CONTAINS SPOILERS AND BEMUSEMENT
It is a bit of a surprise to find that, well into the shiny and sophisticated 21st century future, Hollywood is now producing live-action remakes of old Disney cartoons. Oh, I know that it's all based on an old fairytale from the Brothers Grimm, but the Disney is probably its best known incarnation. Incredibly, this is 2012's second stab at a Snow White movie; for various reasons I didn't get to see Tarsem Singh's Mirror Mirror, a film I'd expect to be more visually striking given the director's other impeccably composed images in The Fall and The Cell. But what's even more surprising about this one is it's not a film for children - the BBFC have given it a 12A for "moderate violence and threat" which is probably appropriate given the occasionally graphic nature of the supernatural horrors but are there really that many teens and adults wanting to see a Snow White movie?
Well, possibly: it does have Kristen Stewart in the lead role. Snow White And The Huntsman has Snow White locked up in the castle dungeons by her wicked stepmother Ravenna (Charlize Theron, frankly the best thing in the movie) until the day she comes of age, when she escapes into the Dark Forest and an unnamed Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth doing a Scottish accent for no immediately obvious reason) is tasked with retrieving her. Deep in the Dark Forest, they encounter the Seven Dwarfs as played by top British character thesps including Ray Winstone, Bob Hoskins and Ian McShane, but tragedy looms before they can reach the safety of Duke Hammond's castle....
It touches most of the familiar points of the tale: the Magic Mirror, the dashing Prince Charming figure (William, Snow White's childhood sweetheart), the trees apparently coming to life in the Dark Forest, the poisoned apple, the dwarfs, the true love's kiss....but you're sitting there, watching what is in essence a well-mounted and pointlessly lavish pantomime for kids, with famous actors apparently CGId onto smaller performers, wondering precisely who this thing is aimed at. Surely even the Twilighters aren't going to be that excited about it just because of the sulky Kristen Stewart who is as damp as ever - you could again wring her out like a bath sponge - and anyone over twelve won't be thrilled about the fey Fairy Grotto stuff. Much more fun is to be had from the spectacular villainy of Charlize Theron, the gothic production design and the effects.
It also sets up a love triangle between Snow White, the Huntsman and William but conspicuously doesn't resolve it, presumably so they've some emotional meat for a sequel (according to the IMDb, it's in development). But is there really anywhere else it can go? As a standalone one-off movie I enjoyed it enough, I suppose (it probably didn't help that I watched it shortly after the astonishing Prometheus, also with Charlize Theron), but there doesn't seem to be much scope for a franchise. It's not great, but it's entertaining and watchable enough, for all that's wrong with it.
***
Sunday, 3 June 2012
Friday, 1 June 2012
PROMETHEUS
CONTAINS SPOILERS AND A SENSE OF OVERWHELMING RELIEF
Cards on the table: I've not been a Ridley Scott fan for a very long time. To my mind he's made two genuinely stunning films, Blade Runner and Alien; a handful of interesting but not great ones (G.I. Jane, American Gangster, Body Of Lies, Gladiator....) and, most recently, a genuine stinker that had me seriously considering whether I could give up on movies altogether with Robin Hood. Yes, I sort of liked Black Rain and Hannibal, and The Duellists is okay, but generally I haven't had a thrill of excitement at the thought of a new Ridley Scott film for ages now. So for him to return to the scene of one of his greatest triumphs and actually produce a prequel to the legendary Alien....can he pull that off?
Yes, hell yes. Prometheus is a masterpiece. It's not just the return of intelligent and grown-up horror-based SF to a cinema targeted to the tweenie imbecile demographic, it's the return of a film-maker who knows how to light and frame and edit. It's not just the return of Ridley Scott to decent movies, it's the return of the Ridley Scott who made Alien. With the same mood, the retro-future production design and even a score by his regular composers Marc Streitenfeld and Harry Gregson-Williams that's doing it's damnedest to emulate Jerry Goldsmith's astonishing Alien soundtrack (my deliberate in-car choice of CD for the drive up to the cinema), much of Prometheus feels like Scott could have shot it in 1980 straight after he finished on Alien.
It's a film concerned with faith, creation, death, and what it actually means to be human. On the Isle Of Skye in 2089, archaeologists Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) discover cave paintings 35,000 years old that bear uncanny similarities with other drawings and carvings from across the world and across humanity's history, all showing the same gathering of stars. The multi-billion dollar Weyland Corporation funds an expedition to the centre of this star cluster to hopefully answer all of mankind's oldest questions....But do some of the crew have their own agenda? Creepy android David (Michael Fassbender, superb) is clearly operating under secret instruction, while Weyland executive Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron in severe power suits or skintights) has no intention of making actual contact with whatever's down there - which obviously turns out to be exactly the right approach.
Skip this section if you want to avoid the biggest spoilers. Just as in Alien, they locate and explore a vast and mysterious structure. This time, they find thousands of jars of an unknown black goo. By horrific design, this finds its way into Elizabeth via Charlie and central to the movie is her desperate removal of the resultant foetus by Caesarean in a genuinely thrilling and shocking scene of sexual horror. And the ship's secret cargo of Weyland himself (Guy Pearce in old-man makeup) leads what's left of the crew back into the bowels of the structure - an ancient spaceship - as Weyland seeks his answers from the last of the "Engineers", the race believed to be the creators of life on Earth and which have an identical DNA match to humanity.
