Movie Catch-up

OK, I've been neglecting the blog for a little time whilst I've been caught up with other things, so here's a brief catch up on what I've seen in the past few weeks:

Safe. Jason Statham is probably the closest thing to a genuine action star that there is at the moment, but he has made some truly dreadful films. Safe is one of his better films, with halfway decent material to go with the action. The Stath tries to redeem himself by trying to save a girl-genius caught up  with competing Chinese and Russian mobs and dirty cops. The body count is ridiculously high, but there are some good sequences and nice twists along the way. Overall: 6.5/10

Dark Shadows is the big screen adaptation of a cult (read pretty dreadful) TV supernatural soap opera from the 60s which is really not known over here. Tim Burton's at the helm and Johnny Depp (of course) stars as the vampire dug up after 200 years to find his family's fortunes in decline and the witch who cursed him (Eva Green). It is imbued with Burton's rich visual style and a very dry dark humour. Depp fits in perfectly and Green vamps it up to great effect. As is not uncommon with TV adaptations, there's not really enough space in the film for all the characters to really shine through despite the strong cast and Tommy Lee Miller's playboy and Chloe Moretz' teen with issues probably suffer most from a lack of space, but overall this is an entertaining watch. Overall 7/10

The Dictator Sacha Baron Cohen is now too well known to get away with the Borat trick on real people, so moves into the fully scripted area with The Dictator. Cohen is a bright fellow and there are moments in the film when it really shows - the final speech to the UN drips with layers of irony and the way he talks himself out of being tortured is one of the comic highlights. Too often though he still goes for the cheap laugh and the supposed shock. A mixed bag of a film. Overall 6/10

The Raid the much hyped Indonesian action film with the Welsh director follows a rookie cop on the titular raid on a high rise apartment building controlled by the local drug lord, and that's it in terms of plot. What it is very raw and vibrant and inventive in its almost non-stop action and fight sequences. As the lead, Iko Uwais has the makings of a new martial arts action star, but the non-stop action could actually fo with a few lighter or slower moments to give the audience a breather and make it feel less like it's you having your head pounded repeatedly against the floor. It's certainly something different though. Overall 7/10

Jeff Who Lives at Home. It's quite refreshing to see Jason Segal trying something a little bit more different and less obviously commercial. He plays the eponymous Jeff, a thirty something who still lives in his mum's basement and is convinced that everything is connected (the film opens with a knowing monologue on Signs) and after receiving a wrong number phone call, ends up pursuing various Kevins round the city on a journey that will also take in his brother's (Ed Helms) marital problems and his mum's (Susan Sarandon) secret admirer, all the while leaving you guessing as to if there is some greater purpose or if it is all just coincidence until the ending which will either delight or annoy. Overall - 8/10.

Catching up on films

May elections and personal developments have been rather occupying my time lately, so I've fallen rather behind in the film reviews. Here then is a whistlestop overview of what I've seen over the past few weeks.

Red Riding Hood - 5.5/10 Gorgeous looking but rather flat fairy-tale updating which doesn't manage to match The Company of Wolves. Amanda Seyfried is left rather stranded in a love triangle with two men competing to be the most wooden whilst Gary Oldman does a rare turn demonstrating how to go truly over the top.

Your Highness - 3.5/10 Deeply unfunny so-called comedy in the genre of those 80s fantasies. Krull was both a better movie and funnier. Oscar-winner Natalie Portman (why????) gamely tries her best, whilst Oscar-nominee James Franco seems to spend the whole film laughing at a joke that is lost on the audience. Maybe its just me, but I just don't get Danny McBride's appeal.

Thor - 7/10. Portman is better served here in the latest from Marvel. Kenneth Branagh directs and manages to do a good job of making it fun without descending into self-parody (given that we need to buy into the hero being a Norse god, thats no easy feat). Anthony Hopkins and Stellan Skaarsgaard add the gravitas, whilst relative newcomers Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston give star-in-the-making turns as hero and villain respectively. It also gets The Avengers back on track after Iron Man 2 plugged it rather too heavily - watch out for Jeremy Renner's cameo and the post-credit teaser. Next up - Captain America.

Cedar Rapids - 6/10 Frank Capra updated for the gross-out generation. Small little comedy drama which is pleasantly watchable, but at its best when it goes meta with its riffs on The Wire.

Hanna - 7.5/10 The latest from director Joe Wright (Atonement, Pride and Prejudice) is a slightly strange combination of Bourne and fairy-tale. The film combines action and comedy well, but could have done without the soundtrack that tries to bludgen you into submission. Tom Hollander makes a truly creepy bad guy (referencing the Fritz Lang classic M) whilst Cate Blanchett also enjoys a trip to the dark side, but Saoirse Ronan holds the film together with a performance thats part cold killer, part naive innocent but never jarring.

