesn’t showcase either particularly well. This film isn’t painful, just uninspiring considering the potential.

Megamind

With a sharp script, A-grade voice-casting and a slick, comedic tone, Megamind is a superb time in the dark. We follow the adventures of the titular character (voiced by Will Ferrell), a super villain who finds his life lacks meaning when one of his evil schemes finally actually works.

This is a great film. The animation’s polished, the dialogue is witty and a good concept plays out through a solid structure. As with any animation (especially one featuring super-heroes) comparisons with Pixar are unavoidable. This was never going to be The Incredibles - that’s an unfairly high bar to set. But <here comes the rant> its minor faults highlight the difference between Pixar’s productions, and all the Shreks, Madagascars, and every other pixel coming out of Dreamworks’ studios. I’m talking about the tacky and patronising need to pander to ‘the kids’. On numerous occasions, Megamind throws in a totally unnecessary pop-culture reference or gag that in no way affects the story. This may seem harmless but I would bet the entire budget of this tent-pole flick that none of these came from either a writer or a director. Rather, they smack of a nervous and interfering studio, lacking faith in their strength of character (excuse the pun). Instead of believing in timeless themes and character or situation-based comedy, they date the film and break our immersion in the created world with some tacky little sidenote. Granted, in this instance it’s a long way from a fatal flaw, but it is fucking irritating and since it’s my last issue as editor I’m being petulant.

This aside, Megamind succeeds brilliantly and is a very enjoyable piece of cinema.

Agora

In the ancient city of Alexandria, blood is approaching a rapid boil. Christians, Pagans and Jews are all fighting for their place in the pecking order, while a lone philosopher, Hypatia (Rachel Weisz), looks to the heavens for entirely different reasons. Her fascination for astronomy makes her much more interested in orbits and where the Earth sits in the scheme of things, rather than these impermanent political fortunes. Hypatia’s loved by many but she receives particular doting affection from both her student, Orestes (Oscar Isaac), and her slave, Davus (Max Minghella). These three, and their shifting allegiances and beliefs, drive the action and philosophy of Agora.

The film is writer/director Alejandro Amenábar’s treatise on the dangers of religious extremism. He shows us that ‘allegory’ ain’t some kind of dismembered reptile. There are constant real-world parallels, highlighting our doomed plan of attack for dealing with current fanatics. We also get a mirror held up to our society’s misogyny and general mistrust of women. All of this is put in context through Hypatia’s musings on astronomy. Silent, haunting vistas of Earth give perspective to the violent squabblings of men.

This may sound like Agora is a torturous ‘art-house’ lecture but it’s actually a very well put-together film. The first half gradually sows the seeds of tension and drama, then things amp up as we move towards the conclusion. Add to this a bunch of top notch performances and we get a film that leaves us philosophically uncertain and emotionally changed.

Red

 As you may have seen in the preview, Red features a sequence involving Bruce Willis stepping out of a car while it’s midway through a screeching 360-degree spin. Though lacking its full impact when seen out of context, this is one of the slickest and most inventive bits of action committed to celluloid in a while, and sets the tone beautifully for the film as a whole.

This tonal primer is very important as we move into the story of a group of retired CIA operatives, who jump back into the field when they’re targeted for termination. Tongues are planted firmly in cheek and realism becomes subjective as Hollywood heavyweights Willis, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich and Brian Cox prove they’re not too old for this shit. As the body count scrolls up and the quips come rapid-fire, we share in many knowing winks to the filmmakers.

It’s impossible to ignore the sheer pleasure everyone’s having with this material. Unfortunately, things err a little too far towards self-indulgent as it progresses.  Too many liberties are taken as fun takes precedence over little things like character and plot.  The pacing and editing could also have done with an upped dose of urgency. A lack lustre second half squanders a little more of the early potential.

Though all of this probably sounds a little doom and gloom, Red still offers very strong action played with gusto. And by some talents you might not expect to see in this kind of fare.

The Town

Ben Affleck follows up the sublime moral quandaries of Gone Baby Gone with his second directorial effort – ultra-slick heist drama The Town. He also fills in main acting duties as Doug MacRay, the leader of a very successful bank robbery crew, who finds himself forming a relationship with the assistant manager of one of the banks they hit, Claire (Rebecca Hall).

The Town draws very obvious if favourable comparisons to Heat. The only problem with this is that Affleck’s two-hour running time makes the characters and story occasionally feel a little undercooked compared to Brian DePalma’s sweeping three-hour epic. As such, some motivation is lost along the way. Claire also never quite fulfils the Yoko Ono role they want her to be, as the crew’s downfall really has very little to do with her.

This is nit-picking though. The film as a whole is well-devised, superbly-acted action-drama that keeps the blood pulsing and the story beats pumping like shotgun bursts. It’s meticulously woven, smart and operatic in vision. Jeremy Renner is a particular highlight as Doug’s violent and edgy best friend, James. The action scenes are superbly handled, though are one of the main culprits of glaring Heat similarities. The razor-sharp dialogue, character and drama are well-balanced throughout and the film offers something for all tastes.

Overall it’s a graze short of Affleck’s first crack at the directing chair but will doubtless find a much broader market and bodes well for his future offerings.

Eat Pray Love

It should be reasonably obvious (to myself included) that I’m not the direct target market for this particular bit of celluloid. It’d hardly be a further stretch to think that this meant I didn’t totally ‘get’ its appeal. But I’ll do my best to give an unbiased account.

Julia Roberts plays Liz Gilbert, a woman whose current American existence is lacking in spark. She’s lost, unenthused and searching for...something. After a divorce and a failed love affair, she hops a plane to distant lands in the hopes of reinvigoration. First on the list is Italy, where gorgeous food gives back some of the necessary buzz. Then on to India for prayer and Bali to (hopefully) love.

Unfortunately this journey in vitality lacks any particular life itself. The pacing is by turns jumpy, then laboured, as we are told what Liz feels much more often than we see or feel it. As such, her motivation isn’t conveyed to us as well as it could be and we don’t really share in her mindset. It plays very much like a novel turned live-action rather than a properly structured film.

This said, there are many strong points to Eat Pray Love. Roberts is very well-suited to the role and fulfils duties admirably. The settings are beautiful and the whole experience amply whets the appetite for travel and food.

Overall, it’s entertaining enough but was a little too slow to give me any real life-affirmation. Chuck another half star on if the material speaks to you.

The Other Guys

The team who brought us Anchorman and Step Brothers offer up a third Will-Ferrell-man-child comedy. This time Ferrell’s onscreen team-mate is Mark Whalberg. Together they’re a pair of screw-up cops who are thrown way into a multi-billion dollar case that’s obviously way over their heads.

The plot’s not too important, what’s important here is the chemistry between the two and whether we’re laughing. Or at least, that’s what should be valued. The Other Guys chooses to take a little more of a ‘middle of the road’ trajectory however.

There’s a little more effort with plot than you’d expect but not so much that you couldn’t have a high speed chase through the plot-holes. At the same time, it’s all slick and funny without pushing to the absurdist levels that its predecessors reached. It ends up leaving one foot in the action comedy camp, while the other presses on the straight comedy genre.

What results is a fun and fresh-ish film that is unlikely to stick too long in the memory. It’s entertaining for the first hour and a half, and would have been very potent had the whole thing been crammed into that time, but as it stands it overstays its welcome a little and loses momentum. Still well worth the price of admission and a small popcorn.

I'm Still Here

I should preface this review by saying that when I watched this film it hadn’t yet been announced that the whole thing was a hoax. I assumed it was, but this uncertainty undoubtedly affected the way I watched it, and is probably a main reason why I had a negative reaction to the experience.

Watching the repercussions of Joaquin Phoenix’s decision to quit acting and take up a career in hip-hop is difficult. This is mainly because he’s a total and utter twat. He’s ridiculously self-involved, an arsehole to everyone around him, and completely deluded about his abilities as a rapper.

It’s undoubtedly a great performance. Knowing everything was faked, Phoenix wears the skin of the prima donna Hollywood wanker like he was born in it. But as a film, I’m Still Here never really succeeds. The uncertainty over what I was watching kept me oscillating between two modes of thought.

As a documentary, we never really get close enough to the subject. The motivations behind everything Joaquin does are almost always kept a mystery. Our insights are limited to ‘J.P.’s’ own ramblings, which we’ve long since pigeon-holed as emanating from somewhere slightly left of Jupiter.

Viewed as a mockumentary, his destructive nature and the dark spiral the second half takes, suck the comedy out of it all.

Maybe it was my own ego at feeling that Casey Affleck, an actor I admire, was trying to pull the wool over my eyes. But then, this whole thing drips with self-destructive narcissism, why should the reviews be any different?

The Girl Who Played With Fire

Lisbeth Salander is back, hacking her way into the fantasies of computer geeks worldwide. This second instalment in the Millennium Trilogy sees things getting a little more personal for Lisbeth (played by Noomi Rapace). She’s framed in the murders of two journalists who’d been writing about a sex-trafficking ring. It’s up to Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) to sleuth his way through the cover-ups, and find that miniscule detail that holds the key to her absolution.

The Girl Who Played With Fire is an apt sequel to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. It offers more of the same research-based thrills, set in author Stieg Larrson’s ugly and violent vision of the world. Unfortunately the loss of almost an hour between the original Swedish version and its international cut shows however. Not so much in an under-developed plot but rather in the pacing. The scenes move with a languid speed that would be at home in a three hour film but which is at odds with the regularly choppy editing of this two-hour version. Characterisation takes a slight hit as well, with Blomkvist showing almost no development throughout the running time, instead playing passenger to Lisbeth’s driving protagonist.

A change in director and screenwriter have added some other issues. The story has lost Dragon Tattoo’s gritty realism with the addition of a few over-the-top set pieces and a henchman who seems to have lumbered straight out of a ‘70s James Bond flick. The result is a solid, rather than great, thriller, but an interesting set up for the final chapter.

Salt

Salt is the story of Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie), a badass CIA operative whose situation gets a little tricky when a Russian defector accuses her of being a Russian double agent. Pretty soon she’s hunted all over the city and regularly escaping capture by the skin of her perfect teeth.

This film is a lot of fun. It sits somewhere halfway between the Bourne and Die Hard franchises in tone, character and action set-pieces. What results is a film that’s just real enough to make you care, without taking itself so seriously we can’t accept Salt jumping from one speeding semi-trailer to another. Jolie is perfect for the role, exhibiting just the right amount of attitude, nous and femininity.

As the plot progresses, the turns do become a little too easy to spot, and some of the character motivations are less than seamless. But that’s not why we’re watching. The chases are exciting, Evelyn’s ingenuity is amply tested and proven, and the slowly closing net keeps the tension at a maximum. A slight fizzle in the climax is unfortunate but much of this can be attributed to the set up for what will doubtless be a franchise of its own. Welcome to the party, Mrs Bond.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

The opening of this film is about as cringe-worthy as it comes. After a ridiculously melodramatic, expositional prologue, we meet young Dave (at this stage played by Jake Cherry) who gets separated from his school group through a pretty thin and convenient twist of fate. He stumbles into the work shop of Balthazar (Nicolas Cage) who tells him he’s something called the Prime Merlinian and will do something terribly important and blah blah blah. Some bad stuff happens and Balthazar and Dave are separated for ten years. At about this point in proceedings, the average audience member is shoving stale popcorn kernels into their eyes, hoping to block some of the impact of any more smouldering, hands dramatically akimbo, ‘I’m a badass sorcerer’ stares from Cage. But then we meet Dave as a twenty-year-old Physics geek (now played by Jay Baruchel) and things take a definite turn for the better.

To say Baruchel carries this film would be a disservice. It would be more accurate to say that just as the bloated mass of soul-less, big budget, paint-by-numbers filmmaking starts to sink into an irredeemable mire, Jay shrugs his shoulders self-consciously before reaching down a single charismatic hand of rescue. He’s funny, he’s likeable, he sells some often quite poor dialogue and gives humanity to a difficult role. Hell, he even manages to reflect a little class back onto Nic. He’s a genuine nerd. Not in a Shia Lebouf quick quip on the run kinda way but a genuine geek and loveable for it. With his contribution, this film transforms. It’s fun, funny, exciting and extremely entertaining, with shades of a Neverending Story adventurous spirit. Wear the first twenty minutes with a grimace, then reap the rewards.

The Expendables

I really wanted to like this film.  Like, a lot. It was meant to be a throwback to every balls-to-the-wall, strap-yourself-in-and-‘ooh’-at-the-pretty-fireballs movie I’d spent my pocket money on as a kid. Sly Stallone was giving us a great chance to relive the glory of the eighties to mid-nineties action stars, while working in the guys who almost inherited the crown, like Jet Li and Jason Statham.

But unfortunately, this stinks to high heaven of the fun-sucking Hollywood machine. The Expendables’s plot isn’t manufactured round awesome set-pieces, instead it’s manufactured round awesome egos and contractual obligations. The core cast fights for rights to the cheesy lines and camera-time. Unfortunately, this kind of dialogue only works if there’s a ‘straight man’ character. Without that, they all just sound like they’re unable to hold a normal conversation.

It’s a frustrating two hours as the inept script tries desperately to find an emotional core in every character. Naturally, none of these end up being fulfilled to a satisfying level. The filmmakers should’ve taken a leaf out of the Statham-vehicle Transporter series – don’t overthink it, we’ll go with you, we promise.

There’s a couple of good fight scenes and a helluva lot of explosions but this excursion seems to be very lacking in the fun factor.

Four Lions

Four Lions is a breath of fresh air, even if it comes as an inhaled wince preceded by “Can they really say that?” It’s perhaps the darkest comedy to ever attempt a mainstream audience. From frame one of this parody on suicide bombers, it refuses to pull its punches.

The movie has some of the funniest dialogue captured on film. This is hardly surprising, as Christopher Morris’s first major feature was bound to carry a huge weight of expectation. His work in British television has produced some of the great modern comedy and Four Lions delivers with a boom.

Omar (Riz Ahmed) is a jihadist with a dream. His crew of like-minded screw-ups are desperate to strike a blow for the cause, though they’re a little lacking in direction. As the wheels fall off in more and more entertaining ways, Omar’s grip on true north slips further and further away.

This film is handled incredibly delicately. It balances the darkest aspects of the theme perfectly, taking things far enough to do them justice but always reigning it in before it gets out of hand. Things do fall down ever so slightly plotwise towards the end, but the laughter continues running non-stop. Anyone willing to set their eyebrows to a permanent raise, will love this stuff.

Killers

Having experienced the seamless control of Inception, I then slipped to the other end of the filmic spectrum, taking a look at the epitome of awkwardness that is Killers.

Ashton Kutcher plays Spencer, a super cool awesome hot hitman, who’s starting to feel that his job is no longer the emotionally fulfilling philanthropy he signed up for. Luckily he runs into Jen (Katherine Heigl) an anally-retentive but emotionally fearful woman who may or may not have appeared in every uninventive romantic comedy ever. They hook up, get married and live a blissful life in the suburbs for five years till – oh dear – Spencer’s past comes crashing through their kit home.

This film has very little going for it. The tone is terribly uneven, dancing between moments of reasonably graphic violence interspersed with unfunny quips and a desperate attempt at romance. There’s almost no chemistry between the leads and the pacing feels wholly unplanned. The action and story have no real correlation and there are long sections where Spencer and Jen are doing little more than wandering around, talking about how people are constantly trying to kill them. You know what would be more exciting than that? People constantly trying to kill them! Instead the script has crammed almost all of the attacks into the latter sections, making it feel less like escalation and more like hail Mary.

Catherine O’Hara and Tom Selleck are admirable enough as Jen’s parents but Catherine’s character’s drunkenness and Tom’s general air of disappointment feel more a reflection of genuine circumstance than acting skill.

Inception

As I unclenched my buttocks and rose from my seat, the concept of Inception slowly sunk into my consciousness. Not the plot, story and themes – these had been cunningly woven in over the last two and a half hours. Nope, what I was enjoying was the excitement that this kind of filmmaking still exists. Christopher Nolan has created an original film that will make you think.

Any mention of plot will doubtlessly detract from the experience. The first half an hour or so of the running time are intended to keep you on unsure footing. As such, Inception has us hooked from frame one right till the end. It demands our attention to detail as Nolan allows the bare minimum amount of time to process information before he catapults us into the next stage.

Comparisons with Stanley Kubrick are being thrown round all over the place, and not completely without justification. This is not a wholly flattering comment however: as well as his visual mastery, Nolan shares Kubrick’s value of mood and concept over character. Only Leonardo DiCaprio’s character pushes the envelope into full realisation. That said, the performances are uniformly brilliant – Joseph Gordon-Levitt is dapper control; Ellen Paige - curious intellect; Ken Watanabe – honourable pragmatism; and Marion Coitillard - tentatively poised intensity.

Afterwards you will doubtless experience a few of Hitchcock’s refrigerator moments (but wait, how did they?), regarding the sequence of the plot. This will probably inspire a stream of internet forums dedicated to inaccuracies. But don’t let them fool you – Inception is brilliant stuff!

Creation

3 out of 5

Charles Darwin (Paul Bettany) is a man oppressed by the war of his convictions. His scientific experiments, theories and enquiring mind have led him down a path that questions his faith in a divine creator. Can he arrest these two forces?

Sounds like a great plot, doesn’t it? Kind of a not-too-subtle lead into the arguments going on in many American bible-belt schools over what to teach children about the nature of the universe? This kind of character crisis would make a great film – the most influential figure in evolutionary theory taking his first heretical steps towards writing On the Origin of Species. Unfortunately Creation is not this story. Screen-writer John Collee has shown little confidence in the inherent story, choosing instead to dress the script up with a non-linear timeline and occasional surreal moments. Darwin’s tumultuous inner journey is furthered diluted by the film’s focus on Charles’ relationship with his wife (played by Jennifer Connelly). Her strong religious leanings are intended to (and really, they should) provide an outward representation of his inner conflict. Instead it just feels too much like a collection of all the stolen glances and pregnant English silences rife in any period piece.

Of course, it’s not all bad. The film looks great, shot with an eye that captures the rich natural world Darwin so loved. And the performances are almost uniformly brilliant. But the pacing is languid at best, meandering at worst, and subject matter that should be inherently fascinating is left <ahem> unevolved.

Predators

3 out of 5

It’s been a long and colourful path for the Predator franchise, from the action gold of the Arnie original up to, well, whatever Alien Vs Predator was. This ‘reboot’ sees the roles reversed a little, as a group of hard-arses finds themselves dropped on a strange island that they discover serves as a game preserve in which these ugly mo-fos hunt humans.

Predators is a rather strange collection of hits and misses, exemplified in the casting of credible thespian Adrien Brody as the head roughneck. In one way his very above average acting chops give him the required emotional range with a simple eyebrow raise. Unfortunately a need to play against his naturally softer look means he throws in added bonuses like a tough guy voice that even Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne would say was unnecessarily husky.

But where Brody gets better as the minutes and body-count increase, the film itself starts to take a nosedive. A lot of the mindless bloody fun, and inventiveness of the set-up, give way to laboured action and too-far ridiculousness. A mid-film cameo from Laurence Fishburne feels especially forced and lacks the needed punch.

We also spend too much of the film’s early stages waiting for the characters to catch up with what we’ve surmised. Yes, they woke up falling from the sky. Yes, discovering you’ve been dropped into an intergalactic fox hunt would be a little disconcerting. But they should have caught up with what was going on by 30 minutes in – surely this sort of situation is common ground for stereotypes such as these?

