MEG 2: THE TRENCH*

MEG 2: THE TRENCH is a piss-poor dull AF action movie sequel that delivers zero wow-action moments and zero humour. I was hoping for some silly mindless "Jason Statham beats up a giant shark" nonsense. I love The Stath. Instead I was trapped for over an hour in a pitch-black sea scape as our group of shark-haters tried to get back to the surface. It gave me Titan Submersible heebie-jeebies. Too Soon! They squabble and quibble and half of them don't make it but we don't care. And to literally nobody's surprise it turns out that the massive corporation funding the research is EEEEVILLL. Hence Sienna Guillory doing a Parker Posey impression with a side-order of Cruella DeVill.  But I still had hope. Once we got to the ocean's surface I was all ready for the giant shark to eat dumb fat tourists and some White Lotus style social satire. But no. The writers aren't witty enough for the social satire and yes some people get eaten but way not enough.  It's so weird thinking that director Ben Wheatley used to make weird low budget black and white historical horrors like A FIELD IN ENGLAND. For my money he has produced progressively worse films the larger the budget he has been given.  Let it end.

MEG 2: THE TRENCH has a running time of 113 minutes and is rated PG-13. It opened in early August.

PUSH - Soporific sci-fi chase flick

PUSH is an incoherent, derivative sci-fi flick from the team behind stylish noir comedy, LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN. SLEVIN was guilty of using its convoluted plot as a mere clothes rail for quirky characters and lavish set pieces. PUSH is guiltier still. Basically it's just a chase movie set in Hong Kong. Chris Evans, Dakota Fanning and Camilla Belle are psychically gifted ex-pats on the lam from the a clandestine government agency that wants to exploit them for military purposes. It plays like a mixture of HEROES and JUMPER, and starts of as a tolerably well-made, if over-familiar, sci-fi flick. About half way through the script breakds down completely, with yawn-inducing results.

PUSH is on release in the US, France, Romania, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Spain and the UK. It opens next week in Greece. It opens in March in Belgium, Singapore, Argentina and Turkey. It opens in April in Estonia, Italy, New Zealand and Poland. It opens on May 1st in Brazil and on August 13th in Germany.

10,000 BC - don't scratch my soca!

Cinegeeks crack me up! Seriously, there are people on IMDB complaining that 10,000 BC contains factual errors. Ye gads, it's a Roland Emmerich big-budget studio action flick! It's not a National Geographic segment! This is the man who had Bill Pullman and Will Smith destroy invading aliens by uploading a virus into their improbably compatible computer network!

Thing is, if I see a movie like 10,000 BC, I don't expect it to be factually correct. In fact, if I'm going to have spend 2 hours watching actors in cheap wigs speaking gibberish I need A LOT of absurd craziness as compensation. I need good-looking people, scantily clad, running from bad-ass hairy mamaluks.

Tragically, 10,000 BC falls between the two stalls. It has great pretensions toward serious drama and gut-wrenching action but has neither the intelligence nor the sheer heart-busting adrenaline-rush chase scenes of APOCALYPTO. (And, frankly, if actors are going to have to utter such ridiculous dialogue - viz. the scene where our hero politely asks a sabre-tooth tiger not to eat him - I'd rather they did so in ancient Mayan or some other incomprehensible language.) More than once, I thought I saw the awesome Cliff Curtis smirking as he looked upon the ridiculous action before him.

Still, 10,000 BC isn't a complete write-off. First, the landscape photography from DP Ueli Steiger is truly beautiful to contemplate. Second, there's an unintentionally comedy performance from Mona "Auntie Susu" Hammond as Old Mother. That was enough to send me on a whimsical tour of old episodes of Desmond's whenever the action got too tedious to pay attention to.

10,000 BC is on global release.

THE RIVER QUEEN - costume epic catatastrophe

THE RIVER QUEEN wants to be a lavish historic adventure. It wants to have the mesmerising visuals, lyrical beautiy and epic scope of a Terrence Mallick flick. It wants to tell us something profound about conflicting loyalties and the search for identity. Director Vincent Ward and DP Alun Bollinger certainly succeed in shooting some wonderful footage of New Zealand, and the production designers certainly envelope the frontier garrisons and interior villages of the nineteenth century in sufficient mist and grime. Even Kiefer Sutherland convinces with a broad Irish accent as a soldier working for the British. He complements a cast rich with talent - not least Stephen Rea as an ex-pat surgeon and Samantha Morton as his daughter Sarah.

THE RIVER QUEEN is fundamentally Sarah's story. She throws off convention as one might take off a coat. She falls for a Maori man and bears him a child, who is then abducted by his grandfather. In love with a Maori, mother to a Maori son, but serving the British despite herself being an oppressed Irishwoman, Sarah must struggle with her own identity and loyalties. Moreover, her son has been raised a Maori and sees no need to return "upstream".