Rio - 6/10 Over-trailed, but quite watchable family entertainment. Even as an animated bird, Jesse Eisenberg is still Jesse Eisenberg, but the film is almost stolen by the Jermaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) as the villainous cockatoo, but why did they only give him one song - which is the film's only moment of true genius.

Attack the Block - 7.5/10 Aliens take on inner city yoofs in a British film that effectively combines humour, action, elements of gore and horror and Nick Frost. The Aliens look a bit too much like shaggy dogs to be genuinely scary, but the cast of largely non-professional youngsters add a sense of authenticity to the dialogue and setting.

Tomorrow, When the War Began

This grammatically-interestingly-titled offering from Down Under is adapted from a best selling series of books by John Marsden (8 books so far and counting). (The tense-bending title seems to come from a line that's in the trailer, but not the actual film). The story follows 7 Australian teenagers who go on a camping trip to the enticingly named Hell, only to discover on their return that their part of Australia has been overrun by the evil invading armies of The Coalition (the political jokes here are too obvious, so I'll pass over them) and decide to become guerilla fighters in the Outback.

The Characters are more stock-types than fully-fleshed individuals - think The Breakfast Club goes to War. And the character arcs are equally predictable - you know the posh girl is going to end up falling for the rebel, who in turn will respond well to the crisis and become a leader and you know that at some point the Christian who refuses to kill will at some point pick up a gun and mow down everything in front of her.

However, where the film succeeds are in the action sequences - a genuinely thrilling car chase around the town and the climactic attempt to blow up the bridge are handled as well as many a Hollywood blockbuster with a much larger budget. Its when things slow down and get talky that you start to notice the patchy acting talent and the leaden script (at one point a character really does say "what's the worse that can happen?" without a hint of irony). Still that doesn't stop the whole being rather entertaining fun. Part 2 is already in the works.

Overall - 6/10 Counter-intuitively for what is a low-budget take on a Hollywood staple genre, the action scenes rock, but the talky bits drag. Not bad though.

Little Fockers

To start the new cinema year on a particularly low note - not a film I was particularly enthusiastic about seeing, but I was outvoted. I really enjoyed Meet the Parents, but Meet the Fockers was dreadfully unfunny. No matter how bad this is, I thought, surely it will have more laughs than that. How wrong can I be! This is lazy, cynical, unfunny film-making at its worst. So here are my notes to Hollywood on how to avoid this kind of travesty in the future:

• Jokes that were funny first time round, but not the second, don't suddenly become funny because you try them a third time. Even the stars seem to have stop believing in the material and not even the thought of a big fat paycheck can muster any enthusiasm from messers Stiller and De Niro, let alone anything resembling actual acting as they lazily coast through the same routines again without any effort.
• More stars do not necessarily make a better picture. Jessica Alba and Harvey Keitel are added to the mix this time round. Keitel is presumably thrown in as somebody thought it would be "funny" to have him square off with De Niro - its not, just a reminder of much better films where they had some decent material to work with and could be bothered. Meanwhile Dustin Hoffman lazily dances his way to the bank having done not very much at all.
• There is a difference between funny and irritating. It is possible to make irritating funny - Owen Wilson can do it (with decent material to work with), but here he's just plain irritating. Whilst Jessica Alba trying to talk all dope and down with it has got to be one of the most annoying characters ever committed to celluloid.
• A man injecting adrenalin into his father-in-law's penis to remedy an excess of viagra is just not funny. I don't think I need to stay more.
• Genuine humour doesn't need signposting in advance to let you know you should laugh soon whereas this telegraphs every joke with huge neon signs well before they actually arrive.

To be fair  - there is one decent joke in the whole thing, when De Niro tries to contact his old CIA employers for info only to be told he can probably get what he's looking for on Google. There might also be a couple of mildly amusing segments - a play on Jaws in the ball pool and a pastiche of the classic spy tailing somebody on a train. There, I've saved you the bother of actually having to watch the film - believe me, you'll thank me for it.

Overall - 3.5/10 Unfunny, lazy, cynical, cringeworthy. From here the only way is up for the year.

Chico & Rita

Chico and Rita is, in many ways, an animated Buena Vista Social Club with added romance and a dash of Captain Corelli's Mandolin (the book, not the film - there's a crucial difference that has echoes here).

Chico is a piano player, Rita is a singer. They meet and fall in love, despite complications, in Havana and then proceed to lose and find each other again across many decades and two continents as events and their own mistakes intervene.

Despite the scale, it never feels epic, but a personal and often quite initimate film, helped by some beautiful handr-drawn animation. This a gently, romantic film whose characters feel more human and fallible, rather than heroic. That said, there's enough action in the story to keep you entertained, and if that fails there's always the music.

