JOKER: FOLIE A DEUX**

Writer-director Todd Phillips has created a deeply odd, turgid and ultimately frustrating sequel in JOKER: FOLIE A DEUX.  Once again, it stars an emaciated and gurning Joaquin Phoenix as a homicidal incel called Arthur Fleck. In the first film he went on a killing spree including shooting a talk show host on live TV, much to the joy of the disaffected both within the film and apparently in real life too.  In this sequel, Arthur is standing trial. His defence attorney (Catherine Keener) argues that his is suffering from schizophrenia - that Joker not Arthur committed the murders - and that Arthur needs medical help.  Problem is, the trial is being sabotaged by Joker's newfound love interest, who very much loves him for his chaotic, violent avatar rather than the traumatised man underneath.  That's basically it as far as plot goes. Even moreso than the original, this is a claustrophobic, slow-moving walk through Arthur's psyche, often-filmed in slow-motion too.  Worse still, where we might have had dialogue or action in the first film, this is replaced by breathy, slowed-down, depressing versions of classic show-tune love songs.  It's not that they're badly put together. It must take a lot of effort on Lady Gaga's part to sing like a normie.  And the orchestration is really great. But ten songs later I found myself - like Arthur - begging Lady Gaga to stop singing and actually talk.

What's really wild about this film is that Todd Phillips seems to have taken all the hysterical criticism of the original film to heart.  It's as if he has made this film for an entirely different audience - people who hated its prequel. At some point around two thirds of the way through the trial something happens that seems to shock Arthur into disavowing his Joker persona.  Even worse, it's not the thing that would more logically explain it - the powerful and moving evidence given by Gary Puddles. (Note that while critics will focus on Phoenix and Gaga, it's Leigh Gill as Puddles who gives the most affecting performance of the film.)  Rather, Arthur seems to be motivated by a far smaller incident in jail. Anyways, whatever the motivation, with this character shift Todd Phillips basically seems to be saying to his audience, shame on you for enjoying the first film like all those dumbass characters inspired by JOKER, and here's a dull overlong musical as your penance!

Still, there are flashes of brilliance in this film. An overhead shot that references THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG. Lady Gaga drawing a lipstick smile on prison glass, and Arthur coming into focus behind it and smiling as Joker. In a sense, she is the more interesting, or scary, or psychotic of the two characters. Or maybe she's just another fangirl? Sadly she's too underwritten to know.  I liked the subtle, out of focus way we see another Joker emerge at the end of the film, and the nod to Harvey Dent's disfigurement. I rather liked the Steve Coogan cameo as a TV interviewer. And I liked having two Industry alum in the cast.  But ye gods, this is a long long film for precious little entertainment.

JOKER: FOLIE A DEUX has a running time of 138 minutes and is rated R. It is on global release.

GREED - BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Day Eight

GREED is a witty satire undone by heavy-handed politics and a Chekhov's Lion last act twist that is so obvious and absurd it can only be described as a Marxist masturbatory fantasy. It's a movie whose politics were perfectly in keeping with the anti-capitalist Millenarian rabble up the road on Trafalgar Square, with a similar level of intelligence and nuance. I didn't learn anything about Phillip Green and his ilk that I - and anyone else who reads a newspaper - didn't already know. And I didn't need a lecture on fast fashion at the end of the film. I also didn't need a very reductive version of how fast fashion exploits workers.  Those seeking a more nuanced view of what those jobs are worth to Asian women, and how they are empowering themselves, should watch MADE IN BANGLADESH instead.

That said, if, and it's a big if, you can ignore the final fifteen minutes of this film and Winerbottom's unsubtle politics, there's a lot to like about GREED.  Steve Coogan is very good as a preening narcissist. To use a line from the film, "but you're playing yourself, so it doesn't need to be method." Shirley Henderson is absolutely class as the mogul's Irish mother, both as a young woman and as a grandma.  There's something very convincing about her tirade at the priggish public school headmaster patronising the Irish immigrant. And some of that immigrant drives ring true to my family's desire to make good. Ambition is different/fiercer/stronger when you've been locked out and kicked down. But it's David Mitchell as the biographer writing McCreadie's life story who gets all the best lines, and one wonders how much of that was written by Winterbottom or ad-libbed by Mitchell. I also really liked a sub-plot about McCreadie's feckless daughter filming a reality show, with real-life reality star Ollie Locke. There's some really great social commentary here. Shame it gets so obvious when it comes to its immigrant and anti-capitalist politics. 

GREED has a running time of 100 minutes.  It played Toronto and London 2019 and will be released in the UK on February 21st 2020.

BFI LFF 2018 - Closing Night Gala - STAN & OLLIE

STAN & OLLIE is a rather limp attempt to depict the declining years of what was once the most famous comedy double-act in the world - Laurel and Hardy.  

The movie opens with them at the height of their fame, but notoriously in a contract dispute with studio boss Hal Roach.  Laurel - the more financially astute of the pair - wants to leave Roach and take the risk of producing their own movies, and so make the phat cash that Chaplin is amassing.  But Hardy - a gambling addict who needs the steady income - is nervous. We then skip forward 15-odd years and the fashion for Vaudevillian slapstick has waned, and while Chaplin sits in tax exile in Switzerland, Laurel and Hardy are back in England, scratching out a tour in humiliating circumstances, trying to finance their final film. A slew of PR stunts has them reverse their commercial failure only to see old resentments and health concerns threaten to derail them again.  

