NOW YOU SEE ME

I have to confess,  I love magic tricks.  I especially love the big bombastic style of tricks ie making an elephant disappear or levitation. So I think I could reasonably be regarded as among the target audience in relation to this film (someone who is willing to be fooled by illusion and sleight of hand).  The film starts strongly with four independent magicians brought together by a shadowy figure for some unknown purpose.  Suddenly we jump ahead to see them in the big league in Las Vegas with a show  that climaxes in grand larceny .  The rest of the film is essentially, Ocean’s Eleven meets The Prestige with our magicians (collectively called "the horsemen" ) pulling off  robin hood-esque crimes right in front of audiences (and the FBI).

Let’s start with the good news.  The movie has a very slick visual style moves along swiftly with few scenes that serve no purpose.  The magic acts themselves give director Louis Leterrier a chance to indulge in Houdini-like, over the top showmanship without the audience feeling that these scenes have been crowbarred in.  It is also gratifying to note that the film does not give away any “tricks of the trade” in relation to the way in which the illusions are accomplished (beyond the obvious).  The characters too are larger than life befitting the film’s extravagant, showy setting .  It is something of a problem however that the horsemen themselves when considered individually can be a bit bland.  Much more interesting is Mark Ruffalo as FBI agent Dylan Rhodes.  Through his eyes  the audience sees much of the action and can sense his mounting frustration as the horsemen continually leave him lagging behind.  The film also marks the first on screen collaboration between Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine.  Freeman plays Thaddeus, an arrogant know it all who delights in exposing magicians and how they do their tricks.  Is this, one wonders,  a possible dig at the masked magician  a conjurer who broke the magicians’ code by  revealing how many illusions were achieved thereby earning the undying hatred of magicians everywhere?

The problem with the film (as with any magic trick that does not go completely to plan) is the climax. Having been moving at such a fast pace and swinging from statements about corrupt banks and insurance companies  to mysterious hints of an ancient secret society  that guards the mysteries of magic,  the film then seems to become lost at the finale.  Interestingly, mentioning secret societies and rituals was a tactic that real life magicians previously used to make tricks appear to have more weight and gravitas than was actually the case.   This is not the worst ending I've ever seen and I can't deny that the twist did come as a surprise (although it was annoying that something rather important is shown in the trailer) it simply feels rushed and gives the movie an “all flash no substance” feel.  Plot threads are left unanswered or resolved at breakneck speed with one throwaway line of dialogue and the motivations of some of the characters are left unclear.  Some have suggested this is a deliberate ploy in order to pave the way for a possible sequel.  This is a generous interpretation in my opinion.

FINAL VERDICT 4/10  - ultimately fails to pull off its grand illusion but still manages to entertain to some extent along the way.

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Unknown 14:37  No comment

WOLVERINE

When the last cinematic superhero-bubble burst it produced, towards the end, some very weak results (The Phantom). There has been some suggestion that history may be repeating itself with the relatively poor box office performance of Pacific Rim and the fact that all the major heroes have been rebooted several times (Superman, Spiderman, Hulk etc)   This latest offering is certainly not going to do anything to inspire confidence in the future lifespan of such movies.  There have been spin offs from the X-Men trilogy before; the vastly superior X-Men First Class and the faintly ridiculous X Men Origins Wolverine.   Why anyone would want to attempt a repeat of the Wolverine origins story is quite frankly beyond my imagination.

Part of it may be down to Hugh Jackman’s performance as the eponymous character which  has always proven popular with audiences even if they haven’t been too wild about the overall movie (I’m thinking X-Man 3 here).  The set up for this story is promising as the hero is made vulnerable when his ability to heal is taken from him by shadowy forces. Now he has to unravel the conspiracy whilst feeling pain like a normal man. The character is taken out of his element and placed in different country – Japan - with its vastly different culture and attitudes.  Nor is the film simply one action scene after another, a significant portion of the film is given over to plot and characters.