This could have been a great picture, but the movie is incoherent. The editing is jarring, the story meanders and character motivations are unclear. This is particularly true of Sarah. She seems to flit between her Maori lover (Cliff Curtis) and Kiefer Sutherland's Irish captain with little reason.

Presumably someone decided to throw a heavy layer of voice-over onto the movie to give the audience a hope of keeping up. Sadly, the narration doesn't help our understanding but adds to the frustration and irritation. The whole thing is basically a straight-to-DVD write-off. Presumably the only reason it's even getting a UK release it to cash in Samantha Morton's domestic popularity and Kiefer Sutherland's residual popularity for 24. Certainly, the marketing campaign is very misleading. Fans of 24 should be aware that he has only a small role.

THE RIVER QUEEN played Toronto back in 2005. It was released in New Zealand and Australia in 2006 and in Kuwait and Spain in 2007. It is currently on release in the UK.

EAGLE VS SHARK - over-long faux-naif romance

EAGLE VS SHARK is like watching a less funny, less sympathetic version of NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, but with the sets wall-papered by Wes Anderson. It's all there. Obsessive, emotionally illiterate geeks and freaks stumbling onto love. Weirdo side-kicks with a penchant for early 80s leisure-wear. A sound-track heavy in jangly guitars, close harmony and Nick Drake knock-offs. The lead performances are both fine and the production design/art direction/framing and editing succeed in re-creating that faux-naif style. But the script is simply too thin to sustain the run-time. Shame. Probably worth renting on DVD just to see a funny Mr T impression and a very very brave un-Hollywood choice in the final confrontation.

EAGLE VS SHARK played Sundance, Berlin and Cannes 2007. It opened in the US in May and is currently playing in the UK. It opens in New Zealand on August 30th 2007.

DIE HARD 4.0 aka LIVE FREE OR DIE HARDER aka The Best Summer Blockbuster of 07!

YES YES YES!!! Finally, a summer blockbuster that does what it says on the tin, and then some. Action movie, buddy movie, witty one-liners and Bruce Willis as NYPD cop John McClane blowing shit up. This movie is a noble addition to the DIE HARD franchise. It doesn't feel tired or re-hashed. It never slides into pastiche or post-modern winking at the audience. It just does what it always did but bigger and better.

In this installment, John McClane (Willis) is sent to pick up a computer hacker called Matt (the amiable and comically gifted Justin Long) and deliver him to the Feds in Washington, headed up by the always brilliant Cliff Curtis. Matt, along with a bunch of other low-level nerds, have unwittingly helped a mean terrorist bring down all the computer networks in the US, causing mayhem. The terrorists want to kill the hacker, which results in some cool one-liners and some wicked stunts - the dogs bollocks of which is an awesome truck-blowing-helicopter-up scene in a tunnel.

Of course, the DIE HARD flicks have always outdone themselves with the baddies too, and in this installment we get Timothy Olyphant in an arguably career-making role as genius hacker Thomas Gabriel. He manages real menace as well as some cutting sarcasm. He has a Kung Fu side-kick played by Maggie Q and she inadvertantly provides Bruce Willis with some of his best comedy riffs. Lest you think McClane's treatment of the Kung Fu chick verges on the misogynistic, we have him rescuing his daughter Lucy, who has inherited her father's balls of steel. So the chicks are represented, so to say.

Is this movie absolutely 100% perfect? If I were being picky I'd say that Len Wiseman is not my idea of a good director of action scenes. And the Kevin Smith cameo is weak - or is it just my disappointment to see him selling out like this? And, while I am willing to suspend my disbelief so far, the whole jet fighter scene is plain ridiculous.

But this is all marginal quibbling around the central fact that DIE HARD 4.0 is THE summer blockbuster of 2007. Have no fear my friends, the PG-13 certified movie does not let us down. So head to your local multiplex in all confidence. This flick is Yippee-Kay-Yay-Tastic.

DIE HARD 4.0 aka LIVE FREE OR DIE HARDER is on release in Japan, the UK, the US, Finland, Kuwait, Bulgaria, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Norway, Russia, Serbia, Sweden, Greece, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Cyprus, India, Japan, Lithuania, Turkey, Belgium, France, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Taiwan. It opens in Israel, Singapore, Thailand, Mexico and Poland this weekend and in South Korea on July 19th. It opens in Slovenia, Brazil, Australia, Bolivia, New Zealand and Argentina in August and in Spain in September and in Italy in October.