The cast are fine, though I'm a touch baffled about the casting of Guy Pearce as the old-man makeup isn't very good and it's frankly the annoying weak link in the movie. But to be honest it's great for Michael Fassbender's performance alone. Noomi Rapace has something of the late Elisabeth Sladen about her (and for a further Doctor Who connection, Liz Shaw was the name of the first companion of the Jon Pertwee era) and Charlize Theron has moments where she's as icily scary and forbidding as the Alien itself. According to the opening caption the Prometheus has a crew of seventeen (more than twice as many as Alien) and several of the lesser characters unfortunately don't really register against the heavyweights.
And while it's fun ticking off comparable moments from Scott's original (arguments about ranking and quarantine protocol, the same strobing lights towards the end of the film, the crew hiking across barren landscapes in bulky spacesuits), Prometheus is even more fun as a straight SF/horror movie in its own right: it's a ride and a half and I want to see it again, to thrill to the ideas and concepts as well as the monster attacks and terrific special effects (mainly physical rather than CGI, and they look a thousand times the better for it). I am so, so relieved that it's fine, and so glad it wasn't toned down for the thicko audience (it's a 15 certificate, but a tough one). Yes, there are occasional moments that don't feel entirely right, specifically a few involving Theron, but I'm not going into more detail as this is a film best viewed as cold and unspoilered as possible.
As for the 3D: although it's a "native" 3D film and not a post-conversion I still watched it in 2D (it was an earlier screening anyway) and I suspect that the darker sequences of the film would be reduced to an indiscernible murk once the projector filter and the glasses had cut the light down. In the event, Prometheus loses nothing for being watched in 2D and there's not one shot where you wish there was an artificial depth effect ladled on. It looks great as it is, so don't spoil the experience with silly gimmicks. I enjoyed the hell out of it: it's creepy, scary, impeccably well done, it looks fantastic and the cast are great. Welcome back, Sir Ridley, and don't stay away so long next time. Absolutely essential.
*****
Cards on the table: I've not been a Ridley Scott fan for a very long time. To my mind he's made two genuinely stunning films, Blade Runner and Alien; a handful of interesting but not great ones (G.I. Jane, American Gangster, Body Of Lies, Gladiator....) and, most recently, a genuine stinker that had me seriously considering whether I could give up on movies altogether with Robin Hood. Yes, I sort of liked Black Rain and Hannibal, and The Duellists is okay, but generally I haven't had a thrill of excitement at the thought of a new Ridley Scott film for ages now. So for him to return to the scene of one of his greatest triumphs and actually produce a prequel to the legendary Alien....can he pull that off?
Yes, hell yes. Prometheus is a masterpiece. It's not just the return of intelligent and grown-up horror-based SF to a cinema targeted to the tweenie imbecile demographic, it's the return of a film-maker who knows how to light and frame and edit. It's not just the return of Ridley Scott to decent movies, it's the return of the Ridley Scott who made Alien. With the same mood, the retro-future production design and even a score by his regular composers Marc Streitenfeld and Harry Gregson-Williams that's doing it's damnedest to emulate Jerry Goldsmith's astonishing Alien soundtrack (my deliberate in-car choice of CD for the drive up to the cinema), much of Prometheus feels like Scott could have shot it in 1980 straight after he finished on Alien.
It's a film concerned with faith, creation, death, and what it actually means to be human. On the Isle Of Skye in 2089, archaeologists Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) discover cave paintings 35,000 years old that bear uncanny similarities with other drawings and carvings from across the world and across humanity's history, all showing the same gathering of stars. The multi-billion dollar Weyland Corporation funds an expedition to the centre of this star cluster to hopefully answer all of mankind's oldest questions....But do some of the crew have their own agenda? Creepy android David (Michael Fassbender, superb) is clearly operating under secret instruction, while Weyland executive Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron in severe power suits or skintights) has no intention of making actual contact with whatever's down there - which obviously turns out to be exactly the right approach.
Skip this section if you want to avoid the biggest spoilers. Just as in Alien, they locate and explore a vast and mysterious structure. This time, they find thousands of jars of an unknown black goo. By horrific design, this finds its way into Elizabeth via Charlie and central to the movie is her desperate removal of the resultant foetus by Caesarean in a genuinely thrilling and shocking scene of sexual horror. And the ship's secret cargo of Weyland himself (Guy Pearce in old-man makeup) leads what's left of the crew back into the bowels of the structure - an ancient spaceship - as Weyland seeks his answers from the last of the "Engineers", the race believed to be the creators of life on Earth and which have an identical DNA match to humanity.
The cast are fine, though I'm a touch baffled about the casting of Guy Pearce as the old-man makeup isn't very good and it's frankly the annoying weak link in the movie. But to be honest it's great for Michael Fassbender's performance alone. Noomi Rapace has something of the late Elisabeth Sladen about her (and for a further Doctor Who connection, Liz Shaw was the name of the first companion of the Jon Pertwee era) and Charlize Theron has moments where she's as icily scary and forbidding as the Alien itself. According to the opening caption the Prometheus has a crew of seventeen (more than twice as many as Alien) and several of the lesser characters unfortunately don't really register against the heavyweights.
And while it's fun ticking off comparable moments from Scott's original (arguments about ranking and quarantine protocol, the same strobing lights towards the end of the film, the crew hiking across barren landscapes in bulky spacesuits), Prometheus is even more fun as a straight SF/horror movie in its own right: it's a ride and a half and I want to see it again, to thrill to the ideas and concepts as well as the monster attacks and terrific special effects (mainly physical rather than CGI, and they look a thousand times the better for it). I am so, so relieved that it's fine, and so glad it wasn't toned down for the thicko audience (it's a 15 certificate, but a tough one). Yes, there are occasional moments that don't feel entirely right, specifically a few involving Theron, but I'm not going into more detail as this is a film best viewed as cold and unspoilered as possible.