Overall, Predators is a good bit of fun but the scent of blood in the water doesn’t lead to the hoped feast.

Toy Story 3

4 ½ out of 5

Woody, Buzz and the rest of this batteries-included crew have taken us a long way over the last 15 years. Toy Story 3 is, as to be expected, brilliant. Yet again, Pixar Studios have hit their ridiculously high benchmark with a story that plays all the right notes. This adventure takes these now very familiar characters to day-care, after their owner Andy accidentally misplaces them while packing for college. And this is the story at hand: what happens when the kids grow up?

This film is obviously a labour of love for all concerned. As the first Pixar 3D offering (and as such, a revolutionary piece of cinema), the original Toy Story gave us brilliant story-telling through cutting-edge animation. Where Shrek has used all its sequels to explore new paths circling the drain of credibility and relevance; this third instalment rounds out one of the truly great trilogies.

Viewed with an overly-harsh-critic’s lens, number 3 is a hair behind its forebears in terms of quality. The story has slightly less surprises, though this could be due to the very clear, strong structure behind it; and the fact each plot point flows so effortlessly into the next. It’s probably also a little scary for many ankle-biters. The climactic sequence in particular has some very intense imagery attached to it, though this is also undoubtedly the most impressive visually. But we can’t really blame them for appealing to a more adult audience. With so long between sequels, this is probably less a kids’ film, and more about the rest of us proving we’re not too old to dig in the toy-box.

The Karate Kid

4 out of 5

This remake of the eighties classic has tonnes of heart: both in a Rocky, and a Forrest Gump, sense. It follows Detroit twelve year old Dre (Jaden Smith) as he tries to adjust to his new home in China. The local bullies take a disliking to him, and pretty soon he’s learning all the mystical kung-fu wisdom he can from maintenance man Jackie Chan, in order to beat them.

At over two hours, twenty minutes, this film is too long: meandering through a few unnecessary sub-plots and oh-my-god-we’re-in-China moments. These rarely drag however, the length being especially impressive in a family film and a real tribute to the script’s pacing. Smith is capable in the lead role, and even manages some very impressive moments, though he’s a little inconsistent overall. But it’s Jackie Chan who’s the real revelation. His turn in the dramatic tent-pole moments is genuinely heart-felt and gritty in ways completely unexpected from the kung-fu slapstick master.

It was a strange decision to do almost exactly the same storyline as the original film...while shifting the martial art from karate to kung-fu...without actually changing the film’s title. Some of the sequences don’t work quite as well in the new surroundings either. But fun is the key and the tongue-in-cheek nods to the earlier films only add to this overall tone.

The Karate Kid delivers brilliantly on everything it attempts. It’ll please all comers with a film that excites, emotes and entertains. Definitely worth the price of admission.

Animal Kingdom

4 out of 5

Animal Kingdom is easily one of the strongest Australian films to come out of our industry in a while. Though clearly part of the ridiculously over-done bogan-gangster genre, it gives us a completely fresh look at the subject matter. The acting and cast are phenomenal, the cinematography is incredibly rich and the story itself draws us in beautifully. It also features one of the best opening scenes I’ve watched in many years.

Josh (James Frecheville) has just lost his mum to a heroin overdose. She was the last line of defence between Josh and her family of career-criminals, whose nefarious existences are watched over by Josh’s grandmother - twisted matriarch Janine (Jackie Weaver). Janine’s boys’ activities are being watched very carefully by the armed robbery squad and when the cops take things too far, retribution is swift and violent.

Animal Kingdom’s script is electric, a fascinating peek into the minds of some very intense characters. The similarities with Melbourne’s Walsh Street murders and the Pettingill family are a little disconcerting, as no mention is made of them. Weaver is superb, balancing her character’s home-spun exterior and rotten interior perfectly. Frecheville does a brilliant job of stoic fear, even if his general lack of awareness makes it a little hard to buy his effectiveness in the later scenes. Ben Mendelsohn is also chilling as unbalanced crim ‘Pope’, and Guy Pearce is great to watch as the seemingly last honest cop.

Great stuff.

The Losers

The latest cab off the graphic novel adaptation rank is the story of a group of wise-cracking CIA black-ops soldiers, who’ve gone rogue after a mysterious bad guy spook, Max (Jason Patric), tries to kill them. The Losers get their chance to get madly even when mysterious badass chick Aisha (Zoe Saldana) shows up with the intelligence needed to track Max.

The Losers is a slick, fun and action-packed ride down a buttered-popcorn slide. The action set-pieces are inventive and extreme, and have a brilliant tongue-in-cheek tone that’s furthered in the dialogue. It’s got all you could ask for. Saldana is hot.  Lead loser Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is wry where he needs to be, tough where he doesn’t. The other losers are various shades of funny or cool. The whole thing’s shot like MTV on coke. And even the baddie has a few scene-stealing moments.

As would be expected, it occasionally relies a little too heavily on cliché. The slow-motion struts with fireball backgrounds start to come a little too regularly and everyone’s just that little bit too good. Later scenes also lose their bit a little due to some awkward pacing choices and unnecessarily obvious plot-holes. But this is Jesse James, not Henry James.

The Losers is an action film with just that little bit extra. Come in, sit down, switch off and bring snacks.

3 ½ out of 5

Mother and Child

Mother and Child will cut you raw and scrape your soul; in an impressive sort of way.

Though writer/director Rodrigo Garcia may have a shortish resume, he’s attracted some heavyweight staffers to this heavyweight dissection of motherhood. The film focuses on the lives of three women and the relationships they have with children. Karen (Annette Benning) is an emotional wreck after giving up her daughter for adoption 37 years earlier. Said daughter Elizabeth (Naomi Watts) is similarly reeling from the abandonment. While in another part of town, Lucy (Kerry Washington) and her husband Joseph are going through adoption proceedings themselves.

It’s easy to see why much of the marketing of this film has focused on Babel director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s involvement as producer. It has the same intense emotional tapestry woven through his other work. There are endless great performances in the gruelling two hours. Watts and Benning are revelations, giving us characters almost previously unseen in Hollywood. Unfortunately, Washington can’t quite match them but gives it an admirable attempt. The men also keep up their end – Jimmy Smits maintains a gentle stoicism and Samuel L Jackson is surprisingly downplayed.

In truth, a female director may have added a little more subtlety to some key scenes, and it takes a little while to get used to the theatrical, characters-saying-what-they-feel style of dialogue; but it’s a very strong emotional cinematic experience. The slow, depressive mood sinks and swirls us lower; offering only rare, though poignant, moments of gentle brevity.

This is an intense and powerful piece of cinema, though avoid the spoiler-heavy preview at all costs.

4 ½ stars

Kings of Mykonos: Wog Boy 2

About ten years ago, Nick Giannopoulos gave us The Wog Boy; a film that boasted more stereotypes than a Pauline Hanson real estate listing. The titular character, also known as Steve Karamatsis, has now returned to our screens, though this time he and friend Frankie (Vince Colosimo) are headed to the island paradise of Mykonos. Steve’s inherited a beach worth a fortune, though bureaucracy soon dictates that he has to pay a million dollars in taxes or he’ll lose it all.

Perhaps surprisingly, Kings of Mykonos has things going for it. There’s some soul in a few of the characters, even if it’s shown sparingly. It also looks better than almost any Australian comedy we’ve seen. Director Peter Andrikidis has shot the glittering exteriors with a combination of love and skill. The problem, unfortunately, is that it’s just not entertaining. The jokes and story run out well before we’re allowed to, and it soon loses any semblance of coherence or thought. We meander into sub-plots and extra characters that we just couldn’t care less about.

The Wog Boy idea was a little groan-worthy in the original film but was dragged into the realm of adequacy by a tongue-in-cheek tone, and an acceptance of where it stood in the cinematic grand scheme of things. The sequel doesn’t follow through on this however, and instead we’re left asking that question we first had when we saw the poster: Why?

2 out of 5

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

The video game to feature film adaptation is almost a Hollywood tradition of ham. Let’s face it, when the shining example a genre holds up is Tombraider, things are not looking so good. The latest cab off the rank is Prince of Persia...and the flops keep on coming.

Not having played the game, I can’t really comment on how faithful the storyline is. I’m told, however, that the game version is a lot more interesting. This is an action film, about an adopted Prince named Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal), with a dagger that can reverse a minute worth of time. His favourite pastime is running over roof-tops, he’s got all kinds of weird mystics and warriors chasing him, and a hot princess as his sidekick. This should make a great adventure film – Indiana Jones and the Battle for Parkour Supremacy.

Instead we get a bunch of sledgehammer plot points that lead Dastan into the desert to meet increasingly poor bit-part characters, while he searches for the next repetitive action set-piece. Jake is undoubtedly charismatic and works well in the role, and the action is innovative the first time you see it. But as the rehashed movements stack up, Gyllenhaal’s smirk seems less charming cock-sure, and more talented actor turned mercenary. Worst of all, though perhaps most typical these days – it’s too goddamn long!

In a situation such as this, a plot device where you can relive the past few moments again, is not favourable.

2 ½ out of 5

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Very solid filmmaking; a leeeetle heavy on the rape.

The other international title for this film is Millennium Part 1: Men Who Hate Women. I didn’t know this walking in however and was a little unready for the whole thing. The film contains a very strong undercurrent of twisted brutality, an attitude towards women that is a long way from adulation.

Unfortunately, this brutality doesn’t quite seem justified. Though rape and aggressive misogyny are crucial parts of the plot, they didn’t seem crucial enough to explain the scenes we had to sit through.

That said, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is a very well-made film. It’s beautifully shot and makes good use of many harsh and eerie landscapes of Sweden. The story follows journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) and hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) as they track the disappearance of a young girl forty years earlier; as well as the twisted family she came from.

The meticulous way in they move through this investigation keeps the tension bubbling away, occasionally boiling over into high action or sickening sadism. It almost sustains this over two and a half hours but could have lost maybe a few minutes off the running time.

44 Inch Chest

In 2000 the film Sexy Beast gave us a different British gangster amidst a wave of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels imitators. It showed us men whose personality was intimidation enough with little need for actual violence. The same writers and a good portion of the cast of Sexy Beast have come back for 44 Inch Chest.

The film focuses on Colin (Ray Winstone), a man who’s been destroyed by the news that his wife’s been cheating on him and is now leaving him. Colin calls up a few of his aging hard-arse buddies and together they kidnap his wife’s new lover. Our story concerns the decision of what to do with this young upstart.

44 Inch Chest is intended as an ode to the power of love: mature, dependent, life-defining love. The film looks at how the most brutal of men can be undone by these feelings. The main problem is - it doesn’t look at it with a particularly broad perspective.

The long and short of it: this is a stage play, filmed. This is almost never a good idea and this film is a brilliant example of exactly why it doesn’t work. The drama spends almost the entire time in one room, creating a claustrophobic feeling that doesn’t boost the tension but instead adds staleness. The language is overly theatrical as well and, though it’s delivered with consummate skill by the phenomenal cast, it merely detracts further from the realism.

In the end, we don’t get enough of Colin’s character and back story as a violent man to be impressed when love turns him around.

Hot Tub Time Machine

“What, the fuck, did you expect?” I hear you yell. “Better.” I feebly respond.

Four guys get in a hot tub and are transported back to the eighties with a chance to fix their disappointing lives. It sounded so terrible I could only assume it would be brilliant. It’s not. It’s a film about four guys who get in a hot tub and are transported back to the eighties with a chance to fix their disappointing lives.

Honestly, I blame Judd Apatow for my naïveté. The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up convinced me that terrible concepts could be done brilliantly. But not here.

I’m sure I won’t be the only one to point out the irony that this sort of concept could only be truly popular in the eighties. But then it would have been done by John Hughes and would have had heart, instead of this long string of laughless set-pieces using liberal helpings of profanity and gross-out humour to hide their lack of substance. Sure, it tries a tongue-in-cheek approach, hoping we’ll run with the gag without explanation. But in these hands the wink and the nod comes off more as a mock-Tourette’s-twitch.

At one point, John Cusack actually utters the words: “Three days ago, or twenty years depending on how you judge the space/time continuum, you would have been the last people I’d want to sit down with.” We’re right there with you, John. Maybe we all needed a time-travel experience to give us a perspective where we could enjoy this shit.

Mother

Just to give you some context – I LOVE director Joon-Ho Bong’s 2006 creature feature The Host. I’m also a big fan of his earlier film Memories of Murder. As such I’ve been waiting for Mother since I first heard whisperings of its imminent arrival. Did it live up to the hype? Hmmm, not quite.

As far as filmmaking goes, it gets almost every element down pat. It looks superb – utilising the ultra-slick, rich visuals common to Joon-Ho’s earlier efforts. The winding pathways of the ramshackle village mesh well with the open-field landscapes and haunting woods. The central performance is beyond words. Hye-Ja Kim’s turn as the Mother of Yoon Do-Joon (Bin Won) a mentally-disabled man accused of murder; runs the full gamut of character and emotion. The merest flicker of her eyes speaks volumes, while her screams and wails contain a subtlety and nuance that’s completely captivating.

The problems, unfortunately, are in the story and pacing. Mother spends too much of the time pleading with other characters – cops, Do-Joon’s friend Jin-Tae (Goo Jin) – to fix the situation for her. It’s only once Jin-Tae tells her to take matters into her own hands that the film really gets going; and by this time we’ve lost half the running time.

Mother is still a great watch. The opening scenes are extraordinary, and the shot construction is as interesting and innovative as you’ll see in modern cinema. It’s just not as entertaining as I would have liked. But maybe it just needed a mutated river monster?

Date Night

Steve Carell and Tina Fey are a married New Jersey couple who seem to be finding bigger and bigger shovels with which to extend their rut. Things take a decided shift towards exciting when they take someone else’s reservation at a fancy Manhattan restaurant; and end up in a Peter Sellers-esque farce of mistaken identity. Pretty soon they’re ducking gunfire and running for their lives in a desperate attempt to return a stolen flash-drive to a mob boss.

Date Night’s script is incredibly sharp, even if many of the great lines aren’t given the right amount of gravitas. The two central actors are on good form and they engage us beautifully. Tina Fey in particular is great, giving us way more than the typical female lead in a romantic comedy. Everything progresses nicely: fun, rollicking and funny – right up till the final act. Here it snaps our suspension of disbelief almost completely, throwing in extra characters that are half-drawn at best, and taking the story out of its quirky reality into ridiculousness.

This is a shame because with a promising beginning and 88-minute running time, this film could have been a punchy and very entertaining comedy. But it ends up straying too far and there’s just not enough to offer.

It would still make a very passable date night in its own right, offering a little something for everyone. But it’s just not the: “send the kids to your mother’s, let’s move the single beds together tonight” home-run it could have been.

Kick Ass

“Why hasn’t anyone ever tried to be a superhero, like in real life?” Unremarkable high-schooler Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) sees a real dearth of caped crusaders in contemporary New York, and as such takes it upon himself to fill the gap. So he dons a cheap green wetsuit and takes to the streets to fight crime; but this is the real world, and people can get really hurt.

Kick-Ass makes great use of juxtaposing its contradictory elements. There’s the cute, cartoonish characters that regularly unleash brutal violence – and have it returned upon them. There’s the very grounded reality of the world, our world, splashed with liberal dashes of comic-book hyper-fantasy. And there’s the strong vein of moral fortitude, interspersed with very ethically questionable character choices. This makes for a great action film that’s fun, with just the right amount of brain fodder. The ultra-violent combat scenes that result from this mixed philosophy have a stylised class about them that is a pleasure to watch. And the inventiveness is supremely exciting and entertaining.

It’s undeniable that the structure is a little stilted – perhaps due to a wish to stay true to the original graphic novel material. And we end up with a slightly overlong running time because of it. But overall Kick-Ass is superbly slick. Everything kicks into a particularly high gear whenever the young, and mega-violent Hit Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) arrives on screen. Her character and presence give us many of the film’s best moments.

As a genre piece, this is one of the better graphic novel adaptations out there. It’s funny, cool, exciting, and even occasionally poignant; exactly the kind of hero the modern action genre needed.

Micmacs

Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s last big international hit Amelie is one that pushed audiences very firmly into personality types as optimists or pessimists. You could love the film for its sublime quirkiness and playfulness (or even merely for Audrey Tatou’s smile); or you could bah-hum-bug your way through its celebration of life’s minutiae. With Micmacs, Jeunet has kept the same tone – though embellished on Amelie’s mischievous vindictiveness.

Bazil (Dany Boon) is a man beset by misfortune. A land mine killed his father when Bazil was just a boy then, while working at a video store, a stray bullet catches him flush in the skull. It doesn’t kill him however, instead firing up a vengeful hatred of the two manufacturers behind these weapons. With the aid of a collection of quirky vagrants, Bazil sets out to bring the CEOs of these unethical empires to their knees.
The characters in Micmacs are uniformly entertaining. All have that slightly-broken quality Jeunet seems so fascinated with. Their heart of gold at the base of a moral flexibility carries the innovative story along beautifully.

The whole experience would’ve been better for shaving fifteen minutes from the running time, and the humour tends to encourage knowing glances and tips-of-the-caps at its cleverness rather than genuine belly laughs. But overall, this is a supremely enjoyable cinematic ride.

A Single Man

I realise a review of this film seems a little belated, but honestly (excuse upcoming expletive): it’s too fucking good not to talk about.
The first thing that hits you about A Single Man is the look, it’s spectacular. First time Director Tom Ward is best known for his work as a fashion designer, responsible for something to do with rescuing Gucci. We could care less about that however, cause he’s a filmmaker now.

Someone swapping to cinema after dominating a purely aesthetic-based world was almost guaranteed to take the visuals too far. But Ward has created a world of near perfect sumptuous beauty. Everything is saturated with colour and design, yet he still keeps it restrained – going over the top only once or twice. The look isn’t distracting, or over-wrought, and is reminiscent of Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai’s brilliant visual integration.

This is not to say the acting and story have been left behind. Colin Firth puts in a brilliant turn as brooding intellectual George, whose partner’s death fills him with an unremitting grief so brutal, it can’t be truly understood. Julianne Moore is equally strong in her role as George’s life-long friend Charley.  Their relationship is nuanced and powerfully honest.

Everything in A Single Man happens at just the right pace and the events play out to a satisfying and thought-provoking conclusion.

In all truth, I’d have been very happy seeing this film win the best picture Oscar over The Hurt Locker. There is something so intense about Ward’s incredible directorial debut. I walked away with the two things all films should deliver but which they so rarely do: a full mind and a vacant gaze.

Brothers

The first mention I’d heard of this film was in a David Letterman interview with Natalie Portman. Dave assured me it was “The most important film of the last twenty years” or something to that effect. Intrigued by this recommendation, and because I’d happily watch Natalie Portman in a toilet cleaner commercial, I eagerly jumped at the chance to indulge in this cinematic experience.

Brothers is an adaptation of a Danish film of the same name, depicting a young marine (Tobey Maguire) missing, presumed dead, in Afghanistan; and the effect his absence has on his beautiful wife (Portman) and ex-con brother (Jake Gyllenhaal) back in America.

