THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM**

Director Kenji Kamiyama (Ghost In The Shell)'s THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM is a mediocre animated film set in Middle Earth that has too little story for its running time, despite having about seven screenwriters credited to it. Apparently the film was rushed out so that New Line could keep the rights to The Lord of the Rings, and if so that might also explain the rather average animation. I suspect there is a tighter, more compelling 90 minute film within this baggy two hour plus running time, and that a 90 minute film may have allowed for a more detailed and inventive animation style.

The story is crafted to speak directly to the Peter Jackson LOTR trilogy, much as the TV series Rings of Power does. This means that musical themes are repeated as are character tropes: the proud but outmatched King, the rejected but loyal nephew, the daughter who is underestimated but proves herself a hero. At its worst, lines are lifted straight from LOTR, such as when Hera says that all eyes will be fixed on her. 

The story begins with Helm Hammerhand (Brian Cox - Succession), proud ruler of Rohan, refusing to marry his daughter Hera (nepo baby Gaia Wise) to Wulf (Luca Pasqualino), the son of a Dunlander. This starts a massive feud, resulting in Wulf later attacking Edoras and forcing Hera to lead her people into what will become Helm's Deep. Battles ensue.

To be clear, I did quite enjoy the film but just wish it had been tighter and meatier and less beholden to LOTR callbacks. There's something really moving about seeing Helm's end and then hearing that funeral song. But it just isn't enough to sustain the running time.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 134 minutes.

CHURCHILL

With the forthcoming release of the THE DARKEST HOUR I thought I would go back and watch the other Churchill film released last year.  Directed by Jonathan Teplitzky (THE RAILWAY MAN) with a script by historian Alex von Tunzelmann (INDIAN SUMMER), this version stars Brian Cox in the eponymous role, Miranda Richardson as his wife, MAD MEN's John Slattery as Eisenhower, Julian Wadham as Monty, James Purefoy as the stuttering King, and Ella Parnell as the obligatory pretty young secretary who exists in the script merely to show Churchill his humanity.  

In contrast to many more blustering biopics, this one shows Churchill exhausted and troubled at the end of World War Two.  It opens with him imagining bloody waters washing up on the shore of a beach, and the film's conceit is that he is so traumatised by his failure at Gallipoli that he is irrationally against another amphibious landing  - Operation Overlord - that we, with the benefit of hindsight, will be a massive success.  The resulting film is thus one that shows us a Churchill who is vulnerable, admirably guilt-ridden by his mistakes and mindful of the human cost of war, and physically exhausted.  It also gives us a Churchill frustrated at being a mere politician rather than a commander, facing danger with his troops. Accordingly, he comes across as similar to the Queen, in The Crown season one, frustrated that his role is to NOT go to the frontline or put himself in danger, but to exist, to survive.

Brian Cox is convincing in the role, giving his Churchill a nuance we rarely see on screen.  Miranda Richardson has less to do in the trademark Clemmie hairdo and poor Ella Parnell in that sexist role of wide-eyed naive girl.  I very much liked the direction and the landscape photography of the beach in particular.  

But as much as I liked this newly shabby, troubled Churchill, the whole thing is guff.  And that cuts it off at the knees.  It's shocking that a female writer would create such a thankless role for the secretary, but even more shocking that an historian who takes other films to task for their historical inaccuracy should commit such gaffes in her own film. I have no doubt that Churchill, thinking of preserving the Empire rather than just winning the war, had different tactical preferences to Eisenhower. And I have no doubt that he was ashamed of Gallipoli.  But to argue that he was against Overlord and that the king and a pretty secretary had to screw his courage to the sticking place is bizarre.  And in her defense of this approach Tunzelmann seems to rely on an out of context quote that Churchill was hardening against the operation. He wasn't.  He wrote on 11 March, 1944, makes clear that he was hardening in favour of a decisive strike:

"I have presided at a series of meetings at which either Ike or Bedell has been present, and I am satisfied that everything is going on well. Ike and Bedell will probably tell you they are well pleased. I am hardening very much on this operation as the time approaches, in the sense of wishing to strike if humanly possible, even if the limiting conditions we laid down at Moscow are not exactly fulfilled. I hope a chance may come for us to have a talk before long. Every good wish."

So CHURCHILL is an interesting film about a vulnerable man. Whether or not you enjoy it depends on how far you care that it's not true.

CHURCHILL has a running time of 105 minutes. It was released last year and is now available to rent and own.

BELIEVE

BELIEVE is a shamelessly earnest and indulgent underdog sports story starring Brian Cox as the legendary real life manager of Manchester United. The script from Massimiliano Durante and Carmelo Pennisi imagines what would have happened if Busby had decided to coach a young bunch of working class kids in a local tournament, just out of love of the game and the memory of his young players so tragically killed in the Munich air crash.  

Although much of the film is derivative (working class lads up against posh boys - a mum who doesn't want her kid to play - the conflict between school and sport) I really admire the director David Scheinmann (THE WEST WITTERING AFFAIR) for going into some of the darker material. Although done in almost mocking, caricatured manner, this is a film that shows the class divisions in England, with Georgie (Jack Smith) trying to pass an exam to get into a grammar school rightly seen as potentially life-changing.  I also liked the sentimental but elegantly handled way in which the Munich air crash is handled in a film that is, after all, a PG rated drama. 

