The Croods - A True Family Adventure!

Unless it's Pixar it takes a very special piece of animation to capture my heart at the cinema. When I saw Disney's Wreck it Ralph back in February I thought I'd filled my quota for a smart and funny animation - until we get Monsters University this summer that is. However The Croods, a prehistoric family adventure, is anything but prehistoric in concept - hilarious, moving, and with some revolutionary animation, I came away feeling thoroughly lifted and confident that decent animated films are still being made.

Brought to us by DreamWorks Animation (the same minds behind Shrek), the film tells of the Croods family, the last-surviving caveman family whose lives are about to be turned upside down. Led by patriarch Grug (Nicholas Cage), the family has existed by living in virtual seclusion, only venturing out to hunt for food. However, when rebellious daughter Eep (Emma Stone), ever-longing for life outside the cave, ventures out, she stumbles across Guy (Ryan Reynolds). Smart to the ways of the world, Guy warns that the world is about to end - thus sweeping the Croods on an adventure into a fantastical new world as they are forced to seek a new home outside the safety of their cave. What follows is a rip-roaring adventure through a vast technicolour expanse that would give Oz a run for its money. Forced to adapt to a new way of life, the family's journey is funny, scary, moving, and above all - exciting!

The film also boasts an excellent cast of vocal talent. Nicholas Cage is the family's stubborn leader Grug and is perfect in the part - making the viewer wonder why he's never been cast as a caveman before. At last a film from Mr. Cage that doesn't make the viewer wish they'd ordered extra cyanide in their popcorn. Emma Stone is ideal for the rebellious Eep, as is Ryan Reynolds as the poor Guy, suddenly burdened with a family one or two steps down the evolutionary ladder. Cloris Leachman (Young Frankenstein) howevr, steals the show as is hilarious octogenarian grandmother, ever at odds with Cage's Grug.

I have to say, the film didn't wow me the way Wreck it Ralph did. That had something special; a truly unique story-line with a killer script and some nostalgia for a recently bygone age. Whereas some of us may remember the 80's era of Ralph I don't think even Sir Bruce Forsyth is long in the tooth enough to remember the age of The Croods! Despite this, the film does have something. It's warm, funny and has some really amazing animation that makes the film the perfect family film. Kids today will grow up haunting their parents with viewing after viewing, much as I did when Toy Story first came out in 1995. That's no bad thing though - what they'll get is multiple viewings of a family film that like its characters, will surely stand the test of time.

We all want a Belt like this one!

Oblivion - Apocalyptic Cruising

Tom Cruise - love him or hate him, he is without doubt the biggest and perhaps most influential movie star on the planet. Despite this however, he seems to be an actor of great humility and has a clear love for his craft. To top it off, he's given us some great performances over a staggering thirty years (Rain Man, Jerry Maguire, Interview with the Vampire). Forget all that Scientology stuff and what you have is one of the all time greats. Thus, in the mood for a piece of out of this world escapism, I entered the cinema this week the eagerest of beavers! A veritable whore for all things dystopian I was rather looking forward to seeing Mr. Cruise save the day (again!). 

The plot sees Cruise play Jack (what a nice name!) Harper, literally the last man on Earth. The planet has been destroyed by a nuclear apocalypse and subsequent alien invasion, resulting in humanity flying the nest to Titan, a moon of Saturn - as you would. Cruise's Harper is left behind to maintain the 'drones', flying weapons designed to defend the planet from any hostile creatures left on the planet. Cruise is coupled with Victoria (Andrea Riseborough), his eyes in the sky who keeps an watch over him whilst he is down on the ground. Then on a routine repair job Cruise sees objects falling from the sky and comes across a crashed craft that happens to be carrying Olga Kurylenko's Julia, coincidentally the same woman Harper has been seeing in a dream of a life in pre-war New York. Julia's arrival prompts Harper to rethink everything he has been told about what really happened to Earth and begin to question the very nature of his existence.

Now, I always try to look for the positive any film I watch but sadly in the case of Oblivion, the bad rather outweighs the good. As with waxing one's legs however, I shall get the bad over with in one quick flash. It all falls down to the script. Obviously redrafted several times, holes pop up in greater quantity than overtime at the Polo factory. It feels heavy and laboured and everything is left until virtually the end to be explained, and even then not very clearly. It's a script that had so much potential but sadly fails to deliver.

The film's saving grace is it's visuals. The barren, radiation-ridden terrain looks hauntingly beautiful, all down to excellent cinematography and effects. Derelict remains of famous New York skyscrapers litter the terrain in which Cruise patrols, adding an uncomfortable look at a major metropolis brought to its feet. 

