The only British film to be included on the infamous 'video nasty' list of the 1980's, Expose, also known as The House on Straw Hill,is tailor-made for inclusion - a sleazy, often unforgivably dull piece of exploitation featuring lots of sex, blood and B-movie favourite Udo Kier. Kier plays writer Paul Martin, who, following the huge success of his debut novel, moves to the remote British countryside to focus all of his attention on his follow-up - an erotic piece he believes could win him the Pulitzer prize.
Paul is plagued by visions of having sex with a well-endowed woman and his hands covered in blood, images he doesn't understand and which are hampering his efforts to get words onto paper. He calls for an assistant, and he is sent the young and beautiful Linda (Linda Hayden) who begins to efficiently type up his dictations. Yet something is not quite right with Linda - she sends Paul's faithful housekeeper away, carries sex toys and a large knife in her suitcase, and seems to open herself up sexually to Paul only to repel his advances.
Comparisons to Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs (1971) are obvious (the countryside setting, the inclusion of the word 'straw' in the alternative title and in the script, and Hayden is a dead-ringer for Susan George), but Expose shares none of its quality. The sex scenes are gratuitous and ridiculously loud, and the gang-rape scene fails to garner any sympathy for the victim due to being shot like a soft-core porno. What comes in between is tedious to say the least, and the events play out with all the complexity of a soap opera. Technically, the film looks quite nice, and the performance of Hayden adds a layer of intrigue to her character, but without Mary Whitehouse and her cries of moral outrage, Expose would have been lost in the annals of exploitation.
A huge controversy in its day due to its salacious subject matter, Traffic in Souls is a creaky yet fascinating forefather of movie exploitation. One of the earliest feature-length Hollywood films ever made, director George Loane Tucker filmed his project away from the prying eyes of the producers with the knowledge that he would be shut down immediately in they caught a whiff of what he was actually up to. Tackling the unspeakable subject of white slavery, the film is of course incredibly tame by today's standards, but it's no surprise that it went on to become a box-office smash thanks to the inevitable media outcry.
The story follows a variety of characters who are introduced individually with title cards akin to reading a programme at the theatre. The main players include police officer Burke (Matt Moore), the archetypal humble hero engaged to the beautiful Mary Barton (Jane Gail); high society-type and head of the Citizen's League Willaim Trubus (William Welsh); and Mary's sister Lorna (Ethel Grandin), who is hustled by pimp Bill Bradshaw (William Cavanaugh) into joining his brothel. Trubus is at the head of the prostitute ring, and along with his go-between (Howard Crampton), a small gang of heavies and thugs, and a nifty, stolen invention that works like an early wire-tap, makes a fortune in kidnapping and selling women for sex.
Although the subject matter is controversial, the action depicted on screen is certainly not. The film spends a long time showing us the inner workings of the prostitute ring, from the bottom to the very top, which gives the film a clinical, procedural feel, although it keeps its characters at a distance. There are no scenes that even suggest what these women are exposed to, so we get to witness them crying in an empty room a lot. But this is captivating stuff at times, not only tapping into its audience's desire to see something forbidden, but helping define cinematic narrative as a whole. Some flashy techniques, such as stop-motion and camera glides, prove that people were developing these styles long before D.W. Griffith. It's certainly primitive, but demonstrates a remarkable maturity for its age, with even the actors dumping the wide-eyed overacting so popular in silent cinema for something all the more subtle.
Based on Dennis Lehane's short story Animal Rescue, and re-locating the action from the author's beloved Boston to the chilly streets of Brooklyn, The Drop is a disappointingly familiar film that shows a lot of promise in its build-up, but one that will most likely be best remembered for being the last screen performance of James Gandolfini. While the movie is hardly a fitting swansong to the actor's tragically short career, there is promise for future generations in the performance of lead Tom Hardy, who plays his deceptively dim bartender with an extremely subtle complexity, only hinting at the real man who lies beneath his shuffled walk and soft voice.
