X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE - works, but not as intended

Gavin Hood's addition to the fantastically popular and lucrative X-MEN franchise has attracted mixed reviews. Fans of the original Marvel comics have complained about the cavalier attitude of screen-writer, David Benioff (25th HOUR), to the source material, in particular, the transformation of mutant Logan (Hugh Jackman) into adamantium-enhanced Wolverine in the lab run by General William Stryker (Danny Huston). Logan's relationship with his some-time partner Victor Creed/Sabretooth (Liev Schreiber) has also been changed. Other complaints include the fact that we never see Wolverine go berserker and that too many classic comic book characters are introduced and then given not much to do. Perhaps the most damning criticism is that the content of this movie adds precious little to the narrative arc of the original three X-MEN movies. It is, when all is said and done, a $150million irrelevance.

I can't really defend the film against these charges. Nonetheless, I did enjoy watching it. I liked the action set pieces. I liked the sarcastic humour of Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson, even if he was only on screen for 10 minutes. I liked the gallery of mutants. I was genuinely surprised by the plot twists and double-crosses. And most of all, I bought into the love affair between Logan and Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins). Hugh Jackman may look ludicrously buff as Logan, but he can also look vulnerable. He sells the love story.

The upshot is that I didn't so much enjoy WOLVERINE as a standard summer blockbuster but as a thriller with some emotional heft, enlivened by the occasional technically brilliant action set-piece. And I think that if you take the movie on those terms, it works perfectly well.

WOLVERINE is on release pretty much everywhere except Japan, where it opens on August 22nd.

RENDITION turns a serious issue into standard sentimental fare

As befits any glossy, Hollywood, issues-based drama, RENDITION weaves together three different plot strands on two continents and features an uncaring Senator in a three-piece suit. This is, I admit, a rather flippant opening sentence to a review of a movie that desperately wants to be a serious, intelligent, emotionally engaging drama. Sadly, it falls short.

The subject matter is certainly serious, but this film does not treat it with respect. The first segment of the film takes place in an un-named North African country. The young daughter of a police chief has run off with a young boy who tragically turns out to be a suicide bomber. His bomb does not kill her father but a CIA operative who happens to be in a passing car. This triggers the story of the second, inter-woven segment of the film, in which Anwar Il-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally) is the victim of an extraordnary rendition to North Africa, where he is tortured at the behest of the CIA on suspicion of organising the bombing. The third segment sees Anwar's heavily-pregnant wife Isabella (Reese Witherspoon) lobby her friend (Peter Sarsgaard), his boss the Senator (Alan Arkin) and the CIA big-wig (Meryl Streep).

So, big issues all round, namely what is the optimal trade-off between security and liberty? And is it ever justifiable to remove one man's liberty to secure, (as cited here) 7,000 Londoners' freedom?

But, to my disappointment, director Gavin Hood turns what could potentially be a very intelligent film into a rather banal Hollywood drama. It starts with small choices. He and the script-writer give the victim of rendition a heavily pregnant wife to manipulate us into feeling more sympathetic for them. The exchanges between the wife and the politicians have none of the sparkle or profundity of the Streep/Cruise conversation in LIONS FOR LAMBS. Alan Arkin is wasted in a cameo as the Senator and Streep looks far less menacing than in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE and far less interested in her role than in LIONS FOR LAMBS. In the North African scenes, I thought Jake Gyllenhaal gave a fine performance as the CIA operative who has to witness the torture. But his character's credibility is sacrificed to the requirement for a Hollywood ending. In fact, pretty much the only story that is universally well-acted and emotionally engaging without being manipulative is the love story between the police-chief's daughter and the jihadist. These two kids bring more commitment and transparent emotion to the film than the rest of the high-wattage cast put together.

RENDITION played Toronto 2007 and is on release in Canada, the UK and the US. It opens in Singapore, Slovenia, Denmark and Iceland later in October. It opens in Argentina, Greece, Australia, Germany and France in November. It opens in France in December, in Belgium and the Netherlands in January 2008 and in Norway and South Africa in February.

SPOILER FILLED FINAL COMMENT: It seems to me self-evident that the one thing a film about rendition should categorically NOT have is a happy ending. But even if the director decides he wants to go down this route, I still don't see how this film could have ended on such a note. The CIA know that Anwar has escaped and that he will go back to the US to be with his family. Furthermore, they know he can only enter under his US passport. So why don't they just "render" him again when he lands at Chicago? If only to save themselves from a PR stink? Douglas has no story if Jeremy doesn't turn up in the US, after all.

TSOTSI - superb acting lifts banal story out of mediocrity

Sometimes I wish I just weren't so cynical, because then I would get more from a movie like Tsotsi. Tsotsi is a movie whose plot is so obvious and predictable as to almost, but not quite, eradicate my viewing pleasure. We have a young, murdering brute called Tsotsi living in Jo-burg. One day he nicks a car and finds a little kid inside. Guess what?! He cannot bring himself to kill the kid, instead threatening a young single mother into helping him take care of it. Through her and the child, he sees some point to living a decent life.

What lifts this tale out of the truly banal and trite is the power of the acting by the entire cast, but especially Presley Chweneyagae who plays Tsotsi and Terry Pheto who plays the single mother. They give performaces of such subtlety and elegance - essentially you can take Al Pacino in any of his extravagent, shouty "hoo-ha" roles and inverse it, and you'll have what I mean. And I guess that if the performances have a quiet strength we must also praise the director, Gavin Hood, whose next picture I await with interest. Clearly Tsotsi is not the best foreign language film of 2005. This was a year that gave us HIDDEN, THE BEAT THAT MY HEART SKIPPED and KUNG FU HUSTLE. Nevertheless, Tsotsi is worth viewing, even if you just wait to rent it out on DVD.

TSOTSI premiered at Edinburgh 2005 and went on limited release in the US on February 24th 2006. It goes on release in the UK on March 17th 2006, in Germany on May 4th, in Austria on May 18th and France on July 19th.