It’s a shame then that with this promising start they chose to do so little with them.  After an initial strong start the film quickly loses its sharp edges and begins to splutter.  One of the main problems is that the characters tend to talk in extremely cliched tones and that caused me to lose interest (count how many times the words ‘honour’ and ‘dishonour’ are used).   It’s also something of a problem that the identity of the dark shadowy puppet master is likely to be figured out by any discerning viewer about halfway through the movie (and that’s being generous).  Some might defend the plot as it’s based on a popular arc from the comics books.  I haven’t read these comic books but my guess is that this is a pretty poor adaption and something must have been lost in the process.  I can't imagine the comic book story being this predictable but it does make for one funny moment when the characters all make shocked faces at something the audience saw coming a mile off.

All of this is a great shame because, as previously mentioned, the action scenes themselves are very impressive - one of the most innovative scene in the film takes place on the roof of a  Japanese bullet train.  The Japanese setting lends itself to some very visually arresting scenes and set pieces – possibly more could have been made of these.    Nor are the performances at fault, the cast deliver their lines with conviction - even when having to deliver some pretty stupid dialogue (we’re back to the honorable and dishonorable lines).

As I said before the set-up of the film had a lot of promise and is definitely a huge improvement over X Men Origins Wolverine, however, it’s my belief that it could have been so much better had more attention being paid to the script.

FINAL VERDICT  5/10  The action scenes are not enough to stop this being  bland and forgettable.

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Unknown 06:23  No comment

WORLD’S END

 The parody genre has been in trouble for a while now, not in a financial sense but in an original and funny sense.  Financially movies such as Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, Scary Movie etc have been doing rather well but anyone who compares these movies to the giants of the genre – Airplane, Naked Gun - can see that something is very wrong.  A strong reliance on bad slapstick, crude jokes and gross-out scenes are a strong feature of these movies.  It is refreshing then to see a series of films – Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and now this movie, World’s End,  that seem to properly grasp the concept of what a parody should be. 

One of the key feature that makes this film work is that it does not present us with paper thin characters  that are simply vehicles for the laughs,  instead we get real, fleshed-out individuals whose character traits, faults and strange neuroses provides the laughs.  The film’s main protagonist is Gary King (Simon Pegg) who when taking stock of his life begins to look back nostalgically at a pub crawl he attempted with his school friends when they were 17.  Deciding to reattempt this feat he persuades ,cajoles and emotionally blackmails his old friends into coming back to their hometown..........which has been secretly invaded by aliens. 

One of the film’s positive features is that the sci-fi elements of the plot complement the more down- to-earth comedy angles so well. Much of this is due to the film’s running themes of being stuck in the past and conforming to modern life which allows the science fiction elements to enrich the characters rather than simple window dressing.  The script is, of course, paramount in this process,however, the actors (especially Pegg and Frost)  must take a good share of credit.  Their performances  never lose their driving motivations even as the ‘’World’s End apocalypse’’ is enacted around them. Pegg’s performance as a deeply flawed protagonist is likely to become just as frustrating with the audience as he does for his associates – whilst remaining funny at the same time.  It is only towards the end of the movie that we begin to understand a bit more of his motivation for attempted the pub crawl.

There are some complaints that this film merely represents the culmination of the same film (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) repeated for a third time.   It is of course true that the films contain a general trend  (bland settings strange events, friendships, taking responsibility).   The reason I think that this film works on its own merits is that while familiar elements are indeed there,they are used in new ways and to accomplish new things. The film in fact veers into some rather darker territory than its two predecessors and there are some moments where it is quite easy to forget you are watching a comedy only for a funny line jolt you back into it.  The film does sag somewhat in the middle and you get the impression that the writers were floundering a little on how to develop the characters. The ending is certainly interesting and not at all what one might expect, blurring comic and thought-provoking themes closely together.

FINAL VERDICT 6/10 Not quite up the standards of its two predecessors but still a very interesting funny and thought-provoking film.

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Unknown 04:42  No comment

BLANCANIEVES

Fairy tales are some of the most well-known, and yet least defined, stories our cultures have ever produced.  In the western world Red Riding Hood is threatened by a wolf,in India it’s a tiger; in the African version of Cinderella birds rather than a fairy godmother brings the eponymous heroine aid.  When adapting these tales for cinema a degree of freedom is available in setting character and plot that can result in some very unusual outcomes.

Blancanieves is a black and white silent movie set in 1920’s Spain where Carmen / Snow White is the daughter of a famous matador who is gored in the bullring and paralyzed.  Her mother dies in childbirth and Snow White is raised by her cruel step-mother – brilliantly played by Maribel Verdu.  The young Snow White secretly visits her father’s room and receives advice on the art of bullfighting.  Inevitably she follows in her father’s footsteps and takes up her cape.   The six (and not seven) dwarves make an appearance as small-time bullfighters.

