CineRik

Split over two parts, this is a gangster film done right.  Vincent Cassel in the lead is charming, but never shies away from Mesrine’s brutality in order to glamorize his character.  Even at a combined running time of four hours, the story sizzles from start to finish.  Highly recommended.  I flip and spill the beans here.

As lazy with its story as it is excessive in its presentation, Avatar is a huge disappointment from the man who gave us The Terminator and Aliens.  Not a great harbinger for the ‘future of cinema’.  I sink my claws into the film here.

When I was six years old my favorite t-shirt was emblazoned with Marvel’s not-so-jolly green giant and my favorite toy (taken lovingly to school on any day it was allowed) was a little truck with a cage on the back from which the Hulk could escape.  I tell you this for the purposes of full disclosure, to give you a chance to meter the praise (and criticism) with which I am about to lavish The Incredible Hulk.

Transporter director Louis Leterrier, together with screenwriter Zak Penn (thankfully lifting himself above the derisible scripts for previous hero flicks Electra, X-Men: The Last Stand and Fantastic Four in which he had a hand) and ever-eager contributor and star Edward Norton bring us an effective reboot to the Hulk franchise, opting for a story and atmosphere closer to the 70s TV show and some versions of the comic than to Ang Lee’s Hulk.  This ‘Batman Begins’ approach has paid dividends, even in the eyes of someone who enjoyed Lee’s more cerebral interpretation, giving Leterrier the freedom to ditch some of the baggage without having to spend too much screen time focusing on the origin story – the bane of many first installments.  Here we are immediately dropped into a world where Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) is on the run, hiding from the overzealous General Ross (William Hurt) who wants to capture the beast that lurks within Banner and exploit it for military purposes.  Banner, hiding within the chaos of a Brazilian favela, studies relaxation techniques and martial arts in an attempt to control his green-skinned rages, while communicating with a mysterious scientist named ‘Mr Blue’ in an attempt to discover a cure.  But Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), one of the men under Ross’s command, is intoxicated by the power he witnesses in a failed mission to capture the Hulk (voiced by Lou Ferrigno, who embodied the goliath on TV and who represents one of many winks to the characters past incarnations) and undertakes an experimental procedure in an attempt to level the playing field.

Visually, this film is a treat.  The cinematography in the favela is particularly beautiful, pulling the viewer right into the claustrophobic environment, without turning the slums into the pit of despair that they could have easily become.  And then there is The Hulk himself.  Gone is the neon green ‘Mr Stay Puft’ from Lee’s film and in his place we have a creature with real weight, more a Greek God (if in an odd hue) than a nauseous, overgrown toddler throwing a tantrum.  He seems much more connected to the world than his previous incarnation did, which is important when you have a character who interacts with the world as much as, and as violently as, the Hulk.

The story moves along at a pretty brisk lick, offering moments of respite between the smashing which don’t throw the pace of the film off kilter, whilst allowing the audience to catch their breath and gird their loins for the next onslaught.  Unlike Iron Man it doesn’t seem to be too schizophrenic, keeping a pretty even tone all the way through.  I will be interested to see what effect the promised additional seventy (yes, seventy) minutes of footage in the home release has on the film.  More background to the characters would be nice, but this is an action film and care will need to be taken not to turn it into ‘Sense and Sensibility: New York Rampage”.

The acting is generally pretty good, but with one glaring weak spot.  Norton gives us our tortured hero without descending into Hamlet styled hand wringing and Roth is convincing as a soldier desperate to recapture the vitality of his glory days.  Hurt is occasionally unconvincing as a man driven so hard that he is willing to perform genetic experiments on his own men but, on the whole, he plays a convincing ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross.  Liv Tyler, playing love interest Betty Ross, sadly falls short of the mark.  She seems unable to snap out of the role of Elven Princess.  Simpering in a film where she is surrounded by gladiatorial monsters, she seems out of place and unworthy of Banner’s, and the Hulk’s, infatuation.

Marvel no longer license their characters to film studios and can now place their characters within the same world.  Here we have Stark Industries (from the recent Iron Man film) producing military hardware and oblique references to Captain America.  The best Marvel Stories, such as the recent Civil War, have always involved multiple characters interacting, so these references not only provide for a more believable world (where the fantastic is accepted because it is, well, less fantastic) but also give the promise of greater things to come. To that end, there is a brief scene which sets  up the forthcoming Avengers film, although unlike Iron Man you won’t have to sit through the credits to see it.