Overall - 7.5/10 An animated film that makes a refreshing change from talking animals/toys/aliens, etc... A very human tale, lovingly drawn and told.

The Social Network

A movie about Facebook, whatever next? When first announced, this sounded like a horrendous attempt to cash-in on the internet phenomenon, but when you started to look at the talent getting involved - David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club, Zodiac, Benjamin Button) as director, Aaron 'The West Wing' Sorkin as scriptwriter and you began to realise that there's something more going on here.

The film is a suppositional account (most of the key-players remain rather tight-lipped about what actually happened) of how Facebook was created and went from a tool for Harvard students to being a global phenomenon. It tells the story through the two law-suits that creator Mark Zuckerberg ended up defending (one from two rich twins who claim he stole their idea, and one from his former business partner who claimed he had been wrongfully forced out of his share of the company). What emerges is a completely compelling movie.

It has many strengths - the script from Sorkin is sharp and funny, whilst not missing the emotionals beats, as fans of The West Wing would expect. Right from the opening scene of Zuckerberg getting dumped in a bar the dialogue flies thick and fast and positively crackles at time. Fincher handles the action well and together they wisely make the decision not to answer the rights and wrongs of the various lawsuits and disputes, but to leave all the characters in a morally grey area that makes for a far more interesting film.

The cast is strong too. Andrew Garfield provides perhaps the most sympathetic route into the story as Eduardo Saverin, Zuckerberg's friend and business partner who becomes jealous and gradually eased out of the way by Zuckerberg's growing friendship with Napster founder Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake - again proving he is one singer who can act well). Meanwhile Arnie Hammer and Josh Pence's privileged Winklevoss twins provide more in the way of comic relief as the Olympian rowers who think they came up with the idea in the first place.

However centre stage goes to the breakout performance of Jesse Eisenberg (Zombieland, Adventureland) as Zuckerberg himself. The casting is perfect and not just down to certain physical resemblance. Eisenberg convinces as the geeky, super-intelligent creator, whilst also being able to bring a hardness to the role that, say, Michael Cera wouldn't have been able to manage. This is crucial to the ambiguity that the film maintains towards its central character. Zuckerberg is often not very likeable - he starts out out of drunken revenge after being dumped by his girlfriend and comes across in some of the lawsuit scenes as completely arrogant. However, he is never quite a hard-headed monster. Whilst refusing to definitively answer any questions, the abiding impression of the man who created the world's biggest social network is of a lonely man, uncomfortable in social situations (maybe even with Aspergers tendancies). He is always on the outside of parties and the final shot of him is him continually hitting refresh, waiting for his ex-girlfriend to accept his friend request. How close is this to the real Zuckerberg, we may never know, but Eisenberg creates a compelling character.

Overall - 8.5/10 A fascinating and compelling take on a modern phenomenon.

Shrek Forever After

The first two Shrek films were funny, inventive fun for all the family with such attention to detail and multi-layered humour that they paid repeated viewings. The third film was a crashing disappointment - an unfunny string of celebrity cameos without a plot to string it all together (none of the people I went to see this with, could even really remember what happened in it!). So can Forever After see a return to form or further debasement of what was once a quality franchise.

The answer, rather predictably, is somewhere in the middle. This is a vast improvement on the last episode - there is a plot (a kind of spin on Its a Wonderful Life, where Rumpelstiltskin tricks Shrek into an agreement which finds him marooned in a world where he had never been born), there are some good sequences (shrek's first moments enjoying being a real ogre again are a delight reminiscent of the first picture), both Donkey and Puss are used much better and Fiona leading an ogre rebellion works well. Add into this, some nice riffs on the likes of the Wizard of Oz, and you're starting to head towards what made Shrek great.

However, the film never really gets there. You can't escape the fact that the entire concept, four films and many imitations in, is feeling a wee bit tired. Its good but never gripping, funny but never hilarious, clever at points but never inspired.

Overall - 6.5/10 A definite improvement - a much better place to finish the franchise, but they do need to finish it now.

Greenberg

Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale, Margot at the Wedding) gives us wry, emotionally detached, often blackly comic observations of messed-up people and the ways they relate (or fail to) with each other. Greenberg is another such slice of brokeness. Ben Stiller's Roger Greenberg, is the eponymous hero (of sorts) recovering from a nervous breakdown, house-sitting for his successful brother, looking up the friends of his youth and starting a tentative and not always healthy relationship with his brother's PA (Greta Gerwig) and generally aiming to do nothing for a while.

Stiller gives what may be the best performance of his career, subtly restrained with none of his usual manic energy. Gerwig is superb as the sympathetic heart of the film, as is Rhys Ifans as the childhood friend. However, the film starts very slowly and with Greenberg not being the most likeable character, it takes work to stick with it. Its worth the effort as the second half picks up greatly both in terms of pace and interest as we begin to get a bit of character development. Its neither as funny as The Squid and the Whale, nor as acutely observed as Baumbach's other films, but its still an intelligent, character driven piece.

