Review #958: 'Snowpiercer' (2013)

Studio interference is certainly nothing new in the movie business, but it's sickening to think that, with all the disastrous films that have been the result of suits sticking their noses into an artists vision, an experienced and extremely successful studio head like Harvey Weinstein can demand edits on a finished product that had already tested well with audiences. And so, Snowpiercer limped onto the big screen in selected cinemas and performed well with the small audiences that were actually able to see it, and is still unreleased in many countries, including here in the UK.

The English-language debut of genre director Joon Ho Bong, Snowpiercer mixes post-apocalyptic spectacle with social and political commentary with equally mixed success. Set on board of the eponymous, self-sufficient train that navigates the globe once every 365 days in a world thrown into a new ice age by our attempts to halt global warming, our scruffy hero Curtis (a steely-eyed Chris Evans) has spent the last 17 years cramped inside of the lower-class carriage. Fed nothing but 'protein bars', which consist of questionable ingredients, and occasionally having their young children taken from them by armed guards, Curtis, along with leader Gilliam (John Hurt), plan a revolt.

The revolt will hopefully lead them to the front carriage, where the upper classes live in luxury and with plenty of space. Backed by his loyal second-in-command Edgar (Jamie Bell), Curtis plans to release security expert Namgoong (Kang-Ho Song) to aid his path through the many carriages, eventually gaining control of the engine held sacred to most. However, their progression is met with resistance by Minister Mason (Tilda Swinton), a Margaret Thatcher-type who demands social order with a small army of masked men with an assortment of nasty weapons, and who answers only to the train's creator, Wilford (Ed Harris).

Snowpiercer is at its best when at its most ferocious. A carriage fight involving Mason's terrifying guards and Curtis's beaten-down group of peasants, played out mostly in darkness, is a moment of nightmarish horror. Evans, having done little of note since he became Captain America, gives it his all throughout, showing us the darker side of his persona now so synonymous with the clean-cut and morally righteous Steve Rogers. However, these injections of ferocity switch to outright comedy within the blink of an eye. Ho Bong has always been good at mood shifts - the swings from comedy to tragedy in his Memories of Murder (2003) is what made the film a masterpiece in my humble opinion - but Snowpiercer struggles to blend these moments together.

Almost immediately after the bloody battle, Curtis finds himself in a classroom teaching 'train babies', where we learn the history of the train and how they are being taught to worship the 'sacred engine'. It is filmed with a Terry Gilliam-esque absurdity, all bizarre angles and close-ups of an over-the-top Alison Pill as the violence turns into slapstick, jarring with the brutality that came before. For the most part, this is grim stuff, and Ho Bong is keen to keep reminding you. Along with the heavy violence throughout, we also get a monologue about eating babies that is too ridiculous to be taken with a straight face. There are some interesting comments regarding the use of fear and chaos to control a populace at the end, but the film doesn't seem to know when and how to finish. A very hit-and-miss experience.


Directed by: Joon Ho Bong
Starring: Chris Evans, Kang-Ho Song, Ed Harris, John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell
Country: South Korea/Czech Republic/USA/France

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #945: 'Fantastic Four' (2015)

Unless you have been living under a rock these past few months or pay little attention to online chatter, Fantastic Four arrived with the heavy stigma of delays, on-set bust-ups, last minute re-shoots, and overwhelmingly negative reviews from both critics and the few people that actually paid to see it. Sadly, the film is every bit as bad as you've heard. The Fantastic Four have had a troublesome history, with Roger Corman's infamous 1994 film never being released at all and Tim Story's colourful but soulless 2005 effort getting a panning from the critics, and Josh Trank's follow-up to the excellent anti-superhero flick Chronicle (2012) carries on this trend, getting lost amidst a forced darkness and a tug-of-war of control between director and producers.

The ambitious Reed Richards (Miles Teller) struggles to get backing for his new teleportation device despite the assistance of his dim but loyal best friend Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell). At a science fair, he is finally noticed by Dr. Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey) and his adopted daughter Sue (Kate Mara), who are also working on a similar device but are struggling to perfect it. Teaming up with rebellious technician Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan) and morbid hacker Victor von Doom (Toby Kebbell), Reed and his crew set out to develop a 'Quantum Gate' which will transport them to another dimension. Fearing their limelight will be stolen by NASA, Reed, Johnny, Ben and Victor suit up and are travel to a mysterious planet covered by a strange energy source. When they return, they are transformed forever.