Writer Jeff Pope (PHILOMENA) very much wants to depict this emotional conflict as that of a marriage brought down by betrayal - the duo love each other but Hardy working with another comic was like an act of adultery and betrayal than broke Laurel's heart.  This theme is hammered on again and again in this film and is ultimately asked to carry too much weight. It's also not born out by the historical record.  When Laurel was ill he suggested Hardy work with others! 

DESPICABLE ME 3

DESPICABLE ME has become one of the most reliably inventive, funny and heart-warming of the children's animation franchises, and doesn't disappoint with this short, sharp three-quel.  

Steve Carrel reprises his role as the reformed ex-villian Gru and Kristen Wiig as his wife Lucy. As the movie opens both are fired from the Anti-Villain League for failing to apprehend Balthazar Bratt (Trey Parker) - a delusional former child-star intent on revenge on Hollywood.  Gru sees a shot at still capturing Bratt when he meets his super-rich long-lost twin brother, Dru.  Of course, Dru is a useless super-hero but he does have lots of cool gadgets.  Meanwhile Lucy's story arc sees her try to become a mum to Gru's girls.  

The resulting film is fast-paced, full of great action set pieces and lots of genuinely funny physical comedy.  As usual, the movie works on a number of levels - with enough bright colours and silliness for the kids, and lots of 80s nostalgia for the grown ups. The use of 80s pop hits is particularly on point, and Corey Feldman must be suing for image rights!

DESPICABLE ME 3 is rated PG and has a running time of 89 minutes.

MINIONS

You can listen to a podcast review of this film here or subscribe to Bina007 Movie Reviews in iTunes.

THE MINIONS, as any fule kno are the ridiculously and surprisingly popular side-kicks of Gru, the star of DESPICABLE ME. These yellow-bean-like energetic, gibberish-speaking cheeky chappies arguably already hijacked that franchise, as evidenced by the fact that they, not Gru and his daughters, were on most of the posters. So I suppose it was inevitable that we would get a spin-off.

The fantastic news is that the movie more than stands up on its own two feet.  Despite the quasi-unintelligible talk, we absolutely understand that our protagonists, Stuart, Kevin and Bob, are different personalities.  This is more than helped by an hilarious deadpan witty voice-over from Geoffrey Rush (PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN) at the start of the film.

We open with a natural history of the minions - starting as little amoeba in the opening credits - haplessly following whoever is the Big Bad of the moment, until the dinosaurs become extinct and they have to find evil men to follow.  In classic minion style, their eagerness overmatches their competence and they end up stuck in an icy waste having followed Napoleon into Russia.  At this point, the story truly picks up, with three minions going on an adventure to find a new evil henchman to follow. They sail to the USA and journey to Villaincon (a wonderful satire on the insanity that is Comicon) where they fall into the service of Scarlett Overkill (Sandra Bullock in a self-satirising villain role).  I guess the moral of the story is be careful what you wish for - and through a series of accidents Bob becomes king of England, and then has to rescue the nation from Scarlett and find their new master on the way.

Kudos to co-director Pierre Coffin who also voices ALL of the minions  - creating separate characters and also enough actual language that we can keep up with them.  The movie has wit, a warm heart and is a worthy addition to the DESPICABLE ME world.  There's nothing here not to like!

MINIONS has a running time of 91 minutes and is rated PG.  The movie was released in June in Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Armenia, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Croatia, New Zealand, Slovakia, Uruguay, the UK, Ireland and Poland. It was released earlier in July in the Netherlands, Sweden, Argentina, Austria, Colombia, Germany, Denmark, Israel, Estonia, Spain, Finland, Iceland, Lithuania, Latvia, Norway, Belgium, France, Iceland, Jamaica, the Philippines, Trinidad and Tobago, Azerbaijan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Hong Kong, Hungary, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Macedonia, Mexico, Russia, Thailand, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, India, Pakistan, Puerto Rico, Romania, Taiwan, the USA and Vietnam. The movie opens in Cambodia on July 14th, in Peru & Portugal on July 23rd, in Albania on July 30th, in Japan on July 31st, in Serbia on August 20th, in Italy on August 27th, in Turkey on September 4th, in Greece on September 25th, in South Korea on October 15th and in China on November 25th.

NORTHERN SOUL (2014)

NORTHERN SOUL is a fab British independent film from writer-director Elaine Constantine that captures something of the manic absurdity of the 1970s provincial British Northern Soul clubbing movement. This basically consisted of working class kids in unlikely places like Wigan and Wolverhampton getting revved up on speed and dancing all night to high tempo B-sides of obscure American soul records from the 1960s.  Being a movement that entirely bypassed London, it's not had as much coverage or recognition as it probably should've done, but that's been redressed over the past couple of years with a great documentary (KEEP ON BURNING: THE STORY OF NORTHERN SOUL) and now this fictionalised retelling. 

The film focusses on two kids in a miserable town who escape into the world of Northern Soul - first attending dancehalls but then trying to put on events of their own - only to find that after a temporary respite it brings with its own problems: the drugs, the police, the perils of trying to party all night and still hold down a job.  But along the way the things that they want out of life - the narrow scope of their beaten-up ambition - is touching - when all of life is concentrated in wishing for a wooden dance floor rather than concrete.