Overall - 6.5/10 A long way from the director's best and never an easy watch. Ultimately, it just about rewards the effort it demands.

Wild Target and Killers

This week we have two similarly themed comedies from either side of the Atlantic. Starting with the British offering:

Wild Target is actually a remake of a French film. Bill Nighy stars as the hitman hired to kill Emily Blunt, who has made the mistake of ripping off the wrong man (Rupert Everett), but instead finds himself falling for her wild and unpredictable ways. Meanwhile, Rupert Grint (Ron from Harry Potter) stars as the vaguely gormless sidekick, Martin Freeman (in his best big screen outing) is the rather creepy rival hitman and Eileen Atkins has a hoot as Nighy's mum, supporting the family business.

The result is fitfully funny - the action is generally well handled and the scenes between Nighy and Grint work well. However, when the romance takes over it feels more icky than either funny or convincing, due to the insurmountable age gap and a lack of chemistry between the leads - even Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones made a more convincing couple. At the end of the day, Blunt is just too young for it to work. Which is a pity because individually, they're both great fun to watch. The film does manage to pull things round for a decent enough finale. Overall - 5.5/10 Intermittently funny and mainly entertaining despite the questionable romance.

Killers could also accurately be described as intermittently funny. Ashton Kutcher stars as the secret agent who tries to get out of the game after meeting and falling for Katherine Heigl's normal girl. Three years later and he suddenly finds himself having to fend off numerous hitmen.

Kutcher has an acting range that stretches from lovable doofus to lovable doofus. Suave secret agent is too much a stretch for him, but he still makes a watchable screen presence, as does Heigl doing ditzy blonde again. The problem is, as above, there is zero chemistry between them.

There are some nicely handled bits of action, but the film is saved by Tom Sellick and Katherine O'Hara as Heigl's parents, who between them get most of the laughs.
Overall - 5.5/10 Also intermittently funny, with some half decent action and Bond references.

Also out:
Our Family Wedding - 4/10 a romantic comedy with zero romance and next to no laughs, also featuring the nadir of Forrest Whittaker's career, crude racial stereotypes and a goat on viagra. Less entertaining than watching England play Algeria.

Film Reviews

Takinga break from politics for one post to update on what I've been watching in the last week and a half or so. First up is:

Centurion
The latest from Neil Marshall (The Descent,Dog Soldiers) follows a group of Roman solidier running around in a snowy Scotland and trying not to get hacked to bits by troublesome picts. It's rather gorier than it needs to be and Marshall seems rather too fond of decapitating as many characters as possible. The Wire's Dominic West clearly has fun, but still seems to be playing McNulty, former bond-girl Olga Kurylenko scowls moodily at the camera throughout so its left to the ever-excellent Michael Fassbender and his group of talented younf brits to hold it all together, which they do making this an enjoyable chase movie with a Roman-twist, but the best bits are rather too obviously borrowed from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Overall - 6/10 - entertaining, but nothing special

It's a Wonderful Afterlife
Comes to us from director Gurinder Chadha (Bend it Like Beckham, Bride and Prejudice) and has a nonsensical plot involving curry, murder and ghosts that quite frankly, its not worth the trouble of explaining. It's a frustrating film that yo-yos between the frankly dreadful and the really genuinely funny at unpredictable intervals. Heroes' Sendhil Ramamurthy utterly fails to convince as either a policeman or a romantic lead, Happy Go Lucky's Sally Hawkins fares rather better and gets many of the best moments (including the Carrie homage) but strays into irritating too often, whilst poor Mark Addy and Jamie Sives get lumbered with totally underwritten characters. Goldu Notay in the lead does a solid but unremarkable job. Overall - 5.5/10 -will make you laugh and cringe in roughly equal measure.

The Disappearance of Alice Creed
Its's difficult to make a film with only three characters without it seeming theatrical rather than cinematic. Writer-director manages it with some elan in this kidnap thriller. He's helped by some great performance from his cast (Eddie Marsan, Martin Compston and a never-better Gemma Arterton) and a script that keeps throwing some genuine surprises in the relationships between the three characters without ever losing credibility. Right up until the very last act you're never quite sure who's going to make it out of this and who isn't. Overall - 7.5/10 - might be too gritty for some tastes, but a well-acted, tightly plotted thrilling film.

Cemetery Junction

Cemetery Junction is the second film of the week that really sounds like it should be a horror movie and isn't. Instead, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's film is about young people growing up in Reading in the early 70s. In particular it deals with young Freddie, desperate not to follow in his factory worker father's (Gervais, in a refreshingly small role) footsteps and trying to make it as a life insurance salesman. Things are complicated by the fact that he's falling for his boss' (Ralph Fiennes) daughter who is engaged to an uber-salesman (Matthew Goode) and his best friend Bruce keeps getting into fights due to his father issues.