Brian Cox is predictably great as Busby but I was surprised at Toby Jones' comic facility and Natasha McElhone's northern accent. But the real star is Jack Smith as the star player Georgie who handles the tough emotional stuff as well as being a good lippy kid.  Could've done without the added contrived drama of a last minute flat tire though.

BELIEVE was released last year in Austria and is currently on release in the UK.

THE ANOMALY

THE ANOMALY sees actor-director Noel Clarke (STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS) return to our screens with an ambitious sci-fi thriller that pulls off a stylish look on a low budget but is ultimately the victim of weak script and two-dimensional characters, not to mention gratuitous female nudity.

Clarke stars as a soldier suffering from PTSD who keeps waking up in a future world for just 10 minutes before zapped back.  He realises that he's being used to battle with an evil baddie called Agent Harkin played by Ian Somerhalder and his only ally is a hooker with a heart of gold. The whole thing drips with references to other, better, bigger-budgeted films such as THE MATRIX and SOURCE CODE.  And I'd feel better classing this as an honourable failure it it weren't for its retrograde sexual politics. I'd like to say that after ADULTHOOD and 4.3.2.1. Noel Clarke was developing his own directorial style but he really isn't. This is a film made by a guy obsessed with mimicking the films he love, but without changing them, improving them or melding them in the way. 

THE ANOMALY has a running time of 94 minutes and is rated 15 for strong language, violence, sex and nudity. The movie is on release in the UK and Ireland and opens later this month in Vietnam. It opens in January 2015 in Japan and in March 2015 in Brazil.

London Film Fest 2012 Day 2 - BLOOD

BLOOD is a disappointingly British mediocre crime thriller that would perhaps be better suited to the small screen, similar to one of those two hour episodes of an Inspector Rebus novel.  Every action, every moral disintegration, and much of the dialogue is predictable and the only saving graces are the performances from supporting actor Brian Cox and the vivid, elegant cinematography from DP George Richmond (WILD BILL).

Paul Bettany and Stephen Graham plays brothers Joe and Chrissy, both cops in a northern seaside town, growing up on self-aggrandizing tales of harsh policing from their father (Brian Cox), now suffering from Alzheimers. As the movie opens, they  have arrested a former sexual offender for the brutal murder of a  young girl, about the same age as Joe's own daughter.  The man's refusal to confess prompts a drunken Joe to go "Rampart" and the remaining hour sees the consequences of this turn to the dark side of policing. 

Screenwriter Bill Gallagher has a long background in TV drama, notably schmaltzy costume dramas like LARK RISE TO CANDLEFORD and THE PARADISE. BLOOD may be a contemporary cop thriller but it has the same air of inauthenticity and contrivance.  This isn't helped by the casting: it would take a far more engrossing film to force us to suspend our disbelief that Brian Cox, Paul Bettany and Stephen Graham come from the same family given their differing physique and regional/class accents.  There are other directorial choices from Nick Murphy (THE AWAKENING) that seem odd.  Why set the police department in what looks to be an ornate ex Church or City Hall, for instance?  I found the too polished production design deeply at odds with what was evidently trying to be a serious psychological drama.  The two lead performances are also deeply unsatisfying.  A classic example is when Joe receives some bad news and does that cliché thing of crumpling to the floor, raising two hands to his face.

Overall, a disappointing second feature after last year's festival début   That said, I suspect this is down to the casting and script, which suggests that, tied to a better quality project, Nick Murphy could still do good things.   

BLOOD played London 2012.  The running time is 87 minutes. 

London Film Fest 2011 Day 6 - CORIOLANUS

A simple theory: all revolutions begin for the want of food. The sansculottes wanted bread; the Arab Spring began when a man protested the price of rice; and if you ask the Chinese Politburo, they do not think Tienanmen Square was about wanting freedom but about protesting high food inflation.  The people must eat, and become agitated when they cannot. They come out onto the street when they believe that society is so riven between the ruling class and the people that they have no democratic expression of their discontent.  It is a watered down and rather pathetic shadow-play of these concerns that sees protesters camped outside St Paul's Cathedral in London this week.  I say all this to show the absolute relevance and importance of Shakespeare's tragedy CORIOLANUS as brought to the screen by Ralph Fiennes with a screenplay adapted by John Logan (RANGO, THE AVIATOR).

If that sounds defensive, it's because Coriolanus has typically been seen as a "second-tier" tragedy, ranking behind Macbeth, Hamlet and Lear for complexity and beauty.  Typically, critics argue that it isn't truly great in form because it contains so little poetry, so few soliloquys, so little examination of Coriolanus' interior life.  There is some truth to this - Coriolanus doesn't spend hours examining his conscience and motives in the way that Hamlet does - but that's completely right for the character. Because Coriolanus is a great Roman general, not a student of philosophy. And more than any other Shakespearean military man, he is a man of action.  We see him fight his battles in detail and on stage - each attack and counter-attack - this is what defines him.  And because of this, the short, inter-cut battle scenes in Act 1, the lack of standing and "speechifying", Coriolanus is particularly suited to a film adaptation. The medium suits the man.  In particular, DP Barry Ackroyd's (THE HURT LOCKER) gritty, hand-held camera-work showing Coriolanus in battle in war-torn Belgrade is not merely a contrivance - an attempt by Ralph Fiennes to contemporarise the play - but is absolutely what the play is about.  Coriolanus doesn't soliloquise because he has no self-doubt at all. He knows what he is - a great military leader - and he believes that this is enough to become political leader of Rome.  The problem is, Rome itself has changed.