The cast is amazing.  Lisa Stansfield as the mum in curlers and a headscarf and Christian McKay as the dad with horn-rimmed specs; Steve Coogan as the vain schoolteacher with a bowl cut and sideburns.  The costumes and sets, the sweaty stripped bodies on the dance floor, are absolutely authentic. And for the first time ever, a training montage isn't a complete waste of time - when we see the kids try out their dance moves to this fantastic music you just don't want it to stop!

NORTHERN SOUL has a running time of 102 minutes and is rated 15 for strong language, drug use and sex. It is currently on release in the UK.

PHILOMENA - LFF 2013 - Day Eight

You can listen to a podcast review of this film below, or subscribe to Bina007 Movie Reviews in iTunes.



PHILOMENA isn't a bad film.  But it isn't a good film.  It's a perfectly serviceable TV weepie with a superior cast. The movie spends a lot of time self-mocking human interest stories for being schmaltzy melodrama designed to cater for the weak and stupid.  But it can't escape the fact that this is basically what PHILOMENA is.  It could've been more.  But bound as it is by the truth of the story, it can't get spiky enough to do anything interesting.

Let me explain.  Philomena (Dame Judi Dench) is a real life Irish woman who got knocked up, consigned to a convent, and had her son forcibly adopted when he was a little boy.  Fifty years later, she enlists the help of an ex-BBC journalist to find him, as it turns out, in America.  There's some interest in seeing a lapsed Catholic of some wealth and cynicism help a woman who has been so obviously wronged by her Church, but still has faith and forgiveness in her heart. We could have had a really fantastically interesting philosophical debate here, but apart from one  scene in which Philomena refuses to confess, the screenwriters seem to shy away from such a controversy.  Similarly, without spoiling anything, there are aspects of the son's life that Philomena, given her faith, could have struggled with.  But no, as if by the shake of a magic wand, she is perfectly fine and understanding and modern and lovely.  And then, take the journalist, Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan in an admirably modulated performace).  He could have had to confront some real issues about whether or not to exploit Philomena's story for financial gain.  But circumstances let him off the hook.  

The result is a film in which two basically nice people go on a road trip and any possible issue that might have caused some problems, some fire, some provocation, some debate, some nuance, are neatly handled.   This creates a rather banal and soupy experience better suited to the Hallmark Channel than the London Film Festival. And the jokes that are in the movie - while properly laugh-out-loud - are all in the trailer.

PHILOMENA has a running time of 98 minutes and is rated 12A in the UK.

PHILOMENA played Venice 2013 where Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope won Best Screenplay, and Stephen Frears won the Queer Lion. It also played Toronto and London 2013.  It will be released in the UK, Ireland and Iceland on November 1st, in the USA on November 22nd, in Sweden on December 6th, in Italy on December 19th, in Hungary on December 26th, in France on January 8th 2014, in the Netherlands on February 13th, in Germany on February 27th and in Japan in March. 

WHAT MAISIE KNEW

Loosely based on the Henry James novel, directors Scott McGehee & David Siegel (UNCERTAINTY) have created a contemporary tale of the impact of divorce on a small girl in contemporary one-percent New York.  The mother, Susanna (Julianne Moore) is a narcissistic, jealous manipulative fading rock star and the father Beale (Steve Coogan) is a neglectful self-involved businessman. The wonder of the movie is that that the performances are nuanced enough that we do understand that they both love their daughter, even as they literally abandon her.  There's a particularly wonderful scene between Beale and Maisie, where he briefly entertains the idea of taking her with him to England, but Steve Coogan beautifully essays the brief excitement, then practical deflation of that dream. Similarly, there's a stunningly heartfelt scene between Maisie and her mother, where Julianne Moore has to momentarily break through Susanna's possessiveness for a brief epiphany: Susanna has the choice to mess up her daughter's life as she was once screwed over, or to make a better choice.

Where the movie ultimately fails is in its rather fairytale final act.  I believed in the individual characters of Maisie's naive but loving nanny Margo (Joanna Vanderham) and her almost childlike new stepfather Lincoln (Alexander Skarsgard).  I also believed that Maisie's parents would be self-serving enough to marry merely to secure childcare  - a move implicit in Beale's decision to remarry and arguably absolutely explicit in Susanna's.  But where the movie lost me was in Lincoln and Margo's relationship and choices - which seemed trite and convenient where so much else in the movie seemed scarily real, and particular.  

Still, kudos to the directors for focussing the film firmly on Maisie - showing these adults merely as conversations, fights and accusations that she overhears or is woken up with.  This serves to give us some sense of the technical masterpiece that is Henry James' short story.  Also, great praise for  the delightful Onata Aprile, who plays Maisie.  There is one place in the film where the tone briefly flirts with deep darkness, and it is here that Onata Aprile proves that she has captivated us.  We feel her peril.  It is a shame that the directors couldn't have stuck to that briefly shown single tear rather than jumping into fantasy schmaltz at the end.  

You can listen to a podcast review of this film here or subscribe to Bina007 Movie Reviews in iTunes.

WHAT MAISIE KNEW has a running time of 98 minutes as is rated R in the USA and 15 in the UK. The movie played Toronto 2012 and it opened earlier this year in the USA, Taiwan, Germany, Finland and Denmark. It opened this weekend in the UK, Ireland, Greece, the Netherlands and Australia. It is available to view on demand in the UK.

