Disney's animated version of Rudyard Kipling's collection of works The Jungle Book was released just one year after Walt Disney's death, and kick-started a period of mediocrity for the company that produced some of the most beloved films of all time (until its reemergence as a powerhouse once again in 1989 with The Little Mermaid). They now dominate the marketplace, and it would be easy to despise the multi-billion dollar corporation if much of their recent output just wasn't so good. While they are certainly progressive and forward-thinking (Zootopia was a fascinating social study of our times), they continue to hark back to their Golden Age with live-action versions of Sleeping Beauty (2014's Maleficent) and Cinderella (2015), and now one of their most adored works, The Jungle Book.
Jon Favreau's re-imagining of Wolfgang Reitherman's classic follows much of the original's narrative. Mowgli the "man-cub" (Neel Sethi) is a young boy living in the jungle, raised in a wolf pack and watched over by the wise and respected panther Bagheera (Ben Kingsley). The arrival of Shere Khan (Idris Elba), a terrifying Bengal tiger with a hatred of man, alerts Bagheera, who whisks Mowgli off into the deep jungle, where the youngster befriends lazy and care-free sloth bear Baloo (Bill Murray). Encountering many dangers along the way, including the hypnotic anaconda Kaa (Scarlett Johnansson) and giant orangutan King Louie (Christopher Walken), Mowgli must decide whether or not his place remains with the friends who raised him, or with his own kind.
While it's hardly Christopher Nolan territory, Favreau's version of the story is certainly darker. Rather than trying to replicate the upbeat tone of the original, it cuts out the majority of the songs and keeps things more grounded, or at least as much as a film featuring talking animals can be. It achieves this with some simply astonishing effects - so good that it's easy to forget or even tell you're watching CGI - and pitch-perfect voice acting. Elba will no doubt terrify any young viewers, and understandably so, but the film belongs to Murray and Walken. They get the two songs in the film (The Bare Necessities and I Wanna Be Like You) and are easily the most memorable characters. Phil Harris and Louise Prima would have surely approved.
Yet the question hovering above the head of Jon Favreau's The Jungle Book, as it does with many remakes, is the reason for its existence. The 1967 version charmed youngsters for decades so is this a pointless attempt to bring the story to a new generation of children? Have children become so spoiled with computer generated effects that they would be unable to see the charm and wonder in something so painstakingly and thoughtfully hand-drawn? It's a depressing thought, and one that bothered me for a while after seeing the film. With any hope, this will inspire kids to seek out the original and love it for all that it is, for Favreau's film is exciting and often astonishing to look at, and certainly the best of Disney's recent live action re-dos.
The late Richard Attenborough acknowledges the troubles with the biography genre from the get-go with his finest film as director, Gandhi. "No man's life can be encompassed in one telling," the opening credits state, "what can be done is to be faithful in spirit to the record and try to find one's way to the heart of the man." Yet Gandhi manages to achieve more than most biography's by not only portraying the famous historical events that the man lived through, of which no doubt helped form his own ideals, but by showing us the real man behind the speeches and the fasting, who enjoyed spending time at peace with his loving wife or operating his spinning wheel.
Wisely avoiding Mahatma Gandhi's early life, we are first properly introduced to the man as he rides a first-class carriage in South Africa. He is thrown off for being a non-white, even though he possesses a first-class ticket and is a practising lawyer, and this event provokes him to form a non-violent civil rights movement. Through sheer will and stubbornness, the government eventually relents and passes laws benefiting the residing Indians, allowing Gandhi to return to India in the process. When he arrives in his native country as a hero, he witnesses the same prejudicial brutality at the hands of the occupying British Empire. Through more non-violent protests, Gandhi manages to unite millions against the British, causing a divide between the Hindus and Muslims in the process.