Cruise does what he always does in this type of film - runs around a lot with a stern face, rides motorbikes and makes us all wonder how the hell that man can be fifty years old! Out of the two female leads, Riseborough walks away with the film, her crisp English accent slightly jarring in this post-apocalyptic USA, adding to the slightly cold and detached element of her character. Kurylenko does much the same as she did with Daniel Craig in Quantum of Solace; look attractive by the side of the hero and ultimately provide a love interest to the story, which is a shame given Kurylenko being evidently capable of much more. The real travesty of this film however, has to be in the miscasting of Morgan Freeman. A man who can do no wrong, Freeman is utterly wasted in an underdeveloped role that could easily have gone to someone of much lesser stature. However, as with any film Freeman graces with his talent, gravitas is always brought to the screen. Melissa Leo also provides a chilling supporting role, only ever appearing on screen, as Sally, Jack and Victoria's superior giving instructions from above. 

Ultimately, I have to say I was disappointed with Oblivion. Despite some beautiful visuals, it is clearly an imperfect script relying too heavily on the influence of other sci-fi classics (Planet of the Apes, The Omega Man, AI can all be seen), which do the film an ultimate disservice and makes the viewer wonder if the inhabitants of Earth now fleed to Titan saw what was coming and decided to abandon ship before it was too late!

Evil Dead - A Cut Above the Rest

In my post on the recently released horror Dark Skies just over ten days ago I advised that if one were in the mood for a full-out horror with a penchant for pure unadulterated terror then the film to see is the remake of Sam Raimi's 80's classic Evil Dead. I also stated that today a good horror movie is hard to crack in the desensitized era of the twenty-first century. However, whereas Dark Skies failed to come close to becoming a horror that will give people sleepless nights, this 2013 incarnation of Evil Dead comes much closer, as its predecessor did thirty years ago.

Like every horror film that is released today, the film has marketed itself on the claim that it is 'the most terrifying film you will ever experience' (see above image). Maybe it's just me having a strong stomach but I have seen films that have frightened me more. However one of my viewing companions did leave the cinema white as a sheet and a newly formed insomniac. OK, so it's not the most frightening film ever (that title will forever remain with the 70's classic The Wicker Man), but it does come damn close. The story models itself upon a similar structure of Raimi's 1981 original. A plot line that may have been original back then but is sadly all too familiar now; a group of young friends, cabin in the woods, malevolent spirit - sound familiar? Taken to her family's old cabin by her brother and friends to kick drugs, Mia unwittingly falls foul of a demon brought about by a mysterious book found in the cabin (a book that looks uncannily like Bette Midler's pride and joy in Hocus Pocus!). What follows is a series of some quite truly disturbing events as the demon begins to pick off the young-uns one by one. The film is littered with gruesome dismemberment after gruesome dismemberment. No body part is left untouched! This is where I think the film let's itself down. Whereas Raimi's original had the gore, it also had moments of black comedy, elevating it above a normal run of the mill slash horror. It's modern day counterpart takes itself too seriously, laughs being produced unintentionally though the sheer absurdity of some of the action. However, it's a brave film that pulls no punches. Akin to films such as Saw (albeit less sophisticated in terms of plot structure) the film bombards the senses throughout making the viewer wish they'd brought an umbrella to protect themselves from what must have been gallons of fake blood splashing across the screen.

Forget the gore, the stock characters, the obligatory one-liners, the best part of Evil Dead is the performance we get from Jane Levy. Previously seen in American sitcom Subrgatory Levy's performance as Mia is truly immersive, playing the heroin addled junkie suddenly thrown into an even worse nightmare with a performance that makes the rest of the cast appear like they've just dropped out of a village panto. The scenes where she is possessed are genuinely disturbing, with clear influences of The Exorcist coming through.                                                  

So, do I stand by my original endorsement? Well, I suppose I do. If you're after a horror that really is for the weak of disposition then this film is perfect. For me, yes it was disturbing, vile, gory - all the things we want from a horror film - but it just lacked that certain narrative depth that makes a classic. This being said, it is a very good addition to the genre that stands tall above other so-called horrors that seem to be on continuous release. However fear not Raimi fans, a wry and self-mocking reference was made to the original, making me hopeful for a sequel with more of Raimi's black comedy to give it some depth...watch until the end of the credits...sleep well. 