If, like me, you are a fan of the Hulk then this film will not disappoint.  You’ll get that line from the TV series, good CGI, plenty of action and a story which rips along.  If you have no more interest in this green giant than you have in the one who sells corn, then there should still be enough action and fun to keep you interested.  For me this is the first summer blockbuster that has delivered on its promises.  A smashing (Damn! I almost made it without a bad pun!) good time

Where do I begin with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull?  Am I really expected to believe that this was the best that the combined might of Spielberg and Lucas could produce?  These two are capable of delivering some of the finest popcorn-cinema ever to grace the silver screen, and yet they have given us this?  You need read no further, just heed my warning and avoid this film.

The plot, for what it is worth, revolves around a lost crystal skull (but you’d already guessed that!).  Recovery of the skull will be, so the legends say, rewarded with ultimate power (see Ark of the Covenant, Sankara stones and the Holy Grail for points of reference).  Kidnapped by Communists (who have replaced the 30s Nazis as the enemy de jour) Dr Jones is forced to help find the skull and the temple to which it must be returned.  But the journey is interrupted by communist accusations against Indiana himself, as well as the arrival of a young man named Mutt…
One of the things that the previous Indiana Jones films had in their favor was the fact that, as long as you could buy the mystical elements, there were few things which forced you to suspend disbelief too dramatically.  Sure, the cart jump from Temple of Doom was a little farfetched, and we weren’t entirely sure how (or why!) Wille wasn’t turned into charcoal, but on the whole it was easy to suspend disbelief and go along for the ride.  Not so in the case The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull.  And here is why.

Indiana Jones and the Insulters of Audience Intelligence

This film thinks you are stupid.  Really, really, stupid.  Our introduction to Indy takes place at Area 51, inside a very familiar warehouse.  If you’ve ever seen the first Indy film you know exactly what lies within.  However Spielberg has decided that you might somehow have become confused and insists on showing you the Ark of the Covenant poking out of a broken crate.  If you’ve seen Raiders this is unnecessary.  If you’ve never seen it then you must surely be wondering what the big golden box is.  Whilst this is not the worst thing that the film does, it exemplifies the film’s lack of faith in the audience.  We all know that the 50s were the era of ever present nuclear threat, so do we really need to see our geriatric hero survive an atomic bomb detonation, particularly when his survival rests on his ability to withstand being flung half way across Nevada in a fridge?  I know the writers wanted us to get the message that the world had changed since Indy’s heyday, but was this really the best they could do?  The film goes on to shower the audience with long winded sequences of exposition, relaying what is, or should be, obvious and it just gets tedious.

Indiana Jones and the Terrible CGI

The earlier films relied on clever editing, cinematography and actual sets to get you into the thick of the action.  The sheer physicality of Jones’s surroundings gave them weight and an air of excitement.  I’ve never looked at the opening of Raiders and thought ‘If only that boulder had been computer generated, this could have been so much more thrilling’!  Yet for some reason (and, I fear, the reason was probably the CGI evangelist in the producer’s chair) this fourth installment is full of CGI.  And it is terrible.  I mean really, truly, utterly awful.  From the comedy gophers in the opening sequence, to Shia LaBeouf’s elastic legs during the jungle chase, the CGI ruins sequence after sequence.  It may allow you to do every more fantastical things, but bigger is not better Mr. Spielberg, better is better.

Indiana Jones and the Bizarre Plot Elements

One of the prerequisite elements of any Indy story is a diabolical villain and, in The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, that role is filled by Cate Blanchett as Col. Dr. Irina Spalko.  Spalko is apparently a psychic.  I say apparently because apart from frowning once at Indy and declaring him ‘hard to read’ she does absolutely nothing else with this wondrous ability.  Nothing, zip, zilch, nada.  For all we know she is just bonkers!  It is as though one person wrote the first sequence and then passed it on to another screen writer, sealed in an envelope, for them to carry on.  Then there is the moment in which Indy is, in the presence of Mutt, inexplicably stricken with a conscience over removing a knife from a mummified body.  For crying out loud he is INDIANA JONES!  He is the original tomb raider.  This is what he does!  James Bond kills enemy spies, Spiderman swings from buildings and Indiana Jones loots tombs.  Don’t mess with the basics.

I could go on to protest the lack of suspense, the fact that Indy doesn’t really do anything other than get dragged around by the bad guys or the genocide that no one seems to care about, but it would really be flogging a dead horse.  I did smile when we got the brief moments where the characters got to have fun away from a green screen and I did enjoy being in the company of Dr. Jones one more time, but only for brief moments.  Has Spielberg ruined my childhood as other reviewers have protested?  No, he hasn’t gone that far.  Discovering that my Dad tortured kittens or my Mom voted for Margret Thatcher would ruin it and a bad Indy film just doesn’t have that power.  Has it ruined by trust in Spielberg’s abilities as the best popcorn film director (George, you already lost your crown – you know what you did!)?  Let’s just say that whatever he comes up with next had better be damn good.  It’s going to take some real whip-cracking fun to bury the memory of this unconvincing rubber snake of a flick.