Gandhi was a labour of love for Attenborough, who fought for over a decade to get to the film made. Alec Guinness was rumoured to be set for the role of Gandhi when the movie was still in the hands of David Lean, and after seeing Ben Kingsley's portrayal of the great man, such an idea now seems utterly preposterous. Kinglsey's performance is without a doubt one of the finest embodiments of a public figure in history, not only settling for a good impression and an uncanny resemblance, but convincing to the point that you believe Gandhi himself is on screen. It's a quiet, dignified performance, often channelling Gandhi's gentle charisma, shrewd wit and fierce intelligence without saying anything at all.
For all it's technical impressiveness - the film is undeniably beautiful, shot with a grandiose David Lean-esque epic feel with extra's numbered in the thousands - it occasionally plods. Although the events in South Africa no doubt shaped Gandhi's attitudes and spirit, we spend far too much time there, and this doesn't allow the complex events in India to unravel with the time and care that they warrant. The aftermath of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, the growing political and social unease between the Hindus and Muslims, and the events that led to Gandhi's assassination are all rushed over the finish line. Without these flaws, Gandhi may have been a masterpiece. However it is still an enlightening experience, and the praise lavished upon Kingsley (as well as his Oscar) is wholly justified.
There is a moment during the climax of Ridley Scott's latest epic where your mind will drift to the image of a bearded Charlton Heston waving his giant staff and parting the Red Sea in Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956). Exodus: Gods and Kings tells the story of Moses and Ramses, the familiar Old Testament tale about two former brothers-in-arms fighting on opposite sides of the battle; the former for the Hebrews, long enslaved by the ruling Egyptians, and the latter recently becoming the new Pharaoh in the wake of his father's death. It's the type of story that - even if the build-up lacks dramatics - is destined to be spectacular at the climax, as if there's on thing we do well in the modern age, it's spectacle.
Yet Exodus is an alarmingly bland and stuttering attempt to paint a revisionist's view of an age-old tale, resulting in a mixture of Ben-Hur (1959) and Gladiator (2000) without the scope or entertainment factor. Even Christian Bale, an actor usually of such ferocious intensity, fails to squeeze any dimensions out of Moses, and invites little sympathy during his darkest hours. Scott teases us with his own atheistic views, portraying Moses as a troubled man with possible schizophrenia, an idea which, if fully developed, would have justified this film's existence as a revisionist piece. His personality disorder manifests itself as a mediocre British child actor playing an angry God while Moses skulks on a mountain top, but outside of these moments he is little more than the archetypal command-blaring, sword-waving hero who delivers speeches and observes his men during training montages.
The only one appearing to be having any fun at all is Joel Edgerton, the Aussie actor playing the shaven-headed, bronzed-up Egyptian Pharaoh. Though he is kept at a disappointing distance, he at least manages to bring a little swagger to his performance, regardless of how utterly ridiculous he looks. The bulk of the rest of the cast are also played by Anglo's, all either frustratingly underused or comically miscast (or both). The likes of Sigourney Weaver, John Turturro, Ben Mendelsohn, and every director's favourite go-to ethnic actor Ben Kingsley come and go, making little impact and offering no explanation as to why such familiar faces are required to fill such a role. Aaron Paul no doubt gets the worst deal. His Joshua gets the most screen time outside of Moses and Ramses but does little more than watch in confusion or awe at his leader, depending on how the script wants you to feel at that moment.
As a cinematic spectacle, Scott does manage to occasionally enthral. The early battle scene, which has Moses and Ramses charging as comrades, plays like a check-list of war cliches, and you would find better sword-clanking on TV with Game of Thrones. The ten plagues set-piece is extremely CGI-heavy, but the sweeping shots of the city running red with blood and infested with locusts and disease proves to be a beautiful sight, with Scott determined to offer a rational explanation to the events rather than it being the work of a vengeful God (though the jury is still out with the first-born deaths). This idea wouldn't be such a hindrance if Scott didn't make the rest of the film such a formulaic blockbuster and took the time to go deep into the psyche of Moses and his struggles with his belief in a God he sees as barbaric. But Exodus is neither revisionist piece nor a straight-forward Biblical epic, which is why I found myself longing for the simplicity of DeMille's vision, for at least you know where you stand.