The first two-thirds of Brothers is very, very good. The characters are well-drawn and subtly acted, and the drama is punctuated with moments of genuine warmth and comedy. But it didn’t quite justify the extreme levels of praise for me. Then, about half an hour from the end: bang, spec-fucking-tacular. Maguire’s quiet softness, previously unconvincing for a hardened marine, switches to a powerful, brooding intensity. Gyllenhaal’s character undergoes a similarly extreme change and Natalie is, of course, universally brilliant. As the climax tears at your mind, the story elements come together to keep your attention on a razor’s edge.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had a real emotional reaction to a film, but Brothers truly left me gasping. See it now, and decide whether Mr Letterman and myself were merely dazzled by the divine Miss P.

Alice in Wonderland

Where’d you go Tim? Seriously, what the hell happened? I refuse to believe this is the same film-maker who brought me Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice. If it is, his vision drank a bucket load of Alice’s shrinking potion.

You know the basic plot, we grew up with it – Alice falls down hole, eats things, drinks things, changes size, trips out, meets whacky characters. But this interpretation just feels like a massive triumph of commercialism over childhood. It’s hard to say anything against Johnny Depp as welll, but throwing Burton’s all-time man-crush into a supporting role was always going to lead to bad things.  His character ends up getting way more screen time than is justified, often given his own sub-plots irrespective of their place in the overall story.

Calling Tim’s traditional black and white spirals and gothic creations warm may sound odd, but that’s what he used to give us through sheer inventiveness and actually building it all. These were real sets and real characters for actors to interact with. As soon as he started modelling the backgrounds for Alice in Wonderland in a computer program, someone should have yanked him up by his increasingly tame hairdo.

Look, it’s all watchable. The story follows a (depressingly) linear structure and the 3D in the first half an hour is reasonably inventive and exciting. But no one’s on their top form and we can’t help but feel everything needs an injection of Burton’s old panache – even if it was just some scissorhands in the editing suite.

Lupe Fiasco / Koolism / Horrorshow / Katalyst / D’Opus and Roshambo

As the beads of sweat coating the patrons and walls still shook with the combined power of the final song’s bassline and the crowd chants of “Lou-pay, Lou-pay,” an eerie calm gave me a little perspective to reflect on the night that was.

Things had opened very nicely. The lineup was strong, starting off with local flow-masters D’Opus and Roshambo. It was clear that people were on a mission as a large chunk of the soon-to-be 2000 strong crowd had bustled into the UC Refectory for the 7:30 warm up. Ro and D’O delivered, putting in a rousing, stomping performance to get us all fiendin’ for the rest of the night’s entertainment.

The pulsations approached some kind of hip-hop critical overload as we built through Katalyst, Horrorshow and Koolism till... it was time. The Fiasco emerged. Lupe came out to a screaming, seething, glistening crowd who were in danger of slipping into some kind of quasi-sexual experience. The diminutive man with the big ideas took to the stage wearing his ‘Superstar’ shades and we... lost... our... friggan... minds. We jived our way through Kick, Push, the song that originally introduced Lupe Fiasco onto the world stage in 2006. We floated along as he conducted the orchestral lifts in Daydream. And finally, the debaucherous sexuality shifted to something a little more religious as we united as one, accompanying Shining Down as it burst from the speakers.

All of this made for a superb musical encounter, but my personal highlight came during the stadium (or Refectory) shaking response to Little Weapon. “I killed another man today, shot him in his back as he ran away...” The violently spat verses and pah-rum-pum-pum-pums of the chorus raised the roof as Lupe belted out his gut-punch anthem for Africa’s child rebel soldiers. It’s a brutal track that speaks to something clearly important to Fiasco, while at the same time admonishes the romanticised violence inherent in so much rap: “Think you’re gangsta, popped a few round? These kids’ll come through and murder a whole town.” This tune embodies everything that this man is about. It’s socially aware, dark, uncompromising, threatening and catchy as all hell; the live performance delivered on this essence in spades.

Many hip-hop aficionados would see little need for moshing to someone of Lupe’s ilk. Nevertheless, excitement, steamy temperatures and (let’s face it) copious amounts of alcohol prevailed and a thumping, bumping pit formed towards the front. Perhaps this rare sighting was a reflection of the man’s genre-crossing stylings and rock appeal.

As Lupe wound up the show and stepped away from his speaker-lined pulpit, the lights flicked on and I looked round at the faces around me. So many (my own included) shone with a combination of sweat and joyous reverie. Our consciences were adequately informed, our bowels were suitably bass-affected, and we were thoroughly entertained. The popularity and support shown for this gig surprised even those of us diehard fans.

Did everyone have the same spiritual reaction I did? Probably not, but you can bet your last lyric that there were at least a few beat-baptisms that night.

Dear John

Call me sexist, but I reckon The Notebook is the definitive chick flick. Not because of the woefully clichéd story, just-rough-enough male lead and cheesy-as-hell “I-wrote-you-every-day” line. These things don’t hinder the case but the real reason I have this opinion is I have never personally encountered a woman who hates it. Most of the male film fiends I know groan at its mere mention. The female cinephiles on the other hand (all of whom have opinions I usually respect) tend to shuffle their feet as they sheepishly admit they “sorta, kinda, like it”. This overlong intro is designed to show you: I don’t get this stuff, so feel free to disregard the following vilification of a film based on a book by the same author.

 Initially Dear John promised more. This time the male lead, John (Channing Tatum), is almost a person rather than a cardboard cut-out. Its clichés are also as much about making Savannah (Amanda Seyfried) an adorable and quirky saviour for John, as they are showing how brooding and troubled he is.

Halfway through however, the wheels fall off dramatically. Character and motivation go out the window as we lose Savannah’s screen time, never to identify with her again. The film paints itself into a corner morally speaking, and we stop understanding why we should care about their feelings for each other. Tatum is still charismatic, Seyfried is even quite good (despite having little to work with), there’s even a great turn from Richard Jenkins as John’s father; but Dear John fails in the final delivery.

Never thought I’d say it, but this isn’t even The Notebook.

Crazy Heart

It’s a little depressing to walk into an empty cinema to watch the frontrunner for best actor this close to the Oscars; especially when Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief has a line stretching round the corner. But it’s no real surprise. The misery-soaked tale of an alcoholic, country music has-been isn’t exactly Friday night date fodder.

Jeff Bridges really is brilliant in the central role however. He plays Bad Blake, a man whose song-writing talent is matched only by his self-destructive bitterness.  He’s playing crappy gigs, to bowling alleys full of audiences clinging to better times with the same desperate grip he has on his steel-string. But a glimpse of happiness appears in the form of music journalist Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), who just might be the inspiration to lift him up.

This romance, like the film itself, lives and dies on the performances of these two great players. It’s very hard to buy this young, intelligent, beautiful woman being attracted to such a wreck of a man – this goes beyond broken-wing syndrome into a whole new level of romantic masochism. But the one attractive quality we get out of Bad, is the undeniable sad honesty he carries himself with; a trait which Jean’s presence only heightens.

Crazy Heart meanders a little round the middle, occasionally feels like The Wrestler with guitars, and doesn’t always hit the high emotional notes; but the third act is incredibly strong. The film ends up as an imperfect but wailing tribute to a bitter cowboy, and it wouldn’t be a crime to see Bridges get the gong on this one.

Valentine’s Day

‘Naff’ is a word so rarely justified. Few situations require the depths of blandness and lack of inspiration conveyed by this sentiment. Valentine’s Day sets out to change this alarming negligence of language.

It’s easy to say that any film based on interweaving storylines about love is taking something from the Working Title film Love Actually. It’s much easier to make the comparison however, when the film in question steals wholesale from it. The makers of Valentine’s Day even found a bunch of reasonable actors to assist with this larceny.

Note: real emotion and comedy – come out of realism. Everything in this film operates in some kind of cliché-ridden surreality. This is a place where eighteen year old teenagers are getting ready to have sex for the first time, as opposed to their friends who are waiting to ‘make it special’. Only the pope and Tony Abbott would call that realism in today’s society.

There’s even a moment where love-sick florist Ashton Kutcher convinces a grumpy airport attendant to let him through the boarding gates without a ticket, simply by saying if he doesn’t it will ruin the life of someone who is “like sunshine”. In our post-911 world, your average airport would eclipse that shit real damn quick.

If February 14 sees has you looking for saccharine sap over substance, this might be right up your alley. If you prefer a little less formula and a little more originality – this sort of thing has been done better many, many times.

Invictus

As a character of history, Nelson Mandela is relatively bulletproof. Some people have drawn attention to his less than perfect treatment of his wife, but on the whole he comes off pretty spotless. This kind of character makes for great history, it doesn’t necessarily make for great cinema.

Invictus is well-acted. Morgan Freeman is good (though surprisingly less than brilliant) in the role he was born to play. Matt Damon shows a lot of class, even occasionally outshining the heavyweight leading man. It’s well-directed, as would be expected from Clint Eastwood, even if the cinematography is a little uninspired.

The main area where the film lacks spark is the story – it’s just not Nelson Mandela’s.  The way he engineers the unification of black and white South Africa through rugby builds nicely, but halfway through it all just turns into a football movie, with occasional crosses to Nelson biting his nails. Damon’s rugby captain Francois Pienaar dominates these sections, partly because he gets more air-time, partly because he actually undergoes some kind of journey. It seems that as an ideal, and as an idol, Mandela is too sacred to be given human character flaws. The throwaway line that is the quote of this issue is the only suggestion we get of any chink in his moral armour. Instead, he’s reduced to an endless succession of rousing speeches, which lose their poignancy as they grow in number.

It’s all passable enough, but Invictus doesn’t excite and inspire as it should.

The Road

Not having read the original novel by Cormac McCarthy, it’s hard to comment on the difficulty of making a film out of this story, but I’m gonna do it anyway. It’s phenomenal that such a sparse plot, maintains so much tension. Throughout our journey as a father (Viggo Mortensen) and his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) wade through a post-apocalyptic hell towards some faint dream of hope on the coast; director John Hillcoat keeps us on the hook. He tweaks our empathy beautifully and we walk out feeling tired, hungry, cold; and horrified at what our species can do to each other.

Mortensen is brilliant, epitomising ‘haggard’ from the inside out. Smit-McPhee is slightly less inspiring but still provides many strong and intense moments. The rest of the cast is mainly bit-parts, which occupy various stages of a sliding scale of quality. There’s no real single antagonist, because the world itself has become the enemy. The ash, the cold, the constant and ever-present death – not to mention the fact that cannibalism is the most common delivery tool for this end – keep us captivated and uncomfortable.

Overall, The Road isn’t up to the adaptation of other McCarthy novel No Country For Old Men but that’s an especially high bar considering the team behind that film. It’s too bleak to be really enjoyed by any but the most pessimistic of audience members but will impress with its atmosphere, and the long-lingering mood.

The Hurt Locker

As far as tense cinema experiences go, The Hurt Locker is up there. In fact it would be damn near impossible to sit through a screening without at least once finding your hands reaching out (seemingly of their own accord) to fix a fearful grip on the post-mix-soaked cup-holders either side of your seat. The film depicts the everyday lives of soldiers who disable booby-trap bombs in Iraq. The work itself is heart-palpitating stuff and director Kathryn Bigelow has no problem sending echoes of this out into the cinema-going public. She drops us into a world where gung-ho soldier William James (Jeremy Renner) joins Bravo company near the end of their tour of duty. He’s there replacing the former team leader (Guy Pearce) who was killed in an explosion. The others in the unit are a little less than happy with James’ cowboy style, in particular Sergeant Sanborn (Anthony Mackie); who feels this is exactly the sort of behaviour that will get someone else killed.

This is brutal, and yet simultaneously subtle filmmaking. Writer Mark Boal crafts the characters as beautiful rough drafts – open to change and grow with the story. This is most clear with William James himself. Our changing perceptions of his character take this film out of the realm of the ordinary war tale into something a little more special. We hate and love him with similar passion, and are brought round to his way of thinking almost in spite of ourselves. Renner plays him with a gentle hand, adding impact to what could easily have been pure ham.

For this one, maybe bring a stress-ball along with your usual snacks.

Up In The Air

George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a man whose life is defined by waiting lounges and swipe cards. Ryan measures his existence in frequent flyer miles and corporate loyalty points, flying the faux-friendly skies firing people for companies who don’t want to do it themselves. He’s got a knack for wielding the chopping block for many reasons, not least of all because he considers the alienation it requires to be a perk.

There is a (very) small amount of honour in what he does and Ryan feels it’s compromised when young hotshot Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) swans in, proposing the terminations be done via webcam. Ryan and Natalie hit the circuit so he can show her the error of her ways. Perhaps Natalie’s influence can crack his shell – maybe even encourage Ryan to make ‘casual stopover’ woman Alex (Vera Farmiga) into something more.

Jason Reitman directs his third feature with the same precise eye and comedic timing he brought to Thank You For Smoking and Juno. It’s funny, sharp and biting, yet has just enough sweetness to impress. As with Reitman’s earlier efforts, it’s also relevant and timely, providing a great commentary on corporate America in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis.

Clooney is perfect and Farmiga furthers the great promise she showed in The Departed and The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, even keeping up with George in a charisma contest.

There are the slightest hiccups in pacing and Jason Bateman is surprisingly underwhelming as Ryan’s boss but otherwise – this is a helluva film.

Fantastic Mr Fox

It’s hard to avoid attaching the most obvious superlative to this film but in the end, ‘fantastic’ wouldn’t do it justice anyway. Fantastic Mr Fox is phenomenal. It refuses to put a foot wrong, but instead sings along with consummate ease. Everything is just as it should be so what follows is really just a list of the elements of cinema.

The look – director Wes Anderson makes the vintage stop-motion style seem like it was designed specifically for him. The movement, the incredible attention to detail and overall aesthetic are a pleasure to watch and are pushed to their limit.

The cast – when you’re packing a couple of leads like George Clooney and Meryl Streep, things are looking good. On top of their rich vocal talents, we also get brilliant support from the likes of Jason Schwartzman, Michael Gambon and Bill Murray; as well as a great cameo from Owen Wilson.

The story/tone/structure/timing – are all superb. Anderson and co-writer Noah Baumbach’s adaptation of the classic Roald Dahl story sparkles with wit, comedy and character. They bring the fox’s tale of a battle with three evil farmers to the screen intact. The whole experience reeks of fun and every beat is punctuated with a wide smile from us.

This is a great cinematic experience. It perfectly fits the mould Dahl sculpted with his fiction – dark and twisted in a way only children will truly get.

Straight out of the gate, this will be a highlight of the year.

The Brothers Bloom

Where the Wild Things Are

Genova

When mother and wife Marianne (Hope Davis) dies in a car crash, widower Colin Friels takes his two daughters Kelly (Willa Holland) and Mary (Perla Haney-Jardine) to Genova, Italy. This ancient city becomes the backdrop for all of their attempts to deal with this grief.

Genova is one of those films that doesn't impress, nor disappoint; it just, kind of, is. Conflict and hardship are constantly being built up by director Michael Winterbottom, only to be defused moments later. As such there is a continual sense of ill-ease and creepiness throughout. This is at its most heightened when younger daughter Mary starts seeing her mother's ghost. But then it kind of flatlines.

Everything is well constructed and very honest. The performances and characters are near perfect and the city is shot beautifully but it all comes to naught. There's just not enough story for it to work. Events occur with little fanfare or interest, then fade into obscurity. We know these people quite well when the credits roll and the elements are there to make things interesting but it feels like Winterbottom is making a point of not following through.

This is not the sort of film that will encourage passionate responses - whether positive or negative. In the end it's all fluffer and no money shot.

Whatever Works

After the more straight-laced outings of Match Point and Vicki Cristina Barcelona, Woody Allen is back to his existentialist comedy rants. In Whatever Works he's brought in Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm creator Larry David to play intelligent misanthrope Boris Yellnikoff.

Boris's pessimistic existence is thrown into turbulence when he meets the luminous Melodie (Evan Rachel Wood). Their wildly unlikely and unconventional romance plays out in the streets of New York, changing them both irrevocably.

This film has an odd feel to it, due mainly to Boris being like every character Allen himself played, while being portrayed just that tiny bit differently by David. Allen's writing and directorial powers combined with David's acting should combine to form some sort of ultimate Jewish angst film, but they don't. Woody could always ramble on with endless neurotic arrogance but Larry's louder and over-aggressive nature makes him too abrasive.

The script is also not as restrained as his earlier work. The rants are longer with less actual relevance. And his knowing looks and speeches to the audience don't play well.

Everything moves much more quickly when Patricia Clarkson steps in as Melodie's southern belle mother. She brings a sharp wit and strong personality to everything. Her character brings much needed conflict to an otherwise flat story structure.

Overall Whatever Works is another odd Woody Allen film that will only truly impress the thinning ranks of his die-hard fans.

Astro Boy

Farrrrk you David Bowers. Piss on my family photo album if you wish. Run over my very first bike; you'll get no tears from me. But leave Astro Boy the hell alone!

This woeful, ultra-American reworking of the classic Japanese cartoon series completely misses the point. It takes the moral complexity and emotion of the original and remakes it as a boring, convoluted, characterless shell. This is mainly due to a script that should never have made it past the first draft stage.

Instead of taking storylines from the series, or even something closely approximating them, writer/director David Bowers has given us a story focussed round two spacey little balls of light - one made of pure, hippy, positive energy and one pure negative. What. The. Shit? Everything's then peppered with a bunch of ridiculous plot points that would give a three year old pause, let alone us twenty-somethings who grew up loving this stuff. Case in point, Toby (the human boy Astro is made to replace) is killed by a weapon's blast that's strong enough to completely vaporise him - yet somehow his little red hat and a single hair survive. That's right, flesh and bone don't leave so much as a pile of ash but somehow woven cotton has the resilience of a lead-encased cockroach.

The cinematic abominations continue ceaselessly from here. Creator Osamu Tezuka must be spinning in his damn grave.

The only thing left is for Bowers to complete his retroactive child abuse and remake Monkey Magic with Paris Hilton as Tripitaka or something. Bastard!

NO STARS FOR YOU!

Whip It

From the minute we're introduced to Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page) we're assured that she's a misfit - a beauty queen tortured by her inner indie core. But when she discovers the world of female roller-derby, Bliss finally sees somewhere she could slot in.

Sitting through Whip It was one of the more frustrating cinematic experiences I've had of late. This is due mainly to the fact that Drew Barrymore is an absolutely horrible director. On her first effort Barrymore took a relatively strong script and a superlative cast and ended up submitting an overlong, ultra-bland mess. Any bite the comedy might have had is wrung out by awkward pacing and stale lingering shots where the actors merely pause and stare. Added to this, the simple, borderline cliché plot often confuses when she relies on revealing character and exposition with dialogue rather than visuals.

This could all be dismissed as yet another mediocre bit of celluloid if Whip It didn't have the potential to be so much more. It could have been the flagship for a new girl-power movement in film. Every major character here is a strong woman yet it's not man-hating and relies on minimal stereotypes. It's rare to see Hollywood game to carry a film almost entirely on the backs of female characters, outside of the romantic comedy genre.

But this one's not good enough. The tools are there but the person wielding them is just not up to the challenge.

Moon

Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is an astronaut posted to the moon for three years, mining the lunar energy resource Helium-3. He has nothing for company but some recordings of his family back on earth and GERTY, a helper robot (voiced by Kevin Spacey). He's in the difficult, final two weeks of his stint when he discovers something a little strange out there on the surface - another Sam Bell.