As for the 3D: although it's a "native" 3D film and not a post-conversion I still watched it in 2D (it was an earlier screening anyway) and I suspect that the darker sequences of the film would be reduced to an indiscernible murk once the projector filter and the glasses had cut the light down. In the event, Prometheus loses nothing for being watched in 2D and there's not one shot where you wish there was an artificial depth effect ladled on. It looks great as it is, so don't spoil the experience with silly gimmicks. I enjoyed the hell out of it: it's creepy, scary, impeccably well done, it looks fantastic and the cast are great. Welcome back, Sir Ridley, and don't stay away so long next time. Absolutely essential.
*****
Thursday, 31 May 2012
FOR YOUR EYES ONLY
CONTAINS SPOILERS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR A FAN EDIT THAT REALLY NEEDS TO HAPPEN
Well, it's a very slight improvement on Moonraker and a definite improvement on The Spy Who Loved Me, but Roger Moore's fifth Bond, the twelfth in the series, still suffers from alarming shifts in tone as it veers from straight-ahead nastiness to knockabout slapstick to impressive action sequences to hideously misjudged comedy to all-out nonsense. Yet for much of the time it's actually one of the better films in the series and probably Roger's best, despite his age: there are moments when he really looks decrepit and there are still two more of his films to come.
For Your Eyes Only is also a film on a much smaller scale to Moonraker: rather than gallivanting around the world from California to Venice to the Upper Amazon and then into outer space, the bulk of it takes place around the Adriatic and the villains are no longer interested in exterminating the entire human race but merely trading a lump of hi-tech defence equipment to the Russians. It's a welcome (literal) comedown from sci-fi idiocy to middle-aged blokes beating each other up in a monastery. The Royal Navy's submarine control system is sunk in the Adriatic and our man seeking to salvage it (Jack Hedley, who of course I cannot see in anything without thinking of The New York Ripper) is murdered; Bond has to follow the trail to locate the wreck, retrieve the ATAC wotsit and see it doesn't fall into the hands of the evil Commies.
For the first half it looks like the villain's going to be Topol but then it switches and he's the secondary hero, and it turns out to be Julian Glover instead, which is fine. Glamour is provided by Carole Bouquet, Cassandra Harris and, most uncomfortably, Lynn-Holly Johnson as an ice-skating nymphomaniac. The action and stunt sequences are generally pretty good - mainly the early car chase with a Citroen 2CV, a long chase on ski and motorbike and some armrest-grabbing mountaineering towards the end. Most of it's fine and exactly what you expect from a Bond movie: the card games, the tuxedos, Q in a silly disguise, the awful one-liners and even the evil foreigner with a swimming pool surrounded by girls in bikinis.
However, the movie desperately needs an absolutely enormous axe taking to it and the principal casualties should be the pre-credits sequence (Bond trapped in a remote-controlled helicopter) which starts well but then turns into a silly private joke between Cubby Broccoli and Kevin McClory, the Unofficial Bond producer, and the hideous comedy sign-off in which Margaret Thatcher is chatted up by a parrot: you'll chew your fist so much you'll crap your own knuckles for a week. Every time I see this movie I cannot stay for those last few minutes (according to the IMDb Roger Moore hated this sequence as well, and he's dead right) and I have to go and boil a kettle or something. There's also an entirely unnecessary bit where some ice-hockey goons attack Bond on an ice rink; it's easily lost and the film wouldn't be any the worse for its excision.
Generally though it's okay. It doesn't even suffer from not having a John Barry score (the way The Spy Who Loved Me suffered from having a Marvin Hamlisch one); Bill Conti does a perfectly decent job and the soundtrack album still gets its fair share of play. Watching it again tonight it's a scratch better than I remembered (those aforementioned sequences apart) and it's probably the highlight of the Moore years.
***
And 007: try not to muck it up again:
Well, it's a very slight improvement on Moonraker and a definite improvement on The Spy Who Loved Me, but Roger Moore's fifth Bond, the twelfth in the series, still suffers from alarming shifts in tone as it veers from straight-ahead nastiness to knockabout slapstick to impressive action sequences to hideously misjudged comedy to all-out nonsense. Yet for much of the time it's actually one of the better films in the series and probably Roger's best, despite his age: there are moments when he really looks decrepit and there are still two more of his films to come.
For Your Eyes Only is also a film on a much smaller scale to Moonraker: rather than gallivanting around the world from California to Venice to the Upper Amazon and then into outer space, the bulk of it takes place around the Adriatic and the villains are no longer interested in exterminating the entire human race but merely trading a lump of hi-tech defence equipment to the Russians. It's a welcome (literal) comedown from sci-fi idiocy to middle-aged blokes beating each other up in a monastery. The Royal Navy's submarine control system is sunk in the Adriatic and our man seeking to salvage it (Jack Hedley, who of course I cannot see in anything without thinking of The New York Ripper) is murdered; Bond has to follow the trail to locate the wreck, retrieve the ATAC wotsit and see it doesn't fall into the hands of the evil Commies.