The young cast do their very best with their often cringe-worthy material, with Teller and Jordan in particular proving charismatic stand-outs. But they are kept apart for the majority of the film and given very little time to bond as a group both before and after the accident that turns them into superheroes. Instead, we get a lot of lonesome brooding and superficial angst during a frustratingly drawn-out build-up, with Mara and Bell given little attention at all. Then the film decides to skip over what is usually the most part of a superhero origin flick - the heroes learning to use their powers - as Reed escapes the compound now controlled by shady supervisor Dr. Allen (Tim Blake Nelson) and the team spending an extended period trying to track him down. After all the procrastinating, the foursome struggle to generate any chemistry at all.

The producers were apparently unsatisfied by Trank's final cut and ordered heavy re-shoots for the film's climax. Never has behind-the-scenes tampering been so obvious in a finished product, as we are given a rushed and confused final set-piece and a film that feels somehow overlong despite a slim 90 minute running time. In a hastily deleted tweet, Twank informed fans that there was a final cut that would have garnered good reviews and improved its terrible box-office return, but we will never know if this is true or not. What we are left with is a limping and unnecessarily grim experience that will hopefully allow the film rights to be passed back to Marvel, who seem to be the only company capable of doing their characters justice. Fantastic Four will no doubt be a irremovable stain on the careers of its talented cast and director.


Directed by: Josh Trank
Starring: Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell, Toby Kebbell, Reg E. Cathey, Tim Blake Nelson
Country: USA/Germany/UK/Canada

Rating: *

Tom Gillespie

Review #715: 'Filth' (2013)

I wanted to get through this entire review without mentioning Trainspotting (1996). But Danny Boyle's British classic was so brimming with dark energy and so tapped in to the Zeitgeist of the 1990's that comparisons are unavoidable when faced with a movie adaptation of an Irvine Welsh novel. The problem with the adaptations that followed Trainspotting - The Acid House (1998) and Ecstasy (2011) - were that they were so caught up in recapturing the spirit and iconic imagery of Trainspotting, that they failed to find a tone of their own, and as a result, were very bad films indeed. Thankfully, with the adaptation of Welsh's most difficult novel, Filth, director Jon S. Baird has found of a verve of his own, and has entrusted much of the film's success to lead star James McAvoy, who is uniformly excellent.

Repulsive bipolar Edinburgh Detective Sergeant Bruce Robinson (McAvoy) spends his time drinking, snorting, shagging and bullying his way through life. When he's not being the despicable racist, homophobic and misogynistic bully that he is, he indulges in what he calls 'the games' - a collection of sociopathic manipulations he projects onto his colleagues and rivals for the upcoming promotion to Detective Inspector. His best friend is soft-spoken doormat Bladesey (Eddie Marsan), a wealthy fellow Freemason who is married to Bunty (Shirley Henderson), a bored housewife who Bruce regularly makes prank phone calls to in the voice of Frank Sidebottom.

There isn't much defining plot to the film, and instead simply follows Bruce on his various self-destructive exploits, such as having rough sex with the wife of a work colleague, forcing an under-age girl to perform oral sex on him or stealing a suspect's inhaler only to repeatedly blow cigarette smoke in his face as a form of effective interrogation. The movie begins with the murder of a Japanese student by a gang of punks led by Gorman (Martin Compston), and Bruce is assigned to the case by his boss Toal (John Sessions). It gives the film a story to build around, but it features very little, and instead we are forced to witness the complete mental deterioration of a truly disturbed, utterly depraved, yet - thanks to McAvoy - highly charismatic man.

If you're easily offended, then this isn't the film for you. Shockingly, the film tones down Bruce's character from Welsh's book, knowing that without a narrator, Bruce could have been so off-putting that he could be beyond audience redemption. So, with McAvoy giving absolutely everything to the role, his bullying and manipulations, regardless of how evil and cruel they are, are hilarious. Knowing his work partner Ray Lennox (Jamie Bell) has a tiny penis, he suggests everyone in the office photocopy their penis and have the girls match the genitalia to the face. The camera pans from penis to self-satisfied face, only to pass Lennox, his face in his hands.

But Filth certainly has its share of dark moments too. As more about Bruce is revealed throughout the film, the clearer his mental illness becomes. Only rookie Amanda Drummond (Imogen Poots) can really see through his outlandish antics, and with her being a woman and all, that drives Bruce even crazier. In the novel, Bruce has a tapeworm growing inside of him that narrates a lot of the book, revealing to the reader more about Bruce's history, but for the film this has been changed to some hallucinatory episodes with his doctor Rossi (Jim Broadbent). These moments didn't work for me, as they seemed forced and trying to recapture some of the 'cold turkey' stylings of Trainspotting, as well are interrupting the manic pace.