Formerly respected criminal 'Cousin' Marv (Gandolfini) now spends his time behind the scenes at his eponymous bar, while his actual cousin Bob (Hardy) pours the drinks and keep the regulars in high spirits. The bar is a convenient locale for local gangsters to lay their 'drops' - small amounts of cash that are locked in a safe ready for whoever is destined to collect it. When the bar is robbed by masked gunmen, the efficient Chechen mobsters who run the operation are suspicious and demand that Marv and Bob locate their money. So far, so relatively formulaic - 2012's rather disappointing Killing Them Softly covered similar ground.
The Drop is at its best when it hints at these characters' shady pasts and real character - traits these men may have embraced in their past, but have since been suppressed or subdued by new powers. The performances are magnificent all round, and special mention must go to Matthias Schoenaerts, who proves a truly menacing presence as Eric Deeds, the lonesome brute who comes into the picture after Bob finds a beaten puppy in the rubbish bin of Nadia (Noomi Rapace), Eric's former girlfriend. Bob and Nadia form a relationship, possibly out of mutual feelings of disenchantment or perhaps because they both simply care for the animal. Deeds is an intimidating and unnerving manipulator, and Schoenaerts is part of a trio of non-American actors playing American roles astonishingly well here - he's Belgian, Hardy is English, and Rapace is Swedish.
The multiple plot threats naturally lead to a suitably bloody finale, where we learn what really makes these people tick and operate with such efficiency. But for all it's stylish direction and vibrant screenplay by Lehane himself, a disappointingly cliched final scene betrays much of what came before. Up to this point, it is an interesting study of coming to terms with being the kind of man you wish you weren't. To offer salvation to a character who has just accepted this very thing is a simplistic and easy path to take, especially when the build-up is bolstered by an observant eye for detail and thick layer of cynicism, painting it's Winter greys broadly. This contradiction makes the film quite ordinary, when it could have been a compelling study of the insecurity of thugs and the circle of violence that surrounds them.
Boasting a wacky title and a wackier plot, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension was always tailored for cult success. Naturally, it bombed at the box office and left critics befuddled, but now has an army of loyal fans behind it. The main problem with the film is that it's far too aware of his cult fate, constantly striving to be that more out-there with its kitschy sets, crazy outfits and zippy one-liners. It tells the story of Buckaroo Banzai (Peter Weller), a neurosurgeon, test pilot, physicist and lead singer of a rock band, who, while testing his new jet car, manages to cross into the 8th dimension with the help of a device called the 'oscillation overthruster'.
Upon learning of Banzai's success, Dr. Emilio Lizardo (John Lithgow), who was at the helm of a failed experiment using the overthruster in 1938, breaks out of a home for the criminally insane. His experiment left him only half-way through the dimension, during which time an alien named Lord John Whorfin managed to take over his mind. Whorfin is the leader of the reptilian Red Lectroids, who were banished into the 8th dimension by the Black Lectroids, a friendlier alien race who sound like rastafarians. Banzai's exploits alerts them all, and, with the help of the Hong Kong Cavaliers, his gang of ass-kicking musicians/scientists, and a girl who has caught his eye (Ellen Barkin), Banzai is caught up in a race against time to save the planet.
This is quite clearly a movie not to be taken seriously. Lines such as "evil pure and simple by way of the eighth dimension!" are spoken with tongue poking out of cheek, and Lithgow's knowingly ridiculous Italian accent gives Nicolas Cage a run for his money. While certainly fun, it tries to be too many things at once, be it a romance, sci-fi, an action movie, a comedy, a satire or a spoof, it doesn't fully deliver in any of these areas. The heightened self-awareness can often leave you with the feeling that you're being left out of the joke, with the faux-trailer during the closing credits - that may have happened had the film not bombed - reinforcing this idea. Fans will argue that I 'don't get it', and I probably don't, but I certainly enjoyed it's camp aesthetic, amusing one-liners, and enormous cast of talented character actors.
Bob Hoskins' performance in Mona Lisa is usually highly praised and spoken in the same breath as his portrayal of hood boss Harold Shand in The Long Good Friday (1980). But apart from their shady dealings within the British criminal underworld, their characters couldn't be more different. Where Harold was an old-fashioned, respectable gangster who had excelled in his business now looking to go straight, Mona Lisa's George is a petty crook fresh out of a long stretch in prison. They are both fascinating, detailed portrayal's, but I feel George is the more complex performance, serving as a sad reminder of the fact that the world lost one of it's finest actors last year.