Summer is here. It’s not the brilliant rays of sunlight baking Santa Barbara that announced it, but the gleaming gold and red armor that bedecks the hero of the first of the summer blockbusters, Iron Man. And just like the test flights shown in the trailer, this one misses the mark.

Iron Man is the story of billionaire playboy Tony Stark. Stark inherited his father’s arms business when his parents were killed in a car crash and is a genius to boot. Whilst visiting an unnamed middle-eastern country to demonstrate his new Jericho missiles to the U.S. military he is captured by militants. Stark discovers that these people are using weapons produced by his company to wage their war against America and to terrorize their own countries populations. In order to escape he builds a suit of powered armor and sets about righting the wrongs that his businesses profits have been built upon.

If the billionaire-playboy-righting-wrongs shtick sounds familiar, it’s because Iron Man is in many ways Marvel’s answer to DC’s Batman. Switch out the murdered parents for alcoholism and you have the same ‘tortured soul who has the resources to do the things which others can’t’ that was handled so much more effectively in Batman Begins. Gaping plot holes aside (who on earth travels to a war-torn country to demonstrate a new weapons system?) the film has a major problem with its tone. It can’t quite work out if it wants to be a jokey Fantastic Four (a film far worse than this one, even with its faults!) slapstick comedy, with test flights that throw Stark into walls and arguments with intelligent robotic fire extinguishers that emote like Pixar’s Luxo Jr, or a dark, savage tale like the aforementioned Batman. The Iron Man suit is designed to kill and destroy so when it is turned against the terrorists that is exactly what it does. It punches them through walls, blows them up with missiles and roasts them with flame throwers. And then we get more comedy. At one point Stark, faced with a group of terrified militia who have taken cover behind human shields, pops out a little multi-barreled gun which shoots all of them in the head simultaneously. The audience at my screening, apparently thinking this was all part of the hi-jinks they had seen in the scene before, burst into spontaneous laughter. Four men, shot dead, biggest laughs in the film. That is worrying.

The film also gets bogged down a little too much with the creation of Iron Man. We spend too much time watching Tony batter metal in a furnace or engage in comedy flight and weapons tests. We also get a half hearted attempt at tying the film to current events with a transparent ‘we should be careful whom we arm’ message which is quickly overtaken by one involving corporate greed. On the plus side Robert Downey Jr. is as watchable as ever and the CGI is pretty spectacular. At least Faverau has the sense to keep the camera still and not cut every half second, raising the action sequences far above the fare handed out in last year’s robot-fest, Transformers.

I wanted to like this film. Super-hero pictures are my guilty pleasure. I did enjoy the directors obvious knowledge of the Iron Man history (with everything from his cameo to the introduction of S.H.I.E.L.D. referencing elements of the comic), but I wish he could have worked out which film he wanted to create. Abandon the slapstick and give us the darker, twisted world of Tony Stark in what I’m guessing will be the inevitable sequel.

Leatherheads is George Clooney’s third crack at directing for the big screen. This is his shot at recreating the screwball comedies of the 1930s and 40s, but unfortunately it is, on the whole, a miss.

The film revolves around an attempt to change professional football from a farce to a force. With his own team forced into bankruptcy, Jimmy ‘Dodge’ Connelly (Clooney) recruits college superstar and war hero Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski from the US TV version of The Office) to boost gate numbers and keep the game alive. Unfortunately for Dodge and Carter, investigative reporter Lexie Littleton (Renée Zellweger) is also interested in Carter, believing that his tales of heroics in The Great War may not be all that they seem.

The classic screwball comedy was one of the genres that came about, at least in part, from the enforcement of the Hays production code. These cinematic rules, intended to clean up Hollywood, decreed that certain things could not be seen. Drug use, nudity, bad language and sex were amongst the things that were banned – the staples of Hollywood films today! So for these romantic comedies the sex became banter and verbal sparring. This can be seen most effectively in films like His Girl Friday, a movie from out of whose shadow Clooney’s film never steps.