Where things go from there is really all quite predictable in terms of story right down to the last minute dash across town a la standard rom-com. There's also too much of the Gervais-Merchant humour that anyone who's not a fan will just find cringe-worthy. The cafe owner and Merchant's cameo in particular could have been written out at no loss whatsoever to the film.

On the other hand, there are other moments that are genuinely funny and few that have real emotion. Its helped by having a tone that underplays key moments rather than over-playing them and really helped by the presence of Emily Watson as Fiennes' wife, an actress who can convey more with a look or a half-smile than many can with a whole monologue. There's also a nice feel for period detail and a really cracking soundtrack.

Overall - 6.5/10 - a bit of a mixed bag, but more good than bad, lifted by some strong performances and a wonderful soundtrack.

Kick Ass and Whip-It.

OK, lets take a temporary break from politics and talk about films for a little while.

Kick Ass
First up this week is the latest from Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake, Stardust), moving genres again, he tackles the superhero movie - kind of. Kick Ass is the story of an ordinary boy (Nowhere Boy's Aaron Johnson) who gets tired of getting pushed around and decides to become a superhero, with predictably unsuccessful results, until he becomes a surprise internet hit, attracts the attention of the local bad guy (Mark Strong) and meets some real heroes (Nicolas Cage's BIg Daddy and his daughter Hit Girl).

As with Stardust, Vaughn has a sharp script to work with here which isn't afraid to play games with the genre - both cine-literate and comic-literate enough to appeal to the geeks and funny and sharp enough to have mainstream appeal. Unlike Stardust, which flagged in a few places, this is much more tightly controlled and paced. He's helped out by a strong cast - I can't remember Cage has been this good recently. His Adam West-style Batman delivery is a particularly joy. The host of Brit-flick regulars as the bad guys do a solid job. But the real stand-outs are Johnson proving his performance in Nowhere Boy was no fluke and 500 Days of Summer's Chloe Moretz as Hit Girl, who just about steals the whole film, admittedly with the best role.

Tonally, it strikes a difficult balance between making the action and violence (and its probably not one for the faint of heart) fun and entertaining, whilst at the same time showing some awareness of the uncomfortableness of the fact that all this violence and swearing is being perpetrated by a twelve years old girl. That's a difficult tightrope to walk, but Vaughn just about manages it without falling into the serious gloom of most superhero movies.

Overall - 8/10 - It's a fun, action packed, witty and entertaining watch, breathing new life into the genre in a very different way from The Dark Knight, not exactly parody, not exactly straight either.



Whip It

Whip It is the directorial debut from Drew Barrymore. The story follows Bliss (Juno's Ellen Page), whose mother (the excellent Marcia Gay Harden) forces her to compete in beauty pageants, but who finds a new avenue for herself through the bizarre sport of roller derby. On one level the story is fairly predictable following many cliches from sports and teen movies (rushing to get to the climactic showdown, falling out and making up with best friend, etc... but Barrymore has produced a film that is never less than watchable. Ok - the action sequences might have been a bit sharper with a more experienced hand behind the camera, but all in all this is very watchable.

Barrymore is helped by strong performance and again a script that is smarter than average, but the real secret to the success here is that the key moments are nicely, subtly underplayed rather than built up for maximum emotional impact and it works very well.

Overall - 7/10 - Very few surprises here except how well the whole works together to make a very entertaining film

Clash of the Titans

If we clear away the nostalgic haze, it has to be acknowledged that the original Clash of the Titans was a bit naff, best remembered as the last hurrah for Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion creatures and an irritating robotic owl. The 2010 versions comes all CGi-ed up with lots of room for improvement then.

Unfortunately, it starts off badly - overly-earnest acting, overly-portentous script, visual effects that don't really work. Then there comes a point about 20-30 minutes in, just as Perseus is setting off on his quest, that somebody remembers this could be fun. The film from there on varies between the two extremes. Some fun moments, some heavy-handed dreadfulness. Take the Gods - as Hades, Ralph Fiennes enjoyably hams it up to great effect, Liam Neeson's Zeus is far too po-faced and earnest. Similarly with visual effects - the fight against the medusa works well as does Charon, the giant scorpions are fun too, the kraken itself less well-realised, whilst Neeson in shining armour looks like he's escaped from a bad 80s rock video.

As a leading man, Worthington is far less convincing here than he was in Avatar and his Aussie accent and shaved heard jar visually and aurally with those about him. There are some good supporting turns (Jason Flemyng and Mads Mikkelson) and Gemma Arterton does an Ok job with the worst lines - she gets all the exposition to do, whilst Nicholas Hoult just looks vaguely bemused by the whole thing.