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.
Schindler's List is a film that will no doubt forever grace the endless 'Best Movies' lists trumped up by various organisations and movie magazines. It's serious subject matter, black-and-white photography, rousing score and 'directed by Steven Spielberg' tag has cemented it's status as one of the best American movies of all time. But the more hardened movie-goer will more than likely pick holes in it, and tell you that this in fact not even Spielberg's greatest achievement. Which is why, 21 years after it's release, I decided to revisit Schindler's List, and although I would agree that Spielberg has made better (he did make Jaws (1975) after all), this is still a masterful work, a wonderfully mature step-up for the film-maker who had, up to 1993, leaned towards the visual spectacle of David Lean and Howard Hawks.
The Holocaust is now very much a roll-your-eyes focus for a film-maker, easily passed off as a desperate plea for awards and serious recognition, and the Oscar are routinely stacked with movies portraying this appalling historical event. But Spielberg's movie was the first one brave enough to show it for what it was - a sickening, bloody event that humiliated its victims and where the life of a Jew was worth less than the work the Nazi's could squeeze out of them before they were routinely disposed of. Documentaries such as Night and Fog (1955) and Shoah (1985) hit hard, much more so than in this movie, but Schindler's List feels like a documentary come to life, with Janusz Kaminski's cinematography giving the movie a sense of timelessness.
Liam Neeson is Oskar Schindler, a Czechoslovakian opportunist looking to use cheap Jewish labour during World War II to make him enough money to help him retire a very wealthy man. He employs Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern (Ben Kinsley) to hire his workers and run his factory for him, at first making kitchen utensils to be used in the war. After witnessing the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto under the direction of SS-Untersturmfuhrer Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes), in which many Jews are massacred, Schindler is profoundly affected. He begins to lavish gifts and bribes upon Goeth in order to protect his workers from being murdered, but as the Germans begin to lose the war, Goeth receives the orders to move the Jews from his camp onto Auschwitz.
Made the same year as his CGI blockbuster Jurassic Park, Schindler's List showed an unseen maturity in Spielberg's work. He had made 'serious' films before, but they were always in the style of classic Hollywood; grand, sweeping epics that were generally homages to better directors. Here, Spielberg is invisible, his hand nowhere to be seen until one of the final scenes. This was film-making closer to Italian neo-realism, with hand-held cameras, bleak cinematography, and a glorious lack of sentimentality. Rather than make you weep into a tissue, he has you looking away from the screen in utter shock. Hundreds of naked Jews are humiliated as decisions are made on their ability to work and Goeth coldly shoots workers with a rifle from his balcony before breakfast. In one of its most famous scenes, a group of women are led into a shower room that may just be a gas chamber. It's one of the most terrifying sequences in recent memory.
Spielberg wisely chose relatively unknown actors to fill the roles. Neeson, now inexplicably an action star, brings a complexity to Schindler as he changes between smug womaniser and Nazi suck-up to a man capable of great kindness and selflessness, and the film isn't afraid to show the darker side of his character. Kingsley, who was known for his Oscar-winning role in Gandhi (1982), is Schindler's consciousness, a constant reminder of the atrocities that were being committed outside of Schindler's comfortable bubble. As Amon Goeth, one of cinema's most memorable villains, Ralph Fiennes steals the film. He is a hypocritical, loathsome psychopath, embodying the sense of self-righteousness of the Nazi power trip. He despises the Jews, and preaches about their extermination, yet falls in love with his servant Helen Hirsch (Embeth Davidtz), only to beat her in his disgust.
Although there are better films out there that focus on World War II or the Holocaust, it is of no surprise that this is still one of Spielberg's most revered films. It is a brave, accomplished film that gives you a sense that this was the film the director was always meant to make. However, he seems unable to resist stamping his recognisable dose of sentimentality at the climax, as Schindler breaks down in front of his workers wishing he did that little bit more. It's an unnecessarily slushy scene, a piece of director self-indulgence in what is damn near a perfect film, that, if anything, lessens the brutal impact of what came before. But this is a staunch reminder of the atrocities that humanity is capable of, and, as all great movies do, feels incredibly short at over three hours.