The problem isn’t Clooney’s on screen persona. He is a little too physically imposing to truly emulate Cary Grant’s comedic posturing, but his lovable rogue personality works well here. It is when he goes into battle with Renée Zellweger that everything just falls flat. There is no sparkle to their repartee, no chemistry between them. Their conversations run too slowly (as does the film in general) and they come across as petulant children clumsily grasping for insults to sling, rather than articulate adults engaging in verbal fore-play. The script does them no favors, with no attempt to establish the characters in their world. Dodge for instance seems to know everyone, from corrupt managers to state prosecutors, but there is never any suggestion of how he has come to be so well connected and Lexi’s claims to be the best reporter on her paper are never substantiated outside of a comment by her boss. She bemoans the pressure of being a woman working in a man’s world, yet she seems to breeze through life as though the glass ceiling were no more than a myth.

There is also a strange level of prudishness regarding sex and freedom regarding language. We are supposed to buy Zellerger as a siren capable of charming the truth from her targets, yet when presented with opportunities to show her appeal (and reinforce the sexism of the era) Clooney shies away – apparently more fearful of political correctness than his predecessors were of the censors. Conversely he introduces swearing to a genre which relished the opportunities presented by the clever pun and the witty put down. When words are your weapons you choose rapier sharpness with which to arm yourself, not a dull club to batter the audience over the head with.

All this being said the film is certainly not terrible. It has its moments and some entertaining visual gags, however it just never rose to greatness. Do yourself a favor and rent a true screwball comedy (you could do no better than to start with the above mentioned His Girl Friday) and give Leatherheads a pass.

We live in a world where bigger is better and nowhere is this more obvious than in the emissions of the Hollywood behemoth. Huge budgets, huge stars, huge effects and huge stories are hugely popular in the slurry of torture porn, gross out comedy and CGI extravaganzas that California discharges onto our screens. What chance is there for a little film? One that is small in scope, budget and pizzazz? One which, in a fit of self depreciation that speaks strongly to the Brit in me, opens with a caption announcing that the story about to be told is of little importance? Every chance, assuming that film is writer/director Eran Kolirin’s debut, The Band’s Visit.

The film tells the tale of an Egyptian police band, invited to travel into Israel to play at the opening ceremony of an Arab cultural center in Petah Tikva. This marching band is held in tight regimentation by their precise, clipped, proper conductor, Lieutenant-Colonel Tawfiq Zacharya (Sasson Gabai). He is struggling to keep the band together in the face of bureaucratic threats to the outfit and internal struggles between the wildly different personalities it contains. Simon (Khalifa Natour), a frustrated composer, desperately wants the chance to conduct the band before it is disbanded whilst Romeo Haled (Saleh Bakri) just wants to have fun with the ladies – aided by his uniform which, he proclaims, makes him look like Michael Jackson! When a miscommunication leaves the band stranded at the airport, they try to make their own way to the center, but they end up in the cultural wasteland of phonetically similar Bet Hatikva where, as café owner Dina (Ronit Elkabetz) tells them, there is no Arab culture, no Israeli culture, no culture at all! When it becomes apparent that the band is trapped in Bet Hatikva for the night Dina arranges for them to be put up for the night and the stage is set.

What follows is one of the gentlest films I have seen for a long time. Never cloying, never forced and never vulgar, it manages to treat all of its characters with respect without sacrificing honesty in its depictions of them. Dina, all raven hair and swaying hips, is a paragon of self reliance and openness who stands in wonderful contrast to Tawfiq. He has more in common with the organized desolation of the landscape cinematographer Shai Goldman has rendered. He is a painful echo of the lamp posts that stand in perfect order along the dusty road through town, doomed to stand still, perfectly presented, whilst the rest of the world moves on. Yet he manages, in his crisp, powder blue uniform, to bring a little color into Dina’s life.

The comic moments come with refreshing regularity, keeping the film from descending into sentimentality. Of particular note are a birthday dinner scene punctuated with exquisite silences and impromptu singing, and a seduction-by-proxy at a roller-disco (yes, Bet Haptikva is that culturally barren!) which demonstrates a mastery of silent physical comedy which, as others have noted, would not be out of place in a Chaplin film.

Notably absent from this film is any obsession over the conflict that raged between the nations that these people belong to. A band member covers a picture of a tank on the café wall with his hat, as if to inform the audience that this is not an issue that will be raised here. This is a story about people, not countries. It is a reflection on the inadequacy of words for real, heartfelt communication. In a world where gesture, touch and the music of a concerto or an unknown tongue have been replaced by blogs, emails and text messages, it is a message worth hearing. So stop reading this review. Take someone by the hand and go with them to watch the not-very-important The Band’s Visit.