It's refreshing to see the amount of buzz this low-budget, high-concept feature is generating. Based on strong ideas and performances rather than special effects, it's a slow-burner in the greatest sci-fi tradition. It features many nods to other classics of the genre, most notably Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. The film also treads very familiar science fiction ground in its themes - humanity, emotional isolation and the dehumanising effect of technology.

Rockwell is superb in this very challenging role. He brings personality to both Sams and particularly excels in portraying the insanity that's seeping into their lives. He's playing opposite himself for the bulk of the film and director Duncan Jones handles this seamlessly.

Moon is shot with a very careful eye that perfectly captures the fear, claustrophobia and sterility of the steel-lined moon base. Jones keeps us on edge for the entire hour and a half of his debut feature. Though this effect is strong enough that the experience is not always enjoyable, overall the film makes for captivating viewing.

Paper Heart

Mockumentary is a genre that commands an incredible subtlety of performance. Since this seemed a little too easy, Paper Heart has added the element of having almost every actor playing themselves.

The film is presented as comedienne/actress Charlyne Yi's study of her own refusal to believe in love. She travels the country with director/producer Nicholas Jasenovec (played very charismatically on screen by Jake M Johnson) interviewing people about their thoughts and experiences on the subject in an effort to understand the concept better. Somewhere along the way, she starts up a relationship of her own with Juno/Superbad actor Michael Cera. This becomes the framework for the rest of the 'documentary.'

There are definitely a lot of great moments to Paper Heart and some really superb acting from the central performers. The main problem is that it's too hard to get sucked into Yi and Cera's blossoming love. They are believable but the serendipitous nature of the scenario isn't. This is because if they don't get together - there is no documentary. If you take away this story then all you have is Yi and Johnson driving around with very little focus or cohesion and only the slim 'what does love mean to you?' question to tie things together. It's also fairly ironic that Yi is too closed off and distant for us to ever truly fall in love with her.

An interesting concept that could have been something special with a little more work.

(500) Days of Summer

Buyer beware, going into this film thinking it's a romantic comedy is like going into Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure expecting a sci-fi; its core plot fits the genre, but the intention is completely different. (500) Days of Summer is the story of Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), whose banal existence working for a greeting card company is thrown into disrepair upon meeting Summer (Zooey Deschanel). From here we alternate between heartbreak and happiness, jumping everywhere over the five hundred day timeline of their relationship.

'Indie twee' is harsh but oh-so-fair to describe this interesting film from music video director Marc Webb. It's all cool songs, obscure references and endless cardigans, in the successful tradition of Garden State et al. There's more here than paint by numbers quirkiness but whenever things get a little too straight-laced, the filmmakers promptly throw in a cutaway sequence or spontaneous dance number. These are quite well handled, even if they do occasionally detract from the main drawcards of the film - being the performances of Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel. We see their characters in the murky part of a relationship too often to describe what they have as chemistry but that's kind of the point, and they're great by themselves.

Good word of mouth about this film is travelling as quickly as someone can safely run in skinny-leg jeans, and it's certainly worth it for a good dose of the jaded romantic. Naturally, it also comes ready-built with a great soundtrack.

Mao's Last Dancer

A few years ago, the book Mao's Last Dancer replaced Wild Swans as the must-have for every culturally-concerned, middle-aged woman in Australia. It's the autobiography of Li Cunxin (Chi Cao), a Chinese ballet dancer who travels to America. It's a fascinating story with inherent elements of love, politics, ambition and - naturally - people in tights. Sounds like perfect fodder for a film, doesn't it? It should be.

Veteran Australian director Bruce Beresford (Breaker Morant) has missed something here because technically - this is amateur hour. The events and story lack flow, the characters are drastically underdeveloped and the cinematography looks like that of a midday movie. At one particular low point a tense argument ends with Elizabeth (Amanda Schull) casting herself melodramatically onto a couch, exhaling in a caricature of soapie-style acting. Not only did this moment lack the desired emotional intensity, myself and a few fellow audience members actually laughed.

All this said, the dancing on show is incredible to watch and well-worth the price of admission. But Beresford has fallen into the trap of every film that requires an artist to learn acting, rather than an actor to take on the discipline. As with Centre Stage et al, there is easily as much wood in the cast as in the stage. We only get a sense of the characters' personality when they dance and we're not any closer to knowing them when the credits roll than when we started.

Mao's Last Dancer is an odd film, perfectly capturing the spectacle and drama of ballet - without being particularly dramatic or spectacular.

Up

What is there left to say about Pixar? Up is brilliant, another one hit clear out of the park. It's the latest feature to come out of the studio that brought us pretty much every great 3D animation ever.

As with all the previous Pixar offerings, they've spent just as much time on story, theme and screen-craft as they have on the seamless animation. This is why they're leagues ahead of almost every Dreamworks animation - Kung-Fu Panda being the notable exception. This story of a lonely old man, Carl (voiced by Edward Asner) who still clings to a spirit of adventure, hits every beat with perfect precision. We get the slow and nearly dialogue-free explanation of the loss of his wife, which carries a sad poignancy that would make even Clint Eastwood's bottom lip quiver. Then it's an extended repartee between Carl and Russell (voiced by Jordan Nagai) as they fly off in the old man's house, lifted by a mass of helium balloons.

These filmmakers know what they're doing. Rather than trying to draw adult audiences in by using jokes which go over kids' heads, they simply work to bring the kid out in every adult. All we can do is sit back and enjoy the adventure.

Up is slightly too dark for the very young but Pixar's broad-ranging appeal is always going to risk losing one extreme demographic. But it's fun, funny, perfectly voiced and will hold you in its grip from beginning to end.

The short film preceding it, Partly Cloudy, further showcases the studio's incredible ability to tell a children's story without using dialogue.

Beautiful Kate

Beautiful Kate is a story of family, and family secrets. Forty year old writer Ned (Ben Mendelsohn) is returning to his childhood home, way out in the back of beyond. He's brought with him a much younger woman (Maeve Dermody) and a whole bunch of unresolved and painful memories. The only people left on the farm are his younger sister Sally (Rachel Griffiths) and his dying father Bruce (Bryan Brown). 

Writer/Director Rachel Ward takes her time getting the pieces of this film in place. A lot of the characterisation is gradually turned on its head as people we like turn out to be not so sympathetic and vice versa. All of this is a plan to subvert our opinions and keep us guessing.

Beautiful Kate is a sumptuous-looking bit of cinema that is unafraid of facing the darker issues. Instead, the earlier sections embrace them with a subtlety and understatement that immediately hooks us. Unfortunately the wheels start to fall off in the later stages. Ward seems to lose a little faith in us as an audience and, rather than continuing to whisper in our ears, she bludgeons us over the head with controversy. Of course, this has the complete opposite effect than hoped for as the climactic events don't have the desired emotional impact.

A solid and challenging film that tips its hand a little further than needed.

Inglourious Basterds

Inglourious Basterds is a film about people with reputations that precede them - and the film itself is no different. Everything you've heard is true - yes it's bloody, yes it's bloody good.

It follows Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) and his band of Jewish soldiers, who've taken it upon themselves to exact a savage and personal revenge on Nazis. They purposely make their attacks as vicious as possible in order to gain notoriety and strike real fear into the hearts of the Germans. A fair amount of celluloid is also devoted to Colonel Landa (Christoph Waltz), the 'Jew-Hunter', a Nazi officer with a special gift for sniffing out Hebrew targets.

This offering from Tarantino takes a long and well-measured time to say anything. The long uncut shots and extended dialogue are tools used to eke out tension and draw us in. These combine to give a masterclass in exactly what Tarantino has always done best: showing us he knows every rule of filmmaking, then bending as many of them as he can. In truth, some sections of this film could have lost a little flab. There are occasional stretches of dialogue and characterisation that build up, then are promptly and violently dispersed. But we figured this would happen when we sat down.

Almost everyone is pitch perfect in their role, with Waltz bringing a particularly delicious menace to Landa. Only the 'British' roles are inadequately filled, with Mike Myers far too laughable to be effective.

Overall though, Inglourious Basterds is a strong film that will undoubtedly get even better on repeat viewings.

G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra

G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra is unapologetic, balls-to-the-wall, action. But this spinning top of chaos also occasionally manages to hold on a spot of style as it brings to life the G. I. Joe action figures and cartoons.

Channing Tatum plays Duke, your classic gung-ho army boy. Duke's thrown into the world of super-soldiers after he's attacked while escorting new-age, nano-technology-based weapons. But all this is really just an excuse to showcase some innovative and creative action sequences. We get super-suits, phaser-guns and lots of shots of Sienna Miller kicking things whilst wearing skin tight clothing.

Tatum is shaping up to be one of the next-big-things of Hollywood and, though this isn't exactly a master-class in acting, he brings some charisma to this piece. As eye-candy, Miller could give you toothache, and she does just enough of the moving and talking parts of her job to keep her character moving. The rest of the cast also does an admirable job considering most of them deserve better than the horrible dialogue coming out of their mouths. This is not true of Marlon Wayans however, who seems to have gone 'method' on us, by actually becoming an expressionless action figure.

A slightly flabby script and some ill-advised subplots prevent this film from being spectacular. But it is spectacle, and it's enough to keep you sitting down with a fistful of popcorn.

The Ugly Truth

"Abby was looking for love in all the wrong places... 'Til one day, she finally had to face: the truth..."

The Ugly Truth is the latest Katherine Heigl vehicle to emerge from the rom-com factory. The premise here is that she's a television producer, forced to work with shock-jock misogynist Mike (Gerard Butler). Mike's shtick is that women are their own worst enemies because they sit around waiting for a knight in shining armour, rather than just using sex to get a man. She teaches him the value of a woman's intellect, while he teaches her to manipulate guys with her feminine wiles.

There is some scope to this set-up. The sexual descriptions and language regularly thrown out clearly show the writers were given the green light to go all out. Unfortunately the 'shock' tactics just aren't that shocking and Mike shows his manwhore-with-a-heart-of-gold colours before you know it. Director Robert Luketic (Monster-In-Law, Win a Date With Tad Hamilton) has played everything a little too safe and there's way too little innovation before we're on the downward spiral towards the inevitable conclusion.

The two leads only really achieve chemistry in a few scenes and there's not enough new here to do the trick. It's worth a wry smile or a chuckle once in a while but it'd be just as easy to wait for the next cab off the rank.

The Limits of Control

I like a lot about Jim Jarmusch, and I want to like everything he does – but dammit if he doesn’t make it hard sometimes.
The first hour of The Limits of Control is chock full of every reason to hate this fiercely independent style of filmmaking. The scenes are too long, too self-aware, too quirky; and not as philosophical as Jarmusch wants them to be. Everything looks gorgeous and is well-acted but it takes so long to happen, and it’s almost enough to make you give up.

An unnamed man (Isaach De Bankolé) moves through Spain, meeting up with curious and secretive characters and communicating mainly through matchboxes. This is basically all you get plot-wise. It moves this way for much longer than an understandable director would expect us to weather – then it pushes on a little more.

Like every other film wanker, I’ve been party to many wine-soaked discussions on how awesome Jim was for being ‘original’. But The Limits of Control is too left-of-centre – no matter how tight your beret is.

If you stick around ‘til the end, there’s an interesting message. It’s not the most poignant message of all time, but it’s passable. There are a couple of good lines, strong performances from a swathe of brilliant actors; and master cinematographer Christopher Doyle has painted a hell of a canvas. But overall, it’s enough to make you tear off your soul-patch. 

3 stars

Red Cliff

John Woo is not the sort of director you expect to offer up sprawling, period piece war epics. He’s usually all about slick, stylised action and every character holding at least two guns. To compare Red Cliff to some of his earlier classics like Hard-Boiled, you would think it took a real shift of style to make Red Cliff. When you compare it to Mission Impossible II, you’d think it took an act of god.

The film focuses on the battle for Red Cliff, where 50,000 soldiers fought 800,000. It’s about politics, honour and an exchange of top-level strategy.

The first thing that strikes the audience is the look of it all. The camera glides across dusty desert, swoops over expansive rivers and hones in on single raindrops. Massive war sequences are captured without confusion or losing the power of their frenetic nature. The same can’t be said about the story structure.

Without seeing the original two-part, four-hour version; it’s hard to compare it to this two and a half hour cut. But there is a definite chaos to Red Cliff. In the opening scenes we are jumping everywhere from kingdom to principality and general to chancellor. It’s a little hard to care about them so early on - unfortunately this is all the characterisation many of them will get.
The battle sequences represent strategy and formation brilliantly but the film as a whole doesn’t sow the fable as well as it could. Worth a look but we’re all probably better crossing our fingers for a DVD release of the original.

3 ½ stars

The Choir

This documentary follows the lives of two inmates (Coleman Mgogodlo and Jabulani Shabangu) who live in a maximum security prison in South Africa. Singing is a rare lifeline for these men whose world is filled with rapists, murderers and thieves. We watch as Jabulani is lifted from this scary existence and comes under the watchful eye of choir master Coleman.

The initial few minutes of The Choir are a little difficult to grasp. Gritty re-enactment scenes and stylised direction make it hard to be sure you're actually watching a documentary. The sequences where the choir sing further this sense as they are very choreographed and have a grainy, guerrilla-MTV feeling. The men themselves also present some problems. Prior to us meeting him, Jabulani was clearly on the path to becoming a career criminal, and he keeps his cards very close to his chest. He constantly spouts easy words, rarely straying from what he knows people want to hear. It is only in the very last few scenes of the film that we see even real emotion from him. A disjointed structure further hinders proceedings. The power and emotion still peeks through though. These men are coming from a world that regularly kicks them in the teeth, yet they still manage to sing.

Technically, this is a weak cinema offering. The filmmakers have tried too hard to force a three-act structure on the events leading up to a choir competition. Luckily, as with those who make it out of this life, the subject matter refuses to be overwhelmed by external influences.

Bruno

Having dazzled, shocked and confused us with Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen gives us another culturally-awkward character in gay Austrian fashionista Bruno. Bruno's greatest desire is to be world famous, so he heads to the celebrity Mecca - Hollywood.

Unfortunately, it's possible this film heralds the end of Cohen's success in this format. He follows the same routine as in Borat: using an extreme personality to highlight the inability of backward Americans to grasp irony, and expose their inner prejudices. Some of this works - his conversations with 'gay-conversion' ministers, and his interviews with parents willing to whore their children out for fame, are suitably shocking. But overall, there's little here that will really astound.

As always, Cohen himself is magnetic to watch. His immersion in the role is complete. He takes on Bruno's every mannerism and stereotype, reacting to those around him with perfect consistency to character. He's talented and funny, even if his technique doesn't always come off.

The storyline is a large part of the problem. He shifts the focus massively a few times with little success at keeping our interest. It also doesn't help that Bruno is a much less likeable character than Borat. He loves himself too much - an emotion we don't share. At only 83 minutes long, this film should be all killer no filler, but it's far from it.

Coco avant Chanel

I reckon I could watch Audrey Tatou in pretty much anything. Hell, I’d even sit through The DaVinci Code again. This is a lucky thing, because Coco avant Chanel is aimed squarely at shmucks like me.
The film charts Chanel’s life as a poor abandoned child, then lounge singer, to becoming a barnacle on the underside of French high society. Throughout she demonstrates an intense wilfulness, determination and survival instinct. The initial upper class target of her wiles is Balsan (Benoit Poelvoorde), a curious character who understands Coco in ways no one else can. Though he has money, he is just as much an outsider as she amongst the upper crust; and revels in his contempt of them.
The main problems of this film arise from its subject matter, and the pace at which the film-makers chose to approach it. Coco Chanel was famous mainly for her fashion and her wit, but both are only in the infancy stages at the time we’re focussing on. We get to see events and conversations that may have inspired some of her greatest quotes, but she won’t actually say them for a long time. We hear her opinions on fashion regularly, but she won’t influence others till the last five minutes of the film.
The last scene is also easily the strongest. It looks superb, makes great use of the set-up character elements, and sits back to let us soak up Audrey. This was more than enough to keep me doe-eyed and watching, but in truth I’d rather just re-hire Amelie.
3 stars.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

The new Transformers film is like a set of really shiny mag wheels: it catches your attention when moving, but once it stops you realise there’s a wanker in the driver’s seat.
Michael Bay has set his sub-woofer to bowel-shaking and parked this sequel across three disabled spots, making every attempt to grab your eye. This second instalment promises total bang for your buck as the Autobots and Decepticons do battle once again with us humans caught in the middle. Our only hope lies in the hands of Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf), who’s formative college years and blossoming relationship with ludicrously hot girlfriend Mikaela (Megan Fox), have been interrupted by the intergalactic demolition derby.
Any further mention of plot will only give you a false impression of narrative. After all, this is Bay we’re talking about – the directorial equivalent of the Chk Chk Boom Girl. If anything, the story inconveniences the film as a whole. It appears in the brief quiet moments, coughing and spluttering amongst the dust-cloud. It’s here that characters reel off massive chunks of expositional dialogue in order to jump to the next set piece. And this is what Revenge of the Fallen really is: a collection of loosely connected sequences. Some are funny, some are exciting; all of them must have cost the GDP of a small country to film.
Overlong and almost completely devoid of character, Transformers still manages to have its share of fun moments. Ultimately however, this cinematic machine’s pulse-raising roar comes from a dodgy exhaust, not a high performance engine.
2 stars.

The Hangover

The Hangover is, quite predictably, a great hangover movie. It follows a bunch of guys waking up in Vegas after the bachelor party to end all bachelor parties. Extreme and wacky remnants then convince us just how extreme and wacky the previous night was. The most immediate problem confronting them - they've lost the groom.

This is Dude, Where's My Car? for basically the same audience, although we're slightly older and slightly more sophisticated now. It's not to be taken too seriously. The opening half an hour is a succession of montages set to R&B songs. Slow motion driving to Vegas. Slow motion casino walking. And of course, slow motion bikini babes. All this is set to exactly the kind of music you love when you're drunk.

The main problem with The Hangover is its marketing. If you go to a cinema on even a semi-regular basis, you've seen the preview of this film at least a few times. As such, you've seen most of the major set-pieces and a fair chunk of the hilarity. These aren't the only jokes, but the others are mainly designed to set up the ones you've seen. As such, it's like being surrounded by a bunch of stoners - you can appreciate why they're laughing, but you just can't raise a guffaw.

The ensemble works well. Everyone has their role and fulfils it admirably. Bradley Cooper is the standout in his first foray out of a sleazy bad guy role...into a sleazy good guy role. A solid comedy, but detract half a star if you've seen the trailer.

Terminator Salvation

It's been a few years since the Terminator canon was slightly weakened by the third instalment. We've made it right round the wheel of rehashings again, and Terminator Salvation has popped its head up. We're post-apocalypse now, following a grown-up John Connor (Christian Bale) in his struggle against the machines. He's part of a rag tag bunch of resistance fighters, desperately battling the vicious Skynet. The bonus storyline told in tandem concerns Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), who received the death penalty back in 2003 only to wake up in this futuristic hell.

The two storylines are pretty much unrelated and spend the bulk of the film this way. The writers have ignored many opportunities to forge them together, instead relying on a parallel structure that is quite awkward in practice.

Terminator Salvation is a reasonable action film. It overuses CGI and has more explosions than plot points but it has the power to keep you entertained. That is if you can get past the disappointment of it following in the footsteps of some of the greatest sci-fi/action/thrillers of all time.