The City of Rome of the play has only just rejected its King and become a Republic - events that Coriolanus had a hand in. It is a weak and fragile state, split between the ancient ruling patrician families and the mass of common people. As the play opens, the patricians have conceded that the people should have two tribunes to voice their concerns, and it is these men, whose profile depends on antagonism between the patricians and the plebs, who will motivate much of the action.  The meat of the play is how Coriolanus will transition from decorated military leader to politician in this new world where merely asserting one's right to rule is not enough - where one must actively court the masses.  He is proud to be a military hero - pride is his great tragic weakness - but resents the fact that he can only be a hero by the acclamation of the common people. After all, he has been raised to believe that the virtuous life of a Roman consists of noble and heroic service to his City and that virtue, as in the Greek model, can only be possessed by a few.  In other words, Coriolanus is not a democrat, and refuses to even pretend to play the democratic game.*  He resents having to be acclaimed by the people and merely tolerates acclamation by his peers.  He sees his enemy Aufidius as his true peer - and in moments of greatest hubris, sees himself as a god, and thus without peers. After all, the gods rule not by courting the people but because they are just better, greater, more powerful.

This sets up the central conflict in the play. Coriolanus returns to Rome a hero, and while the common people know that he holds them in contempt, they cannot help but acclaim him leader. However, the new Tribunes stir up the people, exposing Coriolanus' veiled insults, and he can't help but raise to the bait, vilifying them and rejecting them. He takes the ultimate step of abandoning his City - a step which Allan Bloom describes as follows:  "What is the good of serving that which is not noble and will not permit him to remain noble?"  Coriolanus' tragedy is that he seeks honour, but honour conferred by the people, who are unworthy judges, is tainted. The logical next step is then for Coriolanus to punish Rome by returning with Aufidius, his once-hated enemy, as a military invader. And in this final part of the play and film he casts himself as a god - the logical solution to his problem of tainted acclamation.  Logical, yes, but unsustainable, because Coriolanus cannot, in the final analysis, be as cold and merciless as a god. When his mother - the wonderfully written Volumnia - appeals to him to make peace, he cannot resist.   In his pity, Coriolanus betrays Aufidius and is punished for it, though in the play (but not the film) he is acclaimed at the end. 

As I have described it, the play is a purely political animal. There are no tragic romances, personal betrayals, ghosts, witches or madmen that enliven and popularise the other tragedies. It is a play that is pure in its concerns, and because it deals with such a cold man, can appear cold and austere to its readers.  Because Ralph Fiennes and John Logan's adaptation is absolutely faithful to the text, I suspect that may well be the reaction to the film as well - all very well-acted and intelligently produced but somehow failing to catch a spark in the audience.  After all, with the exception of Brian Cox' voluble, charismatic Menenius, there aren't any characters that ooze human warmth.  The majority of players are cool political operators and agitators.  There is no romance - when Coriolanus (Ralph Fiennes) leaves Rome, we (and he) barely care that he has left his wife Virgilia (Jessica Chastain).  The strongest relationship is between Coriolanus and his mother (Vanessa Redgrave) - an austere woman who sees her role as a mother as one of "duty" not to her son but to her City - to raise an honourable man.  I love that Fiennes puts her in a masculine uniform for much of the play, subverting the expression of her maternal pride into something harder, tougher.  Accordingly, it is far more powerful when she capitulates and goes down on her knees, begging Coriolanus to make peace. 

So yes, one must admit, this is not a movie for those looking for human warmth, humour, frailty and subtlety.  But it is a film that brilliantly brings Coriolanus to a modern setting, and completely understands its subject matter, deftly condensing it to a two-hour run-time. The battle scenes are effective and take us to the heart of Coriolanus' character, and the set-piece confrontations - particularly between Fiennes and Redgrave - are spectacular. Indeed, in a uniformly superb cast, it is Redgrave that stands out. Most importantly, I truly believe that an audience coming to the movie with no prior knowledge of the play, would follow the actions and motivations of the characters, and respond to the tricks of having, for instance, real TV newscaster Jon Snow, playing a newscaster in the film.  More than that, I love how the movie manages to achieve all this while keeping all the iconic lines of dialogue, and goes further, adding layers of visual detail that enrich the viewing experience for those who know and love the play.  For example, Coriolanus' dragon tattoo recalls Menenius' line "This Martius is grown from man to dragon: he has wings; he's more than a creeping thing."  This seems to me the ultimate success of the film. A great play doesn't necessarily make a great film. One has to use the virtues of the medium - ultimately a visual medium - to enhance the brilliance of the text.  And Ralph Fiennes has done this to brilliant effect.

CORIOLANUS played Berlin, Toronto and London 2011. It opened in Serbia in February. It opens in Russia on December 1st, in the US on January 13th and in the UK on January 20th.

