GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE*

The original 1984 GHOSTBUSTERS was a thing of perfection - inventive, hilarious, perilous, epic, buddy-bromance intimate. For decades, people have been trying and failing to resurrect its unique magic, not least SATURDAY NIGHT's Jason Reitman - son of the guy who directed the original.

Unfortunately, FROZEN EMPIRE is no exception to the sucky sequel rule.  It's a bloated film, both in terms of characters and running time, with disappointingly few moments of levity and no actual jump scares. 

In this contemporary retelling Egon Spengler's daughter (Carrie Coon - The Gilded Age) has taken over the family business with her two kids and partner (Paul Rudd).  There's a plot line about how hard it is to be a bonus dad and how the teenage daughter's only pal is a ghost in what may or may not be a queer relationship.  Meanwhile, a MacGuffin owned by some guy played by Kumail Nanjiani is about to unleash hell on earth and only the old school ghostbusters can stop it.  Ray (Dan Ackroyd) and Winston (Ernie Hudson) - now conveniently rich - do most of the heavy lifting here. We get a cameo from Bill Murray as Venkman and that's literally the only scene that's actually funny. Kumail Nanjiani tries, but he can't carry a film this bloated on his own.

Enough already.

GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE has a running time of 115 minutes and is rated PG-13. It was released in March 2024.

DARKEST HOUR

DARKEST HOUR is a film about the first month of Churchill's Prime Ministership and what is often referred to as the Cabinet War Room Crisis.  It's a very compressed account of a Conservative Party at odds with its leader.  Neville Chamberlain, the previous Prime Minister, discredited by his association with the policy of appeasing Hitler, is judged unfit to continue by both his party and the opposition.  The Conservatives must therefore find a Prime Minister who will unite Parliament. Lord Halifax is popular with his own party, the King, and the House of Lords, and like many aristos of the time, scarred by World War One, is determined to make peace. Churchill seems to stand alone in believing that one cannot negotiate with a tyrant, but as the British forces are encircled at Dunkirk, seems to lose faith in his own judgment. This is his Darkest Hour. And yet, by interacting with the Honest Plucky British Public on a tube train, and with the fortification of his King who is now "bloody angry" that he'll have to go into exile in Canada, Churchill rediscovers his own confidence.  He outmanoeuvres Halifax, who is threatening to resign and bring down the government, by calling a wider meeting of his Outer Cabinet and then addressing Parliament directly. In the words of Halifax, Churchill "mobilises the English language". 

The decision to focus on this period, and the script, are the work of Anthony McCarten (THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING).  And there is much to love in this tense, compressed approach of focussing at the very real ethical dilemma of prosecuting war no matter what the cost.  We know that Churchill had history on his side, but the film does a good job of showing his faults - the drinking, past military blunders - as well as the humanity of Halifax's concern for wasted human life. After all, it's easy with the benefit of hindsight to know that the Allies would prevail, but in 1940 Britain was alone, America was out of the war, and Western Europe had capitulated. It's hard for us to sympathise with appeasers having not lived through the horror of World War One.  I also love the fact that this script focusses very much on Churchill's use of language. In his Darkest Hour, words fail him - this is a signal that he's doing the wrong thing.  That said, there's a little hokeyness mixed in with the otherwise excellent writing.  Did we really need Churchill on a tube?

In front of the lens, I loved everything about the production design - the claustrophobia of the cabinet war rooms symbolising how trapped Britain was; the oppressive grandeur of Buckingham Palace hemming in the King; contrasted with the homely security of 10 Downing Street and faithful wife Clemmie. I also loved the decision to match the ethical quandary with a visual darkness and chiaroscuro that's more extreme than anything I've seen in recent years. Kudos to cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel (INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS) for pulling it off.   And the acting is of course superlative.  Kristin Scott Thomas manages to make Clemmie more than a caricature hairstyle and shows the real sacrifices she has made.  Stephen Dillane gives real humanity to Halifax and makes it clear that his decisions are not founded in self-interest.  I very much liked Ben Mendelsohn as King George V - he gets the sense of conflict and duty. But it's Gary Oldman who is rightly winning praise for his absolutely seamless transformation into Churchill. We live in an era of Churchill's - Brian Cox, John Lithgow - but none have benefited from the prosthetics, or quite nailed the vocal pattern. His Churchill is a great man - and greater still for his vulnerability and doubt.  He is funny as well as wise, and I must confess I was in tears during his final speech to the House of Commons.

So overall, there is a great deal to admire in Joe Wright (ATONEMENT)'s new film.  As ever he gives us a fluid camera and camera moves that draw attention to themselves. He loves showing us complex interiors as he draws his camera forward on a single character weaving through the landscape.  At times, I felt the flourishes were just too much, or without purpose, but in general in makes what could've been a more stodgy period drama (think THE KING'S SPEECH) more dynamic, tense, and high stakes. 