Grisham plus Harris equals FRACTURE

FRACTURE is a sub-John Grisham court-room drama. Ryan Gosling gives a decent enough performance as the arrogant, Southern smart-ass lawyer charged with prosecuting a supposedly slam-dunk murder case. (In olden days, this role would've gone to Tom Cruise.) Trick is that while the murderer has confessed and was caught with the gun, the evidence trail has evaporated. (Turns out the unfaithful wife/victim was bedding the arresting cop.) Anthony Hopkins is on the verge of Lektor as he challenges the young lawyer to convict him. So unfolds a tricksy little "how-dunnit".

Benchmarked against director, Gregory Hoblit's, earlier work, PRIMAL FEAR, FRACTURE doesn't look that great. The whole corporate lawyer love-interest sub-plot is a waste of time, though providing the obligatory Hollywood eye-candy in the form of Rosamund Pike. And Fiona Shaw is wasted as the presiding judge, although perhaps after her disastrous performance in THE BLACK DAHLIA, this is no bad thing. And, it's a bit of a shame to cast Embeth Davidtz and then give her so little screen time. Still, compared to, say, PERFECT STRANGER, FRACTURE is one of the better thrillers on offer right now.

FRACTURE is on release in the US, Singapore and the UK. It opens in Israel, Iceland and Italy next week. It opens in Belgium, France, Denmark, Hong Kong, Norway, Argentina, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and Turkey. It opens in Australia, Estonia and Egypt in August.

SUNSHINE - Utilitarianism 101

SUNSHINE is for the most part a beautifully designed but predictable sci-fi movie. Some time in a future imagined by Alex Garland (THE BEACH), mankind is about to freeze to death as the Sun burns out. A small crew of astronauts is sent to deliver a nuclear payload that will somehow cause the Sun to be reborn (there goes the Science!), thus saving all of mankind. But the Icharus never made it. And so, seven years later (biblical?!) another eight man crew is sent to nuke the sun in Icharus II. They comprise: Rose Byrne, Cliff Curtis (WHALE RIDER), Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans (FANTASTIC FOUR), Troy Garrity (MILWAUKEE, MINNESOTA), Hiroyuki Sanada (THE WHITE COUNTESS), Benedict Wong (A COCK AND BULL STORY) and Michelle Yeoh (MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA). And yes, Icharus II has a nice soothing HAL-like voice.

Director, Danny Boyle (TRAINSPOTTING, 28 DAYS LATER), and cinematographer Alwin H Kuchler combine to create some stunning visuals of space stations, passing planets and solar glare. And as things start to go wrong with the mission, they successfully ratchet up the tension. Of course, as the ethical questions and risk-return trade-offs are argued over by the crew, you feel like you're back in Ethics prelims. Heck, that's half the fun of sci-fi! And yes, it is marginally annoying that you can tell who'll last longest by who's the most beautiful and/or bank-able. And I must also admit that not once, not twice, but three times, at least half of the full-house at the National Film Theatre were tittering at unintentionally funny lines.

But for all that, SUNSHINE was a really great sci-fi movie (nicely acted, imagined and realised) until about half an hour into the end, when it turned into another sort of film entirely. Danny Boyle and Alex Garland seriously dropped the ball, and the fact that it still looked stunning and was edited in an innovative way couldn't stop me thinking they'd miscalculated badly. Shame.

SUNSHINE goes on release in Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, Jamaica, Malaysia, Peru, Singapore and Taiwan on April 5th; in Iceland, Latvia, Mexico and the UK on April 6th; in Belgium and France on April 11th; in Argentina, Australia and Italy on April 12th; in Brazil, Norway and Poland on April 13th; in Japan on April 19th; in Germany, the Netherlands, Russia and Slovakia on April 19th; in Finland, Spain, and Sweden on April 20th and in Estonia on April 27th. It does not open in the US until September 14th.

THE FOUNTAIN - intriguing/frustrating

In short, Darren Aronofsky disappearing down a dead end is still more interesting than most Hollywood hacks getting it right.

Aronofsky is a challenging director – both in terms of content and visual style. And if I found his debut feature, PI, more intriguing than perfect, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM is certainly one of my pantheon movies. Its bleak depiction of drug abuse and crass commerce was told in an innovative style and with uncompromising honesty. Not to mention the fact that Aronofsky managed to coax career-redefining performances from Ellen Burstyn and Jennifer Connelly. Where these movies succeeded was in scraping underneath the surface of a relatively closed under-ground world. Investigating the workings of mania and paranoia and addiction on a small group of individuals living in contemporary society – albeit a strand of society that most of us never interact with.