For the first half it looks like the villain's going to be Topol but then it switches and he's the secondary hero, and it turns out to be Julian Glover instead, which is fine. Glamour is provided by Carole Bouquet, Cassandra Harris and, most uncomfortably, Lynn-Holly Johnson as an ice-skating nymphomaniac. The action and stunt sequences are generally pretty good - mainly the early car chase with a Citroen 2CV, a long chase on ski and motorbike and some armrest-grabbing mountaineering towards the end. Most of it's fine and exactly what you expect from a Bond movie: the card games, the tuxedos, Q in a silly disguise, the awful one-liners and even the evil foreigner with a swimming pool surrounded by girls in bikinis.
However, the movie desperately needs an absolutely enormous axe taking to it and the principal casualties should be the pre-credits sequence (Bond trapped in a remote-controlled helicopter) which starts well but then turns into a silly private joke between Cubby Broccoli and Kevin McClory, the Unofficial Bond producer, and the hideous comedy sign-off in which Margaret Thatcher is chatted up by a parrot: you'll chew your fist so much you'll crap your own knuckles for a week. Every time I see this movie I cannot stay for those last few minutes (according to the IMDb Roger Moore hated this sequence as well, and he's dead right) and I have to go and boil a kettle or something. There's also an entirely unnecessary bit where some ice-hockey goons attack Bond on an ice rink; it's easily lost and the film wouldn't be any the worse for its excision.
Generally though it's okay. It doesn't even suffer from not having a John Barry score (the way The Spy Who Loved Me suffered from having a Marvin Hamlisch one); Bill Conti does a perfectly decent job and the soundtrack album still gets its fair share of play. Watching it again tonight it's a scratch better than I remembered (those aforementioned sequences apart) and it's probably the highlight of the Moore years.
***
And 007: try not to muck it up again:
DROP OUT
DON'T MENTION THE SPOILERS! I MENTIONED THEM ONCE BUT I THINK I GOT AWAY WITH IT.
Is it just British insularity, ignorance and arrogance, or do the Germans really have no sense of humour? Do we really want to know, or would that shatter our national illusions? My uninformed guess is that they do (for one, Henning Wehn does stand-up and regularly appears on Radio 4 panel games) even if it isn't quite the same as ours. Wikipedia lists 51 German comedy television series, including sketch shows and sitcoms, which is more than they give for other renowned comedy nations like Greece, Mexico or Poland. Filmwise, though, we don't think of Germany as a comedy nation - even before sound necessitated subtitles, did they have any silent screen clowns?
Released by Salvation, Drop Out (original title Nippelsuse Schlägt Zurück) is a peculiar and not entirely unsuccessful stab at a sleazy German comedy sex thriller: it's not funny enough that you actually laugh, but it is funny enough that you acknowledge you should. A woman walks out on her deadbeat boyfriend in frustration, almost inadvertently sets herself up as a private investigator, and is immediately plunged into a convoluted mystery involving drugs, orgies, blackmail, murder and corruption in (literally and metaphorically) high places. Can she actually sort out the conspiracy, or has she been employed merely as someone to pin the crimes on?
The comedic tone - and I'm fairly sure that our heroine running through the streets naked save for a bouncing strapon is supposed to be comedic, and the presence of a urine-drinking gag suggests that childish toilet humour knows no national borders - is all the more unusual given its heritage: it's co-directed by Wolfgang Büld, auteur of a trio of mesmerisingly sleazy British cheapies (LoveSick/Sick Love, Twisted Sisters and Penetration Angst), and its star Beatrice Manowski - perhaps better known as Beatrice M and the female lead of Jorg Buttgereit's legendary Nekromantik, one of the most depressing and confrontational movies ever made. Drop Out is much lighter than any of those movies as Manowski's a personable enough lead, but it's not particularly well shot (it has a cheap camcorder look about it, and not just in the "found" sequences in which Manowski relates the plot to a video camera) and much of the music just seems to be techno thumpy club stuff.
There's also too much casual drug use for my personal preference - boringly, I've never been a user and I never will, and the heroine's "when in doubt, get stoned" moments annoyed me perhaps more than they should. It's not a film I much liked: it's ramshackle and cheap and it's not great from a technical standpoint (and I'm not sure what ratio the DVD is supposed to be watched in as none of my widescreen TV's settings looked entirely right), but it's occasionally amusing. Funnier than Christiane F, anyway.
**
Is it just British insularity, ignorance and arrogance, or do the Germans really have no sense of humour? Do we really want to know, or would that shatter our national illusions? My uninformed guess is that they do (for one, Henning Wehn does stand-up and regularly appears on Radio 4 panel games) even if it isn't quite the same as ours. Wikipedia lists 51 German comedy television series, including sketch shows and sitcoms, which is more than they give for other renowned comedy nations like Greece, Mexico or Poland. Filmwise, though, we don't think of Germany as a comedy nation - even before sound necessitated subtitles, did they have any silent screen clowns?
Released by Salvation, Drop Out (original title Nippelsuse Schlägt Zurück) is a peculiar and not entirely unsuccessful stab at a sleazy German comedy sex thriller: it's not funny enough that you actually laugh, but it is funny enough that you acknowledge you should. A woman walks out on her deadbeat boyfriend in frustration, almost inadvertently sets herself up as a private investigator, and is immediately plunged into a convoluted mystery involving drugs, orgies, blackmail, murder and corruption in (literally and metaphorically) high places. Can she actually sort out the conspiracy, or has she been employed merely as someone to pin the crimes on?