Thrust back into a world that seems to evolved without him, George manages to land a job driving call girls from client to client. His first customer is Simon (Cathy Tyson), a beautiful, upper-end call girl who clashes with George's bull-headed personality. She gives him money to buy some decent clothes, and he shows up in a Hawaiian shirt and leather jacket. With time, their differences become their bond, and Simone asks George to help her find her old friend, a young girl named Cathy (Kate Hardie), who is still in the hands of a sadistic pimp (played by The Wire's Clarke Peters). Meanwhile, George's old boss Denny Mortwell (Michael Caine) is suspicious of their activities and demands that George provide information on Simone.
The movie doesn't go over-the-top with its depiction of the capital's seedy underbelly, but is far more subtle in the way it plays on our expectations. We're all aware of the presence of prostitutes in practically every town in the country, but do we ever really consider what they spend their money on? How they are treated? Where do they sleep at night? We glimpse the true barbarism behind the red lights here, something that George finds difficult to deal with. However, the film is by no means grim, with an excellent script by director Neil Jordan and David Leland providing many amusing moments, particularly in the exchanges between George and his detective story-loving friend Thomas (Robbie Coltrane).
The performances are excellent all round. Hoskins is a rather loveable lunk, proving to be almost insistent at drawing unwanted attention to himself and Simone; at complete odds with this new world he stumbles across. He's the type of guy who asks for a cup of tea at a strip club. Tyson too (what happened to her?) projects real vulnerability under her mask of confidence and beauty. When the movie shifts from drama to thriller in the last third, Caine becomes a menacing presence with a unnerving lack of emotion. All the filth we witness is all just business to him. By the end, as what I initially thought was a character-driven relationship drama turned into something else entirely, the film had subverted my expectations so much that I had to just sit back and admire.
Set in New York during 1981, the year in which the city recorded its highest crime rate, A Most Violent Year evokes the American cinema of the 1970's - brutally unsentimental and strictly character-driven. There are no sweeping shots of Times Square or children playing in water squirting from a busted fire hydrant; this is snowy and industrial, and slower and more thoughtful than it's rather shoddy title suggests. It's also bolstered by some impressive performances, with lead Oscar Isaac continuing his recent star-making yet modest run of late, again proving that he is Lon Chaney's natural successor to the 'man of a thousand faces' tag with another chameleon-esque performance.
Yet the slow pace and brooding intensity doesn't quite deliver towards the end, offering a predictable and easy resolution compared to the memorable finale I was expecting. Isaac plays immigrant Abel Morales, who is Abel in both name and execution, riding high on the top of a newly-built oil company while his murky competitors snarl at his success. With corruption infesting the entire city from every corner, Assistant District Attorney Lawrence (David Oyelowo) is breathing down his neck, only Abel is trying his best to keep on the straight and narrow. The father of his wife, Anna (Jessica Chastain), belonged to a different generation, one that succeeded through violence and intimidation, exactly the kind of reputation Abel is trying to shake.
In a bit to surpass his competitors, Abel and his lawyer Andrew Walsh (Albert Brooks) strike a deal with a group of Jewish Hasidim to purchase land that will allow him to ship in his product directly from the dock. He is given a week to honour the contract and pay a hefty sum, and the land is his. Only his competitors have different ideas, and Abel suspects one, or all, of them are behind the recent truck hijackings that have left his drivers, namely fellow immigrant Julian (Elyes Gabel), shook up. The union are soon on his back to arm his employees so they may have a better chance at defending themselves, but Abel wants no blood on his hands. With pressure coming from the D.A., his rivals, the Teamsters and his wife, Abel must survive the week before his empire crumbles.
With its dialogue-heavy meetings in barber shops and warehouses and the sight of Isaac in a huge camel-hair coat, comparisons to classics gangster films, notably The Godfather (1972), are obvious. But this is a study of business, and the film comes alive with a hushed conversation more than it does with its sporadic bursts of violence. Technically, it's tightly-controlled and immaculate, with director J.C. Chandor wisely choosing not to score the film with 80's synth and give everyone a mullet, but instead preferring a more lived-in feel. However, too often does the story seem unbelievable and contradictory for such a polished film, faltering at the pay-off when the build-up suggested something special. If I gave half-stars in my review ratings then this would certainly earn itself one, but it will have to settle for 3 out of 5 for now.
