Review of 2007 in Cinema (Part 2) - The Best of te Year

Here, in a format ripped directly off from Empire, my favourite films of the year. The top three are probably quite predictable as 3 films have really stood out this year. Among the others some choices which were highly acclaimed, a few it seemed like I was the only one who liked.





Honourable mentions also go to: Zodiac, Superbad, Ratatouille, Sicko and The Upside of Anger.





25. The Fountain - Not many critics liked this multi-stranded reflection on loss and letting go, but I really enjoyed it - beautifully shot and thought provoking.





24. Knocked Up - Mainly genuinely funny comedy, doubly so given the unlikely subject matter of an unexpected pregnancy following a





23. Venus - Peter O'Toole was magnificent lending this potentially dirty old man some grace and dignity. Newcomer Jodie Whittaker was up to the task matching him as the much younger woman who captivates him.





22. Into the Wild - Surprisingly, Sean Penn's warmest film to date. Emile Hirsch shows he can handle the leading man duties as the young drop-out heading into the Alaskan wilderness.





21. Blood Diamond - let down by going a bit Rambo at the end, but still a powerful action drama, driven Djimon Hounsou as the man trying to get his family back. Leo wasn't bad either. Not the most realistic portrait of African conflict, but it did at least serve to highlight the issue of conflict diamonds.





20. Across the Universe - Another one that didn't meet universal acclaim, but this Beatles inspired musical had some great visuals and enough of a story to hang it all together.





19. This is England - Shane Meadows powerful look at 80s skinhead culture, with youngster Thomas Turgood outstanding in the lead.





18. The Counterfeiters - An Austrian film telling the extraordinary story of Jewish counterfeiters employed by the Nazis in bid to undermine Allies economies. Powerfully acted and really moving.





17. The Bridge to Terabithia - a children's movie with both real heart and real intelligence and, for those unfamiliar with the story, one of the biggest shocks in any film this year.





16. Hot Fuzz - Simon Pegg and Nick Frost follow up Shaun of the Dead in very funny style. Frost is hilarious, only eclipsed by Timothy Dalton as the best baddie of the year.





15. Once - The low key folk musical with little plot that charmed audiences and critics alike.





14. Stardust - not quite the new Princess Bride, but one of the most fun movies of the year - puts fellow spoof fairy-tale Enchanted in the shade, plus it has De Niro and Pfeiffer hamming it up in wonderful style.





13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - The best Potter film yet, from the weakest book. Imelda Staunton was chillingly wonderful as Dolores Umbridge and the final showdown at the ministry was the best of the series so far.





12. Sunshine - It gets a bit messy at the end, but from the opening shot looks amazing and i borrowing from the best in the genre, Danny Boyle creates a gripping Sci-fi tale.





11. Letter from Iwo Jima - interestingly by far the stronger of Clint Eastwood's pair of Iwo Jima movies was the one telling the Japanese side, commissioned as an afterthought, but giving us a much better sense of the horrors of the battle.





10. Lions For Lambs - The most intelligent of the batch of war on terror films released in the UK to date, with some stunning performances, especially from Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise.


9. The Last King of Scotland - a towering performance by Forrest Whittaker (fully deserving of an Oscar) and ably matched by James McAvoy.


8. Days Of Glory a stirring account of the african troops who fought to liberate France which has already gone some way to redressing historical injustices.


7. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - longest title of the year, slow moving revisionist Western, but captures the desolate landscape (both geographic and emotional) with great beauty. Combined with stunning performances from both Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck.


6. Tell No-One - the best thriller of the year, and its French (albeit based on an American novel) slightly let down by a poorly executed ending, but genuinely gripping stuff with a believable hero.


5. Babel Another multi-stranded tale from Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and possibly his weakest yet, but still well done. Another good turn from Mr Pitt and jaw-dropping silent on from Rinko Kikuchi.

4. The Science of Sleep - more charming quirkiness from Michael Gondry (the man behind the lens for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind).

So the top three:

3. Atonement - stunningly shot. The Dunkirk scene is possibly the best of the year. Great tense atmosphere created and wonderful performances across the board.


2. The Bourne Ultimatum a fitting conclusion to the best action trilogy in a long time with some stunning set pieces. Watch the Waterloo and Tangiers scenes again - they're worth it.