The comedic tone - and I'm fairly sure that our heroine running through the streets naked save for a bouncing strapon is supposed to be comedic, and the presence of a urine-drinking gag suggests that childish toilet humour knows no national borders - is all the more unusual given its heritage: it's co-directed by Wolfgang Büld, auteur of a trio of mesmerisingly sleazy British cheapies (LoveSick/Sick Love, Twisted Sisters and Penetration Angst), and its star Beatrice Manowski - perhaps better known as Beatrice M and the female lead of Jorg Buttgereit's legendary Nekromantik, one of the most depressing and confrontational movies ever made. Drop Out is much lighter than any of those movies as Manowski's a personable enough lead, but it's not particularly well shot (it has a cheap camcorder look about it, and not just in the "found" sequences in which Manowski relates the plot to a video camera) and much of the music just seems to be techno thumpy club stuff.
There's also too much casual drug use for my personal preference - boringly, I've never been a user and I never will, and the heroine's "when in doubt, get stoned" moments annoyed me perhaps more than they should. It's not a film I much liked: it's ramshackle and cheap and it's not great from a technical standpoint (and I'm not sure what ratio the DVD is supposed to be watched in as none of my widescreen TV's settings looked entirely right), but it's occasionally amusing. Funnier than Christiane F, anyway.
**
Wednesday, 30 May 2012
LAS VEGAS LADY
CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS AND MEH
This is a very, nay extremely moderate puff of nothingness of a film: a film that trundles along very slowly like a ponderous and very cheap ripoff of the Ocean's Eleven formula, were it not that it was actually made back in 1975: 25 years before the all-star Soderbergh movies and 15 years after the Frank Sinatra original. It's still a Vegas casino heist movie but with no thrills or suspense, none of the easy-going charm of the shiny 90s trilogy (I kind of enjoy them but they are quite brazenly silly) and even less fun than the tiresome 1960 film: it's fatally underpowered by a lack of star power and a minuscule budget.
Oddly, Crown International Pictures' own website categorises Las Vegas Lady as a comedy but it's really a mild action thriller in which three women (led by Stella Stevens) are hired to rob a top hotel casino of the wads of cash kept hidden in the office of the despicably sleazy manager (George DiCenzo) during a high-stakes craps game in the next room. To do this one of the girls has to switch shifts with the kitchen staff in order to get a trolley up to the penthouse, and another has to scale the outside of the building mysteriously dressed in black so she absolutely won't blend in with the gleaming white and brightly illuminated front of the hotel. All this without knowing who their mysterious taskmaster is (although it's scarcely a shock when he's finally revealed to be exactly who you thought it was).
It's a pretty mediocre time waster notable principally for it being only the second film to boast an Alan Silvestri soundtrack, and even that's not much of an attraction: he may have gone on to score Predator, Back To The Future and Marvel Avengers Assemble (admittedly also the remake of Father Of The Bride) but Las Vegas Lady is a pretty negligible starting point. It's a dull film with nothing in the way of chases and fights or suspense and excitement. Despite going to the BBFC back in 2010, it doesn't appear to be available in this country; the DVD I watched was an import. We're not missing anything.
*
This is a very, nay extremely moderate puff of nothingness of a film: a film that trundles along very slowly like a ponderous and very cheap ripoff of the Ocean's Eleven formula, were it not that it was actually made back in 1975: 25 years before the all-star Soderbergh movies and 15 years after the Frank Sinatra original. It's still a Vegas casino heist movie but with no thrills or suspense, none of the easy-going charm of the shiny 90s trilogy (I kind of enjoy them but they are quite brazenly silly) and even less fun than the tiresome 1960 film: it's fatally underpowered by a lack of star power and a minuscule budget.
Oddly, Crown International Pictures' own website categorises Las Vegas Lady as a comedy but it's really a mild action thriller in which three women (led by Stella Stevens) are hired to rob a top hotel casino of the wads of cash kept hidden in the office of the despicably sleazy manager (George DiCenzo) during a high-stakes craps game in the next room. To do this one of the girls has to switch shifts with the kitchen staff in order to get a trolley up to the penthouse, and another has to scale the outside of the building mysteriously dressed in black so she absolutely won't blend in with the gleaming white and brightly illuminated front of the hotel. All this without knowing who their mysterious taskmaster is (although it's scarcely a shock when he's finally revealed to be exactly who you thought it was).
It's a pretty mediocre time waster notable principally for it being only the second film to boast an Alan Silvestri soundtrack, and even that's not much of an attraction: he may have gone on to score Predator, Back To The Future and Marvel Avengers Assemble (admittedly also the remake of Father Of The Bride) but Las Vegas Lady is a pretty negligible starting point. It's a dull film with nothing in the way of chases and fights or suspense and excitement. Despite going to the BBFC back in 2010, it doesn't appear to be available in this country; the DVD I watched was an import. We're not missing anything.
*
Tuesday, 29 May 2012
MEN IN BLACK 3
CONTAINS SPOILERS AND SOME FRUSTRATION
This is a curious beast: as curious a beast as some of the Rick Baker-designed alien thingies in this surprisingly belated threequel (and really, were that many of us crying out for a third instalment anyway after ten whole years?). On the one hand it wants to reconnect with the Smith-Jones double act, but on the other the plot dispenses with Tommy Lee Jones for most of the running time and instead has Josh Brolin giving a Jones impersonation, but really makes you long for the real guy. And on the third hand (it's a Men In Black movie, it can have as many hands as it wants) the real guy doesn't seem to be particularly interested in being there; he's much older (Will Smith on the other hand doesn't look much different) and even by Jones' own grumpy standards he's more short-tempered and abrasive than usual, making you actually long for the Jones of ten or more years ago. It's trying to replicate the double-act magic by replacing half the team and, inevitably, doesn't work.