The first two films are, of course, brilliant. The third is passable but with this offering we're officially in a scripting slump. Story and character have been sold to Wile E. Coyote in exchange for a hell of a lot of TNT. If this were the only film, and the others hadn't invested us in the struggle, I don't know that we'd even remember John Connor's name once the credits had rolled. Director McG is currently developing Terminator 5 though, so it can only get better - right?

Lesbian Vampire Killers

There’s something very nihilistic about males making films about lesbian vampires. Maybe it harks back to their school days – watching some cheerleader strut around, knowing she would destroy them if they ever put their film geek hands on her. This celluloid examination of the subject concerns the little English town of Cragwich. Cragwich labours under an ancient curse that turns all its female inhabitants into lesbian vampires on their 18th birthday. It’s also the choice holiday destination for Londoners Jimmy (Mathew Horne) and Fletch (James Corden). Cue tits and teeth. Corden is undoubtedly the more talented of the two with delivery and timing head and shoulders above his co-star. That’s not to say he quite pulls it off though. Much more time has been spent on dialogue than plot in this haphazard script. The two merely move from one spot to the next, then back again, accomplishing little along the way. Most of the time these locations are intended to show off pearls of wordplay or sight-gags, ranging from the superb to the very, very weak.The sex is, predictably, based on a lot of teasing. In the end the bulk of the lesbianism is about on par with what you’d see in the middle of a circle of footballers at Shooters. Some great lines, a few good set pieces and plenty of eye candy make this passable but that’s not what you want out of a film like this. Shlock horror needs to be either absolutely brilliant or groan-inducing. After all, the only real way to foil a lesbian vampire, is with ambivalence.

Observe and Report

Not having experienced Paul Blart: Mall Cop, it’s hard to comment on the similarities between it and this film. Having gashed my head open on gravel and glass when I was nine however, I can see how watching this movie is alike to that situation. This film is tacky, often discriminatory, unsubtle shit. The story follows Ronnie (Seth Rogan), a mall cop whose delusions of happiness seem to revolve around his penchant for hurting/shooting things. Writer/director Jody Hill attributes this terrible disposition to his bipolar disorder. He’s a scary, unbalanced individual with a chip on his shoulder. Observe and Report does for mental illness what Wolf Creek did for utes and akubras. It tells us that if you’re at a distance, point and laugh at the sufferer but don’t get too close, cause they’re violent bastards. Obviously cinematic history tells us it’s possible to make mental illness hilarious, but that’s when you laugh at situations that arise because of it. There’s no punchline to the scenario presented here. Ronnie’s angry and abusive – that’s the highlight of the comedy. As a character he has no redeeming features and is surrounded by a swathe of similarly dislikeable people. Even the wafer-thin plot of Ronnie pursuing a career as a cop doesn’t lead anywhere. On top of this, the scenes are punctuated by intense brutality which comes out of nowhere and jars terribly. Save yourself the price of a ticket to this film. If you really want to create the same effect, underscore Shindler’s List with a canned-laughter track. Oh the hilarity.

Wolverine

You can’t help but love Wolverine the character. He’s grizzled, doesn’t care about much and he’s got the brawn to back up this indifference. Hugh Jackman filled the pleather suit admirably enough for the earlier X-Men trilogy and he’s stepped in (or at least cashed in) here. The first leg of this film shows enough promise for a popcorn flick. There are booms. There are bangs. A bunch of wild and wonderful characters get into some action sequences. It’s even got the odd bit of dark morality to it. Somewhere around the middle though, the wobbles set in.

Amidst the twentieth shirtless Jackman scene you start to realise this is less a film and more an extended preview for other films, merchandising and studios with more money than sense. Once you’ve adjusted to this level of mediocrity, the wheels suddenly fall off completely. Suddenly you’re tumbling through nonsensical stories that entirely lack motivation. Now you’re in an absolutely woeful climax where it’s all getting bigger and more extreme. Everything’s blowing up and people are dying everywhere, and we’re starting to envy them.

There are a few fan-pleasing references tacked on but most are a stretch as far as believability goes. On top of it all, they managed to make Gambit – a great character in the cartoon – into an absolute twat. Maybe his spin off film will show him in a better light but as it stands he’s constantly in the way.

Do yourself a favour and walk out halfway through. You won’t have missed any story and you’ll still have seen plenty of explosions and gratuitous pectoral shots.

Synecdoche, New York

Here it is: the directorial debut from the greatest screenwriter of our times, Charlie Kaufman. He bent our brains with Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; and now he’s offering up the sum of modern human existence in Synecdoche.

It’s a nervous time watching the opening. Kaufman fanboys are all holding their breath to see if the man has any directing chops. It’s a frantic scan to look for weird scene flow, attempts at too much flair or anything that will show up someone trying to walk before they crawl. Thankfully there’s none of this. As far as the technical aspects go, Synecdoche is beautifully done.

It’s the story of Caden Cotard, his ailing health, failing marriage and drive to explain existence. Caden’s way of reconciling all of these things is to use a newly gifted ‘genius grant’ to create the most ambitious theatre work ever. It gets out of hand – and slightly surreal – as this work becomes an unending narrative snake, eating its own self-referential tail.

Kaufman is like a creative pit bull – you’ve gotta keep him leashed or else he’ll run amok and maul something innocent, like our self-perception. Unfortunately he’s left a little too much to his own devices here. As such, this immense and very complex subject matter often becomes lost amongst a wave of hyperbole and kookiness. It is so ambitious and infinite that you can’t help but be a little overwhelmed. It’s still great, and will leave you ruminating pleasantly; it just could’ve been a lot more simply by being a little less.

Samson and Delilah

‘I’m giving it five stars as well.’ David Stratton’s words have rung around the box office like so many unpopped corn kernels. The rare occurrence of both At The Movies reviewers giving this film full marks has led to an incredible scramble for tickets. Is it worth it? Every goddamn moment.

Samson and Delilah is a film that will sink you deep into the mire of fear, depression, shock and guilt. But it also presents moments that will soar you into a profound appreciation of life. And all of this is done with barely any dialogue.

This story of a petrol-sniffing Aboriginal youth and his courtship of a girl from his community has a poignancy you don’t see often from Aussies. We’ve always done sadness well, especially concerning substance abuse, but Samson and Delilah refuses to resort to sledgehammer tactics to get this kind of power.

Warwick Thornton is an incredible filmmaker. His writing and direction skills are superb, but his directorial flair lies in photography. His expert eye for shot construction is the key to the success of such minimal dialogue. He gently sews the elements together, creating a slow story that never rushes yet still builds inexorable momentum towards a climax that leaves us with plenty of mental marination. The fact that it’s a debut for Thornton and the two sublime stars (Rowan McNamara and Marissa Gibson) makes this film all the more astounding.

I’m jumping wholeheartedly on the bandwagon.

Dragonball Evolution

Once upon a time, there was this crazy Japanese cartoon series called Dragonball that rocked the socks off every weekday morning. It featured weird alien characters, fight scenes that stretched over many episodes and an odd white supremacist streak that saw black-haired, black-eyed fighters turn into blonde-haired, blue-eyed fighters as they got better. This Hollywood adaptation – Dragonball Evolution – has mostly ignored these first two elements but has hyped up the third, making the main star, Goku (Justin Chatwin), white.

Goku’s not the sharpest katana in the dojo as he seems not to have noticed his own ethnicity is at odds with his clearly Asian grandfather. Luckily there’s a wave of inconsistencies, plot holes and good old fashioned deus ex machina (read: where-the-fuck-did-that-come-from-???) moments to distract us into a similar level of cluelessness.

This film is terrible. There’s about five minutes worth of plot and even this manages to contain massive gaps in logic. An evil alien named Lord Piccolo (James Marsters) has escaped his inescapable prison deep within the earth, where he’s been kept for two thousand years by very powerful magic. This incredible getaway sounds like something you’d show or explain to the audience, doesn’t it? Nope, he just got out – we don’t know how.

Anyway, he wanted to destroy the earth before… just, ‘cause he did. But now he has a reason, and it’s a good one… ‘cause of the inescapable prison, which wasn’t so inescapable in the end. Goku has to fight him. And get his dragonballs. And there’s this girl he likes. Who’s with a real dickhead jock. But it’s okay ‘cause Goku beats him in a fight. And she realises she doesn’t like jocks. She likes weedy, kinda-biracial karate kids. Oh yeah and Chow Yun Fat’s here. He’s a dirty old man. But he can fight too. But Goku’s got more potential. Unlike this story. Did I mention the white kid hasn’t noticed he’s got an Asian grandfather?

Dragonball Evolution is only eighty minutes long but makes you earn every second. Watch it if you’re a ridiculously hardcore fan of the series, or if have sworn to sobriety and want to find a new way to punish your brain.

Mary and Max

Mary and Max is a film that traverses loneliness, mental illness, love, growing up, homosexuality and friendship; in plasticine. It’s the feature debut for Harvie Krumpet creator Adam Elliot and focuses on the written correspondence between eight-year-old Australian girl Mary and middle aged New Yorker Max, a man who feels no connection with the human race. He moves through life misunderstanding them and being reciprocally misunderstood. When he receives a chance letter from Mary all the way over in Australia, he comes to realise that maybe there is a person he can talk with. For her part, Mary has found a guide to help her through a world her parents are unwilling to explain and ill-equipped to face.

Elliot has created a brilliant harmony between the claymation and his story. The bleak and surreal look of the characters and their environment sets the tone of the piece. As the events unfold and Mary and Max lose their already flimsy support networks, all that’s left is the unconventional friendship they share.

Unfortunately, this all eventually becomes a drag. Dipping a toe into a vast well of cinematic pessimism is always a fun momentary trip but you need a reprieve. These guys never really get their heads above water. They learn and grow at a snail’s pace and the story crawls with them. Mary and Max looks great and has some superb moments but will make you count the rays of sunshine in your life.

Seven Pounds

The team behind The Pursuit of Happyness have aimed another cinematic missile at the Academy Awards by way of our tear ducts. Will Smith and Director Gabriele Muccino throw their hats in the ring once more, hoping that Seven Pounds is the dramatic powerhouse they’re desperately hoping for. In many ways it is. Oh, it won’t win in this year’s quality climate, but it’s a valiant effort.

Smith is Ben Thomas, an IRS agent with a penchant for helping those in need. Things really get going when he adds Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson in luminous form) to his to-do list - thankfully the film doesn’t work too hard on the metaphor of their love blossoming from her weak heart condition. But this romance and Dawson herself are merely extras for a story about Ben. So our story becomes about Will Smith’s performance. It’s a very challenging role for him and requires a level of subtlety he’s never displayed before. It is an unfair comparison as he’s nowhere near this good, but there are touches of Heath Ledger’s Brokeback Mountain turn. Like Ennis Del Mar, Ben Thomas has a lot more going on underneath than what is on the surface. The occasional glimpses we get of his emotion, reveal that this is a man near breaking.

Seven Pounds is a great film if you have some patience. This is not because it is an excessively long movie, it’s just that you have to endure half an hour of disjointed scenes straight off the bat. This is a terribly misguided attempt to force us into paying attention. If you can make it past this, Seven Pounds is an innovative and moving piece of cinema. Watching Smith rein in his performance is worth the admission price alone.

4 out of 5

Slumdog Millionaire

This film comes ready built with a heady breeze of anticipation as its Golden Globes Best Picture win suggests that, just maybe, it could do the same at the Academy Awards. It’s got all the tools for it too. An epic narrative, an unfamiliar world; and a political issue knee-jerk liberals can feel bad about. But above and beyond this cynical view of Hollywood politics: it’s bloody good.

Jamal (Dev Patel) is a very successful contestant on the Mumbai version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. In fact, he’s one question away from winning the whole bloody lot. There’s a long way to go before he wins however, as we meet him in a different kind of hot seat. You see, Jamal’s being questioned by the police on suspicion of fraud. No one believes that an uneducated  slumdog (someone from the poorest district in the city) could possibly have got so many difficult questions correct without cheating. All of this however – the interrogation, even the game show itself – is merely a framework on which to hang a sweeping story of Indian lower class struggle.

Jamal was born amongst abject poverty, religious quarrel and lecherous swindlers. It’s not long before he and his brother Salim (Madhur Mittal) are left to fend for themselves. They gain a companion in Latika (Frieda Pinto), a similarly destitute slumdog. Jamal and Latika form an attachment that will take them across many years and miles.
If that sounds like a lot of references to poverty, well, it is. Director Danny Boyle has sewn a brilliantly cinematic film with beautiful shots of some of the most garbage-infested housing areas in the world. A powerful sense of sadness is balanced by some truly joyful moments in a script that wears its coincidences unapologetically on its sleeve.

Slumdog Millionaire is superb, and easily powerful enough to win the Oscar. It would also be great to see Danny Boyle get the award recognition that has somewhat eluded him up till now. Get along and see it so you can hold up your end in the water-cooler conversation.

4 1/2 out of 5

Cell Out - The Best Films of 2008

1. The Dark Knight
Heath motherfucking Ledger. Undoubtedly the performance of the year. The voice. The laugh. The constant licking his lips, as though in snake-like tasting of his own malevolence. Who could’ve ever thought that Christopher Nolan could follow Batman Begins with something as good as this? Christian Bale returned as Bruce Wayne – the billionaire playboy with a penchant for crime-fighting. Ledger’s Joker is definitely the highlight of the film though they don’t strap onto his torn purple coat-tails. The script flows beautifully. The action scenes are exciting. And it manages to set up for the third film whilst still finishing everything set up in this instalment. Best of all, two and a half hours long without boring you for a moment – take that Australia.

2. Kung-fu Panda
Skedoosh! A superb film and the most fun of the year. Hilarious, impeccable voice-casting and a story that soars along at a rate of knots. Po, a compulsive emotional-eating panda joins a troupe of kung-fu fighting animals, desperate to defeat the evil Tai Lung. There was action, fun, exciting animation and a nice moral that wasn’t rammed down our throats. I saw this twice in a week and still loved every second. There’s no extra charge for awesomeness!

3. Burn After Reading
The Coen brothers stepped up with another great film in ’08. Proving yet again their talents as all-rounders, they followed the chilling and tense No Country for Old Men with this hilarious commentary on the quirks of espionage and life in general. A cast full of top quality actors and every single one of them gives a stellar performance. It’s funny, very entertaining and, as with all of the Coen brothers’ stuff, has a whole bunch of universal truths about the amoral side of humanity. We cheat, we lie, we are greedy and lonely. But most of all we play well out of our league and end up gasping for air as the swell of our own incompetency threatens to drown us.

4. There Will Be Blood
A dark, twisted fable with an ever-creepy undertone of archaic mysticism. Daniel Day-Lewis envelopes himself entirely in the skin of menacing oil-man Daniel Plainview. Along the way, he and director P. T. Anderson have created one of the great anti-heroes of cinema. A man whose pursuit of wealth and power is a relentless juggernaut: crushing lives, beliefs and families (including his own) in its inevitable forward movement. Long shots, sparse dialogue and a chilling score. Silence is also put to great use to further heighten the unnerving mood.

5. Juno
“You’re, like, the coolest person I’ve ever met, and you don’t even have to try, you know…”
“I try really hard, actually.”
A great bit of dialogue though not in any way representative of the film itself. Juno coasted in on snappy one-liners and brilliant indie sensibilities. Sex blogger turned screenwriter Diablo Cody won an Academy Award for this script about a sharp-witted teen’s pregnancy. Ellen Page was never really in the Best Actress race but her nomination and Cody’s win suggest a shift in the Hollywood policy. Very funny and sardonic with a strong structure and catchy soundtrack.

6. Gone Baby Gone
Few films manage even a hint of the moral ambiguity that constantly seeps out of this film’s pores. The tense script and rounded characters create a world that opens up all kinds of questions. These questions will split audiences and perhaps reveal your inner optimism or pessimism. No one is totally clean and it’s just a matter of how dirty you need to get to do your job, and how far you can fall before you can’t get back. Gone Baby Gone also had a nice surprise in the suggestion that maybe Ben Affleck wasn’t a complete creative freeloader on Good Will Hunting. It’s entirely possible that he’s actually got a bit of talent. I know, I know; I’m surprised too.

7. Wall-e
Most parents can’t get their kids to sit still for five minutes without singing a jingle or reciting a string of limericks. These guys kept the tikes (and the parents) enthralled for nigh on an hour with little more than a few blips and some scattered names in dialogue. Pixar showed us once more that they are the kings of family entertainment. Strong messages against pollution, corporations, virtual entertainment and poor exercise habits lent a social conscience that seemed a little odd coming from Disney.

8. Lars and the Real Girl
A great premise – socially-stunted man orders a life-like sex doll and treats her like a girlfriend – taken to its full extent. Ryan Gosling is perfect as the chronically shy Lars whose fear of contact is so acute that he actually feels physical pain from being touched. The most amazing part of this film is the characters. It’s incredible to experience a film without anyone showing signs of mean-spiritedness. Everyone cares so much for Lars that they share in the ruse to the point that they begin to believe it. A very original and affecting bit of cinema.

9. In Bruges
Comedy, brutality, a midget; this film balanced so many things at once. Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson are perfect as the two London hitmen stuck in a tourist town in Belgium. The acerbic one-liners, great acting and constant references to the absurdity of it all made this a short, enjoyable exercise in film. Ralph Fiennes principled crime boss and the numerous bit-part characters kept everything rollicking along and made proceedings short, funny and very, very punchy.

10. RocknRolla
Welcome back Guy Ritchie! Darker and much more mature than his other stuff – RocknRolla showed that the former Mr Madonna has more in him than just extreme fun. All the elements of his earlier hits were there but were more refined, and more potent for it. This may mark a turning point for Guy. He’s got two more films following in the next two years. I, for one, can’t wait to see what he does with this new inspiration.

Taxi To The Dark Side - Black Cab

Taxi To The Dark Side

The War On Terror is a war dominated by inverted commas and redefinitions. The George Dubya model would have us see ‘Muslim’ and think ‘terrorist’, see ‘invasion’ and think ‘liberation’, and see ‘torture’ yet think ‘necessary force’. The imprisonment of this war’s ‘enemy combatants’, both in the Middle East and at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, has given us some of the most arresting images captured on film: hunched over figures in shackles and orange jumpsuits; crowds of bearded men herded by khakied, machine-gun-toting shepherds; humiliated, naked and hooded figures, bound and piled at the feet of grinning military guards.

The Academy Award winning documentary TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE explores this difficult topic and the political climate it has created. Eva Orner, an Australia-born producer on Taxi…, sees this as an incredible time for film. “It’s been the first time in history that an entire genre of films has come out about a war that’s still happening. It usually takes fifteen years for this sort of reaction.” Eva and writer/director Alex Gibney were motivated to make the film by a constant stream of articles about prisoners being killed by American military guards at Bagram Prison, the infamous leaked pictures from Abu Ghraib, and regular reminders of this war’s casualties. “It was born out of a really dark period. There was a combination of these events coming one after another. All this great journalism was coming out and it was clear that this was a really important opportunity to make a document that would talk about everything.”