1. The Lives of Others - when this yet to be released film beat Pans Labyrinth and Day of glory to the best Foreign Language Film Oscar, there were fears that Oscar might have goofed again. No such worries - this utterly mesmerising and compelling film shows both the worst and the best of people living under the communist regime in East Germany. It represents the enduring triumph of humanity and is handled with an intelligence and subtlety you couldn't imagine Hollywood managing.


It was a good year for:

Well, Brad Pitt had a good year - strong turns in Babel and Jesse James counterbalanced by the entertaining fun of Oceans 13. James McAvoy's star continues to rise with Last King of scotland and Atonement. Matt Damon combined Bourne with being voted the sexiest man on the planet.

However the biggest breakthroughs were undoubtedly:

Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow as the men behind Knocked Up and Superbad were responsible for some of the years biggest laughs.

Linked, Katherine Heigl seems to have finally made the move to the big screen successfully after Knocked Up.

But top of the breakthroughs have to be Casey Affleck and Shia LaBoeuf. Mr Affleck finally stepped out from the shadow of his brother, almost stealing oceans 13 from his more illustrious counterparts and then going toe-to-toe dramatically with Brad Pitt in Jesse James. Mr LaBoeuf had strong performances in A Guide to Recognising Your Saints and Disturbia, before almost managing to steal Transformers from the CGI robots - next up a small, arty film called Indiana Jones. The future's bright.

Review of 2007 in Cinema (Part 1) - 10 Turkeys for Christmas

In a year where many threequels and other films fell flat and disappointed, there were some which really stank. Here are 10 of the worst which it has been my misfortune to sit through this year - either for work or out of boredom or blind optimism.



10. Evan Almighty - the deeply unfunny follow up to Bruce, which not even Morgan Freeman's twinkling turn as the Almighty can lift.



9. Eragon - Jeremy Irons should have learnt to avoid dragon movies by now. Poorly written, poorly plotted and poorly acted.



8. Mr Bean's Holiday - Rowan Atkinson discovers France and loses his sense of humour



7. Rush Hour 3 - Another film moving to France with unhilarious results. A poor excuse for lacklustre Jackie Chan moves and inflicting more of Chris Tucker on us.



6. Employee of the Month - A film that labours under the belief that giving Jessica Simpson big ears equals humour.



5. Wild Hogs - Messers Travolta, Macey, Allen and Lawrence in mid-life crisis. A real mid-life crisis would be more enjoyable than this tosh.



4. Goya's Ghost - the director seems to enjoy inflicting various degradations on Natalie Portman and Javier Baardem gives us the worst Spanish accent by a Spanish actor ever committed to film.



3. Mr Woodcock - Billy Bob Thornton on auto-pilot in unfunny and borderline offensive comedy about bullying



2. Epic Movie - Further proof that the whole spoof genre has completely run out of steam - tired and unfunny. Plus, if you're going to spoof recent epics - the Chronicles of Narnia is far from the most obvious place to start.



1. Norbit - A film without a single redeeming feature. There should be a law against this sort of rubbish.














A Bad Year For:

The following need to seriously consider a change of agent:

Billy Bob Thornton: Mr Thornton is clearly a gifted guy, both as a comic and a dramatic actor, but this year he has given us the poor School for Scoundrels and the much worse Mr Woodcock. Must do better in 2008.


Thandie Newton - from awards and plaudits for the likes of Crash to playing Eddie Murphy's love interest in Norbit. Run Fatboy Run was at least an improvement and thats saying something.


Whilst Hugh Dancy needs to take care - following the bad werewolf flick Blood and Chocolate with turns in below par chick flicks Evening and The Jane Austen Book Club, admittedly being the best thing in them, but the gut is in desperate need of a decent action role, or at the very least a comedy.

Time-fillers

Both movies this week I saw when I had some time to kill and they happened to be on. First up:


Hitman - 1.5/5





Computer game adaptations always make bad movies, so it must have either been blind optimism or boredom that took me to see this. To be fair to myself, a cast that includes both Timothy Olyphant (Deadwood, Die Hard 4.0) and Dougray Scott indicated some potential. At the end of the day, I have to be impressed with the effort that must have gone into producing a film with not a single original element in its entire running time. Not one line of dialogue, not one plot element, not one scene or shot seems to have been original - even some of the flashback footage is lifted directly from James Cameron's Dark Angel TV series.



To be fair, there is a certain amount of guilty pleasure to be had from the film, mainly from Olyphant's performance (even though he manages the seemingly impossible task of over-acting in an emotionally dead role), but in general approach with extreme caution.