With the idea of Jason Voorhees as a supernatural presence firmly established in the previous film, Friday the 13th Part VII introduces a new foe for the masked brute in the form of Tina Shepard (Lar Park-Lincoln), a young girl with telekinetic abilities. The character of Tommy Jarvis, who has been played by a multitude of actors such as Corey Feldman and Thom Mathews in previous instalments, sadly doesn't return, so Jason once again 'meets his match'. The telekinesis angle, however, is the only change to the formula. So, for a sixth time, we get to watch the same film all over again for a tedious 90 minutes.
After watching her father drown when her then-unknown abilities causes the dock he is stood on to collapse into the water, Tina returns to Camp Crystal Lake with her mother (Susan Blu) and Dr. Crews (Weekend at Bernie's (1989) Terry Kiser) years later to undergo psychiatric treatment. Crews claims to be helping Tina overcome her emotional abilities and uncontrollable powers, but his questionable methods raise her suspicions. Naturally, a bunch of horny teenagers arrive to party, only to be on the receiving end of Jason's (Kane Hodder) wrath after he is accidentally resurrected from the lake he was left in by Tommy Jarvis at the end of the previous film.
While the sixth movie, Jason Lives (1986), was probably the most entertaining entry into the series thanks to its tongue-in-cheek humour and inventive bloodshed, Part VII plays it straight but manages to be neither scary or particularly gory. The geek, rich bitch, jock and virgin stereotypes are all here as expected, and watching them get bumped off one-by-one is usually the only bit of enjoyment to be squeezed out of this franchise. But here, the pay-off is never satisfying enough. Newcomer Hodder (who would go on to be the first to play Jason more than once) certainly has the physical presence, but his Jason is more clinical and less fun (although the sleeping bag death is a corker). If you have seen any other entry into the series, then you've pretty much seen this one too.
To anyone who believes that both the mockumentary and vampire genres have been done to death and have nothing else to offer need look no further than What We Do in the Shadows, the blood-sucking comedy from Kiwi duo Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Concords) and Taika Waititi (Eagle Vs. Shark (2007)). While lampooning the recent Twlight-inspired vampire craze has been done already with the dreadful Vampires Suck (2010), What We Do... manages to be both hilarious and endlessly creative with its take on the genre, managing to deliver some genuine (and surprising) scares along the way.
Uber-tidy vampire Viago (Waititi) resides in his decaying mansion with his fellow fang-bearers, Vladislav (Clement), a torture-and-seduction type who was dubbed Vlad the Poker in his heyday, the slobbish Deacon (Jonathan Brugh) who is deluded about his own physical attractiveness, and Nosferatu-lookalike Petyr (Ben Fransham), an 8000-year old who doesn't take too kindly at being awoken from his coffin. They bicker about washing the dishes, go to clubs but can't get in without the bouncers extending them an invitation, and occasionally exchange insults with the local pack of werewolves, led by the polite Anton (Rhys Darby), who reminds his fellow wolves that they're "werewolves, not swearwolves!" Their routine life is shaken by the freshly-turned Nick (Cori Gonzalez-Macuer) and his human friend Stu (Stu Rutherford).
Some scenes border on genius - the set-piece involving a terrified and still-human Nick being led to believe he's eating maggots ("I stole that from The Lost Boys,") and chased around the dark and endless mansion by the teleporting and shape-shifting trio achieves more excitement and frights than any full-blooded horror can hope to muster. It mocks and homages the genre, answering questions such as what would vampires search for on the internet? Virgins and sun-rises, obviously. As the blabbermouth Nick inadvertently sets a vampire hunter on their trails and the loveable Stu shows the housemates the delights of modern technology, the film becomes a sweet portrayal of friendship and learning to embrace, or in this case, tolerate diversity. The funniest film I've seen in a long time.