Taxi to the Dark Side begins with the death of Dilawar, an Afghani taxi driver who, it is later revealed, was imprisoned falsely. Dilawar died in custody as a result of the violent interrogations he underwent. The film goes on to study the techniques of physical, mental and sexual abuse that were/are regularly used to break down detainees in US military detention facilities. It also looks at how these techniques were unofficially sanctioned by the powers that be. Countless vivid and harrowing stories of torture are revealed throughout. “Alex and I had worked on a few projects already but Taxi was the hardest we had to make. Working on other films helped balance things out but it was still a very gruelling process. At the end of the day it’s not our story though. We were listening to it, not living it.”

But the film does have universally affecting elements. It constantly demonstrates the US government’s complicity in the worst of these atrocities, and suggests many deeper corruptions. This kind of misuse of power speaks to Eva’s past. “I’ve known from a very young age what can happen with bad government. My parents grew up as Jews in Poland in 1937. A lot of their family were murdered and they went through terrible woes to get here. I also vividly remember Poll Pott in Cambodia and the insane injustices that occurred there.”

But even constant work on a project like Taxi to the Dark Side has not soured Eva’s outlook. There’s a hint on the near horizon that these violations will not be perpetuated much longer. Barack Obama’s election as the next President of the United States has lit a candle of possibility. “There couldn’t have been a better end to this period in American History. He’s a smart man, a good man. The country’s in terrible shape but America bounces back. It recovers, it changes between good and evil. There’s a good deal of hope ahead.”

Sex Drive

Oversexed boy gets chance to have sex and so goes to extreme limits to get said sex. You know the formula, you’ve seen the formula, you’ve lived the formula. You can’t believe they’re trying the formula on you again. Sex Drive is another in the long line of teen movies conceived at an all-guy, porn-themed kegger. Ian (Josh Zuckerman) chats online with some tasty piece of ass, with the messenger moniker of ‘MsTasty’ aptly enough.

hen she offers him a booty call he naturally responds by setting out to drive nine hours to meet her, with two quirky friends in tow. This film bears an uncanny resemblance to a budget  version of another tale of teenage horniness – Eurotrip. And this is kind of what it is. The main differences between the two (besides the international element  of Eurotrip) mostly work against Sex Drive. It has fewer characters, fewer jokes and too much time spent with the Amish. Most confusing of all, early on Ian actually walks out of a room where a drunk young girl is ready to pop his cherry. She’s not made to seem particularly unattractive and he isn’t guided by his moral compass or something; he’s just a little bit slow. It’s also a sad state of affairs when your star power consists of a Seth Green cameo and a shamelessly self-promotional appearance by Fall Out Boy. There’s the occasional bit of new stuff here but by the end they’ve exhausted gay jokes, sex jokes and Amish jokes. What’s left is the structure of the formula, and it’s a shaky one to begin with.

2 out of 5

Australia

How would you like to ride a horse across the Australian outback? C’mon, it’ll be fun. We’ll pass the occasional greenscreen – oh, and someone should sporadically yell out really cheesy dialogue. Well shell out your fifteen bucks and let’s give it a whirl. Baz Luhrman’s epic Australia has arrived on a marketing swell to rival an American presidential campaign. We’ve had constant ads, the actors on every talk show and magazine cover, and Darwin tourism and Telstra tie-ins. But what’s the actual film like? Early on it’s a little hard to understand exactly what movie you’ve walked into. It’s like The Man From Snowy River if the countryside was part of a Moulin Rouge set. Gaudy colours and that not-quite-real feeling make it very difficult to settle into scenes where characters are rolling in the dirt and muck. They all just seem a little too clean. When they open their mouths it’s not much better. ‘Streuth’ and ‘crikey’ etc are supposed to sound odd coming out of Nicole Kidman’s stuck up English sheila, but they also sound totally unnatural from every other character who’s meant to be true blue. All in all it plays like a bunch of Americans making a film about Australia. This may have been the intention but box office reports from the States suggest it hasn’t payed off.

It’s true that Brandon Walters, the young actor playing Nullah, is very charismatic; but there’s only so much
that can help. His narration often falls flat with some of his lines being completely at war with his pidgin English speech patterns. The poor grammar used to try and cover these patches make him sound like a young Yoda. There was too much pressure to perform on this film – particularly from the title’s arrogant suggestion that this story sums up our great southern land. It’s just not up to the challenge.

2 out of 5

Traitor

It wouldn’t be totally out of line to suggest that the issue of terrorism is complex. There’s a fair whack of moral ambiguity and it’s only two year olds and George Dubya who see white knights vs evil doers. Traitor attempts to clear up some of the murkiness by using international terrorist operations as a setting for a story, rather than the story itself. Samir (Don Cheadle) is an Islamic man who sells bombs to, and makes bombs for, terrorists. We follow him as he rises up the ranks to become a person of extreme interest for FBI agents Clayton (Guy Pearce) and Archer (Neal McDonough). A terrorist bomber as the main character, overly simple you say? Unfortunately, yes.

Writer/director Jeffrey Nachmanoff manages to take this very loaded character, an incredibly nuanced actor in Cheadle, and make something that barely scrapes a fingernail down the skin of this premise. Basically we find out that terrorism’s bad, and not all Muslims are violent fanatics… not exactly groundbreaking stuff.
There are a few moments where things get tense, a few more interesting new facts brought up regarding misconceptions about Islamic extremism but if you take on this kind of subject matter, you’ve kinda gotta reinvent the wheel. Cheadle is still brilliant but he’s got very little to work with. The Samir we know is more a noble caricature

than a character of interesting duality. Traitor is also let down a lot by its climax. Nachmanoff builds things up as if it were a masterful stroke of twisted storytelling – it’s not. Again it’s overly simple, only answers a few of the questions the film has asked, and doesn’t stand up logistically to post-mortem inspection. Personally I reckon we’re edgier and smarter than Traitor gives us credit for. I want an Irish coffee and some ethical unknown unknowns, not a baby-cino and a bunch of known knowns.

2 1/2 out of 5

Quantum of Solace

Finally we find out why the final half hour of Casino Royale was so boring. It wasn’t a false-finishing denouement intended to rival The Return of the King, it was the beginning of a new film; this film – Quantum of Solace. We pick up exactly where we left off. Bond (Daniel Craig) is moping over his dead girlfriend Vesper and this makes him angry enough to kill everyone in his way. Apparently we need half an hour of this to convince us he cared for the girl.

It may sound a little pathetic to pick apart the story of a Bond film, but if you take out this angst you’ve actually got quite a tight film. The writers (including Academy Award winner Paul Haggis) have twisted, crunched, crammed and hackneyed the beginning of the script to fit in all the ‘motivation’. They focus so hard on this that it’s the only real plot we get for the first act (other than a few references to a really really powerful, and really really secretive organisation and some stuff about manipulating South American politics). Insert a few action set pieces that accomplish absolutely nothing story wise and things initially look very grim.

This may sound like I didn’t like Quantum but not so. Take the last half hour of the last film, and the first half hour of this film, and cut them into a five minute section at the beginning of Quantum and it’d be superb. Once that was out of the way we’d be left with a great bit of action cinema that does a few new things with an old idea. It’s lots of fun and keeps the thrills and innovation rolling along. The new Bond, the Bond of our times, has grown up even further. Hell he even manages a social conscience regarding abuse of natural resources.

3 1/2 out of 5

Choke

Chuck Palahniuk is one of those authors who relishes in the depraved, the ugly and the debauched. From scene one of this adaptation of his novel, we know that this tale of sex addiction is gonna be a sardonic comedy of sleaze. The collection of characters who make up Victor’s (Sam Rockwell) sex addicts’ support group are tortured souls whose every waking moment is driven by a relentless, slobbering quest to scratch their libidinous itch. Victor himself is finding it hard to stick with the program. His unfulfilling job as an ‘historical interpreter’ and his mother’s (Anjelica Huston) degenerative mental state mean that often his only escape can be found in a dirty public toilet or internet dating service. When he starts to form an emotional connection with Paige (Kelly MacDonald), his mother’s doctor, things that once… ahem… came easily, now seem a little more complicated.

Choke is innovative, interesting and often very humorous. Victor is the kind of hero Palahniuk loves… forgive me… an uninhibited prick. Rockwell is well cast in the role and the support acts do well with MacDonald cleaning up some of the grittier edges. Unfortunately overall it seems to be a little too faithful of an adaptation. It’s structured more like a novel than a film and our interest suffers because of this. A clear goal isn’t really defined for most of the running time and Victor spends too long yo-yoing between a few locations without obviously advancing the story.

This all leads to… the last one I promise… a flaccid climax that should have pushed the boundaries further than it does. Added to this, Anjelica Huston seems to be wondering what she’s even doing there. Though she does play a dementia patient this ‘lost’ performance characteristic doesn’t seem intentional. As a film Choke is better than a buggering in the vicarage, but not exactly a steamy Swedish threesome in the jacuzzi.

3 1/2 out of 5

RocknRolla

Guy Ritchie blows the shavings out of his pencil sharpener, shakes off the separation blues, and offers up a celluloid rebuttal to the mounds of crap heaped on him after Swept Away. Heartbreak seems to have aged him a little as Rocknrolla is undoubtedly the grown up’s version of his earlier successes Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. Everything’s a little adult really and, though his other films are brilliant, we’re the better for it. The violence is often off screen, and what is on screen is visceral enough to show the consequences, rather than the coolness, of brutality. The pop culture soliloquies are also simpler, more potent, and woven more cleanly into the overall story.

The characters haven’t escaped this maturity either. They’re darker, multi-layered and more well-financed. Ritchie used to look at street level crims, fast talkers who played out of their league while dreaming of the big score. The protagonists here do multi-million dollar deals, though they do still look like they’re living hand to mouth. There’s no need for a cast run down. As with all of Ritchie’s creations the list is as long as your arm holding a shotgun. Look at the poster and imagine all of those actors on their A-game. Plotwise it’s fair to say that someone pulls a shady deal, gets in over their head, and spends the rest of the time desperately trying to stay alive. Standard fare really but no one does this like Guy Ritchie, and even he never did it like this.

This is a great film that should appeal to all. If you loved Lock, Stock… or Snatch, there is easily enough of the sharp editing and snappy dialogue to keep you entertained. On the other hand if these left you sneering, the rounder characters and noir-esque soul of RocknRolla will draw you in. Best of all, if the final credits are to be believed, this is the first of two films featuring this line-up. Get it up ya.

4 out of 5

Burn After Reading

The Coen brothers. This pair are some of the last vestiges of consistency and quality operating in Hollywood today. They’re able to amass incredible ensemble casts (in this particular incarnation we get George Clooney, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand and Tilda Swinton), often getting A-listers to do low screen-time, large impact roles. Burn After Reading is another spectacular bit of cinema. The brothers suck us in, keeping us enthralled with comedy as sharp as a razor-blade dipped in lemon juice. As usual with the Coens, the real power of the film is achieved through their incredible grasp of dialogue. In high dramas like the recent Best Picture No Country For Old Men, characters speak in harsh rhythms, soaked in bitter irony. In comedic pieces such as this we get endless polka dots of wit, highlighting humanity’s absurdity.

The witticisms here come from a bunch of people on the peripheral of the intelligence community. Analysts, personal security, their respective spouses and would-be blackmailers all get a look in as they cheat and carouse through murder and intrigue amongst desperate attempts to fulfil their own agendas. Some of the best moments come through the fact that the real CIA operatives are the only ones who are actually aware of everything that’s going on. But even armed with this knowledge, the spooks still can’t find motive or rationality in the random acts of these amateurs. JK Simmons embodies this bewilderment in a particularly brilliant cameo-length role as an agency chief.

The sudden moments of jarring real-life violence may shock those who are unfamiliar with the Coens’ style, but this is just another element that makes these filmmakers so singularly original. Burn After Reading is reasonably short but manages to get in, do what it needs to, then get out again. Overall a thoroughly entertaining time in the near-dark.

4 1 /2 out of 5

Body of Lies

Electrifying director Ridley Scott and angry actor Russell Crowe team up for a third filmic outing; with this tense study of the terrorism-hysteria gripping American foreign policy. They’ve brought Leornardo Dicaprio along for the ride to play Roger Ferris, a young up and coming spy specialising in the Middle East. His latest mission concerns capturing an Islamic extremist leader and weeding out terrorist cells operating in Jordan. Ferris must use his expertise, diplomacy and connections to work with Jordanian Intelligence Chief Hani (Mark Strong). He reports to CIA bossman Ed Hoffman (Crowe), whose pragmatism borders on callousness through his constant reminders that “no one is innocent”.

Body of Lies attempts to walk a very fine political line. Any film focussing on Americans operating in the Middle East can easily get caught up in either flag-waving or knee-jerk pinko liberalism. Scott manages to avoid this, for the most part, by ignoring the issue. There are a few heartfelt speeches for each point of view but most of these are given by characters who have already been set up to be extremists for either side. In the end we are only asked to identify with Ferris’s moderate views. The main point this film brings to the table is that it is an over-reliance on technology that is causing the US to lose their war with terrorism. Once the violent fanatics stop using items like mobile phones, surveillance becomes very difficult.There are a few too many similarities between Body of Lies and the earlier film Syriana – right down to using a daughter’s soccer match as proof that spooks live real lives too. Both films also share sporadic scenes of brutality and torture, though in Body of Lies these scenes try too hard to shock. Overall though, Body of Lies doesn’t tread enough new ground. The only real revelation comes with the demonstration of yet more ways that the US is screwing up this complex situation.

3 1/2 out of 5

Step Brothers

You know those films where the premise is so bad you can’t believe it could ever be any good? Ninety nine percent of filmmakers would make it into an unbearable cinema experience and only the perfect combination of minds could produce a poetry of comedic acrobatics. Step Brothers doesn’t have this miracle flying trapeze combination. In fact, it may actually distract the one percent-ers, causing them to fall to their career deaths.

This story of two immature forty year olds (Will Ferrell and John C Reilly), who are forced to live together when the parents they mooch off get married to each other; seems unlikely to find any suitable target market. Baby boomers who appreciate poking fun at their lacklustre Generation X kids will surely find it a lame duck plot. The Xers themselves will think the comedy’s too juvenile. And Generation Y and younger will be depressed at the losers they are being told they’ll become. It’s hard to tell whether even screenwriters Adam McKay and Ferrell thought it would work. The joke of Ferrell and Reilly being overgrown teenagers loses its charm somewhere during the tenth masturbation gag – about three minutes in – yet it seems to be all they’ve got. Every other character offers their own interpretation of an irredeemable prat, except for Mary Steenburgen whom the script desperately tries to make likeable… and fails.

The law of averages means that the unending flurry of dialogue produces a couple of genuinely funny moments. These are quickly forgotten however, as the film delves back into the real business of ensuring it bludgeons the lowest common denominator’s funny bone. I no longer believe that Ferrell and Reilly’s poorer films are unfortunate flukes. It seems instead that Stranger Than Fiction and Chicago were their respective golden moments and this sort of crap is the bread and butter.

1 1/2 out of 5

Babylon AD

It’s roughly thirty years from now and the crazy survivalists were right. The world is dog eat dog, everyone’s packing heat and the value of human life is somewhere between nothing and the cost of a cheeseburger. Toorop (Vin Diesel) is a mercenary given the task of taking a sought after young girl named Aurora (Mélanie Thierry) and her nun guardian (Michelle Yeoh) from Russia to New York – a journey fraught with danger. They have to make it through refugee camps, snow covered wilderness and many, many dirty people.

Babylon AD is best described as a grilled cheese sandwich to Children of Men’s Turkish pide – some of the core ingredients are there but it’s not a meal; and it’s not worth leaving your house for. The story isn’t as strong as Children, so you need more cool violence to hide behind. Insert muscular but dramatically challenged leading man Diesel instead of a talent like Clive Owen. The groups fighting over Aurora are also less convincing so you need a whole lot more of them. And the story doesn’t really make sense so we get large chunks where various characters have to explain the twists – which still aren’t convincing. It’s a shame everything turns out this way as the first half of the film is actually quite good. Vin even manages to exude a little charm from behind the “I’m a hardass” placard strapped to his pectorals. Michelle Yeoh is tragically underused however, with her character always just a little behind the eight ball and tending to seem stupid as a result. Towards the end of proceedings the action and tension dries up, and things get ridiculous. Luckily by this stage we’ve tuned out enough to take a moment to realise just how many plot threads weren’t satisfactorily concluded.

2 out of 5

Journey to the Centre of the Earth

This film really wasn’t doing itself any favours from the outset. Modern updates on classic texts are a hard sell for attracting the big bucks. It’s doubtful that many kids could care less who Jules Verne was and adults are unlikely to get revved up by Hollywood bastardising something that was once close to their own hearts. This may be why Journey to the Centre of the Earth has a distinct feeling of shoestring budget about it. This should’ve been a real problem in an adventure film – if the creators had tried to hide it. Instead the filmmakers have employed Brendan Fraser, immediately injecting much needed charisma to the piece, and worn the cheap CGI on their sleeve like 2 Dollar Shop cufflinks.

Sadly it is still a very middling film however. It takes much too long for Professor Trevor Anderson (Fraser), his nephew (Josh Hutcherson) and their mountain guide (Anita Briem) to get into the fantastic creatures and delights of the subterranean playground that is the centre of the earth. Once there, a lot of adventure craziness – giant plants, weird angry flying fish and dinosaurs – is packed into a very short time before they’re back topside, laughing at the frivolity of it all. There isn’t enough story to justify a longer running time, and what they’ve got is pretty apt for the target audience, but it does make the whole thing feel a little half-arsed. The entertainment factor is boosted in parts by Fraser’s banter and refusal to take the material seriously. Hutcherson also finds a few moments of quality though ill-conceived additions such as a glowing bird companion give him little to work with.
Journey is one to take ten-year old boys to, perhaps with the lie that it’s a classic in order to justify special effects they could probably produce themselves at home. Some cinemas are also running a 3D version of the film so you could conceivably relieve boredom and add realism by slapping the 3D glasses on the kid next to you during the action scenes.

2 1/2 out of 5

WALL-E

Another luminescent bubble of creativity floats out of the suds-filled sink that is Pixar studios. With only Cars providing anything less than a superlative bit of celluloid, they’re batting almost a perfect average. The newest offering WALL-E has it all – superb animation, strong emotive moments and story, and comedy galore. The pressure of adding to the Pixar catalogue would be enough to have any filmmaker suffering a minor heart-attack for every frame they worked on. But rather than sit back and play it safe, these guys choose to push the boundaries even further, doing things like using almost no dialogue for the bulk of what is essentially a children’s film.

Anyone else would be asking for a rugrat riot with a tactic like this. What makes it work however, is the brilliant and inventive use of animation. The story of WALL-E – the last robot left on earth, slowly going about his task of cleaning up after the wasteful humans who abandoned him – is digitally spectacular. The space scenes in particular are a showcase for the extremity of imagination that make Pixar films so consistently popular with young-uns and old-uns alike. The script hits every note of set-up and pay-off, always escalating the events beautifully towards natural and poignant conclusions. And it all comes bound with strong messages warning of the dangers of pollution, lack of exercise and the disassociating effects of the information age. Is it a little pot/kettle/black of a corporation like Disney to preach some of these lessons? Well yes. But let us hope the little tykes understand exercise, health and personal interaction before they understand hypocrisy.

4 1/2 out of 5

Tropic Thunder

Chuck Ben Stiller in a film and you know what to expect. Jack Black’s presence means he’s playing a little against character but still not too strange. Throw Robert Downey Jnr in the mix, and we’re toeing the border of the twilight zone.