The second was much more of a pleasant surprise:



St Trinian's - 3/5



To be honest, the world probably wasn't crying out for a new St Trinian's movie and the trailer didn't do much to raise expectations - they even dared to rip off one of the most famous lines in British cinema ("You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off"). But surprisingly the finished article manages to be genuinely funny a lot of the time.



It's a fairly faithful re-make of the original Belles of St Trinians with some touches to bring it into the present day - so all the expected cliques (Emos, Chavs, Posh totty) are now present and correct. And then there are those pop culture refereces - not only to The Italian Job, but to just about anything they can think of - the presence of Colin Firth in the cast provides particular ammunition (and sure enough, there's a shot of him walking dripping wet. having just emerged from a pond). They manage to keep this just the right side of the too clever over-the-top self-referentiality of, say, Ocean's Twelve.



It maintains some of the originals idiosyncrasies - for example, this is a school where there seem to be no pupils between first year and sixth year. The girls do well enough to keep the film going and entertaining. Russell Brand astonishingly manages to be not irritating stepping into the George Cole role as Flash Harry. Lena Headley and Celia Imrie are underused as teachers and some of the humour falls a bit flat, but on the whole they manage to offer enough to amuse both adults and younger viewers. Rupert Everett does well in the dual role as Headmistress and her brother, but his performance only really takes off in the moments of re-lighting an old flame with Colin Firth's hardline Education Minister (stay for the credits to hear an amusing duet between the two).



There's nothing amazing here and the odd moments jar - like the girls suddenly becoming successful honestly on School Challenge after being told being smart is sexy, but on the whole its surprisingly funny and entertaining.

Magic at Christmas

Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium -3.5/5



The follow up feature from Zac Helm - the screenwriter who brought us the delightful Stranger Than Fiction, and this time he takes on directing duties as well. It's simultaneously both highly original and containing many of the cliched staples of magical children's films.



The story follows Mr Magorium (Dustin Hoffman) - toy impressario and avid shoe-wearer, who at the tender age of 243 decides its time to move on and pass his magical toy shop on to his young assistant (Natalie Portman). On one level many of the plot elements are genre staples - the kid with no friends who feels at home in the store, the up-tight adult who doesn't believe (in this case an accountant played by Jason Bateman) and a central character (Portman) who just needs to learn to believe in herself. On another level there are huge amounts of invention that go into the shop - both in its look and its role in the story as a character.

Mr Magorium himself is also a wonderful invention, brilliantly played by Hoffman managing to avoid both being too twee or too creepy. Portman brings the quirky oddball charm that worked so well in Garden State and Bateman is a delight to watch. The film also touches some unusual places for kids film - covering both the change from childhood to adulthood and dealing with death and loss. As such it could be seen as an interesting but very different companion piece to Bridge to Terebithia, out earlier this year.

At times the makers get too carried away with their own inventiveness and plot strands and ideas are lost - the film starts with a bookmaker in the basement who seems to have walked in from an early Jean-Pierre Jeunet (whose inventiveness is a clear influence) movie, but the character is largely lost. The end of the second act flags a wee bit and, in contrast, the conclusion is rushed over. But these flaws not withstanding, its still a very entertaining film with nice original touches, some great fun characters and enough to keep audiences of all ages charmed and entertaining.

Higher profile is:

Enchanted - 3/5

Enchanted has a neat concept - a princess from a Disney-esque fairytale is cast into modern day New York, then various other characters follow to either save or kill her. The fairy-tale has been pretty well de-constructed over recent years by likes of Shrek, and this film (coming from Disney itself) was never going to rip into its favoured genre (although there are maybe one or two sly digs at Shrek itself in the early animated sections). This inevitably means that some of the comic potential that was there in the set up is lost - although there are still some nice moments - like when Giselle (the princess) calls for animals to come and help clean up the apartment and gets a mixture of rats, pigeons and cockroaches.

Instead what we have plays more like a greatest hits of Disney as Giselle more or less transforms our world into a magical fairytale land, albeit one with a few twists - the damsel ends up saving the day. Amy Adams does superbly as Giselle to make the Pollyanna character not only not irritating, but also fun and watchable. Grey's Anatomy's Patrick Dempsey is rather bland in the lead male role, but James Marsden (building on his role in Hairspray) is an absolute hoot as the brainless prince charming. Susan Sarandon is also wonderful, but criminally underused as the evil-stepmother.