*Indeed, one could argue further that Shakespeare is also not a democrat. The criticisms of popular politics that he gives Martius are entirely reasonable and, indeed, prescient.  He predicts the rise of popular politicians like Julius Caesar, who in sharp contrast to Coriolanus conquered Rome because he corrupted the people. 

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES - Oh, in the name of God! Now I know what it feels like to be God!

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES is, much like its iconic predecessor, a thoughtful, emotionally affecting film.  It feels much more like a character-driven drama than a generic summer blockbuster - which is not to underplay how good the final action set-piece is.

As the movie opens, Will Rodman is testing a potential cure for Alzheimers, ALZ-112, on chimps at the GenSys lab. When GenSys shuts down the trial, Will rescues a baby chimp called Caesar, not having the heart to put him down and unaware that Caesar has ALZ-112 in his genes.  Seeing the impressive impact of ALZ-112 on Caesar's brain, Will starts testing the drug on his father, who is miraculously cured.  

Flash forward a few years and Caesar is an older chimp, very clever, but straining at the leash of domestication.  After a misunderstanding turns nasty, Caesar is finally impounded in an animal shelter while Will appeals for his release. Worse still, Will's father Charles has fallen into remission - his body resisting the ALZ-112 and the Alzheimer's back with a vengeance. This prompts Will to create an even more virulent strain of the cure, ALZ-113, oblivious to its devastating side-effects on humans. And while Charles refuses to take it, Caesar steals it and infects his fellow primates at the shelter. Because, while Will has become ever more confused about his identity as a Man of Science, letting his love and arrogance warp his judgement, Caesar has become far clearer about his identity as an ape. Newly politicised by his brutal treatment in the shelter, and disenchanted by Will's refusal to let him be anything other than a cute family friend on a leash, he leads the apes in a rebellion.

The strength of the film is the depiction of Caesar's journey to social and political consciousness. Andy Serkis, who stole every scene as Gollum in LORD OF THE RINGS, is simply brilliant as Caesar - portraying the journey from youthful naivete, to hurtful rejection, to resolution. I kept thinking that Caesar's story was similar to that of Frankenstein's monster - the creation of an arrogant scientist; not really a man and yet possessing a man's intelligence; confused and eager to fit in, but frightening the humans he meets. So powerful is Serkis' performance that you root for Caesar, even more than for the human protagonist. And when he reaches his final declamatory scenes, the audience audibly gasps in awe.  It was a crime that Serkis didn't win an Oscar as Gollum, and the Academy should not overlook him now.  

The Academy also shouldn't overlook the behind-the-camera work director Rupert Wyatt (THE ESCAPIST), DP Andrew Lesnie (LORDS OF THE RINGS) and the effects team that so vividly created Caesar and so seamlessly blended him into a live-action background.

The weakness of the film is that the humans are by far less interesting than the apes.  James Franco's Rodman is far less powerful and charismatic than Victor Frankenstein. In fact, he just comes across as a sappy dope.  His girlfriend (Frieda Pinto) exists merely as a foil - occasionally pointing to his folly but going along with it anyway. The corporate boss (David Oyelowo), is surprise surprise, amoral and purely profit-motivated.  The father too, is simply there to tug the heart-strings, although John Lithgow is too good to allow a potentially mawkish final scene to become kitsch.  Brian Cox and Tom Felton as the animal shelter guards are simply pantomime villains, and I do hope Felton aka Draco Malfoy, doesn't get typecast as the insecure bully.  

Still, despite the cardboard cut-out humans, RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES more than delivered in the character of Caesar, and in the final action sequence.  And I really can't wait to see the next instalment in the franchise.  As we've left the movie, we know that humans are going to be infected by the virus, but we haven't seen their hysterical response. And Caesar is still an ape who loves his human friend, and forbids his followers to deliberately kill humans. In other words, his rebellion is of the Gandhi/Martin Luther King variety. I am fascinated to know whether it is Caesar who is radicalised to the point where humans end up as slaves, or whether he is deposed by the brutalised chimp who was infected with ALZ-113.  I am NOT however, eager to know what happens to Will, his drippy girlfriend or any of the other humans.  


DANIEL PLAINVIEW adds: I agree, the humans are all ineffectual idiots - set-piece props for the more complex apes. 

For me though, this was a more serious omission. There are clearly parallels in this story with the African American civil rights movement - and hence the question of whether Caesar is Malcolm X or Martin Luther King, and how the story develops from here, is key.

However, casting the "white people" as either textbook Republican money-grubbing baddies, or ineffectual liberal good-at-heart nicies, is in this context disappointing. The reaction of society at large to the ape movement is probably more interesting than the ape movement itself, because it gives us an opportunity to explore and comment on different reactions of difference, fear and prejudice.

This films gives us two choices - you're either a full-on exploiter, or a patronising do-gooder. Particularly sad was the way Draco Malfoy was used - he's just a sneering arsehole - and then there's the mentally retarded nice-guy who tries ineffectually to look after the chimps at the shelter. What polarised American nonsense!

Having said all that - it was well made, a lot of fun, some of the performances were excellent, and we can all rest happy knowing that most of humanity is going to be wiped out in Episode 2 - and the remaining rump are likely to be spunkier, more interesting characters (we hope).

THE RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES is on release in Malaysia, Indonesia, Belarus, Denmark, Greece, Kazakhstan, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, Thailand, Brazil, Canada, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Spain, Turkey, the USA, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Portugal, the UK, Finland, Ireland and Norway. It opens next weekend in Sweden, Georgia, Hungary and the Netherlands. It opens in Italy on September 23rd and in Japan on 7th October.

London Film Fest Day 2 - FANTASTIC MR FOX - Bina007's review

Intrigued by Professor007's negative response I checked out FANTASTIC MR FOX today at the 6pm screening sans red carpet. I came to it with a different perspective, having both read the Roald Dahl short story as a child, and having seen all of Wes Anderson's movies.

The bare bones of the story are simple. Mr Fox steals chickens, cider and ham from three mean farmers in order to feed his family who live in a burrow nearby. In retaliation, the mean farmers lay siege to the fox family. Brilliantly, Mr Fox steals all their stores from under the farmers' noses, provoking the ultimate retaliation and a fantastic finish. This being Roald Dahl, the mean farmers are nasty, venal and petty, and Mr Fox is universally lauded as being clever, brave and wonderful! After all, he's forced to steal to feed his family.

Wes Anderson brings his own obsessions to the story: obsessions which at first sight were fascinating and entertaining (see my review of THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS) but which now look re-hashed and tired. The character of Mr Fox (George Clooney) is simply Royal Tenenbaum as an animated fox - he's charismatic, eloquent, charming but hey - he's just going to do what he wants to do. His wife, Mrs Fox (Meryl Streep) is the classic wise, suffering mother-figure that we see again and again in Wes Anderson films, though not played by Angelica Huston this time. Mrs Fox wants Mr Fox to settle down and be responsible. They're not starving in this version, you see. Mr Fox just steals for kicks. The classic Wes Anderson dynamic carries over to the relationship between Mr Fox and his son Ash (Jason Schwartzman) - a Chas Tenenbaum figure - desperate for his father's approval but always overlooked for another - in this case cousin Kristoffersen (Eric Chase Anderson). They even fight over a bored sounding love interest - I'm guessing an uncredited Angelica Huston.

You get the point. This isn't a faithful reworking of Dahl's Fantastic tale, but Wes Anderson goes animated.

So how does it all work? On one hand, I was utterly gobsmacked by the arrogance of Wes Anderson to basically steam-roller everything that made the original book so typically Dahl and just shoe-horn it into his tired MO. What was all this estate agent nonsense? And what on earth was Anderson doing in his pastiche of Battlestar Galactica's use of FRACK with his own word CUSS as in Cuss Off and Cluster-cuss? Mr Fox saving the starving little foxes is a film with stakes. Mr Fox pissed off because he can't flip his house for profit is banal.

On the other hand, you can't deny that, as with all Wes Anderson films, the visuals are beautifully imagined and rendered. George Clooney IS charming as Mr Fox - then again, he's had enough practice as Danny Ocean. The rest of the voice cast is good, with an especially fine turn by Schwartzman as stroppy son Ash. The visual humour works - it is fun to see a possum's hypnotized eyes, and dogs knocked out by valium laced blueberries.

Overall, I was disappointed but I didn't have a terrible time. The film isn't as unwatchable and patronising as THE DARJEELING LIMITED. But it isn't as original and moving as TENENBAUMS or BOTTLE ROCKET. It's a rehash - a re-casting - a re-working. I just wish Wes Anderson had the confidence, and indeed the respect, to have connected more with the source material. He really needs to shed some of his directorial ticks.

FANTASTIC MR FOX opened London 2009 and goes on release in the UK on October 23rd. It opens in the US on November 13th; in Singapore on Nov 19th; in Romania on Nov 20th; in the US on Nov 25th; in Italy on Nov 26th; in Brazil on Dec 4th; in France on Dec 23rd; in Sweden on Dec 25th; in Australia on Jan 7th; in Tawian on Jan 23rd; in Russia and Finland on Jan 28th; in Germany, Estonia and Norway on Feb 5th; in Belgium on Feb 10th; in the Netherlands on Feb 18th; in Argentina on March 4th and in Denmark on March 10th.

Eventual tags: children, animation, wes anderson, roald dahl, bill murray, goerge clooney, meryl streep, adrien brody, owen wilson, willem dafoe, jason schwartzman, brian cox, michael gambon, angelica huston, helen mccrory, roman coppola, garth jennings, jarvis cocker,

London Film Fest Day 1 - FANTASTIC MR FOX - Not so fantastic....

This review was written by our Austrian correspondent, Professor007

Maybe it’s my lack of familiarity with the underlying children’s story, but despite being positively biased after experiencing the star-studded line-up at the opening of the 53rd London Film Festival, the film not only left me completely cold but started to seriously annoy me towards the end.

The story is as follows: Mr. Fox (voice by George Clooney) does what foxes do, he steals and kills chickens. He does so also when meeting his lovely future wife, Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep), but after both get trapped during this pursuit, he promises to his wife that he would never steal chickens again and start a proper job instead – writing a column for the local newspaper. However, after 12 (fox) years living the happy, but rather average family life and raising a son (who turns out to be a bit of a loser), his old ambition for recognition and admiration overwhelms him and he decides to rob the gruesome humans Boggis, Bunce, and Bean. After some initial success, the humans decide to fight back, however, and thus starts a colossal battle between animal and human foes. Unsurprisingly, after several increasingly absurd confrontations, the Foxes win and everyone is happy.

So what made it bad? Firstly, none of the sub-plots was sufficiently developed nor particularly convincing. The supposed initial happy love story between Mr & Mrs Fox did not come across on screen, nor did the conflict that arose following his breach of his promise. The conversations between the two appeared haphazard and neither witty nor deep. Similarly, it is unclear how “ueber-foxian” Mr. Fox feels about his underachieving son: he only shows some positive emotion following a completely unexplained mega-performance during the final rescue mission. And the list goes on. Secondly, I also found the film “technologically” disappointing: the voices didn’t seem to properly match the movements of the animated figures and the detail in the graphics has been done better elsewhere.

It’s not that I don’t like animated films per se, Finding Nemo made me laugh and cry and Ratatouille was exceptionally sweet. Wes Anderson might tell me that this stop motion movie is a different kettle of fish. Maybe, but do I care?

FANTASTIC MR FOX opened London 2009 and goes on release in the UK on October 23rd. It opens in the US on November 13th; in Singapore on Nov 19th; in Romania on Nov 20th; in the US on Nov 25th; in Italy on Nov 26th; in Brazil on Dec 4th; in France on Dec 23rd; in Sweden on Dec 25th; in Australia on Jan 7th; in Tawian on Jan 23rd; in Russia and Finland on Jan 28th; in Germany, Estonia and Norway on Feb 5th; in Belgium on Feb 10th; in the Netherlands on Feb 18th; in Argentina on March 4th and in Denmark on March 10th.

Eventual tags: children, animation, wes anderson, roald dahl, bill murray, goerge clooney, meryl streep, adrien brody, owen wilson, willem dafoe, jason schwartzman, brian cox, michael gambon, angelica huston, helen mccrory, roman coppola, garth jennings, jarvis cocker,

Wes Anderson's THE FANTASTIC MR FOX to open London 2009

After the genius of BOTTLE ROCKET and THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS and the self-indulgent fiascos of THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU and THE DARJEELING LIMITED, all eyes are on Wes Anderson's next project, an animated adaptation of the Roald Dahl classic, THE FANTASTIC MR FOX. Set for release in the UK on October 23rd and in the US on November 13th, the movie will open the London Film Festival this year. Let's hope it can break the hoo-doo of recent open films which have all been picked on commercial rather than critical grounds - mediocre, solid but that's all. I give you films such as THE CONSTANT GARDENER, FROST/NIXON and oh, that awful biopic, SYLVIA. So far, things look good. We have a voice cast stuffed with Anderson regulars - Owen Wilson, Angelica Huston - but we also have top notch British characters - Michael Gambon, Helen McCrory - not to mention genuine Hollywood A-list in Meryl Streep (stepping in for Cate Blanchett as Mrs Fox). I also love that Anderson has gone back to old school stop motion animation. Sounds, if not fantastic, given his recent record, at least intriguing....

Bryan Singer retrospective - X2 (2003)

What comes after a massively commercially successful comic book adaptation? Why, the sequel of course! And basically all my comments regarding Singer's X-MEN go double for X-2. In general, Singer does a fine job in creating a slick, entertaining summer blockbuster movie full of spectacular set pieces. At the same time he remains faithful to the original books. Without the need to do all the character establishment heavy lifting, Singer even has room to develop characters and emotional relationships. The love triangle between Cyclops, Jean Grey and Wolverine is developed and Singer sensitively introduces the Jean Grey/Phoenix theme. Singer even gets to probe the intellectual heart of the books with a classic scene in which a teen mutant called Iceman "comes out" to his family. Best of all, the classic conflict between "good" and "bad" mutants is complicated by the insertion of a human arch-villain called William Stryker (Brian Cox) - hell-bent on mutant genocide. Cox is yet another impressive actor added to the roster, and more than makes up for the sub-par performance from Halle Berry and the fact that Cyclops is once again short-changed. The same flaws persist - too many characters, too much material - but it's hard to pin them on Singer. Indeed, despite the proliferation of characters, he does as well as one can imagine in still crafting a coherent movie.

All in all, X-2 was a stylish, entertaining, intelligent comic book movie - a more satisfying feature than the already impressive X-MEN.

X2 went on release in 2003.

SHOOT ON SIGHT - poorly made, crude, political drama

SHOOT ON SIGHT is a poorly made, earnest but superficial film about the British police response to the post 9-11 terrorist threat. It's made by the team that brought us PROVOKED - another movie based in the British Asian community. It shares that film's ropey production values as well as its caricature about race issues in the UK.

The movie takes its inspiration from the de Menezes shooting, in which an innocent South American man was mistaken by British police to be a suicide bomber and was shot in a tube station just after the 7/7 bombings. However, in its ham-fisted way, instead of making the victim a South American clean-shaven man, they make him a caricature Orthodox muslim complete with kurta pajama and cap. The nervous police, as represented by Brian Cox, bring in a muslim cop (Naseerudin Shah) to investigate the case. Shah is a very fine actor, but his accent is all over the shop - from Cockney to Scouse - and this is extremely distracting. This being a simplistic, neat drama, obviously the copper's childhood friend just happens to be a fanatical mullah. And of course, wouldn't you just know that he's sponsored his nice young radical nephew to come and live in his loft-conversion?