Downey Jnr stretches his dramatic muscles, playing an actor who takes his craft so seriously that he undergoes pigmentation alteration surgery in order to portray a black character. He, Stiller and Black are the cast of a big budget war film being shot in Vietnam. They get a little out of their depth when they move from the ‘authentic’ war zone to an actual war zone in the area near a drug compound in the golden triangle.

Tropic Thunder is a lot of fun. Black takes a long time to warm up but when he does he’s on great form. Downey Jnr manages against all possibility to turn his character into a real person, right up until the final stages when the script tries to humanise him. Even supporting cast members Jay Baruchel and Brandon T. Jackson are well on point for their scenes.

Stiller is the only one holding the film back – especially odd considering he wrote and directed the piece as well. His overacting shtick doesn’t fit in with what everyone else is doing and many times proceedings are interrupted by a sudden shift to focus on him. It feels like he’s trying to steer his character into a main role in what is essentially an evenly balanced ensemble piece. This also detracts further from the greater story as the over-the-top moments are tedious. The comedy sings along sharply when the others apply a more realistic take on the ridiculous set-up.

The story is a little meandering but some really great one liners and well cast cameos make this supremely watchable. Entertaining throughout with some moments of brilliance.

3 1/2 out of 5

Taken

Hey you, marketing guy! No matter how many similarities you see between your film and the Bourne franchise, you better make sure it’s as good if you’re gonna compare the two in every single bit of promo. To save some suspense, Taken is not strong enough to survive the comparison.

The hyper-realism that made the Matt Damon vehicle-films work means more than just using choppy edits and handheld camera work. It means research and thought, not skimming clichés across gaping plot-holes. This kind of background work could have ironed out some odd little story points. Story points like using two girls in their late teens following a worldwide U2 tour as a catalyst. U2?! Is that what all the cool kids are listening to these days? I’m in my mid-20s and I consider Bono to be an older generation’s hero. How wrong could I be? Pass me the wrap-around sunnies and a pamphlet for world vision.

The film does feature some really tight scenes and gripping set pieces, even if they are deflated somewhat by laboured pacing. I personally feel that if you call a film Taken, you don’t need to take half an hour to get to the kidnapping.

More could have been made of Neeson as the aging, slightly unfit spy; trying to find his daughter in the terrifying world of human trafficking. There are moments throughout where the film makes a very clear statement about its intentions, with graphic subject matter and our hero’s questionable morals. But then it cops out by making his daughter too pure. She just doesn’t fit in with the evil that is in every other character in the filmmakers’ world. She’s also constantly running giddily to meet her parents like she’s ever so slightly ‘special’.

There are times when the script itself walks a fine ethical line. If one were to read too much into it one could possibly draw the conclusion that young women who drink and have sex get what they deserve.

Things get tense and fast-paced towards the end but as a top spy, it feels like Neeson relies on fortunate circumstances more often than intelligence. This may have been the same blueprint the filmmakers were working from.

2 out of 5

The Square

The events of The Square take place in the quiet community of Haven Cove, which was built in a timewarp near Sydney where the cars, haircuts and most of the population haven’t progressed past the early ’90s. Director Nash Edgerton seems to be a local here as well, evidenced by his wish to cover so much ground all aptly depicted many, many times since the late Heath Ledger first screwed up a money drop-off for Bryan Brown.
Ray (David Roberts) is a married construction foreman who’s conducting dodgy dealings on site and dodgier dealings off it with Carla (Claire van der Boom), the wife of a local thug/gangster-type Smithy (Anthony Hayes). When Carla presents Ray with the opportunity to steal the proceeds from Smithy’s latest enterprise, he has to decide whether he’s man or mouse. Things get a little hectic from here.

There is brilliant tension to The Square. As the events gradually pull you into the spiral of shit that Ray’s life becomes, you can’t help but wince at the strain he’s under. The only motivating factor to be sucked in however, is a vague general sympathy for another human being, as otherwise there’s nothing here to care about.

Personally, I need a film to have at least one major character who is either intelligent, or likeable. It definitely doesn’t have to be both but without a flicker of one of these characteristics, I fail to care what happens. Ray is underhanded, selfish, usually stupid and a prick to those he has power over. Carla is kind when she’s getting her way but a manipulative bitch when she isn’t. There is slightly more depth to Billy who is played by Joel Edgerton, Nash’s brother and the writer of the piece. However, he doesn’t command enough screen time to utilise this.

Add in a lot of clunky dialogue and the predictability that comes from basing a story arc on stupidity and greed, and you’ve got another unfortunately forgettable Australian crime thriller.

2 out of 5

The Bank Job

The words ‘based on a true story’ tend to have the same generous boundaries on the truth as your average political campaign promise. This tale of a bank robbery and its repercussions for London’s crime, crime-fighting and espionage communities could be frame for frame accurate, but it’s unlikely. The set-up is plausible though extreme: an unnamed female royal is photographed in an incredibly compromising position and the prints are kept in a safe deposit box deep within a bank vault. MI5 (or MI6) can’t be linked to any attempts to get the photographs back so they surreptitiously hire some low-level crims, headed by Terry Leather (Jason Statham), to do the place over.

The problem is that these deposit boxes are the closet where many influential and insidious people keep their skeletons. The robbery itself is pretty uninteresting on the whole and is given far too much of the film’s running time. What is of interest is the fallout as the many dirty secrets, and the dirtier secret-keepers, come out of the woodwork. Pretty soon everyone’s after Terry and his gang and it’s a race against time to see who can kill them first.

The ‘true story’ card goes a long way towards making this film work. These guys are way out of their depth going into a bank to open an account, let alone to rob it. Add in an international scandal and a lot of pissed off
neighbourhood heavies and they’re in very hot water. Other than the odd hiccup, Terry generally handles these new circumstances with aplomb, though some of his plans seem to be based almost entirely on luck. Statham is solid in this role and gets good support from most of the cast, though femme fatale Saffron Burrows offers little more than a gorgeous bit of eye-candy who kills every line she’s given.

There are still many moments that will test your belief, common sense and attention span, and many of the threads are not satisfactorily cleaned up, but The Bank Job is worth watching for the conniving final third alone.

3 1/2 out of 5

The Forbidden Kingdom

Ever since Jet Li ignited onto the screen in Shaolin Temple, we’ve been waiting to see a pairing with Jackie ‘I’ve-done-a-million-awesome-Hong-Kong-films’ Chan. The Once Upon A Time In China series catapulted Li onto the world stage and he’s spent the next 15 odd years bouncing between Hollywood and Hong Kong. In all this time we were yet to see these greats gracing the same bit of celluloid – till now.

The Forbidden Kingdom is part Neverending Story, part The Karate Kid and part big-name balancing act. It’s all done very diplomatically – the names are delivered in a weird acrostic-poem style in the credits so no one is above the other, and neither star has an obviously larger slice of screen-time or plot focus.But the best bit – what we bought our tickets for – is the scene where the two of them fight. Chan’s frenetic, effervescent and comedic stylings matched against Li’s crisp technical proficiency. Throw in Yuen Wo-Ping’s dynamic choreography and you’ve got the action highlight of the film. It holds very little point story-wise because (psssst, I’ll let you in on a secret) they’re both good guys. And this irrelevancy is a good bit of allegory for the film as a whole. Like the greats of the Hong Kong industry, The Forbidden Kingdom’s story is as much a bridge between the action scenes as it is a careful pairing of well-motivated characters and plot points.

Michael Angarano plays Jason Tripitikas (his surname a subtle nod to the young monk Tripitaka of the Journey to the West or Monkey legend, on which this film is loosely based), a kung-fu obsessed kid from South Boston. He’s sucked back to medieval China where martial arts and magic rule the day. He has to return a mystical staff to the Monkey King (Jet Li) with the help of Lu Yan (Jackie Chan), a monk (also played by Li) and a hot mandolin-playing broad (Yifei Liu) who constantly, and very annoyingly, refers to herself in the third person. This is light fun that could have benefited from either strengthening the story or forgetting about it in favour of more fight scenes. A passable debut for the action star match up, but hopefully we’ll see them again in something slightly better.

3 out of 5

X-Files: I Want to Believe

First up, that’s a shit subtitle. And in a time-honoured review tradition, I’m going to use my incredible powers of wordplay to turn it against the film. Observe…I want to believe that David Duchovny’s smirk is a self-deprecating nod at the absurdity of the words coming out of his mouth. This would be exactly the kind of reaction we have come to expect from his brilliant character Hank Moody on Californication. Hank wouldn’t stand for this crap. He’d set one foot onto the set, make some comment about Scully’s ass getting fat over the time away from the show, then he’d promptly piss on the script.

I want to believe that the occasional moments where they’ve butchered plausibility enough that we’re surrounded by hilarious ham are intentional. This is meant to be funny, right? No one could honestly think that three nuns coming to an operating room window at a moment of high tension is going to get anything but a laugh. If the plot points on display here were mentioned with a straight face at a pitch meeting, surely there would be more furrowed brows than a group audition for ‘The Rock’ stunt doubles.

I want to believe that because I didn’t see a lot of the show, I missed some vital bits in the film, played out in the subtle in-jokes. There was some core information that flew straight past me and, had I picked up on it, this would have been bearable – nay – enjoyable.But most of all I want to believe that someone behind this project - hopefully, but not necessarily, writer/ director Chris Carter - believed this film was crucial. Someone thought it would shed some light on underdeveloped parts of the X-files mythology and it just had to be made. Cause otherwise this is just a shamefully weak cash-in on an outdated TV show.

I want to believe all of this, but I don’t. I’m a cynical bastard and I don’t believe The X-Files crew need to keep looking for proof; it’s right here, in the pudding.

1 1/2 out of 5

The Dark Knight

Blam! Kapow! Sock! Holy superb sequel Batman!

There’ve been a lot of hesitant moments since the suggestion was floated that Christopher Nolan could tackle the bat once again. Did we dare hope that he’d maintain the brilliance that was Batman Begins? Then it got better, the Begins denouement wasn’t kidding, this would be a Joker film - ‘Heath Ledger?’ we exclaimed with incredulity. A tragic death and a whole lot of marketing later, they’ve pulled it off.

The Dark Knight is Hollywood spectacle at its best. The big budget set pieces and all-star cast deliver, and then some, on the media juggernaut preceding them. Batman Begins was an origin film and the villains in it were as middling as they needed to be. But now we know how the Batmobile and Batman’s fancy moves came about (he’s basically a ninja in case you missed it) and a cataclysmic opposing force was called for. In steps Ledger in ghastly make-up; delivering the Joker we wanted and consequently the film we needed.

Casting our minds back a decade and a half, what made Tim Burton’s Batman Returns work as a story was the interplay between the cat and the bat. The Batman character is all about his similarities with his quarry and the fine line he walks towards becoming them. The Dark Knight provides this like never before. Cackling lines from The Joker such as “I feel like we’re gonna be doing this forever” speak volumes. These two are separated halves of one whole.

Previously, Christian Bale was able to overcome the role’s curse. The character is simply a man who uses money and training to fight crime while the quirks and wackiness have always been reserved for those he’s fighting. But even Bale’s brooding wit can’t withstand Heath’s flawless performance. He’s totally evil, yet with complexity. He’s twisted and insane yet his charisma and magnetism overcome every frame, even when he’s off camera.

At two and a half hours this is a long action film. The pace is unrelenting throughout, with only a few moments surrounding Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) slowing it down. There are barely more than a few heartbeats without something extreme happening, while a pervading darkness keeps it all relevant.

The Dark Knight is immediately one of the cinematic highlights of the year.

4 1/2 out of 5

Hancock

A superhero who is, in the eyes of the general public, an alcoholic asshole; surely every actor’s dream. You’re flipping a train to save a small child one minute and flipping the bird at a small child the next. Do you really get Will Smith, a pretty damn likeable guy, to play the role though? The answer is yes, cause he relishes it (and you know he’s getting redeemed in the end).

From the opening scene of anti-superhero Hancock using the bushman’s hankie manoeuvre to clear his nose, you know they’re selling you a certain kind of protagonist. He drinks a lot. He swears a lot. He causes massive amounts of damage through a combination of negligence and indifference. And yet people keep asking him to save them. When good-hearted PR man Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman) becomes one of those saved, he takes it upon himself to try and reverse Hancock’s bad press.

Hancock is a film of immense enjoyment, regular laughter and bitter disappointment. Going out on a limb, I’ll say that the premise is not based in our reality. Yet screenwriters Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan insist on
breaking into character-defining moments of human growth. We’ve just guffawed raucously when Hancock’s take-no-shit attitude has caused another bit of random violence and then suddenly we’re watching him, or another of the main stars, stare wistfully into the middle distance, contemplative of their place in this big bad world of ours. These painfully misplaced moments are scored by overbearing crescendos of violins and melancholy guitar strummings that just scream “Understand me, I’m tortured!” On top of this, the film often ignores the rules it has set up for its slightly off-kilter world, making for some odd plot moments.

Overall though, it’s an enjoyable hour and a half. Smith and Bateman are funny and Charlize Theron is smouldering. Most importantly, they seem to be having fun during the comedy moments, even if they’re as bored as us when things get a little too angsty.

3 1/2 out of 5

Kung Fu Panda

Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Ian McShane, Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu, David Cross, Michael Clarke Duncan, Seth Rogan ; it’s the kind of ensemble that could resuscitate Robert Altman. Having watched the film, however, you’d be forgiven for not realising half these people were even voicing it. Jack Black is always irrepressible, and it’s hard to mistake Dustin Hoffman’s gravely tones, but the rest of the cast merge into their characters like computer-generated second-skins.

Our hero is Po (Black), a kung-fu-obsessed noodle-shop worker who is suddenly thrust into the company of his heroes, a group of warriors known as The Furious Five. They must all prepare to battle Tai Lung (Deadwood’s McShane), a rogue martial arts master bent on discovering the power of the mythical Dragon Scroll.

From pixel one this high-kicking tale hones in, zen-like, on the fun stuff. Its seamless blend of animated physical gags and snappy dialogue make for entertainment whether you’re still battling puppy fat, or you have to puree broccoli to avoid cracking your dentures. Though it’s still half a shade behind either of these animated greats, it manages to combine the comic-timing of The Emperor’s New Groove with the action inventiveness of The Incredibles. The Furious Five – a tigress, a viper, a monkey, a crane, and a praying mantis – have been animated to accurately portray the actual fighting styles that were created by mimicry of these animals. Watching them is guaranteed to have you smiling and twitching as you hold back the explosion of fly-kicks you’re ready to unleash.

There are also endless references to kung-fu legends and the old-school films of the Shaw Brothers ilk. These are done with a playfulness and hilarity that will please both fans and critics of this genre.

Crucial to the entertainment power of this film, Kung Fu Panda gets in, does what it needs to do, then ninety-odd perfectly structured minutes later, gets out again. There’s no excess or slow sections, the moral substance is there but not bludgeoned into us, and re-watchability is ensured. Su-poib!

4 1/2 out of 5

Gotham Knight

Gotham is a city rotting from an inner pestilence of crime. The only one who stands in the way of the total slip into anarchy is the guy in the thick black pleather suit. Gotham Knight sets itself after the events of Batman Begins, taking six different perspectives on The Bat through six animated vignettes directed by various notable anime directors. They look at the many facets of his character - gadget king, nightmarish vigilante, scientific detective, tortured soul - bringing their own interpretations of it all.

If this concept sounds familiar, it should. Back in 2003 The Animatrix burst onto DVD, stylishly fleshing out The Matrix’s mythology and taking it to new levels. Unfortunately for Gotham Knight, the Wachowskis’ did this kind of thing with more power, punch and consistency.

Here the quality wavers too much. Have I Got A Story For You is a natural choice to open proceedings since it focuses on people having different perspectives on what Batman is really like; but it is also poorly structured and among the weakest of the collection. In Darkness Dwells is another lowlight, chock-full of painfully expositional dialogue and odd plot choices.

This said, Gotham Knight finishes strong. The second to last film Working Through Pain is brilliant. It manages to capture the burdens of loneliness and turmoil that are such an integral part of Batman’s character, and does so in a very potent and understated way. And Deadshot finishes it all off. Inventive and interesting, it harks back to the delightfully dark and exceptional animated Batman series of the ’90s.
So what you get is thus: two poor films, two solid ones (Field Test and Crossfire) and two of very high quality. Suitably entertaining, but probably best viewed as a warm up for Dark Knight more than anything else.

3 1/2 out of 5

Screening exclusively at Dendy as part of Reel Anime 2008, ‘til July 16. Check www.dendy.com.au for details.

The Incredible Hulk

Recorded in a Marvel Enterprises executive lounge “So guys, the last Hulk movie kinda got a little emo. Maybe art-house was the wrong direction to go with a near-mute, big green ball of childish fury? We need buckets of style, and a relaxed attitude to things like plot and plausibility.” Somewhere, Louis Leterrier’s ears are burning…

Bringing the director of The Transporter 2 on to guide this second instalment really was a stroke of genius. It means that beginning with a two-minute montage, splashing exposition across the screen, wasn’t laziness - Leterrier is just making sure you have all the information as quickly as possible before the cheesy fun starts. And there’s lots of this to be had, at least in the first two-thirds. Through said montage we learn that Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) has fled to Brazil after a particularly destructive hulk ‘incident’ in which he injured Betty (Liv Tyler). He’s spent the last few years learning to control the green fury within whilst searching for a cure. This is rudely interrupted when Betty’s General father (William Hurt) hunts him down and sics crack soldier Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) onto his trail.

The Incredible Hulk is too long. Both Norton and Roth handle this material brilliantly, but Hurt and Tyler’s difficulties with the ironic tone only become more pronounced over time. Some story flab could also have been trimmed, and the action sequences would have benefited from a quality over quantity approach. Really, we’re all kinda just waiting for the moment when the main foe from the trailer shows up – a creature that can best be described as the result of dipping a dugong in the toxic ooze from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

If they’d gotten to this fight a little quicker, the occasional moments of boredom would have disappeared and the film would have been a true Hulk smash. As it stands, there’s still enough fun to make it worth the price of admission.

3 1/2 out of 5

Mongol

This sweeping epic details the creation of one of the greatest warlords the world has ever seen; though a little differently from how you might expect. It is not a catalogue of the strategic genius of Genghis Khan’s many successes in battle. These stories will most likely be saved for director Sergei Bodrov’s rumoured sequel(s).

nstead, Mongol is the story of the great Khan’s forging amidst the harsh climes of the Mongolian Steppe. We begin watching young Temudjin (Odnyam Odsuren) being taught the ways of leadership by his enigmatic father. Odsuren brings a subtle and quiet strength to these early moments. Through him we see the child’s steely observation, severe pragmatism and unwavering belief in his ruling birthright.

Tadanobu Asano then takes over duties, lending humanity to Temudjin the man. And this is what is at the heart of the film – the infamous brutality often associated with Genghis Khan is left to bubble away suggestively in the background. Telltale signs of a bloodthirsty general are visible, but he never actually rears his head. Rather his moral character, resilience and love for his wife Borte (Khulan Chuluun) take centre stage. Next to Temudjin himself, Borte is undoubtedly the strongest character in the film. She fulfils many roles in helping create Genghis: steadfast and loyal partner, conniving Lady MacBeth and counselling voice of reason.