Tom Wolfe's sprawling novel about the aftershocks of a hit-and-run in 1980's New York set out to capture the corruption and self-promotion that seemed to dominate the decade, with every power player in the city, and every hanger-on trying to achieve personal triumph, latching on to the media and cultural frenzy to benefit their own personal agenda. It's a remarkable novel; bleakly hilarious but meticulously detailed. A movie adaptation was always going to be dangerous territory, and Brian De Palma's resulting film, that flopped both critically and commercially, is a confused mess. The complete failure of the film may be somewhat cruel and not wholly deserved, but De Palma goes for all-out comedy, failing to grasp Wolfe's subtle satire completely.
Tom Hanks plays self-styled 'master of the universe' Sherman McCoy, a Wall Street broker who enjoys every material comfort that life can offer, living in his huge apartment with his ditsy wife Judy (Kim Cattrall). During an eventful night with his mistress Maria Ruskin (Melanie Griffith), they take a wrong turn while heading back to her apartment and end up in South Bronx. Sherman gets out of the car to clear the road when he is approach by two black youths, and a misunderstanding leads to Ruskin accidentally running one of them over. They flee the scene, but once the story of a rich white man almost killing a poor black kid breaks, the likes of Reverend Bacon (John Hancock), a Harlem religious and political leader, Jewish district attorney Abe Weiss (F. Murray Abraham) and hard-drinking journalist Peter Fallow (Bruce Willis) rear their heads to twist the ongoing shit-storm to their own benefit.
Despite some nice tracking shots and sets that really do capture the tacky glamour of the 80's, the movie's biggest downfall is the casting. The two leads, Hanks and Willis, are woefully miscast. McCoy is a loathsome character, a WASP-ish high-roller in an increasingly capitalist country, but Hanks is one of the most likeable actors around. He looks visibly uncomfortable in a thinly-written role, and only takes control of his character in a scene in which he clears his apartment by unloading a shotgun played mainly for laughs, which at this stage of his career was Hanks's shtick. Fallow in the novel is a manipulative con-man, twisting the unravelling story through his newspaper in order to keep his job and make a nice paycheck along the way. But De Palma only seems to have picked up on his heavy drinking, meaning that Willis swings a bottle around and narrates the story, playing the role of spoon-feeder without playing an active role in story or convincing as someone who could get to his position.
But then again, De Palma's movie doesn't exist in the real world. Arguably, the ensemble of characters in Wolfe's novel were caricatures, but they were well-rounded characters, and being inside their heads meant that we could understand their motives, something the movie entirely ignores. So we get the likes of Bacon, Weiss, lawyer Tom Killian (Kevin Dunn) and Assistant District Attorney Kramer (Saul Rubinek), all key players in the novel, reduced to scowling or bumbling onlookers, while McCoy squirms for our amusement and Fallow tells us what we're supposed to be thinking. Occasionally its an all-out pantomime, which would be forgiveable it was funny or insightful. Yet when Wolfe calls for pantomime at the climax, the movie delivers a ridiculous speech spoken by Judge White (Morgan Freeman), informing us that decency is what your grandmother taught you.
I remember that back in the mid-90's, when Tarantino-mania was in full swing, the motor-mouthed former video store clerk-turned-auteur was always surrounded by controversy. His two movies, Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction were portrayed as cruel, violent and sadistic by the media, while movie critics swooned over his pulpy, reference-heavy characters and innovative dialogue. Over 20 years later, Tarantino's films seem laughably mild compared to the casual ultra-violence of most 18-rated movies regularly released today. But while Reservoir Dogs can arguably be dismissed as a marvellously scripted and meticulously acted rip-off of City on Fire (1987), Pulp Fiction seems as fresh as the day it was released.
The black-suited duo of Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winfield (Samuel L. Jackson), and the misty-eyed gangster's moll Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) have been reduced to movie icons, adorning the walls of students and making it easy to forget just how well written they are. Tarantino is fascinated by the humdrum of these casual killers' lives, and their conversations about cheeseburgers, foot-massages and what constitutes a miracle sparkle with invention, intelligence and laugh-out-loud humour. It makes these cartoon characters, who seem they have been ripped straight from the pages of a book found in a dime-store book shop, seem real. Even though they have just shot two unarmed men in cold blood, you would still want to buy them a cup of coffee and pick their brains.