This is still an entertaining watch, but will appeal mainly to younger viewers. The idea had more potential than is realised here, and the movie falls some way short of Mr Magorium or Stardust.

The Christmas Contenders

So which films will be capturing the Christmas audiences this year? The first two up for inspection:





The Golden Compass - 3/5





Leaving aside the rather amusing irony of this (however toned down) attack on religion being marketed as a Christmas film, it certainly is (presumably because its got lots of snow in it). New Line are also clearly marketing it as the new Lord of the Rings, which is a strategy that does the film a huge dis-service as it only highlights its inadequacies. It falls short for two main reasons - firstly, the source material is not as good or as well loved. In my personal opinion, Philip Pulman's Northern Lights triology are slightly over-rated - they're good enough, but not deserving of the fuss and adulation they receive. There's probably one-and-a-half good books in there - the first half of the first novel works so hard at creating its world that the narrative almost doesn't cope and the third novel is almost drowned by the ideas it has to carry. They also create an interesting dilema for the film-makers as to what audience to aim the film at, because the supposed children's book probably have far more fans amongst adults than children. The PG certificate suggests they're going for the younger market, which may prove a mistake.



The second reason that The Golden Compass falls some way short of The Rings is that, where Peter Jackson had the courage to make some bold cuts and depart from the text quite significantly at times, Chris Weitz (American Pie, About A Boy) sticks fairly rigidly to the story and rushes through the events in order to bring it in in a child-friendly running time. Where Jackson created a vibrant and lively world you could believe in, Weitz presents one that seems to have some good idea going into the visuals, but comes across as rather flat and lifeless. Thus the film is better compared to the early Potters or Narnia - a fairly faithful adaptation, but rather uninspired. Much has been made of the toning down of the anti-religious stance, but when the heads of the Magisterium (the bad guys) look rather like senior catholic officials and their regional office looks like an Eastern Orthodox Church, its hard to argue that's its been taken out.



Of the human element, fans will be relieved to hear that Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra does a creditable job. Its the adults who fare much worse, lacking space for any sort of characterisation - Daniel Craig comes off particularly badly with no room to do anything much, his Casino Royale co-star Eva Green might as well not be there. Only Nicole Kidman (as Mrs Coulter) and Sam Elliott (as the aeronaut Lee Scoresby) really manage a performance worthy of the name. In fact, most the adults are out performed by the two Ians - McKellen and McShane, who appear only in voice as the two fighting polar bears.



In fact the fight of the bears is one of the few real highlights of the film, along with the final battle on the polar snow, but even these fall a long way short of the excitement and grandeur of even the smaller Rings action moments. It's not a bad film, but it will disappoint fans and fail to inspire those unfamiliar with the books.



On the other hand, there's



Fred Claus - 2/5



A real Christmas film - its about Santa's disreputable brother, after all. The first relief is that its not dreadful - in fact, its probably the best actual Christmas film since Elf, but that's not really saying much. It's like saying Sven is the best England manager of the past decade - probably true, but rather depressing. The thing is given the talent at work here, it should be much better. Paul Giamatti should be an inspired Santa, Vince Vaughn is always watchable, Kevin Spacey as the villain should be a good move and director David Dobkin, whilst never great has produced some good comedy moments with the likes of Wedding Crashers.




To be fair it has some funny moments - the Sibling Anonymous meeting with Frank Stallone, Roger Clinton and Stephen Baldwin all cameoing is an inspired hoot. There's the odd good line (unfortunately, mostly in the trailer) and Vaughn does a creditable job of making it watchable. There's also a nice in-joke of having the man who played Lex Luther secretly longing for a Superman cape. That aside, though, its just plain lazy - the effects, especially with the elves, look cheap and step backwards from most things in the past five years and most of the cast seem to be stumbling half-heartedly towards a Christmas bonus, before they can go back to making real movies.




Watchable, if you're desperate, but not one to rush out and see.

The Film That Wouldn’t Die

Southland Tales – 3/5

Donnie Darko, the debut from writer-director Richard Kelly, was a stunning and original debut and seemed to announce the arrival of a major new talent on the scene. So it was with no small sense of anticipation that critics approached the premiere of his new film, Southland Tales, at the Cannes film festival in 2006. The movie they saw, rather than having them standing in ovation, had them sharpening their knives – by all accounts it was dreadful – a complete mess with no regard for either narrative or character. Eighteen months later a drastically re-cut and re-edited version finally arrives on our screens. And to be honest, it’s still a complete mess, but it’s a mainly entertaining one, which makes it simultaneously a crushing disappointment and a pleasant surprise.