This can not be said to be a wholly historically accurate tale, as most of Temudjin’s recorded life is based on speculation, due in the main to his frequent and extended disappearances.

As always, the Russian film structure can make for unfamiliar pacing, but Mongol offers a great character piece with gorgeous scenery, a shade of mysticism, and a couple of good fist-pumping fight scenes.

4 out of 5

DVDevotee No Country For Old Men

(Paramount)
This bitter tale of dark characters and amoral actions is splashed onto the silver screen with a reverberating gong announcing: ‘The Coens are back!’ Did we dare to dream? Had these character masters veered away from the watered-down comedy of Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers to once again traverse humankind’s inherent brutality? Before the collective drool of the world’s critics could even hit their keyboards it was confirmed; this film’s bloody brilliant. Hunter Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) finds a whole bundle of money at the scene of a drug deal gone wrong in the prairie lands. An act of humanity (the worst mistake any Coen Brothers’ hero can make) puts the bad guys hot on his tale, with Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) showing particular gusto.

Bardem’s nightmarish portrayal of a singularly evil psychopath without a trace of hamminess would be enough to prop up near any cross-country chase film. This could never be enough for Joel and Ethan, however, and they throw in a whole bunch of nous for Llewelyn and a quiet tragedy for Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones); a lawmaker who sees himself pulled inexorably towards the black hole of society’s slide into wickedness and anarchy. Jones’ gravely drawl is the perfect pitch to deliver endless examples of the dialogue pearls these filmmakers are so famous for. The DVD translation loses a hint of the cinematic epic but ‘making of’ featurettes and other bonuses ensure no one feels cheated. Worth every golden inch of the Best Picture statuette it took home from this year’s Oscars!

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

When they divvyed up the talent pool for fantasy epics, one can’t help but feel the C. S. Lewis estate drew the short straw. Tolkien gets a cast of lesser known but powerhouse dramatists and the gritty and twisted Peter Jackson at the helm; while The Chronicles… are portrayed by some newbie kids and the guy behind the gritty and twisted, um, Shrek.

To be fair, Narnia is a more well-lit world than Middle Earth and calls for a happier hand, but director Andrew Adamson is firmly stuck in his animated pedigree. He has no flair at all and the characters suffer dramatically because of it. Like the first couple of Harry Potters, we end up with a film that plays like a monotone reading of the book. This blandness is accompanied by stuttering pacing and more plot than they know what to do with; so proceedings jump about as Adamson ticks his checklist of what will keep the fans happy. But Lewis planted the story tree strong and deep, and a few pine cones of entertainment still drop serendipitously on Adamson’s head as he swings his bludgeoning creative axe.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian offers sword fights, magic and sweeping epic at its core. It kicks off in a Narnia that lacks the enchantment of the days since Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy first rescued it from the icy clutches of The White Witch. A race called the Telmarines have taken over and banished the more mystical creatures into the dark woodlands. The prince of the title is a hunted man who must join forces with the four English siblings to win the day with an arsenal of computer-generated imagery and cheesy lines.
Overlooking the severely uninspired direction, there’s enough in Prince Caspian to keep you happily in your seat for nigh-on two hours. Unfortunately, it runs for almost two and a half.

2 1/2 out of 5

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Dumb-da-dumb-dumb, dumb-da-dumb. Not quite the Indiana Jones soundtrack you remember? Perfect, you’re ready to absorb Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Kingdom is the final instalment in the saga of the wise-cracking archaeologist, and is the final bit of proof that George Lucas is a complete hack.

The Indy films have always had a certain style that was all their own. The whimsical pen of Lucas and the guiding directorial hand of Steven Spielberg created three films that were all action, adventure and wry comment with an uncanny ability to make us all feel young again. I reckon I’ve grown up somewhat in the twenty-odd years since The Last Crusade though, cause this one just doesn’t make sense. There’s always been a stretching of the truth in the series - a bit of luck, a slightly unlikely bit of physics in an action sequence - but here they’ve backed away from the golden toned artefact and fell head over heels into a pit of ridiculous.

The plot centres around an ancient crystal skull, originally uncovered by some conquistadors in the 15th or 16th century, then promptly lost again. It is purported to have mystical powers, though no one’s entirely sure what they are. The KGB wants to use it as a weapon… somehow.

This is the set-up. The pay-off is one long chase-sequence through green-screens with a young rapscallion named ‘Mutt’ (Shia Lebouf), and Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) from Raiders of the Lost Ark in tow. The evil head Ruskie Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) is also hot on their heels, desperately clinging to her accent through fight after very physical fight.

There are still some moments where the ‘old’ Indy (rather than an old Harrison Ford) shine through, but these are the times where it feels like you found the ancient treasure map only to realise you’ve forgotten how to read hieroglyphics.

2 out of 5

El Orfanato (The Orphanage)

Ever notice how you can get away with more if you speak a foreign language? French people can be arrogant, Germans alcoholics and The Japanese can, well, produce a whole bunch of weird shit. Foreign film can be like that. Everything that’s said sounds cool, you’re reading subtitles which makes you feel cultured, and then you suddenly realise that a character has just stood by themselves and blurted out a whole bunch of expositional dialogue to…themselves. This ain’t ok, even in ole Espaniol.

El Orfanato is a spooky tale of ghosts and dark histories set in a gloomy old house at the seaside. Laura (Belén Rueda) spent some of her childhood there when it was an orphanage. She’s moved back with husband Carlos (Fernando Cayo) and child Simon (Roger Príncep) to turn it into home for disadvantaged children. When Simon goes missing, Laura grows to suspect the ill-tempered spirits of the orphanage’s previous residents.

This film has a solidly creepy and atmospheric vibe, though this is due mainly to the house itself and is rarely pushed into darker territory. But what really lets El Orfanato down is its pacing. It makes such a big deal of loading up the story but takes much too long to pull the trigger. This is not helped by a six month chronological jump a third of the way through, inferring that basically nothing of note has happened in the time immediately after Simon’s disappearance. Packed with a whole bunch of horror clichés (such as the regular use of a squeaking swing) the film wavers too far and too often from the genuinely scary moments that pepper the film’s running time.

Comparisons to Pan’s Labyrinth are near unavoidable due to the marketing being geared towards them. But with Guillermo Del Toro acting only as producer, this is an unfair contrast; a poor cousin is still a poor cousin no matter what language they’re speaking.

2 1/2 out of 5

What Happens in Vegas

To call this film a formulaic romantic comedy is to incorrectly suggest that this sort of thing has worked in the past. The writers of What Happens in Vegas read the liner notes of the ‘Rom-Coms for Dummies’ book but managed to skip the overall intent of it all, namely – insert romance and/or comedy. It should be noted that the timeless notion that a couple are ‘two sides of the same soul’ doesn’t mean you only need to use half a character for each of the leads!

Cameron Diaz is an anal-retentive and career-obsessed power woman with her life in perfect order. Ashton Kutcher is a layabout with no motivation, no prospects and no worries. Don’t worry about their character names, they’re each playing a blended mush of everyone you’ve seen them as before. Cameron loses her fiancé, Ashton loses his job, and their respective sidekicks take them to Vegas to blow away life’s worries. Think you’ve already seen this movie? Not like this you haven’t. Hmmmm, how to credibly explain how the two of them end up married and legally compelled to stay together in order to get their share of three million dollars? Sorry, can’t; I musta blinked through that bit. Needless to say: he’s gross, she can’t loosen up, and I can’t leave till we all learn that - as Paula Abdul always maintained - opposites attract.

A couple of wacky bit-part characters and a good half an hour more film than was needed and you’ve got a watered-down version of the thin story-broth that has helped other cinema tales limp through the box office. There are a couple of moments that come together enough to generate titters of laughter but, as the saying goes, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

1 1/2 out of 5

Iron Man

Jon Favreau steps up to add his two cents to the ever-growing cash cow of comic book adaptations. The milk in this particular instance is the slightly lesser known hero Iron Man. Iron Man’s peripheral status as a comic may just be the reason this film works better than so many of its contemporaries. The first half in particular is witty, funny, sharp and often brutal. But the main reason for Iron Man’s success is its star: Mr Robert Downey Jnr. If anyone can play charismatic and super-talented - but with a destructive Peter Pan complex - it’s him.

Downey Jnr plays Tony Stark, the guy putting the cool back in science, one military killing machine at a time.
Captured by the enemy, Stark escapes by engineering a suit of armour that is its own weapon. When he gets back home, he discovers the powers the suit gives him could help the good guys along a bit. As far as origin films go, Iron Man does quite well. The early assembly of the suit is interesting and the testing stages provide much of the comedy that is the film’s strongest element. The technology and computer generated imagery is integrated into the action better than any effects heavy blockbuster so far with Stark’s interaction with his robots a notable high light. Unfortunately, it all becomes a little tedious as the suit goes through yet another development stage.

This near seamless integration can not be seen with the supporting actors. Gwenyth Paltrow is strangely likeable, and doesn’t frustrate or annoy with her usual prowess; but Jeff Bridges and Terence Howard, both regularly brilliant, just don’t have the goods. Their roles are terribly underplayed with Bridges kept aside much too long and Howard ending up the military everyman and general plot convenience.

Drop half an hour and do a few more interesting things with Iron Man’s powers and this would have been a less-dark Batman Begins, but as it is, it feels a little too much like the set up for Iron Man 2.

3 1/2 out of 5

Seven Billiard Tables (7 Mesas de Billar Frances)

Y Tu Mamá También star Maribel Verdú plays Ángela (please do not adjust your magazine, all the weird foreign-type punctuation marks are because this film is Spanish), a woman who’s fortunes recently took a major hit from the gods of fate. Her father has died, leaving sizeable debts and an irate girlfriend named Charo (Blanca Portillo), while her policeman husband is AWOL and can’t be reached. Money and lodgings need to be secured, so Ángela reopens her father’s billiard hall and moves herself and her nine-year-old son Guille into the house upstairs. The only way to reverse their bad luck is to reform a squad of ex-billiard heroes to champion the hall.

Seven Billiard Tables is a quaint film of reasonably unremarkable people with just enough quirks to keep things interesting. We the audience are slowly sucked deeper into their histories and the personal secrets they keep from each other. Momentum gathers as we learn that these secrets are perhaps a little less secure than first thought.

The performances are, on the whole, full of quiet nuance; with Verdú’s stoic forbearance leading the charge. Portillo also supports admirably as Charo’s story gradually becomes a dominant part of proceedings.
But there are a few unfortunate drawbacks. The measured way that everyone deals with their issues in the beginning makes for an uneven tone once they later start to breakdown under the emotional strain. It all starts to feel a little bit melodramatic. A few story threads also remain loose and unresolved as the credits roll.

Everything here is interesting and subdued, but doesn’t quite capitalise on what could have been made of these characters.

3 1/2 out of 5

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Regular BMA readers may have noted the praise heaped upon each new work Judd Apatow and his cohorts release. The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up and Superbad reinvented adult comedy and suggested that life could be funny and sweet without making you want to do evil things to Meg Ryan. Sadly, Forgetting Sarah Marshall has slightly cracked these rose-coloured glasses.

Peter (Jason Segel) is a mildly successful TV theme composer in a long-term relationship with very successful TV actress Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell). When she breaks up with him he is left broken and inconsolable. A holiday to Hawaii seems the only solution.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall is just not quite there. Segel, who also wrote the script, was a very effective bit-part character in Knocked Up but he just doesn’t have enough charisma to carry an entire film. Instead, actors that do have this ability (Jonah Hill and Paul Rudd) are relegated to second fiddle. There are way too many bizarre characters forced into events and only Peter’s new love interest Rachel (Mila Kunis) is a consistently real person rather than a caricature.

Most criminal of all, Kristen Bell - luminous star of the brilliant Veronica Mars - isn’t as good as fans of this sexy, blonde ball of sass know she can be. She’s uneven throughout, and a tearful speech about a TV star trying to make it in films just doesn’t have the self-aware irony the filmmakers are striving for.

There are some high points. Once Segel realises that the innate hilarity of male nudity and crying have been exhausted (about halfway through), a few of the one-liners hit home and the occasional set up comes together.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall will pass the time and give you a few good chuckles, but it ends up feeling like a good Adam Sandler movie, rather than even an average one from these guys.

2 out of 5

The Spiderwick Chronicles

The Labyrinth, The Neverending Story, Willow; watch them now and you still appreciate what had you hooked as a child. You even manage to get a couple of adult-aimed layers you didn’t pick up all those years ago. The Spiderwick Chronicles offers about as much adult-level entertainment as your average trip to a McDonald’s playhouse… sober. Mainly because the heroes are silly little children, built on clichés that have worked previously but just don’t cut the mustard here.

The family Grace moves to a creaky old house in the sticks, escaping Helen Grace’s (Mary-Louise Parker) marriage break up. After blindly disregarding many warnings, Jared (Freddie Highmore) discovers a secret book: Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You. The field guide opens up a world of fairies, goblins and boggarts, exactly the kind of information that Mulgarath, an ogre played in human form by Nick Nolte, would like to get his hands on.

The basic premise of things - the book is safe so long as it stays in the house - gets the filmmakers into a lot of trouble. They have to keep inventing more and more reasons for Jared to take it outside – even if he doesn’t use the bloody thing once he’s there!

The events are plodding, over-explained and often nonsensical. David Strathairn (as Spiderwick) and Parker slum it with some terrible dialogue and no real character motivation or development. And the vague attempts at engaging older audiences are cringe worthy and woeful. A Shirley Temple-like scamp a few rows back from me was enjoying herself but I refuse to believe she was as mystified as if she’d watch David Bowie do his gravity-defying stair dance, or as sad as when Atreyu’s horse was sucked into the swamp.

They’ve tried so hard to create a wondrous magical world but as with anything of this ilk it ends up being compared to Narnia or Hogwarts; and that’s punching way above its weight.

2 out of 5

DVDevotee Hitman

(20th Century Fox)
The best thing that can be said about this video game adaptation is that it’s not quite as bad as was first reported. The overwhelming wave of bile crashing against Hitman’s release had enough force to sink it almost without a trace. This may have been generated in the main by fans of Deadwood star Timothy Olyphant; in which case it is completely justified. He’s so much better than this role of a one-dimensional hitman on the trail of ‘The Agency’, who’ve set him up. The initial stages of the film see Agent 47 (Olyphant) as completely amoral, killing everyone in his path with a callous sneer. If someone’s a problem, or even a minor inconvenience, the best way to deal with them is a couple of shots to the head.

This is fair enough - there’s a reason it’s called Hitman - but he’s possibly a little too good at his job.  He’s never really struggling and things end up feeling like you’re playing the easy setting with a ‘god’ cheat on. The attempts at characterisation are laughable and even the action scenes don’t particularly get the pulse racing. The only reasonably interesting element, his past as a child being groomed as a killer, makes up a couple of strobe-flashing memories. You’ll know nothing meaningful about him when the final credits role but the worst thing is that this won’t really faze you. If this does fall from the video store shelves and into your hands on one of those ‘I feel like something light’ nights, crack a few beers and have a magazine handy for the rare bits when the bullets aren’t flying.

Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead

Two brothers Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Hank (Ethan Hawke) decide the best way to cure their cash flow problems is to knock off their parents’ suburban jewellery store. Not the most logical step for most people who find themselves a little short but this is not really a happy families kind of picture. Andy is doing a collection of dodgy dealings and drugs to keep his head above water while Hank uses alcohol and sex with Andy’s wife (Marisa Tomei) to escape his own depression.

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is interesting in the beginning. The slow burn of working our way from the robbery, back through the instigating events, then onto the repercussions, keeps things moving along steadily. But as the running time ticks into the second hour, the wheels come off. A few really bad editing decisions jolt and jar, and the technique of a subtitle intro as we change characters is not maintained once it is no longer useful. This makes it all feel a little gimmicky. The constant downward spiral of shit also creates an inevitable and exhausting feeling.

There are only so many times you can see things get worse for someone before it becomes predictable. Add to this a lack of identifiable or redeemable characters and you’ve got a difficult viewing experience. Marisa Tomei and Albert Finney are the only ones we feel for and both of them have many moments where we lose this empathy. But Tomei does overcome a smallish role amongst dramatic powerhouses by managing a strong presence. This is worth watching as something different but it’s just not as much as it could have been.

3 out of 5

Be Kind Rewind

I’ve got a lot of time for Michel Gondry. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind sits up there with the greatest cinema achievements to date in my opinion. But with Be Kind Rewind he’s pushing his luck.

Mike (Mos Def) works in a video store in a poor area of New Jersey. When his friend Jerry (Jack Black) becomes accidentally magnetised and wipes all the tapes, the two are forced to replace some cinematic and pop culture classics with their own lo-fi versions.

This set up is very workable. It demands Gondry’s usual levels of suspension of disbelief but that’s usually something to be relished. Unfortunately he’s not willing to stick with it. Once the fantasy premise is in place, things get very reality based. I’m sorry Michel, but you can’t accidentally magnetise a person then pretend you’re working within the parameters of this world. But this isn’t really a film about mixing fantasy and reality.

It isn’t even really about celebrating and remaking filmic faves. Be Kind Rewind is about Gondry’s love of the inventiveness and creativity of guerrilla film-making. Low budget special effects are his thing, and the moments where we see how you would cheaply recreate the rocket-powered car ride through a packed New York tunnel in Men In Black (for example); are some of the best in the film. These moments do occupy a strong patch of the overall running time but they are interspersed with a lot of superfluous story arcs.

A stern script editor and effective producer would have been a real asset to this project. They could have sifted the magic from the over-indulgent flab. The ingredients of a good screenplay are definitely there. Strong ideas run all through Be Kind Rewind and there is good attempt at set up and pay off; but they’re just not brought to the fore.

A few genuinely funny moments but c’mon Gondry, start working with good writers again and climb back onto your pedestal.

3 out of 5

Step Up 2 The Streets

Ding ding. Round 2 in the fight between the Step Up films and good cinematic sensibilities. Here we take another trip into the ghetto, seen as if it were a part of an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Emotions are spoken through dance, attitude comes from a Cornflakes packet and friendship groups are an ethnicity rainbow.

Andie (Briana Evigan) is a hard-as-manicured-nails kid whose outlet in life is to dance and cause mild tremors of a ruckus with her ‘crew’ The Four One Oh. She gets in just that little bit too much trouble and her guardian Sarah (Sonja Sohn) - her mother’s best friend before she died - threatens to send Andie to Texas to live with her aunt. A cameo from original Step Up star Channing Tatum convinces Sarah to give Andie one more chance; if she can make it at the Maryland School of the Arts then maybe everything will be AOK.

It’s amazing that the plot took a paragraph to write, built as it is on wafer thin clichés. This may be a
reflection of the mountain of cringe-worthy fluff paving the road to its obvious conclusion. And once we get there, the sheer force of the hot air generated by the cheesy and gushing speeches threatens to blow these cardboard cut out characters away. All of them end up learning Nickelodeon lessons about tolerance, responsibility and self expression. But we, the audience, forget why we sat down in the first place. Oh that’s right, the dancing. It is good but only when they’re polished and doing everything right. The parts where they’re learning and making mistakes are tedious and dull - Team America was wrong, not everybody needs a montage. The amount of crap you wade through to see someone pose in a handstand, or pop their chest just right, ain’t worth it.

I sure as hell think they can dance, I just also think they should do it without talking or trying to act.

1 1/2 out of 5