Verdict - 5.5/10 The good parts don't quite do enough to make up for the weaknesses. It gets an extra half mark for the robot owl reference, which is just about the funniest point of the film (but only if you remember the original).

Wanted

Wanted would be an easy film to knock – visually it borrows heavily from The Matrix amongst others, the plot makes about as much sense as Boris Johnson on a bad day (there’s some nonsense about a guild of assassins who are guided to their targets by the “loom of fate”), James McAvoy’s American accent is rather dodgy and Angelina Jolie plays the same part she played in Mr and Mrs Smith and seems to be only half-trying. Oh, and the CGi in the train sequence is rather less than convincing.

All of which is true, but rather misses the fun of it all. Director Timur Bekmambetov does borrow from The Matrix’s bullet-time, but there is just as much of his own Russian films, Nightwatch and Daywatch in the mix and he creates some genuinely impressive sequences – watch out especially for the opening rooftop shootout and the car chase.

The plot may be rather silly, but the script is lively and fun and keeps things moving on the whole at a healthy pace (although the training section is a wee-bit overlong) which prevents things getting bogged down in unnecessary explanations.

McAvoy, accent-aside, provides a charismatic lead who keeps you watching. Jolie, even at less than fully trying is far more watchable than a lot of actresses doing their best. And the rest of a talented cast do well, although Terence Stamp feels a bit out of place. It’s also refreshing to see Morgan Freeman in a less than saintly role for a change – he even gets to swear!

Overall – 3.5/5. It’s not exactly ground-breaking or especially deep, but there are some great sequences and good performances that make Wanted one of the best and most fun actioners of the summer so far.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

The recent rush, post Rings and Potter, to get any possible fantasy-themed children’s book onto the screen – for every success (The Bridge to Terabithia, Spiderwicke Chronicles) there seems to be a corresponding failure (The Dark is Rising) and lets not even think about Eragon. The first Narnia movie, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe kind of fell in the middle – it was faithful enough to the book to keep fans (and the American Bible Belt) happy enough to bring huge commercial success as a the Christmas family movie of choice, but if we’re honest, it was a wee bit of a flat adaptation.

Caspian has several obstacles to overcome – firstly the best performances in the first film came from James McAvoy’s Mr Tumnus (now long dead) and Tilda Swinton’s white witch (reduced to the briefest of appearances here, but still a highlight). Secondly, this is not such a well-known or well-loved novel.

The good news is that director Andrew Adamson has improved on the first film. You come away from Prince Caspian with a much greater sense of Narnia as a believable world with more substance. As seems inevitably the way, the sequel is “darker” – the addition of more human roles bringing with it plots and intrigues a plenty, but also making the whole more engaging and interesting. The human city and castle add a more distinctive flavour to the visuals as well.

The battle scenes are also more impressive that in movie 1, but those who have seen Lord of the Rings will both feel a sense of deja-vu and a feeling that Narnia is still an inferior copy in many respects. I stopped trying to count how many shots were directly borrowed or strongly influenced by Rings.

The films major weakness remains the older children, especially William Mosely as Peter, whose performance creaks badly. And as he is required to shoulder the main character arc and moral development in the film, that’s quite a major flaw. Of the other youngsters, newcomer Ben Barnes (in the title role) and Anna Popplewell (Susan) are reduced to exchanging moody/meaningful glances at each other. Whilst the younger children, Georgie Henley (Lucy) and especially Skandar Keynes (Edmund) are better but given far too little to do.

Instead, the real stars of the movie turn out to be Peter Dinklage as the dwarf Trumpkin and Eddie Izzard voicing Reepicheep, the swashbuckling mouse. Together they inject some much needed life and humour into proceedings. Which bodes well for the next film, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, where Reepicheep should play a much larger role. Unfortunately, Liam Neeson’s Aslan remains peculiarly flat and unengaging.

Overall – 3/5. It’s an improvement, but in movie terms Narnia’s not quite there yet. Promising signs for Voyage of the Dawn Treader, where the lack of big battles might move us more away from the Rings trilogy.

Drillbit Taylor

Owen Wilson, despite his recent well-publicised problems, is an actor with tons of charisma and charm. He has the laid-back stoner act so well honed that he could do it in his sleep. The problem is that too often that's exactly what he seems to be doing. Drillbit Taylor is no exception, and to be honest, we've all seen it too many times before.

Wilson plays an army deserter who is hired by three high school nerds as a bodyguard to protect them from the school bully. The character arcs are as predictable as Wilson's performance - he goes from looking to exploit the youngsters to a genuine affection, they move from passive victims to standing up for themselves.