Apart from Gulshan Grover and Om Puri (representing moderate and radical Islam), the performances are all weak. Crucially, there is no attempt to understand how the suicide bomber became a radical. Behind the camera, we have a shooting style reminiscent of cheap British soap operas and a score that is as subtle as a Bollywood melodrama.

If you want to see a movie about the pyschology and politics behind suicide bombing and the police response to it, you would do far better to watch the recent Indian art movie, BLACK AND WHITE. BLACK AND WHITE strives hard to prove that the issues are never really so binary, whereas SHOOT ON SIGHT never bothers with such nuances.

SHOOT ON SIGHT is on release in the UK.

THE ESCAPIST - Best of British

THE ESCAPIST is an intelligent, imaginative take on the prison-break movie as exemplified by THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION. Indeed, this low budget British flick heavily references the cult classic, contrasting the savagery of prison life - drugs, rape, brutal violence - with religious imagery and martyrdom. The style, however, couldn't be more different. The sun-lit American prison is replaced with grungy British misery. And the straightforward linear style is replaced by a narrative that starts both at the beginning of the plot and at the beginning of the escape itself. We learn about the motivations of each participant as we watch their escape unfold. I found the method absolutely compelling and neat because it didn't diminish the suspense. The key question of whether or not the men would pull off their escape was still there till the end. But we also get a wonderful plot twist that asks more interesting and meaningful questions.

What else is there to love about this film? For a start, the performances are great. Brian Cox leadsfrom the front, but is upstaged by a quite sinister, physical performance from Steven Mackintosh as a rapist, junkie. The only false note was Damian Lewis trying to look hard with a half-baked working class accent. Still, not even that was enough to keep this film off my Best of 2008 list. Kudos to debutant feature writer-director Rupert Wyat.

THE ESCAPIST played Sundance and Dublin 2008 and is currently on release in the UK. It opens in the Netherlands in February 2009.

WATER HORSE - Free Nessie!

A perfectly charming and utterly enjoyable children's movie that combines a good old-fashioned story with some first-rate modern animation.

A timid young Scottish boy called Angus (Alex Etel) comes out of his shell by befriending a cute little beastie called Crusoe. The beastie soon outgrows the bathtub and Angus and the handyman (Ben Chaplin) transfer him to the Loch. All goes well until a smarmy Army captain (David Morrissey) orders his men to start shooting at the Loch in order to impress Angus' mum (Emily Watson.)

The movie is well-acted throughout, althought the Scottish accents do tend to come and go. The beastie is very cute and there are lots of good laughs all the way through. The CGI animation is handled well and doesn't obscure from the wonderful photography of the beautiful Scottish landscape. This movie could've been sponsored by the Scottish Tourism authority! The ending is suitably thrilling and emotional, although I did feel it had a slightly familiar Free Willy feel to it. Nonetheless, fans of the Dick King-Smith story won't feel let down, and I can attest that The Kid had a great time throughout.

WATER HORSE opened in the US, Canada and Mexico last year. It opened in January 2008 in Australia, Sweden and Belgium. It is currently playing in Brazil, Japan, Venezuela, Egypt, the UK, Germany and Argentina. It opens later in February in France, the Netherlands, China, Croatia and Iceland. It opens in March in Lebanon, Singapore, Kuwait, Spain, Turkey, Peru, Italy, Uruguay, South Korea, Colombia and Serbia and Montenegro. It opens in April in India and Hong Kong.

THE FLYING SCOTSMAN leaves it too late to move beyond the genre

THE FLYING SCOTSMAN spends its first hour solidly within the conventions of the under-dog sports movie. It's everything DODGEBALL spoofed so well. We meet Graeme Obree as a little kid being bullied at school. His dad (a rozzer - unfortunate) gives him a bike for Christmas and soon he's speeding away from the bullies and into the record books. We next meet him as a grown man, played by Jonny Lee Miller with a weak Scottish accent. He's down on his luck in Glasgow. But with the help of a Loving Wife, a Chirpy Side-kick (Billy Boyd) and a Wise Mentor (Brian Cox), he soon finds himself breaking the world record on his unconventional "make do and mend" bike. So far so boring. Indeed, the caricature of the evil German World Cycling Federation bureaucrat villain (Steven Berkoff) is insulting.

Luckily the movie picks up in the final chapters. There is an attempt to investigate Obree's depression; the visual representation of his cycle rides is interesting and I like the shadowy final scene. Is this enough to offset the earlier tedium? I'm not sure, but at least you leave the cinema feeling engaged and exhilerated.

THE FLYING SCOTSMAN was released in New Zealand, the US, Italy and Singapore earlier this year. It is currently on release in the UK. It opens in Germany on July 5th and in Australia on August 9th 2007.