While the ending (which is also different from the book) may be a little too much for some people to take, it is certainly consistent with the fast-paced, twisted energy of the movie's first half. It is tragic, amusing and pathetic, much like Bruce himself. Filth is daring cinema, especially for a dark British movie that doesn't revolve around football hooliganism or Danny Dyer. It doesn't try to be forcefully iconic or deliberately provocative, instead relying on and trusting Welsh's twisted and socially aware text. It also has a fine cast to boot, lining up one of the finest displays of British (mainly Scottish) talent in recent memory. It's far too dark a film to grab the attention of the Academy, but McAvoy, an actor I had never really taken to, deserves every award under the sun for his unflinching performance, and Filth deserves to be talked about without a single reference to Trainspotting.


Directed by: Jon S. Baird
Starring: James McAvoy, Imogen Poots, Jamie Bell, Eddie Marsan, Shirley Henderson, Joanne Froggatt, Jim Broadbent, John Sessions
Country: UK

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #259: 'The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn' (2011)

Young and confident investigative journalist Tintin (Jamie Bell) purchases a model boat of the Unicorn, a three-masted sailing ship, from a market, only to be approached by the sinister looking Ivanovich Sakharine (Daniel Craig) who offers him triple the amount he paid for it. He refuses and, along with his trusty dog Snowy, takes the ship home, only to unwittingly coming across a cryptic note that was preserved with the model that mentions a secret involving the mysterious ship and a family line called the Haddocks. Tintin is kidnapped and taken aboard the ship of Sakharine where he finds the drunken Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis), locked in a room with only whisky for company. The two must combine their wits and unravel the mystery of the messages which may lead to them to secret treasure.

The original comic books by Belgian artist Herge, and eventual cartoon series that came from it, have a huge dedicated and passionate fan base that were both eagerly awaiting and dreading Steven Spielberg's re-imagining. Not being a fan myself, I would imagine the fans would be happy with this effort, as although the look of Tintin is certainly very different, the old-school feel of the original works is certainly there. The film combines three old Tintin stories - The Crab with the Golden Claws, The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham's Treasure. This is possibly the film's biggest flaw, as although it certainly looks amazing, and the film has a definite nostalgia-tainted, labour-of-love feel, the story just isn't up to scratch.

The performance-capture animation is without doubt the most close-to-life I've ever come across. It captures every facial movement and the subtle expressions that allow the actors performance to come through the CGI. Jamie Bell injects a likeability into a hero that might have come across as an annoying know-it-all. But the film really belongs to Serkis. Now a veteran of the whole motion-capture malarkey, his Captain Haddock allows him to show what he can do as an actor. He gets all the best lines and is involved in the more memorable scenes, notably when he's had a drink or two.

Thank God for the performances then as the plot has a lot to answer for. Combining the blockbuster minds of Spielberg, Peter Jackson, and long-time Spielberg collaborator Kathleen Kennedy, it's quite shocking that this is the best they can come up with. These are the people responsible for some of the best works in the mega-bucks department - E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (1982), Jurassic Park (1993), the Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) - which all combined great storytelling, genuine passion, film-making know-how, and some old fashioned cinematic magic. Where Tintin certainly has the passion, the story just seems wafer-thin and very un-movie like, so to speak.

Understandably, they wanted to keep the adaptation close to Herge's original vision, but I just felt like I was watching an extended episode of the cartoon series that happened to have some very expensive animation. There is one notable set-piece, which involves Tintin, Haddock and Snowy fighting Sakharine at high speed for the last clue that may lead them to the Unicorn treasure, that would have been near-impossible if filmed in live-action. This scene, if anything, promotes the use of motion capture to take film-making to new levels, but it also happens to be amazingly choreographed and executed. But apart from that scene, the film never give me the shiver down the spine or got my pulse racing like the aforementioned films certainly did.

There is a lot to like about the film, however. The most annoying thing about the original cartoons were the Thompson and Thomson twins (here played by newly-appointed Spielberg bum-chums Simon Pegg and Nick Frost), and here they are given little more than extended cameo roles, and it's clear that they're best enjoyed in small doses. Craig is fun as the villain, although his character is rather one-dimensional and thinly-written. It's also fun to spot the little winks and homages to the originals, that includes a truly brilliant introduction to Tintin. Hopefully when the inevitable sequel comes along, Spielberg can take the passion from this and put it into a better story. But this is satisfying enough for the time being.


Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Toby Jones
Country: USA/New Zealand

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie