THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN - Sunday School goes Gossip Girl

It's hard for me to separate my critique of the NARNIA films from my dissatisfaction with the source material. I am an avid fan of Tolkien precisely because he eschews easy allegory and pays such close attention to the consistency of his fantasy world. Tolkien would never have put fauns and Father Christmas in the same imaginary space and he would never have used a device as obvious as Aslan. All of this I would overlook if the resulting films were well-made and captivating qua cinema. However, the first movie, THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE, failed on this count. The technical aspects - shooting style, lighting, costumes - seemed amateurish and clunky.

PRINCE CASPIAN is far more satisfying than the first movie, but it's still far from perfect. The special effects, make-up, costumes and shooting style have improved, although key set-pieces still feel like weak versions of THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Take, for example, the scene where Aslan summons up a river storm to wash away the enemies of the Narnians. It is typical of the clunky imagery employed in PRINCE CASPIAN that the river takes the form of God as depicted in one of those Biblical Epics - an old white man with a beard. Compare this with the visual beauty and simplicity of Tolkien/Jackson's charging horses.

As for the plot, what we have here is basically one long battle. The four Pevensie children return to Narnia 1300 years after their original visit, to find their land over-run by Spanish-sounding men and Aslan a myth. They unite with their enemy's nephew, Prince Caspian, to reclaim his throne and an independent Narnia. Of course, they are only successful when they fight in the name of Aslan, rather than for themselves.

The battle scenes are fine, although I couldn't help wondering whether younger kids might get bored and/or frightened - especially by the first night-time raid in which half of the Narnian army is massacred. By far the bigger problem with the film is the emotional content. Peter has a clash of egos with Prince Caspian in which they both come off as whiny and there's a tremendously embarassing teen crush story-line between Caspian and Susan. Not sure if that's bad direction, script-writing or acting. Either way, it sorely undermines the serious dramatic content surrounding the children's loss of faith in Aslan and their temptation by the White Witch. It's rather hard to be swept up in a story about religious faith when the director keeps pulling you into Sweet Valley High.

PRINCE CASPIAN is already on release in Indonesia, Russia, India, Mexico, the USA, Japan, Singapore, Brazil, Poland, Egypt, the Philippines, Australia, Hong Kong, Israel, Argentina, Estonia, Iceland and Venezuela. It opens this weekend in France, Hungary and the UK. It opens on July 2nd in Belgium, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden. It opens on July 11th in Turkey; on July 17th in Portugal; on July 31st in Germany and on August 20th in Italy.

KUNG FU PANDA - earnest but unmemorable

KUNG FU PANDA is an amiable CGI animated movie for kids. Jack Black plays a kind-hearted panda called Po, the ultimate Kung Fu fan-boy. To everyone's surprise, Master Oogway names Po as the Dragon Warrior - the only fighter who can beat the evil tiger Tai Lung and bring peace to the valley. At first, all of the other Kung Fu masters mock the fat panda, but Po's tenacity wins them round. He developes his own style of Bear Kung Fu that uses his big belly as an asset and fulfills his destiny. The moral of the story is that even the most unlikely person can be a hero if they only believe in themselves.

Like Po, KUNG FU PANDA has a kind heart and good intentions. All of the characters have names that correspond to their meanings in Mandarin and great attention has been paid to the choreography of the martial art scenes. They reference great cinema battles, but never cross the line into pastiche. There are moments of great humour - not least a chop stick fight over a dumpling between Po and Shifu. Jack Black does a great job and he has great chemistry with Dustin Hoffman as his master.

Having said that, KUNG FU PANDA isn't up there with the best of animation. It doesn't have the emotional depth, narrative complexity or visual style of a RATATOUILE or TOY STORY or MONSTERS INC. It feels rather thin. Aside from the relationship between Po and Shifu, the subsidiary characters - voiced by the likes of Angelina Jolie and Jackie Chan - are poorly developed. Basically this is a one-note story and it could've been 75 rather than 90 minutes long.

KUNG FU PANDA played Cannes 2008 and was released in June in Russia, South Korea, Ukraine, Estonia, the Philippines, Singapore, the USA, Egypt, Kuwait, Thailand, Indonesia, CHina, Mexico, Australia, Israel, New Zealand and the Hong. It opens on JUly 3rd in Iceland, Argentina, Germany, Hungary, Portugal, Austria, Brazil, Poland, Romania, Turkey and the UK. It opens later in July in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Venezuela, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Japan. It opens in Finland on August 1st; in Italy on August 29th and in Greece on September 3rd.

Random DVD Round-Up 4 - SOUTHLAND TALES

SOUTHLAND TALES is Richard Kelly's satire on post 9-11 US society. It's a paranoid fantasy about a USA destroyed by the four things: terrorism; the government's anti-liberal response to it; the vulgarity of popular culture; and environment degradation. Sadly, Kelly isn't up to synthesising all these concerns into a definitive take on contemporary angst. Rather, he has created an ambitious, fleetingly interesting, but overwhelmingly baggy, messy and pretentious film.

The movie is a rag-bag of inter-twining stories all played out in Kelly's alternate USA in 2008. A terrorist nuclear attack has wiped out Texas and prompted the US government to turn the US into a police state. Meanwhile, the energy crisis has been solved by a company that harnesses wave power to produce energy, the side-effect of which is to slow down the rotation of the earth and cause a warp in the space-time continuum. Against this back-drop we focus on three characters. The Rock plays a Schwarzenegger-like actor suffering from amnesia, trying to make sense of it all. He's being exploited by a porn star turned cultural commentator, Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar). Meanwhile, Seann William Scott plays a police officer, on the trail of Marxist radicals and his alternate self. All these characters are being messed up warps in the space-time continuum caused by environmental degradation.