ALAN PARTRIDGE: ALPHA PAPA

To listen to a podcast review of this film, click here, or subscribe to Bina007 Movie Reviews in iTunes.

I laughed at almost every line of ALAN PARTRIDGE: ALPHA PAPA. And I don't mean an inward knowing intellectual laugh but proper laugh-out-loud, can't eat my jelly babies laughing.  And so was everyone else in the cinema, which was a bit disconcerting because they had an average age of twenty which means they weren't even born when Steve Coogan's comic creation first hit the small screen.  I felt momentarily old and passed it, and in between cackling with laughter at Patridge lip synching to Roachford's late 80s hit "Cuddly Toy", I thought of LCD Soundsystem's "Losing My Edge"  - all those teenagers "in little jackets and borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered eighties".  There was some irony in seeing these "yoot" get down with Alan Partridge - a movie that is at heart about people who are losing their edge, whose faces don't fit with shiny new brands aimed at the target demographic. People who want to stick two fingers up to the airbrushed over-familiar breakfast DJs who play from carefully manicured set-lists and have about as much to do with real music as IPL has to do with real cricket.

But, anyways, back to the matter at hand!  ALAN PARTRIDGE: ALPHA PAPA is absolutely brilliant, and not just if you're a fan of his TV appearances as talk-show host and then his ignominious descent into local radio. We've got Alan as we love him - his goofy geeky fashion faux pas - his borderline sexism and racism - his sly selfish survival instinct - and most of all, his egomania.   There's something despairing and tragic about Alan, and yet, he always comes out on top, and that's why we love him.  We all have moments of pathetic desperation and Alan speaks to that. 

In his first feature film, Alan is a DJ at North Norfolk Digital - basically a media no-man's land. But he gets, and ceases his chance at fame, when his fellow DJ Pat Farrell is sacked by the station's new greed capitalist owners.  And when I say sacked, I mean shafted by a devious Alan.  Farrell goes FALLING DOWN, and starts shooting up the station, resulting in a hostage crisis that Alan mediates.  What results in a script that is absolutely packed with jokes but which also hangs together in terms of the  emotional motivation of the key characters and feels satisfying and meaty rather than just another shameless cash-in TV adaptation that has some funny scenes but no real substance.  God bless Armando Iannucci.  For giving us Alan and Malcolm Tucker.  That man shouldn't just be an OBE, he should be a bloody Duke, or Lord or something that signifies what a genius he is.  

ALAN PARTRIDGE: ALPHA PAPA has a running time of 90 minutes and is rated 15.  ALPHA PAPA premiered in Norwich on July 24th and was released in the UK on August 7th.  It opens in New Zealand on December 5th.

SUNDANCE LONDON 2013 - Day 1 - THE LOOK OF LOVE

I find Steve Coogan fascinating but I suspect he finds himself even moreso. Why else does he persist in authoring projects where he plays refracted versions of himself? The chippy Northerner with unreal talent, parleying that into success with radical and daring work - super confident to the outside world and yet always eager to tell us just how well-read he is - commercially brilliant but with a controversial and unconventional private life. Charming, subversive and slippery. That's my take on Coogan. It would also be a good description of the character Coogan played in Michael Winterbottom's superb Tony Wilson biopic, 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE. And it's also a good description of the legendary Soho strip club owner and property mogul, Paul Raymond - the subject of the latest Winterbottom-Coogan collaboration.

As the film shows us, Raymond had an uncanny ability to make money, pushing the boundaries of UK legislation in producing nude shows and magazines. Cleverly investing the money in property, he became Britain's richest man. But this is contrasted with his literally pathetic personal life, as signalled by the movie's title, THE LOOK OF LOVE. And here we get into the most slippery territory of all.

Despite running strip clubs and porno mags (a description he always, somewhat disingenuously, denied), it's not clear that Raymond disrespected or degraded women. He seems to carry no malice. Both of his long term partners, his wife Jean (Anna Friel) and his girlfriend Fiona (Tamsin Egerton), left him because they tired of what were up until then consensually open relationships. He never leers or gropes or openly exploits. There's something charmingly honest and open about him.

If anything, his sad fault seems to be a more general lack of empathy - a kind of emotional neutering. When his wife leaves with his son, he seems to simply turn off any remembrance of him. When his illegitimate son turns up, he's charming for one night, as one might charm a business acquaintance, but then shakes his hand and sends him on his way. He seems to love his wife and girlfriend, but not to the point of giving them the monogamy that they want.

And then there's the pivotal relation with his daughter Debbie (Imogen Poots), who longs for a career as a singer and is groomed to take over his empire. Paul seems to love her but in a completely unboundaried way that involves exercising no parental discipline. When he catches her doing coke with a marvellously bearded and sinister Chris Addison, he just tells her to do the best quality, and is seemingly blind to her inner despair.

In the end, what do we learn about Paul? That he was a charming, highly talented businessmen with very messy relationships. It was arguably better to be ignored by him than loved by him: his love involved a fair amount of delusion and denial. I felt bad for him. I wondered if he succeeded in impressing himself? Whether knowing Ringo Starr had designed his flat reassured him that he'd arrived. But this was a man so conscious of his own public image, so polished and repressed that one hardly scratches the surface with this film.