In the House (Dans La Maison) - Teaching Obsession

When people use the phrase 'American cinema' some people rightly or wrongly think of big-budget extravaganzas that lack any depth or substance. When people use the term 'British cinema', again rightly or wrongly, images of bleakness meander forth, bringing to mind such films as the excellent, yet emotionally-wrenching This is England or Tyrannosaur. Now, when people use the expression 'French cinema' I (quite rightly I believe) think of cinema at its most intelligent. Not to take anything away from cinema from other parts of the world, I just believe that something cerebral oozes out of every pore of a French film. I won't reel off a spool of titles (which I would enjoy, yet bore you I'm sure) but French cinema is, I believe, unlike any other. Quirky, humorous, moving, psychological, existential - French cinema can encompass them all. And, I am glad to say In the House (Dans La Maison) can stand tall along side other triumphs of the French ouevre.

The film is adapted from the Spanish play The Boy in the Last Row by Juan Mayorga and marks the latest in an extremely prolific career of its director, Francois Ozon. The story concerns Germain (Fabrice Luchini), a middle-aged literature teacher in a French high school. Germain is bored, contemptuous of his colleagues and inwardly frustrated at his own literary failings. Enter Claude, a seemingly shy student whose first piece of homework peaks Germain's interest. Asked to write about what they did over the weekend, Claude's essay detailing his gradual ingratiation into a classmate's family initially worries Germain, yet believing there to be a writer's talent within Claude, he begins to encourage him and further ingratiate himself into his classmates family. What follows sees the two characters plunged into their own separate obsessions. Claude, reveling in the seemingly idyllic middle-class familial structure which he lacks, and Germain, vicariously living out his own literary ambitions through his young student.

Highly intelligent, Ozon grips the viewer throughout the entirety of the movie. What is so interesting is the structure of the narrative. Claude's encounters with his classmate Rapha's family is all told in retrospect through his essay which Germain will take home and read to his wife (played by the sublime Kristin Scott Thomas). This use of retrospective narrative makes the film highly interesting and is done subtly and with great sophistication. As the film progresses the audience is kept in constant suspense as these retrospective flashbacks become an almost work in progress, as Claude works with Germain to construct the perfect story. This gives us quite an uncomfortable look at a normal middle-class family and serves as a warning to the dangers of voyeurism and the distinctions between artifice and reality.

Despite the uncomfortable look into suburbia through the voyeuristic eyes of a teenage boy the film is very playful and witty. The writing is extremely taut and there are some marvelous performances. Fabrice Luchini, one of France's highest regarded actors is an actor whose work I have long admired and plays Germain with such nuance that we feel both sorry for him and slightly detest him at the same time. Emmanuelle Seigner brings and ethereal and sad Esther, the mother of Claude's friend Rapha, who Claude seems to think part mother substitute, part potential conquest. Newcomer Ernst Umhauer succeeds as the teenage Claude, damaged enough to perhaps get our sympathy yet subversively arrogant and conniving. However, as with all films that star Kristin Scott Thomas, the film ultimately belongs to her in regards performance. Having lived in France longer than England, she now regards herself as French, this clearly being reflected in her recent and perhaps career-best roles (Sarah's Key and I've Loved You So Long). Wife to Germain, and trying to keep her failing art gallery from closure (including an exhibition that includes blow-up dolls with the faces of infamous dictators - quite hilarious!) she just commands the attention of the viewer in any scene she is in.

In the House (Dans La Maison) does what any piece of film, not just French, should do. It doesn't dumb down for the viewer. There is a mutual respect between viewer and film-maker - a recipricol recognition that yes, an intelligent film imbued with humour, satire, and a thought-provoking story is wanted. Ozon's movie gives us that. Perhaps slightly drawn out at the end, the film can proudly sit alongside its counterparts of French cinema and is a film that anyone who considers themselves a fan of cinema (ou, un cinephile, as the French would say) should see. Monsiuer Ozon et tout les autres, bravo!

Dark Skies - Light Scares

A successful horror movie is difficult to crack these days. In an age when audiences are desensitized to the severing of a head here and a casual dismemberment there, it really does take something a cut above the rest to make you require the need for a water-proof seat at the cinema. Therefore I was slightly optimistic for a truly terrifying experience when I saw Dark Skies yesterday. Marketed very much as a film well placed in the horror genre, with the creative team behind such scare-fests as Insidious and Sinister, I thought a straight-out horror was what we would get. However, I was wrong.