Pulp Fiction, as I'm sure you already know, tells three intertwining stories out of chronological order. After successfully obtaining a briefcase belonging to their boss, hit-man Vincent Vega is given the responsibility of looking after the big man's wife, Mia, for the night. He takes her to a retro diner where they talk pop culture and dance to Chuck Berry, and the night's events then take an unexpected turn. Travolta makes for an astonishingly sweet killer and heroin addict, and this story in particular sizzles with sexy dialogue and real chemistry between Travolta and Thurman. The now-infamous scene of an improvised adrenaline shock still has the power to make you wince, while remaining funny and utterly absurd all at the same time.
The second story, 'The Gold Watch', focuses on ageing boxer Butch (Bruce Willis), who after failing to follow thorough with his role in a thrown boxing match - organised by Vincent's boss Marcellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) - flees to the safety of a hotel room and into the arms of his lover Fabienne (Maria de Medeiros), who he intends on whisking overseas along with his wad of stolen loot. However, upon realising that Fabienne has failed to pack the gold watch handed down to him through many generations and eventually by his father's friend Captain Koons (Christopher Walken), he must return home to reclaim it. The events that transpire are some of the most outlandish work Tarantino has ever done, filled with gunfire, mutilation, rape, and a gimp. Such relentless brutality may have been off-putting, but Tarantino keeps you reassured that it's okay to laugh at what you're seeing, that it's only a movie. It's a textbook lesson in black comedy.
The narrative then jumps back in time to Vincent and Jules in the aftermath of the hit seen at the start of the movie. After an extremely gory accident, they are forced off the road and seek the hospitality of Jimmie (played by Tarantino himself). They hire professional fixer Winston Wolf (Harvey Keitel), who races against the clock to clean up the mess before Jimmie's wife arrives home from a night shift. The film climaxes at the diner shown in the opening scene, as Vincent and Jules's quiet breakfast is interrupted by a husband and wife stick-up team (Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer). The third segment is the funniest and features the most memorable dialogue, as Winston tries to motivate an objectionable Vincent ("pretty please, with a cherry on top, clean the fucking car,"), and Jules educates his new foe's following the life-altering miracle he believes he has just witnessed.
Featuring highly on practically every 'best of' list from 1994 to the present, Pulp Fiction needs no introduction and I doubt it ever will. Though I have enjoyed all of Tarantino's movies with the exception of 2007's tedious Death Proof (though it fares better when viewed in its Grindhouse entirety), I don't rate him as a truly great film-maker, as I don't feel he has ever managed to shake his compulsion to homage. But Pulp Fiction is undoubtedly a masterpiece, like nothing else made before or since (though many attempts have been made in vain). A thrilling exercise in style and substance, beneficial to cinema as a whole and responsible for re-igniting a few careers on the way. I cannot see Tarantino ever topping his achievements here, but then again his movies never fail to surprise me.
Super Mario Bros. (1993). Street Fighter (1994). Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001). Resident Evil (2002). The list of movies adapted from video games that make you want to tear the skin from your own face goes on and on. Still, without a notable exception to the rule, producers keep greenlighting these films, and stars still line up to appear in them. If any producer was capable of bucking the trend, it's action connoisseur Jerry Bruckheimer, who somehow managed to turn a theme park ride that centred around cinema's most floppable subject (pirates), and turned it into a billion-dollar, Oscar-nominated franchise.
While Prince of Persia underperformed commercially and didn't end up on any critics' annual top 10 lists, it's the best video game adaptation I've seen (although that isn't saying much). The plot centres around prince Dastan (a six-packed Jake Gyllenhaal), who after being plucked from the street as a child after the King (Ronald Pickup) was impressed by his moxie, now fights and laughs alongside his adopted father's blood sons, Tus (Richard Coyle) and Garsiv (Toby Kebbell). He is at the front of an attack on Alamut, who Dastan's uncle Nizam (Ben Kingsley) has accused of selling weapons to their enemies. After taking the city, he meets the beautiful princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton), but soon finds himself on the run, wrongly accused of his father's murder and in possession of a magic dagger able to control time.