Not that Men In Black 3 is a disaster: there's still the set-pieces and spectacle, the retro production design and some good honest laughs. Evil Boglodite super-criminal Boris The Animal (Jemaine Clement) escapes from the maximum security Lunar Penitentiary and vows revenge on Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) by going back to July 1969 and killing him on the day of the Armstrong-Aldrin moonshot in Apollo 11. Yet, thanks to what can now only be described as "wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff", Agent J (Will Smith) still remembers him in 2012, so he follows Boris back to the past in order to save K and, more importantly, to ensure the creation of the Arcnet field that protects Earth from alien attack, including the sudden invasion by Boris and his Boglodite war fleet. But back in 1969 he meets up with the then young Agent K (Josh Brolin "doing" a Tommy Lee Jones impression)....
The best of the gags come with the revelation that Andy Warhol was one of the Men In Black keeping tabs on the aliens in The Factory (and begging Agent K to arrange his faked death because he can't bear to listen to any more sitar music). But the rest of it is only moderately amusing (to be honest, I only laughed out loud twice in the whole film and the Warhol bit was one of them), partly due to the loss of the J/K dynamic but probably more due to the fact that, in director Barry Sonnenfeld's own words, "we knew starting the movie that we didn't have a finished second or third act". Incredibly, they hadn't finished writing the script when they began shooting.
Men In Black 3 is yet another conversion into faked 3D, but at least Columbia are also releasing the 2D version (which is how it was shot and how I saw it). And yet again, there's little on view that makes you think you'd like the 3D effects; indeed, while watching it I completely forgot there was a 3D option in a neighbouring screen. That's how much the film suffered by being shown flat. Why did they bother? Men In Black 3 is okay: it's good entertainment although not massively funny, and there's a decent climax as J, K and Boris face off on the launch tower as Apollo 11 is about to blast off. And it's nice to see Emma Thompson as the new head of the MIBs. But there's not enough Tommy Lee Jones and when he is there he's not as much grouchy fun as he was. Overall it's a mixed bag: it's not terrible, there is fun to be had, but enough now.
***
This is a curious beast: as curious a beast as some of the Rick Baker-designed alien thingies in this surprisingly belated threequel (and really, were that many of us crying out for a third instalment anyway after ten whole years?). On the one hand it wants to reconnect with the Smith-Jones double act, but on the other the plot dispenses with Tommy Lee Jones for most of the running time and instead has Josh Brolin giving a Jones impersonation, but really makes you long for the real guy. And on the third hand (it's a Men In Black movie, it can have as many hands as it wants) the real guy doesn't seem to be particularly interested in being there; he's much older (Will Smith on the other hand doesn't look much different) and even by Jones' own grumpy standards he's more short-tempered and abrasive than usual, making you actually long for the Jones of ten or more years ago. It's trying to replicate the double-act magic by replacing half the team and, inevitably, doesn't work.
Not that Men In Black 3 is a disaster: there's still the set-pieces and spectacle, the retro production design and some good honest laughs. Evil Boglodite super-criminal Boris The Animal (Jemaine Clement) escapes from the maximum security Lunar Penitentiary and vows revenge on Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) by going back to July 1969 and killing him on the day of the Armstrong-Aldrin moonshot in Apollo 11. Yet, thanks to what can now only be described as "wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff", Agent J (Will Smith) still remembers him in 2012, so he follows Boris back to the past in order to save K and, more importantly, to ensure the creation of the Arcnet field that protects Earth from alien attack, including the sudden invasion by Boris and his Boglodite war fleet. But back in 1969 he meets up with the then young Agent K (Josh Brolin "doing" a Tommy Lee Jones impression)....
The best of the gags come with the revelation that Andy Warhol was one of the Men In Black keeping tabs on the aliens in The Factory (and begging Agent K to arrange his faked death because he can't bear to listen to any more sitar music). But the rest of it is only moderately amusing (to be honest, I only laughed out loud twice in the whole film and the Warhol bit was one of them), partly due to the loss of the J/K dynamic but probably more due to the fact that, in director Barry Sonnenfeld's own words, "we knew starting the movie that we didn't have a finished second or third act". Incredibly, they hadn't finished writing the script when they began shooting.
Men In Black 3 is yet another conversion into faked 3D, but at least Columbia are also releasing the 2D version (which is how it was shot and how I saw it). And yet again, there's little on view that makes you think you'd like the 3D effects; indeed, while watching it I completely forgot there was a 3D option in a neighbouring screen. That's how much the film suffered by being shown flat. Why did they bother? Men In Black 3 is okay: it's good entertainment although not massively funny, and there's a decent climax as J, K and Boris face off on the launch tower as Apollo 11 is about to blast off. And it's nice to see Emma Thompson as the new head of the MIBs. But there's not enough Tommy Lee Jones and when he is there he's not as much grouchy fun as he was. Overall it's a mixed bag: it's not terrible, there is fun to be had, but enough now.