With THE FOUNTAIN, Aronofsky moves well beyond his (dis)comfort zone into the territory of 2001. He eschews contemporary settings to produce a more abstract, symbolic and richly stylised movie. At its heart is a man called Tom (Hugh Jackman) who is desperately in love with his fatally ill wife, an authoress called Izzy (Rachel Weisz). The crux of the story is Tom’s initial refusal to accept Izzy’s impending death. In the contemporary story-line, Tom chooses to spend time researching a cure rather than spending what time remains with Izzy. This choice will rack him with guilt in the futuristic story-line, which sees Tom living alone with his regrets in a sci-fi world of loneliness (another Requiem for a Dream of Eternal Love?) The film is also inter-cut with a further storyline which sees Izzy’s novel re-enacted. Tom is now cast as a Spanish conquistador on a mission from Izzy’s Queen of Spain to find a plant that can give eternal life.

The thematic content of the movie is thus profound, but also surprisingly simple, especially given the complexity of Aronofsky’s narrative structure and visual and audio stylings. The movie boasts an evocative sound-track from the Kronos Quartet and Mogwai and the production design features fairy-tale symbols and beautifully rendered old-fashioned visual effects. The problem is that at least half of it feels redundant. I am also unconvinced by the heavy-handed symbolism of the presumably deliberately under-lit opening scenes of the Conquistador? Of many examples, Christopher Nolan proved in BATMAN BEGINS that it is possible to create a dark, brooding atmosphere while actually allowing the audience to see what is going on.

The overall effect is that while powerful, the simple central question posed by the film drowns under the weight of the deliberately obscure production design, cinematography and editing. The over-complicated structure and design and abstract script also prohibit Jackman and Weisz from giving memorable performances - though they do their best with portentious dialogue. All this combines to make THE FOUNTAIN simultaneously one of the most intriguing and frustrating films I have seen in a long time.

THE FOUNTAIN played Venice and Toronto 2006. It opened in the US, Argentina, Brazil, Taiwan and France in winter 2006. It opened in Poland, South Africa, Germany and Estonia earlier this month and opens in Australia, Italy and the UK this weekend. THE FOUNTAIN opens in South Korea on Feb 8th and in Israel and Singapore on Feb 22nd. It opens in New Zealand on March 1st and in Hong Kong, the Netherland and Belgium on March 8th. It opens in Norway on March 16th, Spain on March 30th, Sweden and and Finland on April 13th and in Japan on July 7th.

WHALE RIDER - North Country wishes it were this good

WHALE RIDER is one of those films you should really try and watch, and now that it's available on DVD there is no excuse. To be sure, this is not ground-breaking cinema in either content or technical achievement. But in this era of heartless movies buckling under the burden of computer generated special effects*, it is nice to see a simple story well told.

WHALE RIDER is set in a Maori community where leadership has been handed down from eldest son to eldest son for centuries. For the traditionalist current leader, Koro, the problems start when his son becomes an artist and travels the world rather than take up the mantle. Worse still, when the son has twin children, only the daughter survives. Paikea, that daughter, breaks all the rules. She is named after a male - the legendary original ancestor - and clearly has all the aptitude, courage and interest to become the new leader. This movie is the story of her desperate quest to show her grandfather that she is up to the task.

Watching WHALE RIDER through the prism of a recent viewing of NORTH COUNTRY one is aware of the fact that these flicks have three objectives in common. First, both aim to give you insight into life in an isolated community. In both films, director Niki Caro successfully captures the faces of the real people of these areas - their concerns, hopes and fears. Second, both films aim to show these communities struggling to translate traditional beliefs and customs into modern life. Where the women go down the mines in NORTH COUNTRY, in WHALE RIDER, a young girl becomes a tribal chief. I feel that WHALE RIDER is far more successful in handling this issue than NORTH COUNTRY. The transition of the traditionalist grandfather in WHALE RIDER seems more organic and plausible than the sudden epiphany of the father in NORTH COUNTRY.

Finally, each film has to make us identify with the heroine and to feel her persecution and eventual triumph. Once again, I found NORTH COUNTRY confused and confusing. Yes, I cried for Charlize Theron but for the wrong reasons and at the hands of some pretty hard-core emotional pornography. There was no melodramatic trick that Niki Caro did not resort to in order to get us to sympathise with Theron. By contrast, in WHALE RIDER we have a movie of such subtlety and poise that when the big knock-out moment comes - Paikea's speech in the school-hall - it takes us by surprise and with the full force of emotion. The slights suffered by Pai at the hands of her grandfather are not anything as dramatic as Theron's rape in North Country, but they carry far greater dramatic weight. Looking back at the delicacy and honesty with which these issues are handled in WHALE RIDER, I can only hope that Niki Caro goes back to quieter movies in future.

WHALE RIDER is available on Region 1 and 2 DVD. *Ironically, Keisha Castle-Hughes next role after the wonderful WHALE RIDER was to play the Queen of Naboo in that crime against cinema, Star Wars III.