This is not irredeemably bad - there are some funny moments - but coming from the same school as Superbad and Knocked-up (Seth Rogen is one of the writers here), you would expect funnier. There is a fine line to be trod in a comedy dealing with bullying - how to keep both the humour and the sympathy for the victims. Drillbit Taylor manages neither entirely successfully. All three of the youngsters border on the irritating and unlikeable, with only Troy Gentile offering enough charisma to get beyond this. Meanwhile Alex Frost (Elephant) as the bully offers a performance with enough menace to come close to stealing the whole movie and Leslie Mann is wasted as the teacher who falls for Drillbit.

Overall - 2.5/5 A few nice touches and funny moments can't disguise the fact that this should be both better and funnier and that Owen Wilson really needs to find some more challenging material - you just know he can do better than this.

Lars and the Real Girl

Even for a dedicated film fan like yours truly, the release schedules for the past few weeks have been somewhat ... dull, unexciting, lacking in quality or interest or anything that would make me actually really want to go to the cinema. The shining, solitary exception to this is this surprising indie oddity.

Don't be put off by the plot - which concerns a shy, lonely man (Ryan Gosling) who creates a delusional "real" relationship with a sex doll he buys on the internet. Becoming convinced that she is a real Brazilian missionary called Bianca, crippled by an illness. Following advice from the local psychologist (Patricia Clarkson) the whole community buys into this delusion in order to help Lars.

Don't be put off either by the fact that director Craig Gillespie's only previous film was the woeful Mr Woodcock. Aided by a great script from Nancy Oliver and some great performances, he manages to create a film that is subtle, funny, surprising and tender where his previous film was loud, brash, predictable and more than a little crap. Amazingly, it also a film with barely a hint of sleaze - no mean achievement given the subject.

It's not perfect - it does lack something in realism and is somewhat rosy in its portrait of small town America - surely somewhere there would be somebody shouting abuse or something. But it is a compelling portrait of loneliness and delusion, as well as support and love. Gosling (Half Nelson) is again superb - a picture of stumbling awkwardness who visibly grows in stature as the film progresses. He's supported well by the rest of the cast from the ever-excellent Clarkson to Emily Mortimer and Paul Schneider (you'll know the face even if you can't place it) as his brother and sister-in-law and Kelli Garner as the colleague who really rather likes him.

Overall - 4/5 A surprising delight that will amuse and move far more than it will make you squirm.

Catch-up

So, as you may have noticed, I’ve not had time to blog much recently, which means that there a few different movies that have been viewed and yet to be reviewed. What follows is a brief summary:

Vantage Point – 3/5
Described as 24 meets Rashomon – an assassination attempt on the president viewed from multiple perspectives – each adding something new to the mix. On the whole it works as good entertainment – the multiple perspectives change enough and add enough new information to avoid a feeling of repetition. There’s a quality cast who guarantee good value – Dennis Quaid, Forrest Whitaker, Sigourney Weaver, William Hurt and Lost’s Matthew Fox. Most of the action set pieces and car chases work well and then they rather mess up the ending to leave it feeling too messy and contrived. Good, but should have been better.

Conversations with my Gardener – 3.5/5
OK, this one’s from the French film festival and isn’t on general release yet, but is well worth checking out when it comes around. It tells the story of an artist (Daniel Auteuil) who moves back to his home town and develops a friendship with his gardener (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) who is also a childhood friend. The film successfully treads the line – managing to both be genuinely funny and also giving a touching portrait of the friendship between two men. We’ve seen Auteuil do this kind of role often before, but it is Darroussin who gives the film real heart and steals he credits.

Margot at the Wedding – 2.5/5
Noah Baumbach’s follow-up to The Squid and the Whale treads the same ground – a darkly comic look at dysfunctional families. Margot (Nicole Kidman) and her teenage son go to visit her sister (Jennifer Jason Leigh) as she prepares to get married to an underachieving Jack Black. It maintains the humour of its predecessor, but is a messier and much less likeable affair, mainly due to the fact that none of the characters are particularly likeable.

The Spiderwick Chronicles – 3.5/5
Following a family break-up, a mum (the excellent Mary-Louise Parker) and her teenage daughter and twin sons (both played by Freddie Highmore) move into a big old house in the middle of nowhere. Soon a book is discovered that opens their eyes to the magical world of creatures around them and the danger that brings. Yes, its another children’s fantasy, but a more or less successful one – visually and emotionally (with the underplayed break-up situation) it comes close in feel to Bridge to Terabithia, which is actually a recommendation. The cast, which also includes David Strathairn, are all on good form and there are some real PG-level scares. Recommended for viewers of all ages.