***
Saturday, 26 May 2012
LIST: THE SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS OF 2012
Summer is icumen in - early if you believe this weather - and with it comes the parade of vast studio behemoths substituting spectacle for intellect and huge-ass explosions for the craft of film-making. We've had Battleship already and for sheer boneheaded imbecility that's going to be hard to beat. That said, some of them should still be fun - though unfortunately we already know this because they're almost all remakes or sequels; there's practically nothing new or innovative, just retreading old formulae and old concepts in the desperate hope they'll work again. It's rather depressing, but hey - things will explode and big movie stars will supposedly look cool in daft costumes. What more do you want? I'm going purely by the titles and what scraps I've heard here so these "observations" may well bear no resemblance to the finished items. In scheduled release order, then:
1. PROMETHEUS (June 1)
In the case of Ridley Scott's long-in-the-trenches return to SF and the Alien universe (and hopefully to great movies), what I'd really like is for Fox to stop with the publicity. We're already at maximum anticipation, our seats are booked and all we have to do is turn up and watch it. We can't do anything more. Stop with the trailers and the hype. I'm also hoping there's a 2D screening on at a reasonable time: I'm getting increasingly fed up with the ineffective gimmick and having to pay extra for it. I suspect that since Prometheus is set in space, vast chunks of it are going to be pretty dark anyway without the stupid glasses, and invisible with them. Still, there's a high-powered star cast doing their thing, and there should be some visceral meat to chew on given the 15 certificate (R in the States).
2. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, VAMPIRE HUNTER (June 20)
Not the most eagerly awaited vampire movie, really, but we don't know when or if we're getting Dario Argento's Dracula 3D in this country. (Nor am I that excited about the last of the Twilight series, which doesn't come out until November.) Really wish we could have had Pride And Prejudice And Zombies though. I'm iffy about Timur Bekmambetov: Night Watch and Day Watch were weirdly entertaining but I hated Wanted. Still, it's neither a sequel nor a remake: it's actually based on a novel, the things movies used to be based on in the old days. (Thinking about it, I'm not actually sure whether it counts as a blockbuster. Hey-ho.)
3. THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (July 3)
Some early posters bore the legend "The Untold Story", which is odd because it looks to be the same frequently told story as before: if you change too much of it, at some point it stops being Spiderman. I've never been a fan of Spiderman anyway so my hopes aren't high, but something nifty might come of it after the frankly dull Sam Raimi films. Oh, and it's in 3D. Bastards.
4. THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS (July 20)
Speaking of bloated....Call me a heretic, but I really cannot get that excited about Batman movies, be they the gloomy Gothic darkness of the Tim Burtons, the incoherent gibberish of the Joel Schumachers or the humourless po-faced seriousness of the Christopher Nolans. Whether Bruce Wayne or Batman, the character's a thudding bore and resists every cinematic attempt to make him anything like a three (or even two) dimensional human being in a camp pantomime for children. In that respect the best representation is still Adam West running around in his underpants. On the other hand: there's a roster of star names and reliable actors doing their bit. And no 3D.
5. G.I. JOE: RETALIATION (August 3)
I'm one of the nine people who actively enjoyed the first G I Joe: it was a dumbo spectacular that didn't take itself at all seriously, that knew it was empty-headed nonsense based on a plastic toy and a Saturday morning cartoon show and operated on that level (unlike the Transformers movies which have similar origins but operate under the delusion that they're Proper Films). As a result G I Joe was a breathtakingly silly but thoroughly enjoyable load of crash bang wallop and now there's a sequel, with action heavyweights Bruce Willis and The Rock, which looks....what? March? Conversion? No! Sadly, the dribbling dunces at Paramount have decided to pull the film until March 2013 so they can foul it up with a botched 3D effect and charge us extra for the privilege. You utter, utter knobs.
6. THE BOURNE LEGACY (August 13)
Can the Bourne franchise survive without Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass? I know I'm again swimming against the tide here, but I rather prefer the first Bourne movie - partly because it's got Franka Potente in it, and partly because Doug Liman occasionally nails the camera to the ground rather than the occasionally dizzying handheld Greengrass technique in which I'm occasionally not sure what I'm looking at (and if I'm in the front six rows I'm feeling ill from motion sickness).
7. THE EXPENDABLES 2 (August 17)
Another two hours of testosterone and things going kaboom, with even more 80s action stars turning up for one last big orgy of destruction and carnage; it should be kind of enjoyably stupid but will there be any intellectual meat or pause for reflection? It's from the director of Con Air and the When A Stranger Calls remake, so probably not.
8. THE THREE STOOGES (August 22)
Not really, but it's something other than pyrotechnics and body counts.
9. TOTAL RECALL (August 22)
I love the Verhoeven film, and frankly I cannot imagine this new one getting anywhere close to it - it's from the director of Die Hard 4.0 and two Underworld movies, after all, and I'm still not sure about Colin Farrell in anything. Even so, it should be interesting to see what results a completely different approach might yield; sadly, there's no mention of a three-breasted hooker in the credits on the IMDb.
10. DREDD (September 7)
Pity about the 3D (yes, I know, but if they're going to keep making movies in this stupid system I'm going to keep on about it), but this one might be the big sleeper of the summer. There are no huge names in the cast apart from Karl Urban (probably best known as Young Bones McCoy from the Star Trek reboots), the director made Vantage Point which was okay. So expectations aren't high and it could be a pleasant surprise. Actually I think the Stallone version is underrated, and it's a shame it's hard to find on British DVD (none of the online rental sites stock it), but maybe it'll be reissued in time for this new version.
11. SKYFALL (October 26)
Can't find anything out about this: it looks to be an arthouse obscurity that won't trouble the multiplexes. It's early days yet, but maybe it would help if the studios released a trailer or something.
These should all be more or less enjoyable enough escapism from the trudge of Modern Life, though they're not necessarily the movies I'm most looking forward to over the summer months (bear in mind that I may not see them over the summer as the 'plexes will be full of little brats on their school holidays). But they're the bigger hitters that should get people into cinemas and hopefully get them coming back the following week to see something else. That's how I started, after all.