After five movies and one giant superhero mash-up, the Marvel superhero formula is getting as stale as old bread. With the only Marvel stand-alone superhero film to have a sequel (so far - Thor: The Dark World and Captain American: The Winter Soldier are imminent) being Iron Man, did the world really need a third entry into this franchise? More importantly, did we want it? Well, with over $1 billion in the bank and the label of fifth highest grossing film of all time, the answer is an overwhelming yes. The franchise certainly needed a fresh injection of life - Jon Favreau's massively disappointing follow up to his impressive Iron Man (2008) perhaps showed his inexperience as director, though he has stayed on to reprise his role as bodyguard Happy Hogan (looking worryingly bloated). Changes have been made, and although the critics seemed to lap up Iron Man 3, audiences opinions seem strangely polar opposite.
Following the events of The Avengers (2012), Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is suffering from anxiety attacks, and in his restlessness, spends his nights in his basement building a small army of Iron Man suits. America is under attack from a string of bombings by a terrorist known as the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), and after his bodyguard Happy is seriously injured in an attack, Tony makes a personal come-and-get-me message to the shady terrorist. After his home is obliterated by Mandarin's helicopters, Tony finds himself in Tennessee to investigate some potentially linked attacks. All paths seem to lead to AIM, a treatment facility run by Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), a formerly crippled scientist that Tony shunned back in 1999.
Interesting choices for director have always been Marvel's thing, to allow a respected or rookie director a chance to inject their own sensibilities into the familiar superhero film. Sometimes it pays off - Kenneth Branagh's Shakesperian background gave Thor (2011) a certain gravitas when it could have been plain silly. But sometimes it doesn't, such as the choice of Joe Johnston - whose career is a very mixed bag anyway - for Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), which I found rather dull. So for Iron Man 3, in steps Shane Black, 80's buddy-comedy extraordinaire, whose filmography was somewhat re-discovered in fits of nostalgia of late, especially after the excellent Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005). And deservedly so, as Black's obvious talent for writing led to movies such as Lethal Weapon (1987) setting the benchmark for countless buddy movies to follow (and ultimately damage the sub-genre). So Iron Man 3 would bring Tony Stark back down to Earth, allowing a more intimate side to be seen and a chance for the supporting characters to finally make their mark.
It's certainly more down to Earth, with less of Tony Stark's quick-humour and arrogant prancing (which is what we love him for, especially with Downey Jr.). His new foe would finally be a match for him - not just a man in a different sort of Iron Man suit, but a true criminal mastermind that would meet him physically and mentally, in the same way that Bane smashed Batman in The Dark Knight Rises (2012). And after the opening third, Tony Stark is simply Tony Stark. His suits have been all but destroyed, his friends are far away, and the prototype escape suit he is left with is damaged almost beyond repair, so even the trusty JARVIS (voiced by Paul Bettany) isn't there to help. He must now use his wits, but without his suit, he is physically and mentally vulnerable, not helped by the pursuing super soldier Savin (James Badge Dale).
This is where I find that superhero movies get interesting, when the central character is stripped of all his powers and we see the true man (or woman!) underneath. Yet Stark's task is a rather tedious one, trying to put the pieces together of a relatively simplistic yet clumsily executed central plot with the help of a precocious child (played by Ty Simpkins), who just so happens to have an obsession with engineering. Didn't child sidekicks die out in the early 1990's when film-makers realised that no-one likes them? If it is in fact Shane Black's way to give a nod-and-wink to the audience, then there's not really any call for it. This is not a throwback to buddy movies so in-jokes of the like have no place here.