The first three chapters are gone – replaced by an animated introduction giving the background story. The narrative is still a mess, character motivation unclear, if not totally lacking. The dialogue veers from odd quotes from poetry, to the knowingly and amusingly bad (“scientists now say that the future will be much more futuristic than we thought”) to the just plain bad. The acting is just as varied – Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, in the lead role is hammier than William Shatner on a bad day, but still watchable, Seann William Scott and Justin Timberlake surprisingly good, Sarah Michelle Gellar does dumb blonde again, whilst Miranda Richardson looks for some scenery to chew.

To be far to Kelly, the narrative in David Lynch’s Inland Empire, released earlier this year, was just as confused and fragmented, and the critics loved that (possibly because they were too scared to admit they didn’t get it). And Kelly seems to have borrowed some of Lynch’s favourites, especially a predilection for mysterious dwarves who pop up to spout pretentious nonsense. Kelly’s crime is that he does so without the reputation of Lynch and with his tongue veering sharply into his cheek for most of the film.

The story shares some of the ideas of time paradoxes with its predecessor Donnie Darko, but throws in thoughts of unintended consequences of the war on terror. Set in the near future, America is at war on many fronts around the world. An actor (Johnson) with political connections disappears only to re-appear with a porn star (Gellar). Then there’s a cop and his twin brother (both Seann William Scott), a scarred veteran of the war who watches all from the pier (Timberlake) and various politicians, scientists and neo-marxist rebels. As previously mentioned, it’s a mess, but one with moments of inspiration. A bigger budget than Darko seems to have bought a less convincing visual style.

All in all, you can’t shake the feeling that, come the DVD issue, this film might exist in more versions than Blade Runner or Alexander and all equally messy. Still worth checking out though, if you can cope with a dose of weirdness.

Werner's back in the jungle

Rescue Dawn - 3/5

Director Werner Herzog seems to have a predilection for jungle stories after Aguirre Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo. He also has a reputation for pushing his actors to the limits and beyond. So the pairing with Christian Bale, an actor who in the likes of The Machinist has demonstrated a willingness to really punish himself physically for a role, seems a good one. Bale is once again on pound-shedding form to tell the true story of Dieter Dengler - a US pilot who crashed in Laos at the start of the Vietnam war, but managed to escape to freedom.

The story clearly fascinates Herzog as he has already made a documentary about it - Little Dieter Needs to Fly.

He handles to details of Dieter's survival well and the friendship formed with fellow prisoner Duane (Steve Zahn) is well done, as are some of the gruesome things they need to go through both to get free and to survive. And this despite Herzog's style being rather detached emotionally. Its the big action moments that lose focus and are less convincing - the plane crash is a mix of the sublime and the ridiculous as a realistically disintegrating plane has an unbelievably unharmed pilot just plop down right next to it. Similarly, Duane's exit doesn't quite work whilst the eventual rescue feels somehow anti-climactic and unsatisfying.

Bale is as good as you would expect from him, but Zahn, in his most serious role to date is an absolute revelation and actually provides the film with what emotion it does have.

Its still a good film, but not quite what it might have been, given a genuinely fascinating and heroic story.

De-mythologising the West

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - 4.5/5

A film that saddled not only with a title that is more of a plot summary, but also with a delayed release that would usually have most people smelling an early Christmas Turkey. What has actually arrived is probably not what was expected, certainly not a traditional western, so slow paced that its almost ponderous, largely lacking in action, but, despite all that, utterly compelling.

In only his second feature after 2000's Chopper, director Andrew Dominik has produced a beautiful, elegaical look at one of the American Wild West's legends, which does not buy into the myth, but instead offers a thought provoking look a man whose popular image in the media served to disguise a brutality and savageness in his dealings. Brad Pitt is superb in the role - moody, melancholic, increasingly mistrustful of those around him. James' (and Pitt's charm comes to the fore in early scenes and is then shattered by the odd moment of complete brutality). As the film progresses he becomes increasingly haunted, but remain powerful and in control of the situation, even, interestingly, in the moment of his assassination. Above all, he is a man who rules by fear.

Contrasted with him is Casey Affleck's Bob Ford - a nervous, but eager young man who gradually shifts from sycophantic idolising of James to plotting his downfall. If Pitt is superb, Affleck more than matches him and as the film explores the shifting relationship between the two it calls into question not only its own unwieldy title, but also the way that the two men have been viewed in popular perceptions. Was Ford a coward? Did James know what was coming and had he reached a point where he wanted it to end?

