Starting almost immediately after the climax of the first movie, Hellbound: Hellraiser II catches up with Kirsty Cotton (Ashley Lawrence), now being held in a mental institution after the horrors she witnessed. Her stories of a magical puzzle box and the gateway to hell are dismissed as fairytales by her doctors and the police, all of whom believe her to be insane, apart from the shady Dr. Channard (Kenneth Cranham). Along with Channard's sympathetic assistant Kyle MacRae (William Hope), Kirsty discovers than Channard has be studying the world of the Cenobites for years, and is using a child in his institution with a skill for puzzles to open the Lament Configuration. Using the bloodied mattress stolen from the bloodbath at Kirsty's home, Channard inadvertently allows the re-birth of the demented Julia Cotton (Clare Higgins).
Hellbound is a collection of decent ideas clumped together without much thought for coherency. The first Hellraiser had a sketchy mythology and left many things unexplained, but it compensated for this by conjuring a gripping and nightmarish tone throughout. Instead, Hellbound moves along at a frantic pace from one set-piece to another, without offering any kind of insight into just how a bloody mattress could work as a gateway through which Julia could escape the confines of hell, or why a child prodigy is required to open a box solves easily by Kirsty the first time around. With little character development or time to reflect on the events that occur, the film is a bit of a mess.
Visually, it's quite stunning. We get to see more of the Cenobite world as Kirsty enters into hell and bumps into her old foe Uncle Frank (Sean Chapman), and although the sets occasionally appear a bit on the dodgy side, and with special effects and make-up encouraging more laughter than genuine terror, it manages to deliver some memorable imagery and wince-inducing gore when it is called for. Ultimately though, I found Hellbound to be a bit of a headache, and even the extended appearances of Pinhead (Doug Bradley) and his minions could not distract my attention enough to make me forgive the many narrative flaws. Perhaps it's because I love the first film so much, or maybe it's down to Clive Barker stepping out of the director's chair and being replaced by Tony Randel. Still, it's a damn masterpiece compared to the sequels that followed.
Anyone who has seen Disney's Sleeping Beauty (1959) will no doubt remember the horned wicked sorceress that is Maleficent. She appears only briefly, but her extremely dark persona and complete lack of empathy make her a memorable and intriguing Disney villain. Maleficent the film continues the trend of allowing female fairytale antagonists to tell their side of the story, as well as Hollywood's desire to re-make every film ever made that was ever a success. Disney is sitting on a treasure-trove of beloved stories, all ripe for 're-imagination' and money-making. But, cynicism aside, Maleficent is actually not that bad, thanks mainly to a purring performance by Angelina Jolie as the titular witch.
Opening in the CGI-heavy world of the Moors, we meet a young girl with mighty wings. She is Maleficent, the fairy-queen who is one with the strange-but-loveable beasties and natural kingdom all around her, which borders the land of men. She meets a young man named Stefan, and the two becomes friends and eventually fall in love. As they grow older, Stefan stops visiting the Moors, and when he becomes an adult (Sharlto Copley), begins to work for the greedy King Henry (Kenneth Cranham). Henry, terrified of Maleficent's magical power, declares war, only to be beaten back by Maleficent and her army of tree creatures.
On his death-bed, the King announces that whoever kills her will become his heir. Stefan, befriending Maleficent, tricks her into drinking a sleeping potion and, unable to kill her, cuts off her wings and brings them to his king. Years later, with Stefan now king and announcing the birth of his daughter, Aurora, Maleficent gets her vengeance by gate-crashing the party and cursing the child with the dreaded spinning wheel spell, promising release only by true love's kiss, something she knows not to exist. As Aurora is cared for in the woods, Maleficent watches closely, and sees Aurora (Elle Fanning) grow into a person capable of uniting the two lands.