DARKEST HOUR has a running time of 125 minutes and is rated PG-13.  The film played Telluride, Toronto and Turin 2017. It opened last year in the USA, China and France. It opened earlier this year in Hong Kong, Israel, Singapore, Taiwan, Australia, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Kuwait, Portugal and Slovakia. It opens this weekend in Spain, the UK and Ireland; on Jan 18th in Austria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, South Korea, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Finland, Indonesia, Mexico, Romania and Vietnam; on Jan 25th in Denmark and Poland; on Jan 31st in Malaysia; on Feb 2nd in Estonia and Sweden; on Feb 14th in Philippines and Argentina and on Feb 23rd in Turkey. 

THE BOXTROLLS

THE BOXTROLLS are a bit like Wombles. They sift through our junk and take it to an underground world where they polish it up and make it useful. They're odd but mostly harmless.  And yet in the epilogue to this beautifully stop-motion animated and witty* film, the evil Archibald Snatcher (Ben Kingsley) wants all the box trolls killed!  So follows a kind of murky animated noir with trolls being chased through Dickensian streets, moodily lit, and then escaping into gorgeously warm toned underground steam-punk worlds of loveliness - kind of like Fraggle Rock!  It's just a wonderful time being in their world. Into this adversarial status quo comes our hero, a young kid called Eggs (Isaac Hempstead Wright) who has been raised by a boxtroll called Fish, just like Mowgli in Jungle Book. So when Fish is snatched by the evil Snatcher, Eggs stumbles into the above-ground world and meets the lovely Winnie (Elle Fanning), who happens to be the daughter of the Mayor who's in league with the Snatcher!

This movie is everything a children's movie should be! It creates a unique and visually stunning world populated with whimsical and wonderful characters that warm our hearts.  There is genuine peril and tension but a happy ending and a clear message about not trusting everything you're told and the danger of prejudice. The voice acting is a delight and there's more than enough verbal wit to keep the parents happy.  There is simply nothing not to like here. In fact, it's one of my favourite recent animated films, along PIRATES! IN AN ADVENTURE WITH SCIENTISTS!

THE BOXTROLLS has a running time of 96 minutes and is rated PG. *"Do you think these box trolls really understand the duality of good and evil?"  The movie is on global release.

London Film Fest 2012 Day 6 - QUARTET

Tom Courtenay and Maggie Smith as Reggie and Jean,
estranged former lovers, in QUARTET.

Dustin Hoffman's directorial début is an hilarious romantic comedy set in a nursing home for classical musicians, based on the play by Ronald Harwood (THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY).  The joyful good humour and colourful characters more than compensate for the rather predictable plot, the weak middle section, and the rather cowardly finale.

All romantic comedies need a sense of peril that must be resolved and an obstacle to true love. In this movie, the peril is the possibility that the rather luxurious nursing home will be closed if enough money cannot be raised at a benefit gala where the former stars take to the stage. This problem will be solved if new arrival Jean (Dame Maggie Smith) agrees to sing, and ignores the fears that she will damage her glittering reputation.  The obstacle to true love is that Jean's cuckolded ex husband Reggie (Tom Courtenay) is also a resident in the home - they are both hurting and must be brought together by the offices of the loveable rogue Wilf (Billy Connolly) and the lovably ditzy Cecily (Pauline Collins).

The movie drips with good will and good humour. To be sure, some of that humour is the rather simplistic kind - the joy of seeing well-bred old-people swearing like troopers.  But most of it is more subtle - poking fun at the egotism of celebrities and the stereotypes about the soloists versus the chorus and directors stealing ideas and being impossible (Michael Gambon in a brilliantly funny supporting role).  The problem is that we are never in any serious doubt that Jean will agree to sing, recreating the quartet from Verdi's Rigoletto that the four singers recorded in their heyday - and there is never any doubt that Jean and Reggie will be reunited.

Sheridan Smith, Billy Connolly, Maggie Smith, Pauline Collins, Tom Courtenay, Dustin Hoffman, and real-life opera star, Dame Gwyneth Jones

And while the movie drips with humanity - sympathising with people who are patronised and put on the shelf and forever regretting their former life - it does not have the gritty profundity of the movie to which it will inevitably be compared, THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL. That film tackled racism, homophobia and failed marriages - by contrast, this is a much sweeter, lighter confection. My final gripe is that while I quite understand why Dustin Hoffman did not want to risk showing his actors lip syncing to opera, I did feel rather cheated of not seeing some kind of performance at the end.

QUARTET  played Toronto and London 2012 and will be released in New Zealand on Dec 20; in Australia on Dec 26; in the USA on Dec 28; in the UK on Jan 4; in Germany on Jan 24 and in the Netherlands on Jan 31. The running time is 90 minutes.