Jokes about midgets (dwarves?) aren’t funny.  Jokes implying that any male who does not meet some pre-defined standard of masculinity are homosexual aren’t funny.  Punctuating a sentence with vulgarity like a tourettes sufferer on their sixth coffee of the morning isn’t funny.  Cockney gangsters, dead children, drug abuse and violence towards women – not a single one of these should raise so much as a smirk.  So how then is In Bruges, a heady cocktail of all of these things, so damn hysterical?
Hit-men Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson) are polar opposites.  Having been sent to hide out in the titular Belgian city by the mysterious Harry (Ralph Fiennes) following an unspecified crime, the older, wiser Ken embraces the history and beauty of the medieval architecture whilst his hyperactive yet brooding companion kicks his heels and whines about being bored.  Their sightseeing takes a turn for the better when Ray spots a beautiful woman on a film set, but everything comes crashing down when the true nature of their crime leads to Harry giving Ken another job…
After you’ve recovered from the verbal battering that the film delivers within the first few moments, the gorgeous cinematography becomes apparent.  Cinematographer Eigil Byrld captures both Ray’s lack of interest in Bruges and the enchanted world that Ken experiences.  In particular the night time shorts of the rain slicked cobbled streets are stunning.  This really is beauty and the beast.
On top of this are the performances of the two leads, without which there would be no film.  Farrell plays a man who can’t think a thought without it crossing his face (and often his lips) with real passion.  From sulking hunched up on a canal boat and dragging his feet like a three year old to dancing backwards avoiding the punches of an overweight American tourist whose chain he has been pulling, he is a joy to watch.  Gleeson, treading somewhat familiar territory as the wiser, older partner, is as great as always, offering nuance is a world of brashness.  His scenes with the Fiennes, who is in full on, scenery chewing, Gary Oldman madness mode, are especially fun due to the actors contrasting styles.
This film manages to keep from either taking itself too seriously or dissolving into farce.  The emotional blows which balance out the laughs never feel too contrived and the film’s self-referential nods ( such as the Grosse-Point Blanke inspired honesty from Ray when asked what he does for a living and a moment in which he begins to provide a diegetic voice-over) prevent it from being taken too seriously and allow the audience to relish, rather than be repulsed by, the political incorrectness.  Highly recommended, at least to those not easily offended.

Persepolis, the animated tale of an Iranian girl’s political awakening during the Islamic Revolution, is a unique, captivating film. Adapted from the graphic novels that told her life story by Marjane Satrapi in partnership with co-writer/director Vincent Paronnaud, it mixes comedy and real-life horror in just the right proportions.
Persepolis opens with Marjane (Gabrielle Lopes and Chiara Mastroianni) as a young woman, scanning an airport departure list for a flight to Tehran as she ties on an Islamic headscarf, slumped shoulders indicating the defeat that the act embodies. Slipping back in time, we are treated to an introduction to her nine year old incarnation through black and white artwork that brings the graphic novel to life. Believing that she is destined to become a prophet, the young Marjane supports the Shah, declaring him to have been chosen by . Her parents explain the lie of this to their Bruce Lee obsessed daughter, telling the tale of the England’s role in the establishment of the repressive Qajar dynasty and their overthrow by the equally controlling Shah. This paradigm shift for the young girl comes as her parents are involved in the riots leading to the Iranian Revolution. Hopes are high as Marjane’s uncle, a political prisoner, is released and in an uncharacteristically heavy handed moment a giant statue of a former dictator is felled by the crowds. But joy turns to resentment and fear as religious fundamentalism replaces the previous dictatorship. With Marjane’s rebellious nature and tendency to speak her mind threatening to bring the weight of the religious police down upon her, her parents send the fourteen year old girl to Austria in the hopes of protecting their child.
The animated style of Persepolis not only matches the books perfectly, but as others have noted, allows the film to show things in juxtaposition that would not be possible within a live action film. The moments of humor are so many that the change in gear required to show Marjane’s neighbour’s bodies lying in the rubble of their bombed house or the scores of political prisoners being slaughtered for refusing to renounce their beliefs would have been impossible. Imagine Schindler’s List punctuated with Marx Brothers slapstick if you can’t grasp just how odd this would seem. By taking away the ‘reality’ of the situation the film is able to deal with subjects that would have simply turned viewers away.
The film’s greatest moments however are not those which deal with great events, but those in which Marjane’s relationships with her family, particularly with her Grandmother (Danielle Darrieux), are explored. The widow of a political martyr, she nurtures the spirit of the young Marjane and berates her when she fails to meet her own ideals and provides the ideological cornerstone of the movie. This beautifully explored bond is the highlight of the film.
This film will not satisfy an audience looking for a neatly tied package of wrongs righted and stories completed. This is a cartoon in appearance only. Its simplicity is skin deep, but a wealth of complexity lies beneath the surface.