RUNNING WITH SCISSORS - incoherent

RUNNING WITH SCISSORS is a star-packed adaptation of a best-selling memoir that is now the subject of a lawsuit. Unsurprising, given that the author, Augusten Burroughs, depicts his adoptive family as a bunch of crazies (technical term) stretching the viewer's credulity. Dumped by his egocentric, failed poet mother, Augusten moves into the criminally filthy, decrepit Finch household in the mid-1970s. There follows many a bizarre-O scene involving Papa Finch (unlicensed, tablet-dispensing, tax-owing Psychologist - Brian Cox); Mama Finch (eats pet food); Hope Finch (high-strung, eats dead cat - Gwyneth Paltrow); Natalie Finch (raped as kid, rebel - Evan Rachel Wood); Bookman (schizo, gay, paedophile - Joe Fiennes); kid who poops under the Christmas tree.......Sadly, the director, Ryan Murphy never manages to fashion a coherent whole from this gallery of grotesques. Worse still, he never makes us care. Final result: dull, dull, dull, despite a star-turn from the ever-brilliant Annette Bening as the kid's mum.

RUNNING WITH SCISSORS was released in the US last October, in Brazil in November and in Germany, Norway and Spain in January. It is currently on release in Singapore and the UK and goes on release in Italy on the 16th and in Argentina and Israel on the 22nd. It opens in Sweden on March 16th, France on March 21st, Belgium on March 28th and Australia on March 29th.

MATCH POINT - a return to form for Woody Allen

I love Woody Allen films, but let's be clear about what we mean by that. I reckon that, crudely speaking, there are 3 types of Allen movie. First, we have the early slapstick movies such as Bananas, and Take the Money and Run. They're hsyterical. Second, we have the terse relationship comedies. By and large, these are the ones that won the Oscars and made his name - movies like Annie Hall and Manhattan. Finally, we have Woody Allen's dark moral investigations - self-absorbed people doing horrible, unforgiveable things. These, I feel are his best movies. So when you decide whether to see MATCH POINT, you have to be clear on what you are getting. This is not a cute 1970s romantic comedy. It is a dark, nasty little film - a film far more in the tradition of searing emotional dramas like Hannah and her Sisters, Husbands and Wives and Crimes and Misdemeanors. Indeed some people have gone so far as to say that it is even better than C&D which is, in my opinion, going too far. (C&D is in my movie pantheon.) Nonetheless, I think that this is a fantastic movie.

MATCH POINT is the first of the three Woody Allen movies set in London. It tells the tale of a poor tennis coach who becomes intimate with an upper-class family, eventually marrying the daughter while bedding the son's actress girlfriend. It tells of his struggle to reconcile his comfortable married life with his passion for the actress. Finally it is a discussion about how justice is or is not afforded to us in real life.

The movie is a complete success in terms of character and plot. So often we hear of movies marketed on the strength of their "surprise ending". Well, here is a final twist that doesn't feel false and makes for compelling viewing. The acting is superlative. The soundtrack is also worthy of note. For once, Woody has moved away from using jazz standards to excerpts from Verdi and Bizet with great effect.

Some critics have complained that Woody presents us with a picture-postcard view of London - all red buses, Houses of Parliament and champagne at the tennis club. I would argue that far from falling into Notting Hill and Love, Actually-style cliche, Woody Allen is deliberately making a contrast between the enviable, almost picture-perfect, lifestyle of the upper class family and the sordid, petty reality. This is exactly what he did in Manhattan. We had Gordon Wills stunning black and white photography of New York, with Gershwin's beautiful score, and in counter-point, lots of neurotic, self-absorbed characters being pathetic.

Should you go see MATCH POINT? Yes. But remember, this is not a quirky date movie. If you just want to see Scarlett Johansen get her kit off, you can rent The Island instead.

Alternatively, for a negative review of this flick, replete with plot spoilers, check out my mate, Nik's review.

MATCH POINT went on release in France in October. It goes on limited release in the US and on general release in Germany and Austria on the 29th December . It goes on general release in the UK on the 6th January and in the US on the 20th January 2006.

RED EYE - thrills and spills at thirty thousand feet

RED EYE is a taught thriller that provides the requisite gasps of horror, chases, fights and finally a schmaltzy ending. It doesn't tinker with the genre, or have pretensions beyond its basic mission, which is to hook us into a scary story, and watch it play out amidst an atmosphere of escalating tension. The set up is that Lisa Reisert is the manager of a hotel in Miami where an important US politician is going to stay. Nasty terrorists want him moved to a specific suite wherein it will be easier to assassinate him. To this end, they kidnap her father and, through their plant in the airplane seat next to her, force her to call her hotel and have the VIP guest moved. A large part of the movie takes place in the confines of the plane, and adds to the claustrophobia and rising fear at the limited options available to our heroine. But what really makes this film special is the superlative acting. The heroine is played by Rachel McAdams. She has been great in a bunch of mediocre movies, and I can't wait to see her get her teeth into a meatier role. The charming young man on the plane is played by Cillian Murphy - an Irish actor of great talent - notably in 28 Days Later, Batman Begins and the forthcoming Breakfast on Pluto. Finally, we have heavyweight Brian Cox in a brief part as Lisa's dad. I really can't fault RED EYE. At under an hour and a half it is a perfectly crafted thriller. It just goes to show that in this age of spoofs, post-modern ironies and overly worked editing, if you stick to the basics you can still turn out a great movie.

RED EYE went on release in the US in August and goes on release in the UK today. It hits Germany and Austria next week, and reaches France on October 26th 2006.