The film tells of the Barrett family, headed by Lacy and Daniel (Keri Washington and Josh Hamilton), a property agent and an unemployed architect. The lives of this seemingly idyllic, all-American family soon takes a turn for the worse when the family starts to begin to be plagued by a seemingly untraceable intruder in their home. Things begin quite timidly, things in the kitchen being rearranged or photographs going missing. However, with each visit from this mysterious intruder things begin to escalate when the Barrett's two sons begin to peak the intruder's interest. What results is a semi-tense series of incidents that are yes, eerie but not entirely original. Reaching breaking point the family's matriarch Lacy does some digging and discovers that her family is not the first to have experienced such happenings. This leads her and Daniel to Edwin Pollard (played by the wonderful J. K. Simmons), apparently an expert on what the family is experiencing. Without divulging the source of the Barretts' terror, this is where the movie slides out of the horror genre in which we have been led to believe it is so firmly placed. Despite elevating the story ever so slightly out of the confines of a formulaic modern-day horror film, it is detrimental to the film in the sense that the audience do not get the film in which they were expecting. What we get instead is a film that does have some thrills and chills but owes more to the classics of science fiction rather than horror. The film is heavily influenced by M. Night Shyamalan's 2002 classic Signs, even so far as having a round the table family walk down memory lane before the film's climax. With influences of Signs and even Hitchcock's The Birds (obvious from the poster) - which Signs itself was inspired by - the film feels very much like a younger, less talented brother trying to emulate the achievements of his much older and intellectually superior sibling.

The family structure even mirrors that of Mel Gibson's in Signs. There's the slightly annoying yet endearing five year old, a sickly older sibling and the two parental figures, one initially refusing to believe what's happening around them but won round in the end. Keri Russell gives a strong performance as Lacy Barrett whose balance between worried mother and familial matriarch is well played. The acting prowess however, comes from veteran of the Spider-man trilogy, J. K. Simmons. With scenes amounting to probably less than ten minutes Simmons still manages to steal the show as the obsessive hermit with all the answers to the Barretts' questions. Aside from Simmons and Russell there are no other performances that light up the screen which is partly down to the film. Formulaic in the majority, the characters feel more like constructs assigned to tick the box of a certain criteria rather than individual and complex individuals.

So, would I recommend Dark Skies? Well, yes I would - with a few reservations! The film isn't Lawrence of Arabia, nor is it Rosemary's Baby. What it is a slightly above average chilling film with a few scares thrown in. Wrongly marketed as an out and out horror just be aware that that is not what you will get. If you're after pure and unadulterated horror, then my advice is this - wait a couple of weeks and see the remake of Sam Raimi's 80s classic Evil Dead - or even the upcoming film The Conjuring, shown as a trailer before Dark Skies and was probably more frightening in two minutes than Dark Skies was in ninety!

Trance and Danny Boyle - the Master of Mesmerism

Danny Boyle - national hero after his work on the 2012 London Olympics, and perhaps one of of my favourite directors. What I love more than anything about Danny Boyle is that unlike other film-makers (with perhaps the exception of Ang Lee or Steven Spielberg) is that he doesn't confine himself to one genre. Shallow Grave is a world apart from The Beach, which is completely different to Sunshine, which is as far removed from 127 Hours as The Sound of Music is from The Evil Dead! In a recent interview he stated that he likes to take small films and make them feel big - a feat he certainly achieved with his Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire. With a clear passion for film, an awareness of the importance of the story and a good script, combined with a dexterous flair for film-making, Boyle is one of the greats - which is why I was more than a little bit excited when the lights went down for Trance last night.

The premise is a simple one - James McAvoy plays Simon, an art auctioneer with a bad gambling addiction. As a means of wiping off his debts he joins forces with Vincent Cassel's Franck, a small-time gangster with a penchant for finger nail removal. Working with Franck to pull off an inside job - the lifting of a Goya painting worth over £25 million, the plan seems to go well until Cassel opens up the painting to find the canvas is missing - and thanks to a bump on the head, McAvoy now has amnesia! This is where the simplicity ends. After a heavy bout of torture fails to jog Simon's memory, they resolve that the only way to find the missing Goya is for Simon to see a hypnotherapist - enter Rosario Dawson's Elizabeth Lamb, intelligent, provocative, and seemingly with motives of her own. What follows is a mind-bending narrative of twists and turns that cinematically blurs artifice and reality. This creates positives and negatives. Negatively, this could be construed as very confusing. I have to concede, there are parts of the film where the boundaries between what is vision and what is reality are extremely hard to fathom and present the intelligent viewer with the same problem-solving skills as Channing Tatum trying to work out which shoe goes on which foot. Yet despite this highly abstract fusion of artifice and reality, it is Boyle's intention for it to be as such. The viewer is constantly supposed to be working to fathom what is real and what is not - after all the film hinges on hypnotism, and like McAvoy's character we are supposed to be vicariously hypnotised and work out the twists and the turns of the plots with him. This abstract approach from Boyle has trademarks of his cult classic, Trainspotting - which is no bad thing. What the story gives us though is a complex, engaging and highly psychological thriller that is, granted not Boyle's masterpieces, but a British film that shows Boyle to be one of the greats of modern cinema.