If there's one thing to be said about Black after seeing this, is that he must have balls made of diamonds. Alec Baldwin's character in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) certainly would have employed him in real estate. The decision he made regarding the main villain of the story is one that had the comic-book nerds shaking the foundations of their parents' basements, and one that had me appalled. I cannot say much without revealing the twist, but it's a baffling decision, one that would have been rather clever under different circumstances. It leads to Stark's nemesis being just as dull as previous instalments, which have been the main problem with the franchise. Finally we could have had a bad guy up to Christopher Nolan's standards, but it is side-stepped in favour of something all the more familiar.
Iron Man 3 is a mixed bag. Action-wise, this is the best so far, with excellent CGI work leading to a thrilling climax which includes an army of iron men suits. But the humour - Black's forte and something that has been spot-on in the first two movies - seems forced and, at times, awkward. James Rhodes (Don Cheadle), Tony's best friend and frequenter of War Machine, has a larger role, but the chemistry and banter between the two lifelong friends is just not there. They are certainly no Riggs and Murtaugh. It also outstays its welcome, stretching credibility as far as it will go to the point of the ridiculous (since when has Tony Stark been Jason Bourne?), but it is a definite improvement of Iron Man 2 (2010), employing a more interesting internal struggle for Stark than mere daddy issues, and a more satisfying climax. As a whole, Iron Man 3 was undoubtedly a let-down for me, quite shocking given the talent involved, but my eagerness to see the film and my unquenched thirst for superhero movies proves that Marvel's formula still works even if some of their output just isn't up to scratch.
There must be something unifying in our globes collective consciousness, as 2011 saw two films that looked back at the cinematic past. Strangely, it took a French film maker, Michel Hazanavicius, to release a movie that pays homage to early, silent American cinema (The Artist). Conversely, Martin Scorsese, a well-known cinephile, delights with his love of early European silent cinema, in his often beautiful 'children's' film, Hugo.
Set in 1930's Paris, the main focus of this cinematic love is the work of the first movie magician, Georges Melies. We are introduced to Hugo (Asa Butterfield), a young man whose father left him a automaton after his death. It was a project that they worked on together, but never finished it. Hugo's main mission is to get the object working. As an orphan, Hugo hides in the rafters of a train station, maintaining the clocks that his drunken uncle used to do. After befriending a young girl, Isabelle (Chloe Moretz), he finally gets the automaton working, and it opens up a mystery that leads to the forgotten cinema of Melies (Ben Kingsley), now working on a store in the station.
The film shows love for silent cinema, and particularly the magic of Melies. Sacha Baron Cohen's station inspector is occasionally funny, and his character seems to be filtered through both Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau, and Jacques Tati's Monsieur Hulot, but he just doesn't seem to really progress at all, and feels almost like a filler character. Scorsese, like Robert Zemekis and Bob Gale before, reference that iconic Harold Lloyd moment in Safety Last! (1923), as Hugo hangs from a clock face.
Like so many others who speculate about the choices of Oscar nominations, Hugo, I feel, is not a contender for the best picture Oscar. There were some far better films produced in 2011. That said, the film is beautiful, accomplished , and often fun. Also, the resurgence of interest in a forgotten father of cinema, is completely touching, and leaves a warm feeling in the heart. Unfortunately, I did not see this in 3D; as far as I am aware, Scorsese uses it to brilliant degrees, so perhaps this would have made the experience perfect (despite the fact that I care not for the dimensions of 3.
Jon Favreau's re-imagining of Wolfgang Reitherman's classic follows much of the original's narrative. Mowgli the "man-cub" (Neel Sethi) is a young boy living in the jungle, raised in a wolf pack and watched over by the wise and respected panther Bagheera (Ben Kingsley). The arrival of Shere Khan (Idris Elba), a terrifying Bengal tiger with a hatred of man, alerts Bagheera, who whisks Mowgli off into the deep jungle, where the youngster befriends lazy and care-free sloth bear Baloo (Bill Murray). Encountering many dangers along the way, including the hypnotic anaconda Kaa (Scarlett Johnansson) and giant orangutan King Louie (Christopher Walken), Mowgli must decide whether or not his place remains with the friends who raised him, or with his own kind.