The film has been naturally been compared to The Artist, the recent Oscar – winning movie.  The main difference is that whilst the Artist was about silent cinema, as well as being a silent film,(if that makes sense),Blancanieves uses the medium out of the director’s fascination with it.  Indeed if you were to ‘age’ the film slightly it would not be too strange to imagine that you are watching some older work.

The actors perform their parts well, their over-dramatic gestures and over-exaggerated expressions are balanced by important and subtle nuances of expression which helps to convey what they are unable to say.

Visually the film makes great use of the pageantry of the bullfighting ring (whilst tactfully ignoring the bloody outcome of the fight.)  All of the locations are rich in detail,be it the dark and gloomy mansion (where Carman’s father is for all intents and purposes, a prisoner), or the close familiarity of the grandmother’s house.  This is not the real Spain we know, it is instead a facsimile of the culture and people.

It is tone-wise that the film suffers a bit of a problem.  Early on the decision seems to have been made for a particularly dark rendition of the tale (which is dark enough to start with). Competing with this is a strangely ‘camp’ tone which runs throughout the movie.  The clash from these competing styles can be rather jarring at times and doesn’t always lend itself to a coherent narrative.

The ending is also somewhat flat, of course, we don’t need the syrupy and  sugary Disney-style ending, but given the imaginative adaptions open to the film makers couldn’t they have been more imaginative?

Ultimately the film is a visual treat and a great continuer / inheritor of the legacy of silent cinema, a style which can clearly still resonate with modern audiences and is clearly far from dead.

FINAL VERDICT  6/10  The devices and cinematography tends to dwarf  the plot and the characters but this is still a film worthy of respect and clearly made with a genuine love of cinema.

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Unknown 04:21  No comment

PACIFIC RIM

When hearing the plot and general theme of Pacific Rim, you might be forgiven for thinking that this is some video game adaption.  In fact Pacific Rim is actually a good deal more complicated. Helmed by director  Guillermo Del Toro the film gets its superfluous plot details out of the way in the early scenes.  Humanity is threatened by a monstrous danger and invents giant robots (which can only be operated by two pilots using a psychic link) to deal with it. This might all sound like a Saturday night sci-fi channel movie but here is the ironic thing about Pacific Rim, it’s character driven.  No really, the film which features city sized giant robots is driven by the strength of its characters and their motivations (Michael Bay take note).

It should be remembered of course that despite the subject matter this is the same director who gave us Pan’s Labyrinth and the Hellboy movies.  So this is not a filmmaker who has no experience in mixing exiting visuals with a good solid script and the script is really one of the main strengths of this movie ensuring that the audience does not see the human characters as a useless distraction from their gigantic robotic counterparts.

The added appeal of this film comes when the talking does end and the fighting begins.  Del Toro is not content just to have giant hulks of metal hitting each other.  The robots (called Jagers) each have their own design and visual style making them characters in their own right. The monstrous invaders (Kaiju) have just as much of their own individual visual style which saves the fight scenes from becoming a simple CGI mess.  Visually, the film clearly owes a large (self-acknowledged ) debt to two main sources, one is Japanese monster movies (Godzilla etc.) from which the movie takes the term Kaiju. The second is the giant robot genre of Japanese animation in which large human piloted robots battle with strange (and often implausible) weapons.

The scale of these battle scenes is something seldom seen nowadays. Like the old monster movies they hark back to the fighters towering above entire cities using cranes or boats as clubs to batter each other with. When one of these titans falls they take several city blocks with them.   Rarely has the term blockbuster been more literal! The director also makes the wise decision of using these action scenes sparingly thus ensuring that the audience does not become too accustomed to them nor to their thrill value before the film’s finale.

Pacific Rim does have some old cliches that we have come to expect by now. Much of the plot is rather predictable once you detect the direction in which things are headed. However, It’s the way that the filmmaker gets there that makes this a cut above the usual summer blockbuster fare.

FINAL VERDICT - 8/10 - This is the way summer blockbusters should be made and the way to keep an audience excited without sacrificing story or characters.

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Unknown 16:31  No comment