The is also able support from the likes of Sam Rockwell at his more restrained as Ford's older brother. The women, unfortunately are much poorer served - the excellent Mary-Louise Parker and Zooey Deschanel with barely a line between them.

The whole is beautiful shot, showing the barren bleakness of the country in a way that is eye-catching. It's certainly one of the darkest westerns you'll see, not just in terms of mood, but also in lighting - much of the action happens by fire or lamplight or at twilight or on dark winter days. It certainly creates a foreboding yet beautiful vision of the times.

For a film that's well over two hours long, but contains surprisingly little action, this is wonderfully done, brilliantly acted, beautifully shot and surprisingly engaging.

Playing with the fringes of reality

The Nines - 4/5

The Nines belongs to the reality bending genre of film-making. If you think in terms of some kind of cross between The Truman Show, The Matrix, Donnie Darko and Lost - you wouldn't be too far of the mark. Which means its quite difficult to say too much about the plot without giving things away. The movie begins with movie-star Gary (Ryan Reynolds) on an alcohol and coke fuelled binge, discovering that his belly button has gone missing and getting into his car to drive to hospital only to discover halfway there that he has two passengers in the rear seat, both of whom are also him. The movie then comes in three parts. The first part deals with Gary being under house arrest in a borrowed house. The second follows gay screenwriter Gavin (also Reynolds) being followed by reality TV cameras as he tries to get a pilot for a TV show made. The third part might be that TV show and features computer game designer Gabriel (yes - Reynolds again) who disappears.

Writer-director John August is best known as a screenwriter with a good track -record (Go, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride - Ok, he was also responsible for the Charlie's Angels scripts, but nobody's perfect) and here he's produced an intelligent, intriguing and playful script, which throws out ideas and red herrings in equal measure, always circling around the theme of different realities (none of the main character's occupations should be seen as entirely coincidental). He teases the audience with differing clues as to what the nines might actually be. Unfortunately the set-up is rather too good for the pay-off which feels slightly unsatisfactory after what has gone before, but the whole is so engaging and entertaining that you won't mind that much.

Star Ryan Reynolds has always had enough about him to suggest that he's rather better than the usually dire material he ends up with (Van Wilder, Blade Trinity, Waiting) and his performance here confirms whilst not being quite as good as you might hope. To compare with Jim Carrey, this is his Truman Show, rather than his Eternal Sunshine. He's ably supported by the always good Hope Davis (also playing three roles) and a rather creepy mostly mute Elle Fanning (who is also creepily like her big sister Dakota).

It's not quite in the same league as the films it borrows from, and the dialogue occasionally strays into the just too-knowing ("you're looking a bit a Beautifil Mind-ish"), but its well done, with enough playful wit to keep you guessing and keep you interested. Well worth checking out.

Whimsical Wes

The Darjeeling Limited - 3.5/5

Director Wes Anderson's films have always rather divided audiences. It seems that people either loved or hated the likes of The Royal Tenenbaums or Rushmore. The Darjeeling Limited will do little to settle that divide - if you liked those films, you'll probably enjoy this, if you didn't - move on. It displays Anderson's usual traits - a slightly detached stance and characters who are simultaneously underplayed and totally extreme oddballs. What he does amazingly well is to use those characters to capture something of the dysfunctionality of relationships, especially family relatonships.

And, of course, there's Owen Wilson - Anderson has never made a film without him, but its equally as arguable that Wilson has never been as good for any other director. I've seen his performance here described as "deadpan mania", which is a pretty good description. He plays one of three estranged brothers who join up for a train journey across India. He is ably supported by Adrien Brody, displaying good comic talent, and the underated Jason Schwartzman. Also watch out for cameos from Anderson regulars Bill Murray and Anjelica Huston.

Whilst this never quite hits the comedic heights of Tenenbaums or Rushmore, it is perhaps Anderson's warmest film to date and, at times, surprisingly moving. This is especially true in moment of unexpected tragedy halfway through the film, when the film moves into new terrotory for Anderson. Yes, some of the metaphors are slightly heavy-handed - like the luggage standing for emotional baggage, but there's also a good depiction of an India which is neither mocked nor exoticised.

In terms of Anderson's films, this probably ranks somewhere between Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic, which makes it well worth checking out if you like his sort of thing.