And what of the film? The production design, score, casting are all superb. I love the way Winterbottom's fluid handheld camera brings us right into the action and emotion, and the editing that beautifully juxtaposes a funeral with a wedding. But the movie is not as consistently high energy as 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE or A COCK AND BULL STORY nor as formally daring as TRISHNA. Rather, it's a basically linear biopic that largely reduces a complex man to one tragic relationship. And sadly, when that relationship takes centre stage roughly half way through the film, it dramatically loses pace.

THE LOOK OF LOVE has a running time of 101 minutes. The movie played Sundance 2013 and will be released in the UK on April 26th, in Australia on April 27th and in the Netherlands on August 22nd.

PERCY JACKSON AND THE LIGHTNING THIEF - also not entirely unwatchable

Another movie that’s easy to deride is PERCY JACKSON AND THE LIGHTNING THIEF. The similarity of the source material and the fact that it shares the same director as the first two HARRY POTTER films have led many reviewers to call it “Harry Potter lite” or a Harry Potter rip-off. Certainly, you can see their argument. Percy Jackson is a boy who is “special” and that being “special” relates to his now absent father. His being special leads him to a special school where he will learn to use his secret powers, and to make two friends – a loyal but doltish boy and a much more clued-on girl. They will ultimately have to contend with another student who has conflicting loyalties, and to go on a quest for high stakes. They will be guided by a wise old teacher and their adventures will take place both in a magical realm and in our real world. The only difference is that Harry Potter is a wizard and Percy Jackson is the son of the Greek god Perseus, and is thus a demi-God. And rather than battling Voldemort, he is battling to restore to Zeus his bolt of lightning in order to prevent a war between Zeus and Hades. There are even similarities in the production design, largely because of the journeyman-like-quality of all Chris Columbus movies. He’s the go-to-guy if you want a movie to come in on time, on budget, to have some serviceable special effects and not do anything too crazy.

The resulting film is just fine. It’s not the sort of kids film that adults should go and see unless they are accompanying a small child, but I’m betting good money that any kid, bored in the school holidays, will have a good time watching this film.

PERCY JACKSON & THE LIGHTNING THIEF is on global release.

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM 2 - Last night I dreamed that somebody loved me

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM was a sweet kids adventure film featuring Ben Stiller as a dead-beat dad security guard who bonds with his kid when the exhibits in the New York Natural History Museum come alive. Whatever charm the movie had, resided in Stiller's character Larry finding courage and friendship with the miniature cowboys, a statue of Teddy Roosevelt and a big articulated dinosaur. I also loved the fact that the exhibits were basically rubbish. They were exactly the kind of low rent exhibits you can find in many a dusty old museum filled with diaramas and stuffed heads.

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM 2 is a fundamentally different beast. Propelled by the box office success of the first installment, the movie has a bigger budget, better special effects and an even more star-filled cast. There is a certain fun in seeing the Lincoln memorial spring to life, but I couldn't help feeling, in the words of Emperor Joseph II, that they were simply too many notes. "My dear young man, don't take it too hard. Your work is ingenious. It's quality work. And there are simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect." 

Added to the mish-mash of historical figures, we also get a less interesting protagonist. The security guard has, in the intervening year, become a millionaire inventor of such crappy household objects as glow-in-the-dark torches. The message of the movie seems to be that being rich doesn't make you happy. Still, the soul-searching and character development isn't given much screen-time, and serves only to allow Larry to become such a large benefactor of the museum that he can keep his friends safe.

Despite the lack of compelling plot and over-stuffed character roster, NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM 2 isn't a complete waste of time. And that's because of three people. First, Jonah Hill has a pretty funny five minute cameo as a security guard at the Smithsonian who is full of his own petty power. Second, Steve Coogan is also good value, and reprises his role as Octavius, the miniature Roman general. Third, and best of all, Hank Azaria plays the baddie - an Egyptian Pharoah hell-bent on ruling the world - as a classic Die Hard Jeremy Irons baddie. It's pure comedy gold. This is him diss'ing Darth Vader:

"Is that you breathing? Because I can't hear myself think! There's too much going on here; you're asthmatic, you're a robot. And why the cape? Are we going to the opera? I don't think so." 

Genius. And, of course, Amy Adams is charming as Larry's love interest, Amelia Earheart.

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: BATTLE OF THE SMITHSONIAN is on global release.

IN THE LOOP - superb British political satire

IN THE LOOP is a British political satire written and directed by Armando Iannucci - one of the best comedy writers in Britain today, with TV shows such as THE THICK OF IT, BRASS EYE, the ALAN PARTRIDGE series and THE DAY TODAY. Iannucci's specialises intelligent, excoriating, raucously funny depictions of the British political elite and the commentators, spin doctors and civil servants who surround it - the so-called Westminster Village. IN THE LOOP is his first feature film, a spin-off of the TV show THE THICK OF IT. It shows how ministers of state on both sides of the Atlantic are bounced into a war (clearly Iraq) by spin doctors, over-eager journos and the machinations of their superiors. Politicians are shown to be callow; spin-doctors manipulative and crass and the whole lot of them incompetent and self-serving.