The resulting film is a mess. And not in the way that Terry Gilliam's BRAZIL is a mess, but touched by genius, and therefore a cult film. SOUTHLAND TALES is misconceived. "State of the nation" content is better suited to the format of the novel. Novels like THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES or VANITY FAIR can take their time and build up a coherent narrative. My proposition is that the feature film is fundamentally unsuited to this kind of artistic endeavour.

SOUTHLAND TALES played Cannes 2006 to a disastrous reception. It was then put on extremely limited release in the UK and US in winter 2007. It is available on DVD in the theatrical release cut.

Random DVD Round-Up 3 - RFK MUST DIE: THE ASSASSINATION OF BOBBY KENNEDY

A few years ago, an investigative journalist called Shane O'Sullivan appeared on the BBC's flagship news programme, NEWSNIGHT, and presented evidence that two CIA operatives had been present in the Ambassador Hotel on the night of the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. This feature length documentary spends an hour putting flesh on the bones of that circumstantial evidence. In a series of interviews, Sullivan posits the theory that Sirhan Sirhan, who has never been able to remember the shooting, was in fact a Manchurian Candidate, programmed by the CIA to kill the man who, according to them, screwed them over during the Bay of Pigs invasion. The claim is far-fetched, but it's testament to O'Sullivan's detached tone that it started to gain traction with me. However, an hour into the documentary, O'Sullivan, ever the good journalist, destroys his own story by presenting contrary evidence. So in the end, we're back to where we started. We have a lone gunman in prison and a bunch of conspiracy theories with no evidence to back them up.

So, has O'Sullivan pulled the rug out from under his feet? Is the documentary still worth watching? The case in favour of still watching the documentary is that it still lays out the events of the shooting and provides a useful primer for those of us who have a vague idea of what happened, would recognise the name "Sirhan Sirhan", but nothing more because, frankly, these events occured before we were born. The second reason to watch the documentary is that it provides a classic example of how investigative journalism and conspiracy theories work. The ease with which you can build up a case on a few photo IDs is alarming, and the ease with which you can demolish it also a useful lesson.

The case against watching the doc is part of the wider case that we are far too fixated with the mechanics of how JFK and RFK died. The more important thing is to understand why they were so hated by vested interests - the mafia, the unions, the CIA, big business. Whether any of those four actually pulled the trigger is almost moot. The key fact is that they all felt threatened. In other words, let's understand where power lies, and how RFK wanted to unravel it.

Having said that, I can make another argument for renting the DVD of RFK MUST DIE, and that is to watch the extensive extras showing RFK on the campaign trail and his speech upon the death of Martin Luther King Junior. We now sit at a point where many people around the world - not just radicals - have lost faith in the idea that America represents and upholds liberal democratic virtues. Bobby Kennedy was running for President against a similar tide of disillusionment. Understanding why he connected with so many people is fascinating and translates directly to the current electoral race. It's wonderful to revisit that footage and to be inspired by him once again. And to that extent, the DVD extras on RFK MUST DIE serve as a complement to Emilio Estevez' brilliant film, BOBBY, released earlier this year.

RFK MUST DIE is an extended documentary investigation by journalist Shane O'Sullivan. of a thRFK MUST DIE: was released in the UK and US earlier this year and is available on DVD.

Random DVD Round-Up 2 - SHROOMS

Low-budget Irish horror flick in which hapless Yanqui teens go camping in Ireland with a canny local who fills their heads with ghost stories and their tummies with magic mushrooms. The kids trip. They don't know if what they're seeing are hallucinations or real. And who's really after them? In-bred yokels or angry abused orphans? Either way it's all pretty forgettable and derivative other than a nice scene between Robert Hoffman of STEP UP 2 fame and a talking cow.

SHROOMS was released in 2007 in Russia, Spain and the UK. It opened earlier in 2008 in the USA. It is available on DVD.

Random DVD Round-Up 1 - AUGUST RUSH

A deeply sentimental film that could've been dreamt up by a Barbie obsessed 11 year-old. A wannabe rock musician (Rhys Meyers) and a cellist (Russell) share a nausea-inducing night of romantic twittering and, though coyly not shown, sex. Thereafter, evil forces (her controlling dad) split them up. The resulting baby is given up for adoption without the girl's knowledge. 10 years later, he's a musically gifted, irredeemably romantic boy (Highmore), on the lam from child services, playing music on the streets with Robin Williams' modern-day Fagin. Given that this is basically a modern-day, live-action fairy-tale, you can guess the ending.

AUGUST RUSH is actually a well-made, decently-performed film, and it doesn't hurt that Highmore, Rhys-Meyers and Russell always seem emotionally in the moment even when they have to utter dialogue that will have cynics rolling their eyes. I think the key test of whether you'll enjoy the film is whether you can get through Highmore's opening dialogue without wanting to slap the screenwriter. I have to say that I found the whole thing gauche but I can imagine it appealing to some people. Given that we live in a cynical world, directors trying to pull off a cheesy love story have to face the audience's in built objections head-on. That was the secret of the success of ENCHANTED.

AUGUST RUSH was released in Winter 2007/2008. It is now available on DVD.