Directed by visual effects artist Robert Stromberg (who won Oscars for his Art Design on Avatar (2009) and Alice in Wonderland (2010)), Maleficent has spectacular special effects, but the world it takes place in feels almost entirely soulless and fails to capture the magic created by those using a pencil 55 years ago. The story often goes to dark places, but it's difficult to care about the characters that inhabit the film, who aren't allowed to develop any extra dimensions other than the ones they were given in Disney's original vision. However, Maleficent, in the hands of Jolie, dominates the film as expected. She manages to juggle the understandable darkness brewing inside of her character as well as the humane, caring side. The film may be good-looking nonsense, but it's nice to have an interesting, morally grey female lead in a mainstream film for once.
This British gangster film was originally intended for director Guy Ritchie's typically heavy-handed approach, but thankfully, duty took him elsewhere and the gig landed in producer Matthew Vaughn's hands. Vaughn is now well-established amongst the Hollywood elite, having since gone on to direct the underrated Stardust (2007), the hugely entertaining Kick-Ass (2010), and the rather hit-and-miss X-Men: First Class (2011), but he made his name with this now-cult and extremely stylish little thriller that also paved the way for star Daniel Craig to become James Bond and an A-lister in one swoop. Vaughn's ability to stamp his quirky humour onto relatively familiar grounds is clear from the off, with Craig nameless protagonist (credited simply as XXXX) giving us the narration to his world, only this protagonist is about to get a massive life-lesson, and one that is quite suitable to our times.
XXXX is a successful cocaine dealer who, along with his cohorts Gene (Colm Meaney), Morty (George Harris), Terry (Tamer Hassan) and Clarkie (Tom Hardy), is on the verge of making the big deal that could see his retirement. "Have a plan, and stick to it," he tells us, only crime boss Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham) has different ideas. He sets XXXX the task of finding the daughter of larger crime lord Eddie Temple (Michael Gambon), a promising girl who has taken to drugs and since gone missing. Meanwhile, in Amsterdam, cocky gangster Duke (Jamie Foreman) has made a huge ecstasy heist but has stolen from the wrong person. All roads lead to XXXX, who finds himself pulled into a labyrinthine crime world where he starts to truly know his place.
This world of loud-mouthed gangsters and powerful old men in expensive suits that London (and the UK film industry) seems to enjoy mixing itself up with is frankly tiresome and has been done to death (especially in the straight-to-DVD market). Yet Layer Cake has less of the colourful, wise-cracking cock-er-neys and slow-motion bloodshed of Guy Ritchie's back catalogue, and shares more with the sleek, neon-lit world of Michael Mann. Although it does quite often border on style-over-substance, and the multi-stranded plot is not quite as clever as it thinks it is, the film is funny, entertaining and frequently surprising. The final moments especially pull the rug from beneath you when you think everything is nicely wrapped up.
The title refers to the social stratification of XXXX's world, and shows that it applies even to the criminal underworld, as well as business, social and political systems. XXXX thinks of himself as top dog, and in the opening scenes, we see him coolly going about his business - shades on, snappy suit, and he even takes the girl (Sienna Miller) of Duke's ridiculous nephew Sidney (Ben Whishaw). But his world, like our world, doesn't quite work like that. In the past year or so, we as the public have learned that we are mere cockroaches in a crushing capitalist country that vomits luxury onto the rich and powerful, and steals from the tax-payer. Like us, XXXX is chewed up by the system, giving him a slap-in-the-face dose of realism that he didn't see coming. The system is embodied by the towering Eddie Temple, in an effortlessly brilliant performance by a ridiculously fake-tanned Michael Gambon. This aspect is the main reason why this film stands out amongst its imitators. An introduction to an interesting film-maker and its intriguing star.
Hellbound is a collection of decent ideas clumped together without much thought for coherency. The first Hellraiser had a sketchy mythology and left many things unexplained, but it compensated for this by conjuring a gripping and nightmarish tone throughout. Instead, Hellbound moves along at a frantic pace from one set-piece to another, without offering any kind of insight into just how a bloody mattress could work as a gateway through which Julia could escape the confines of hell, or why a child prodigy is required to open a box solves easily by Kirsty the first time around. With little character development or time to reflect on the events that occur, the film is a bit of a mess.