The resulting film is shot with the bare minimum of competence on what was all too evidently a shoe-string budget. It could've easily been shown as an extended TV special. But no matter. My friends and I were laughing out-loud uproariously from start to finish - sometimes at the filthy language - more often at the Pure Comedy Gold. Admittedly, the pace of the film slackens in the second half, and a good twenty minutes could've been cut from the run-time. But despite this, we truly laughed from start to finish and were quoting lines and scenes on the way home. Particular praise for Tom Hollander as the British politician with a proclivity to say something controversial when faced with the press and for Peter Capaldi as the foul-mouthed, pugnacious spin-doctor. On the other side of the Atlantic, Zach Woods is particularly funny as the vitriolic, arse-licking aide. Oh yes, and there's a brilliant cameo from Steve Coogan as a disgruntled constituent.

IN THE LOOP played Sundance 2009 and is currently on release in the UK. It opens in the US on July 24th.

London Film Festival Day 12 - HAMLET 2

HAMLET 2 is so ridiculous it shouldn't work, but I can happily report that Steve Coogan's latest comedy is laugh-out loud funny from start to finnish. Coogan plays a failed actor, reduced to embarassing commercials and piss-poor high school plays. Even his personal life is a mess - he's unable to get his sarcastic, unsupportive wife pregnant. But despite all this, Dana Marschz remains upbeat about life and art and his enthusiasm is infectious. Even though his plays are openly mocked, he sees no reason not to stage a high school musical called "Hamlet 2". The concept is simple: with the aid of a time machine, Hamlet can stop everyone from getting killed at the end of Hamlet 1, which was, after all, such a downer! The resulting musical, featuring songs about getting "raped in the face" and "sexy Jesus" attracts the ire of the local school board and the attentions of the ACLU before becoming, PRODUCERS-style, a runaway success.

HAMLET 2 is a satire on movies like the HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL franchise, where discussing sexuality is forbidden, and those awful high school dramas like DANGEROUS MINDS where a white teacher saves poor ethinic kids through the redemptive power of...er..Dylan Thomas and kung fu. The writing may be uneven, but more often than not, the satire hits home, and Steve Coogan is just fantastingly funny to watch. I also loved the ironic use of Elisabeth Shue as a disenchanted actress called "Elisabeth Shue", now working as a nurse. You also get some brilliant scene-stealing from Catherine Keener as Dana's wife and Amy Poehler as the ACLU lawyer.

HAMLET 2 played Sundance and London 2008. It opened earlier this year in the US, Canada, Iceland, Greece and Romania. It opens on November 28th in the UK and in the US on August 27th 2009.

TROPIC THUNDER: RAIN OF MADNESS - is it because I is Brit?

TROPIC THUNDER is a movie spoof so thorough in its mockery of Hollywood excess, that the film-makers have gone so far as to spoof "Making Of" docs like LOST IN LA MANCHA and, more directly, HEART OF DARKNESS. The resulting doc, RAIN OF MADNESS, is going to be released in the US on iTunes on August 26th. This is profoundly annoying to us all of crippled by the restrictions on iTunes European stores.

TROPIC THUNDER - worth seeing for the odd moment of genius

There are many problems with Ben Stiller’s new Hollywood spoof, TROPIC THUNDER. It’s over-long, too many of the jokes fall flat, and many of the main characters are under-written or just plain redundant. That said, TROPIC THUNDER does contain a handful of genuinely hilarious scenes that are, on balance, worth the price of admission.

The movie features three recognisable types of Hollywood actor – the action hero Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller); the gross-out comedy star Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black); and the method actor Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Junior). Each actor is insecure. The Sly Stallone-spoof Tugg Speedman is desperate to be seen as a real actor, hence his disastrous attempt to play a mentally disabled kid in an I AM SAM type movie called SIMPLE JACK. The Eddie Murphy-spoof, Jeff Portnoy, is upset that he’s only famous for farting on-screen, and consoles himself with Class A drugs. Finally, the Russell Crowe-spoof, Kirk Lazarus, goes so far into his method-acting that he can barely remember who he is any more.

The movie opens with all three actors filming a war movie in Vietnam that’s behind schedule thanks to their tantrums. Under pressure rookie director (Steve Coogan) takes them on a Werner Herzog style journey into the jungle, where they will face real fear and thus give good performances. Problem is, the gun-fire is real, as the actors stumble into the territory of drug war-lord.

The aim of the film is to poke fun at Hollywood actors, producers and agents, with their big egos and insecurities. In addition, the movie spoofs the shameless avarice that creates life-less franchises and paint-by-numbers genre movies as star-vehicles. Most famously, the movie spoofs actors who try to win awards by doing something apparently earnest and issues-based – such as method-acting their way to Oscar by playing a mentally disabled person or an ethnic minority character. This is all good stuff, and I profoundly disagree with anyone who thinks that the movie is being racist by having a character wear black-face, or that the movie is being offensive by having another character play a mentally disabled character.

TROPIC THUNDER succeeds when it proposes an intelligent satire on Hollywood excess. Robert Downey Junior is superb in his nuanced portrayal of a method actor so far under-cover he’s lost himself. The movie also succeeds in its sheer balls-out excess. I defy anyone not to rejoice in Tom Cruise’s cameo as foul-mouthed, angry studio producer, dancing Usher-style and tempting Tugg’s agent (Matthew McConaughey in a brilliant performance). Some of the physical humour also works brilliantly. There’s a scene where a small kid gets tossed off a bridge that’s desperately funny.