Director Mike Newell is quite the opposite of what you would call an auteur. He's a sort of jack-of-all-trades, directing movies of all genres and of varying quality, from the awful, foppish comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), to the impressive gangster flick Donnie Brasco (1997), and he even had a dabble in the most successful film series of all time with Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), one of the best of the franchise. His erratic's rub off on Prince of Persia. Writers Boaz Yakin, Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard are wise enough to deliver an actual story rather than simply trying to replicate the charms of the video game, and the chest-pumping antics of the brothers' strained relationship keep things intriguing enough, even though we're stuck with the drippy (but undeniably sexy) Tamina for the most part.
It suffers when trying to deliver a breakneck, or even fathomable, action scene. Though Gyllenhaal nails the part - he brings a cocky, Errol Flynn-esque charm to the role - his dust-up's are confusing and messy. The sandy streets of Persia and the scorched deserts surrounding it are lavish, and touches of CGI can make the screen light up. It sometimes it achieves this, but overuses it to the point where the visuals become bloated and unreal. I've only seen the game played once or twice, but I could see why the series is so popular, and while the film certainly catches the look of the game and provides a few wink-wink in-jokes for the gamers, it lacks the games breathlessness. Things picks up slightly when comic relief Alfred Molina and his racing ostrich's show up, and it often feels swashbuckling in the old-fashioned sense, but this is formulaic, instantly forgettable stuff.
When the announcement was made of a feature-length adaptation of Michael Bond's beloved Paddington bear - the polite, marmalade-loving, bespectacled bear from deepest, darkest Peru - I'm sure the common assumption was that disaster was afoot. How do you take a character so steeped in nostalgia, some distinctively old-fashioned, and so quintessentially British, and translate it for a modern audience of children raised on multi-film franchises, CGI and fat suits? Based on the strength of the film's finished product, you employ a young, ambitious director with a real talent for visual flair.
His name is Paul King, and his only previous film, Bunny and the Bull (2009), was a funny, sweet odyssey into the weird, similar in many ways to his most popular TV work, The Mighty Boosh. Paddington is an enormous step up into the mainstream, and could have easily been yet another cheap and formulaic Brit-com; films that are churned out quicker and lazier than they are placed in Asda's bargain bin. Yet despite it's thread-bare plot and familiar genre tropes, Paddington not only offers excitement in some slapstick set-pieces that will surely please the kids, but King makes the film an interesting analogy of immigration, a hot topic in modern society.
When Paddington (voiced with adorable naivety by Ben Whishaw) arrives at Paddington station, leaving his Aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton) and Uncle Pastuzo (Michael Gambon) after an earthquake destroys his home, the image of the tiny bear, adorned with a sign around his neck asking any friendly Londoners to "please look after this bear, thank you", brings to mind the images of poverty-stricken immigrants arriving at Ellis Island in the 1900's as much as it does the child evacuees during World War II, Bond's original inspiration. He is taken in by inner city statistical analyst Henry Brown (Hugh Bonneville) and his wife, artist Mary (Sally Hawkins), and is soon causing chaos in their home.
Evil taxidermist Millicent (Nicole Kidman) shows up about a third of the way in, intent on capturing and stuffing the rare talking bear, teaming up with grumpy (and randy) next-door neighbour Mr. Curry (Peter Capaldi) in what is the only contrived plot-thread of the movie. Her purpose is to be Paddington's antagonist, and it's during these scenes that the film stutters. When the focus is on the curious bear's adventures and pratfalls, and his relationship with the Brown family, this is an incredibly warm, visually engaging experience. It's peppered with wonderful moments, such as Paddington's scribbled addresses appearing out of the London skyline and the ever-changing wallpaper, which blossoms and fades to fit in with the film's various moods. This is a delightful surprise, and I'm eager to see where King will go from here.
Paul is plagued by visions of having sex with a well-endowed woman and his hands covered in blood, images he doesn't understand and which are hampering his efforts to get words onto paper. He calls for an assistant, and he is sent the young and beautiful Linda (Linda Hayden) who begins to efficiently type up his dictations. Yet something is not quite right with Linda - she sends Paul's faithful housekeeper away, carries sex toys and a large knife in her suitcase, and seems to open herself up sexually to Paul only to repel his advances.