The film has a relatively small cast, the crux of the action focusing on the interplay between McAvoy, Dawson and Cassel. McAvoy gives a strong and physically brave performance as Simon who is put through the emotional ringer, as well as the physical one. He handles the range of complex emotions, both the expressed and repressed ones with great conviction, solidifying his status as a leading man both at home and abroad. Cassel gives an equally fine performance as the villainous Franck, playing him with the required charm and bubbling malevolence, whose techniques for extracting information would make any qualified manicurist wince. It's nice to see Rosario Dawson being given a role to flex her performance muscles. More than just the formulaic love interest, her Elizabeth Lamb is a complex character whose motives remain ambiguous throughout the movie. Kudos has to be given for her bravery as well - baring not just her soul but her body (quite graphically so) as well. The role allows Dawson the opportunity to give a strong and nuanced performance.

Overall, in true Boyle fashion, Trance has the desired hypnotic effect. Perhaps overly convoluted at times (something which some critics have highly criticized the film for) this only serves to demonstrate the subject matter - the highly complex world of the human psyche and the dangers that can come about from delving too deep.

It only remains to say that while Trance may not go down as Boyle's masterpiece, the man is still a directorial force to be reckoned with - and with news of a Trainspotting sequel in the works, visiting its characters 20 years later- I think it's safe to say Mr. Boyle and great movie-making have not quite finished with each other.

Jack the Giant Slayer - Fie-Fi-Fo...FUN!

'Fee-fi-fo-fum, ask not whence the thunder comes.' So opens Jack the Giant Slayer, whose thunder in this instance comes from The Usual Suspects and X-Men director Bryan Singer. After the recent release of Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, it seems that our childhood folk tales are getting the big screen treatment - such is the case with Jack - a fusion of the classic tales 'Jack and the Beanstalk' and 'Jack the Giant Killer'.

The film begins by introducing the hero of the tale. Jack, a seemingly hopeless farm-boy, whilst in an attempt to sell his horse, chances upon an encounter with a mysterious monk attempting to flee the city with a bag of apparently magical beans capable of supposedly terrible things. 'Whatever you do,' the monk warns, 'don't let them touch water.' Which of course means that when Jack's uncle throws away the beans in a rage, one of them naturally falls into a puddle. Introduced in parallel to Jack is the Princess Isabelle, who like Jack, longs for adventure beyond her social constraints. Thrust together, the two characters's destinies are forever fused when Jack's mysterious bean sprouts into a giant beanstalk, taking himself and Isabelle, along with his house, to a land above the clouds inhabited by murderous giants who have vowed to wreak vengeance on the little people down below. So follows an adventure of literally giant proportions as characters do battle to save the princess, their city and defeat those nasty tall folk.

On the whole, the film is a fast-paced and tongue-in-cheek yarn with its fair bit of scares! Obvious influences from classic film adventures over the years are abound; Peter Jackson's The Return of the King, the third part in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, heavily influencing in the climactic siege of the city, with both the battles of Helm's Deep and Minas Tirith being evident. I went into this film thinking I'd get a decent 12A family romp, with the odd scare thrown in. However, it's actually quite terrifying in parts, the giants making me shrink back in my seat more than once. Perhaps this was just the IMAX 3D though.

Nicholas Hoult plays the part he's meant to - the aesthetically pleasing hero of the tale who only got the job because of his looks. Aside from that his performance is pretty much what the character is - a one-dimensional hero who's only function is to save the day and look good doing it. The best performances come from the more meatier roles. Stanley Tucci never gives a bad performance and this is no exception. He's pitch-perfect as the villainous Roderick, playing him with the required charm, Machievellianism, and a stroke of camp thrown in as well! Ian McShane brings gravitas to the role of the King while Bill Nighy once again channels his Davy Jones, playing the loathsome giant leader, General Fallon. It's also nice to see Ewan McGregor bringing back his Obi-Wan Kenobi accent (one he can actually pull off!).

All in all, the film impressed more than it disappointed. Although disappointing at the box office when it opened yesterday it shows Bryan Singer is back on big-budget form - something which is all the more encouraging as he begins work on the new X-Men film, Days of Future Past. If you're after a rollicking good adventure then you can't go too far astray with Jack the Giant Slayer - yes it's predictable, occasionally cheesy, with some actor's behaving as if they're auditioning for the local village panto, but the pros outweigh the cons. If you fancy a scare, a laugh and a decent two hours at the movies then from one Jack to another - you can't go too wrong.