TROPIC THUNDER fails miserably when, for the majority of its run-time, it moves down a notch from satire into spoof. Spoof is all well and good, but it’s frightfully thin and one-note. In other words, you can laugh once at Jeff Portnoy needing a fix, or Tugg Speedman being a stupid ass, but you can’t laugh at it again and again for a near 2 hour run-time. In fact, you could’ve lost the Portnoy character altogether. The ancillary characters are also poorly sketched. Poor Danny McBride – so hysterical in PINEAPPLE EXPRESS – is wasted here. Steve Coogan is given no funny lines as the rookie director. Nick Nolte is given nothing to do as the Vietnam vet. And the two characters who act as foils to the three big egos are also given little to do. Jay Baruchel makes the most of his part but poor Brandon T Jackson only exists in the movie as insurance. His character is basically there to diffuse the tension of having Robert Downey Junior dressed in black-face. It’s like the film-makers thought – a lot of African-American people watching this are going to want to slap Downey Junior, so let’s just put an African-American character on screen and have him to do it for them.

TROPIC THUNDER is on release in the US and Russia. It opens later in August in Australia, Iceland, Mexico and Estonia. It opens in September in Argentina, Hungary, Romania, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Finland, the UK, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Norway and Spain. It opens in October in Belgium, France, Venezuela, Singapore and Italy. It opens in November in Egypt.

HOT FUZZ makes SHAUN OF THE DEAD look pants

From the team that brought you break-out comedy and horror spoof SHAUN OF THE DEAD comes a movie so funny that hysterical cameos by Martin Freeman, Bill Bailey and Steve Coogan are BY FAR not the funniest things about it. Yes, yes, yes. Finally, we have a genuinely laugh-out loud comedy that contains a clever but never up-its-own-arse pastiche of the cop thriller genre. Simon Pegg returns as the straight man around which all manner of weird shit happens in deceptively "normal" British surroundings. This time, he plays a super-dedicated cop called Nicholas Angel. Angel is a man after my own heart - a genuine Londoner - and he's being pushed out to the country (yikes!) so that his colleagues can stop looking so bad. Angel hooks up with a dopey side-kick local copper called Danny who dreams of packing heat and busting drug-lords, BAD BOYS II stylee. Sadly, the village of Sandford has the lowest crime-rate in Britain. A crime-rate almost suspciously low. Hehehe. Cue lots of creepy "local" goings-on; genuinely witty dialogue; brilliantly observed gags at the expense of town verus country rivalry; and the kind of intelligent pastiche that the writers of EPIC MOVIE should bloody well aspire too. I can't say more because it'll just come out like a bunch of repetitive sycophantic drivel. Basically, this movie is funny. If you want to be amused, go and see it.

HOT FUZZ is on release in the UK. It opens in Spain on March 9th, in Argentina, Australia and Russia on March 15th and in the Netherlands on April 5th. It opens in Sweden and the US on April 13th and Germany on June 14th.

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM - Oh, for crying out loud!

Shawn Levy, director of NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM, is a man I would gladly have up for crimes against cinema. He brought us those formulaic, un-funny flicks, CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN and JUST MARRIED. While last year's remake of THE PINK PANTHER was better than we had any right to expect it was still seven shades of wrong. Sadly, while NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM is raking in the proverbial phat cash, it will do nothing to leaven Levy's sentence at the Final Day of Judgement.

The basic concept of NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM is known to all thanks to the fact that they started advertising it back in the Spring and used the kind of trailer that gives away the entire plot. Ben Stiller plays the archetypal Loser Dad: he can't hold down a regular job and his kid is starting to look up to the super-successful step-father. But as luck would have it, the inexorable logic of Hollywood means that the Loser Dad will show his true quality when faced with extra-ordinary circumstances. And as we all know: it's not money that matters but true grit and familial love. Which is why we get fed this formulaic bunkum every holiday...

In this particular incarnation, Ben Stiller gets a job as the night watchman at the Museum of Natural History in New York. Thing is, the Museum houses a spooooky gold wall-panel thing that brings all the animals, dinosaurs and statues to life every night! Cue lots of surprisingly pedestrian special effects with dinosaur skeletons, woolly mammoths and Attila the Hun chasing Stiller round the museum. There's an attempt to inject some narrative tension by having a nefarious type attempt to steal the magical wall-hanging.

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM disappoints because the special effects are weak, the narrative arc is tired and there are very few out-and-out jokes. The abiding memory I'll have of this movie will be disappointment that the on-screen talent wasn't better used. I mean, for crying out loud, Ben Stiller was bloody hillarious in ZOOLANDER and DODGEBALL. Dick Van Dyke and Mickey Rooney are comic geniuses who dominated their eras in Hollywood as THE premier entertainers. Steve Coogan's Hollywood career may be patchy but he has shown on British TV how hysterical he can be and Owen Wilson is outstanding even in terrible movies. But the biggest travesty of all is the use (by which I mean exploitation) of Ricky Gervais. He gives a sub-David Brent performance as the Museum Director - a performance that is the unfunny evil twin of his turn in THE OFFICE. Shame on them all for allowing themselves to be sullied by such a banal piece of cinema.

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM is already on release in India, Israel, Singapore, the USA, Mexico, Australia, the UK, Germany, Indonesia, Russia, South Korea, Thailand and Turkey. It opens on Jan 5th in Estonia and Venezuala, on Jan 11th on Argentina and Brazil, on Jan 18th in Hungary and Iceland and on Jan 26th in Spain. NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM will be released in Italy and Sweden on February 2nd, in Denmark on the 9th, in Belgium, Hong Kong, Netherlands, Finland and Norway on the 15th. It opens in Japan on March 17th 2007.