10,000 BC – 2.5/5
It would so easy to knock the latest blockbuster from Roland Emmerich (Independance Day, The Day After Tomorrow) – you could start with the obviously multi-ethnic origins of the stone age tribe (presumably working on the logic that as long as they all look foreign nobody will notice), there’s the not entirely successful mixing of real actors and CGI mammoths, the script which might have been written in the stone ages, the ridiculous plot elements (including one pinched from Androcles and the lion). At the end of the day, though, if you go to watch this, you ain’t going to be expecting high art and as mindless entertainment and spectacle following in the footsteps of Apocalypto, it works OK. It also takes itself so seriously it becomes unintentionally hilarious in places, but it does, mainly, look great.

The Other Boleyn Girl – 2/5
Or Elizabeth:the Early Years. This film has many faults, but the main cast isn’t one of them – Eric Bana, Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman all do a creditable job and manage better than average English accents. The plot is historical soap opera, but that’s to be expected. The script is poor – with heavy handed moments of Tudor history for dummies inserted into dialogue. But the main fault is with the direction and cinematography – I’m not quite sure what was being attempted, but it doesn’t work – the odd camera angles, jerky shooting and odd cuts are more suggestive of a psychological thriller or slasher flick and are far more distracting than effective. Approach with caution.

The Boss of it All – 2/5
Lars Von Trier (Dogville, Breaking the Waves) is not a director renowned for making people laugh . Here he attempts a comedy, or so he tells us at the start. The set-up has good comic potential –company owner, Ravn, is too afraid of offending his employees so he invents a fictional boss to take responsibility for all the unpopular decisions. Due to circumstances he then has to hire out of work actor Kristoffer to play said boss – the problem being that the “boss” has told all the employees different things. The result isn’t without the odd wry smile, but leaves you with the feeling it should be much funnier. This seems to mainly be down to Von Trier seemingly being more interested in picking apart the genre than actually making people laugh – his closing words will leave you with the impression that he is the only one who is truly amused, and that at the expense of the audience.

The Bank Job

Going into an average film with low expectations, one can come away pleasantly surprised having actually quite enjoyed it. And The Bank Job is an average film - despite the apparent true story premise (one suspects that there is one heck of a lot of supposition at work) and political intrigue additions, this is effectively just another London-set gangster movie. From the loveable cockney thieves to the posh spooks, there's not much in the way of characterisation here beyond the stereotypical.

The plot follows Terry (Jason Statham) and his mates, tricked into the robbery of some safety deposit boxes by the intelligence community in order that they might get their hands on some incriminating pictures of a royal personage. In the process they also manage to rob various persons of ill-repute, who all want to get their stuff back.

What follows will leave you with a distinct sense of deja-vu - despite the political element to the set-up there's not much that hasn't been done before and done better. Statham in particular struggles with a role which requires him to be more restrained than usual and only really seems at ease in the last act where he gets to be menacing and violent.

There are, however, redeeming features - the script by Dick Clement and Ian Le Frenais keeps things moving at a lively pace and keeps things clear and coherent with all the different groups and their motivations. Peter Bowles is very watchable as the intelligence chief, as is Stephen Campbell Moore (The History Boys) as Terry's photographer friend. On the downside, some of the violence feels a bit gruesome for what is otherwise quite a light tone to the film.

Overall - 2.5/5. Neither as good nor as bad as it might have been. Lacking in originality but fairly well executed for undemanding lively entertainment.

Be Kind Rewind

Writer-director Michael Gondry is certainly a man with an almost boundless imagination. After all, this is the man who directed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and brought us The Science of Sleep. Be Kind Rewind is not in the same league as either of those films, but it does have its inspired moments of lunacy.

The plot follows Mike (Mos Def) left in charge of the local video store only for his friend Jerry (Jack Black), who has become magnetised following a freak accident whilst sabotaging the local power plant, to wipe all the tapes. Rather than replacing them, the pair decide to shoot the films themselves, in doing so bringing their community together, etc... And yes there are strong elements of that old standard plot about a community uniting to save the store from the evil developers who want to rip everything down and the sentimentality comes pretty thick at the end.

The cast is strong - with supporting turns from the likes of Danny Glover, Mia Farrow and a blink and you'll miss it cameo from Sigourney Weaver. The leads aren't bad - Mos Def borders on the too whiny at times and Jack Black is in full manic mode, but given the overall lunacy of the plot, its more appropriate and watchable than he's been for a while. The film also takes its time to get going and slides into sentimentality at the end, but really hits its stride in the middle stages where the films are being re-shot, often hilariously. As one reviewer put it, you'd probably rather watch their version of Rush Hour 2 than the real thing. Disappointingly, some of the more intriguing ideas are only hinted at - I'd love to see Jack Black doing a twenty minute vesion of Lord of the Rings.

Overall - 3/5. It is a bit messy with too many ideas going in different directions, but at times its very funny and inspired in its lunacy.