1. PROMETHEUS (June 1)
In the case of Ridley Scott's long-in-the-trenches return to SF and the Alien universe (and hopefully to great movies), what I'd really like is for Fox to stop with the publicity. We're already at maximum anticipation, our seats are booked and all we have to do is turn up and watch it. We can't do anything more. Stop with the trailers and the hype. I'm also hoping there's a 2D screening on at a reasonable time: I'm getting increasingly fed up with the ineffective gimmick and having to pay extra for it. I suspect that since Prometheus is set in space, vast chunks of it are going to be pretty dark anyway without the stupid glasses, and invisible with them. Still, there's a high-powered star cast doing their thing, and there should be some visceral meat to chew on given the 15 certificate (R in the States).
2. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, VAMPIRE HUNTER (June 20)
Not the most eagerly awaited vampire movie, really, but we don't know when or if we're getting Dario Argento's Dracula 3D in this country. (Nor am I that excited about the last of the Twilight series, which doesn't come out until November.) Really wish we could have had Pride And Prejudice And Zombies though. I'm iffy about Timur Bekmambetov: Night Watch and Day Watch were weirdly entertaining but I hated Wanted. Still, it's neither a sequel nor a remake: it's actually based on a novel, the things movies used to be based on in the old days. (Thinking about it, I'm not actually sure whether it counts as a blockbuster. Hey-ho.)
3. THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (July 3)
Some early posters bore the legend "The Untold Story", which is odd because it looks to be the same frequently told story as before: if you change too much of it, at some point it stops being Spiderman. I've never been a fan of Spiderman anyway so my hopes aren't high, but something nifty might come of it after the frankly dull Sam Raimi films. Oh, and it's in 3D. Bastards.
4. THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS (July 20)
Speaking of bloated....Call me a heretic, but I really cannot get that excited about Batman movies, be they the gloomy Gothic darkness of the Tim Burtons, the incoherent gibberish of the Joel Schumachers or the humourless po-faced seriousness of the Christopher Nolans. Whether Bruce Wayne or Batman, the character's a thudding bore and resists every cinematic attempt to make him anything like a three (or even two) dimensional human being in a camp pantomime for children. In that respect the best representation is still Adam West running around in his underpants. On the other hand: there's a roster of star names and reliable actors doing their bit. And no 3D.
5. G.I. JOE: RETALIATION (August 3)
I'm one of the nine people who actively enjoyed the first G I Joe: it was a dumbo spectacular that didn't take itself at all seriously, that knew it was empty-headed nonsense based on a plastic toy and a Saturday morning cartoon show and operated on that level (unlike the Transformers movies which have similar origins but operate under the delusion that they're Proper Films). As a result G I Joe was a breathtakingly silly but thoroughly enjoyable load of crash bang wallop and now there's a sequel, with action heavyweights Bruce Willis and The Rock, which looks....what? March? Conversion? No! Sadly, the dribbling dunces at Paramount have decided to pull the film until March 2013 so they can foul it up with a botched 3D effect and charge us extra for the privilege. You utter, utter knobs.
6. THE BOURNE LEGACY (August 13)
Can the Bourne franchise survive without Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass? I know I'm again swimming against the tide here, but I rather prefer the first Bourne movie - partly because it's got Franka Potente in it, and partly because Doug Liman occasionally nails the camera to the ground rather than the occasionally dizzying handheld Greengrass technique in which I'm occasionally not sure what I'm looking at (and if I'm in the front six rows I'm feeling ill from motion sickness).
7. THE EXPENDABLES 2 (August 17)
Another two hours of testosterone and things going kaboom, with even more 80s action stars turning up for one last big orgy of destruction and carnage; it should be kind of enjoyably stupid but will there be any intellectual meat or pause for reflection? It's from the director of Con Air and the When A Stranger Calls remake, so probably not.
8. THE THREE STOOGES (August 22)
Not really, but it's something other than pyrotechnics and body counts.
9. TOTAL RECALL (August 22)
I love the Verhoeven film, and frankly I cannot imagine this new one getting anywhere close to it - it's from the director of Die Hard 4.0 and two Underworld movies, after all, and I'm still not sure about Colin Farrell in anything. Even so, it should be interesting to see what results a completely different approach might yield; sadly, there's no mention of a three-breasted hooker in the credits on the IMDb.
10. DREDD (September 7)
Pity about the 3D (yes, I know, but if they're going to keep making movies in this stupid system I'm going to keep on about it), but this one might be the big sleeper of the summer. There are no huge names in the cast apart from Karl Urban (probably best known as Young Bones McCoy from the Star Trek reboots), the director made Vantage Point which was okay. So expectations aren't high and it could be a pleasant surprise. Actually I think the Stallone version is underrated, and it's a shame it's hard to find on British DVD (none of the online rental sites stock it), but maybe it'll be reissued in time for this new version.
11. SKYFALL (October 26)
Can't find anything out about this: it looks to be an arthouse obscurity that won't trouble the multiplexes. It's early days yet, but maybe it would help if the studios released a trailer or something.
These should all be more or less enjoyable enough escapism from the trudge of Modern Life, though they're not necessarily the movies I'm most looking forward to over the summer months (bear in mind that I may not see them over the summer as the 'plexes will be full of little brats on their school holidays). But they're the bigger hitters that should get people into cinemas and hopefully get them coming back the following week to see something else. That's how I started, after all.
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