A COCK AND BULL STORY - Nobody likes a smarty-pants

A COCK AND BULL STORY is an odd sort of film. Far cleverer than the average cinematic fare, and in parts, hysterically funny. And yet you leave the cinema not entirely sure what you have been witness to....

The movie is an attempt to bring the supposedly unfilmable novel, "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy" to life. The novel was written by a village priest, Lawrence Sterne, in the eighteenth century and - remarkably for the time - played fast and loose with narrative structure, as well as dealing with bawdy subject matter. To quote the film, Tristram Shandy was a post-modern book written years before there was anything modern to be "post" about. The novel tells the story of Tristram's parents and uncle, various escapades encountered by each. So much happens, so baggy and chaotic is life, that it is only in the final volume that Tristram finally gets round to being born! In bringing the novel to the screen, the director, Michael Winterbottom, has opted against a straightforward adaptation. Rather he has made a film about making a film about Tristram Shandy. Winterbottom argues that this is truer to the spirit of the novel, while getting over the tricky fact that in a novel of 500 pages, so little happens that you can barely get a half-hour script out of it.

The film-within-a-film structure is a nice idea, and we get some very funny scenes parodying actors' over-weening egos and libidos, but this stuff was done with more wit in David Mamet's superb flick STATE AND MAIN. Moreover, much of the humour depends on the audience knowing who the lead actor, Steve Coogan, is. I imagine the jokes at Coogan's expense will be utterly lost on an international audience. And once again, hasn't this stuff been done better in Ricky Gervais' EXTRAS?

But all this would be excused if the film were genuinely, laugh-out-loud funny. After all, when you've hired the likes of Stephen Fry, Shirley Henderson, Rob Brydon, Dylan Moran and Steve Coogan, expectations are high. The film is very, very patchy. There are sequences that sort of meander and exist and seem to serve no purpose at all. And just when you just about give up on the thing, there is flash of side-splitting, pant-wetting funniness. Seriously, I left the cinema knowing I had a cult classic on my hands. It's all there - basically boring long-winded Britflick interspersed with one-liners so funny, so instantly memorable that the audience was already quoting it on the way out of the cinema. This film is a WITHNAIL AND I for the new millenium, and will no doubt be quoted ad nauseam in student unions for the next fifty years.

A COCK AND BULL STORY was shown at the London Film Festival in November 2005, but goes on release in the UK on the 20th January 2006. The film goes on limited release in the US on the 27th January. There are no scheduled European release dates.

THE BROTHERS GRIMM – Napoleonic Ghostbusters

In this movie, the Brothers Grimm are con artists who ride around rural French-occupied Germany faking witches and goblins to scare superstitious German peasants and then vanquishing with the help of shiny armour, explosives and catapults, all for a big fat fee. Heath Ledger (10 Things I Hate About You, Monster’s Ball) gives a very enjoyable performance as geek, scholar and believer in magic, Jakob Grimm. Half the time he is channelling Brad Pitt in Twelve Monkeys – all rapid-fire dialogue and facial ticks. The other half of the time he is channelling Steve Coogan as Alan Patridge. The performance is not quite the sum of its parts, but is enjoyable nonetheless. Matt Damon plays William Grimm, who emphatically does not believe in magic but in making money by exploiting the dumb-ass peasants. A worthy aim indeed.

Everything is ticking over nicely until they are sent by the Napoleonic head honcho to Marbaden to rescue the little girls who have gone missing in the words and are respectively excited and horrified to discover that there really is something in the woodshed – namely Monica Bellucci (Matrix, The Passion of the Christ) as a five hundred year old witch trapped in a mirror.

There are significant flaws with this movie. The French general, Delattombe, and his Italian sidekick, Cavaldi, are played by Jonathan Pryce (Evita, Brazil) and Peter Stormare (The Big Lebowski) as caricatures – absurd costumes and accents. What passed for humour in 1980s sitcoms like “’Allo, ‘Allo” and “Fawlty Towers” just isn’t funny anymore - it’s lazy.

But there is a lot to like. At its heart, there is a serious discussion about how much native culture was lost when the Christians took over Europe, and of the Enligtenment battle between faith and reason. There are many obvious and subtle references to fairy tales, all beautifully re-created with a seamless blending of CGI and old school cinematographic techniques. The whole thing is a visual feast with a few good one-liners thrown in.

Like any Terry Gilliam film, this was beset by funding difficulties. MGM pulled out at the last minute and the Weinsteins took over production. They vetoed Samantha Morton as the female lead, fired the Director of Photography, Nicola Pecorini for going to slowly and generally ticked Gilliam off. Finally, the release was pushed back to allow Miramax’s movie The 40 year old virgin to retain its number one spot in the US box office. The film was likewise mistreated by the US critics who, to a man, called it a rambling mess – albeit visually stunning. On the upside, the film was finished, unlike the ill-fated "Don Quixote", and was released, and it is not a mess. It is highly enjoyable, pure entertainment. One last thing, if you are going to see this movie you should try to make it to a cinema rather than waiting for the DVD to get the full benefit of the production design.

The Brothers Grimm has been on release in the US since the 26th August, in France and Germany since the 5th October and finally goes on Nationwide release in the UK on the 4th November.