GRAN TURISMO**

There's an essay to be written on what happens to spiky independent directors who sell-out to dumb franchise movies, cf Ben Wheatley's MEG 2 and Neill Blomkamp (formerly of the superb DISTRICT 9 and CHAPPIE) helming this piss-poor piece of product merchandising.  It's hard to see anything of Blomkamp's political satire and visual artistry in GRAN TURISMO. Instead, we get a painfully tired, cliched, nakedly commercial, underdog sports film about a sim racer turned actual real life racing driver, based on a true story.

There are many flaws with this film, and a ham-fisted script is the largest one. Second, we have a cast basically phoning it in (that's you David Harbour), or playing it one shot shy of a camp Bond villain (Orlando Bloom). But the real problem is that the racing doesn't excite. I love a bit of F1 and have watched many an autosport movie. It says a lot that you can stage scenes at some iconic tracks - not least the beast of the Nurburgring - and not set my pulse racing. I think the problem is that Blomkamp doesn't distinguish between sim and real racing. In fact, he does the opposite. He makes real racing feel like sim-racing by adding on visual trackers and taking away any real life feel for track noise and atmosphere. When I watch a racing movie, I want to feel the heat, the sound, the the tension, the stakes. I want to smell the burning rubber.  This film gave me none of that.

Still, I am awarding the film two stars. One for its young lead actor Archie Madekwe who puts in an earnest and compelling central performance. And one for the comedy value of seeing real-life F1 Principal's wife and ex-Spice Girl Gerri Halliwell uttering the immortal line "these lentils are nice".

GRAN TURISMO has a running time of 134 minutes and is rated PG-13. It is on global release.

SHAZAM!

SHAZAM! is one of the goofier of the seemingly endless parade of comic book adaptations that crosses our screens, and it's so asinine I could barely watch through to the end.  It begins with 40 minutes of tedious exposition before we get to meet the superhero. Apparently there's an old wizard (Djimon Hounsou in a thankless role) who hands out superpowers.  He tried giving them to the bad guy when he was a kid but then withdrew them causing his resentment. Said bad guys grows up to be Mark Strong in another thankless role. He's just another disposable bad guy, indistinguishable from the next.  Remember when bad guys were awesome like Jeremy Iron's Scar?  Right.   Anyway, the person who actually gets the good superpowers is an orphan called Billy. His superpowers involve being bullet proof, and stuff to do with electricity, and becoming a beefy adult played by Zachary Levi (THE MARVELOUS MRS MAISEL).  You then get the classic plot of guy goes through life-changing event, alienates all his friends, before third act redemption. Apparently this version is meant to be funny and moving because the friends in question are a bunch of unwanted kids. I thought the whole thing was hammy, predictable, dull and overlong. Didn't laugh once. Didn't care about any of the characters. Sad to hear there's going to be a sequel. 

SHAZAM! is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 132 minutes. 

SERENITY

And so the McConaughaissance crests its wave with this awkwardly shit thriller from British writer-director Steven Knight (LOCKE, PEAKY BLINDERS).  McConaughey plays a washed up fisherman/tour guide for rich tourists on a paradise tropical island with a trademark wise loyal sidekick played by Djimon Hounsou.  All goes tits up when his ex-wife turns up begging him to kill her new abusive husband for the sake of their son.  The key issue is that earnest sweet princess-next-door Anne Hathaway sucks at playing a femme fatale, and there is zero chemistry between her and McC.  You wade through an hour of this awfulness and then the plot gets a bit twisty and momentarily interesting, except that you can't shake the feeling that this would all have been handled with more wit, brevity and horror in a BLACK MIRROR episode. 

Avoid at all costs. 

SERENITY is rated R and has a running time of 106 minutes. It is now available to rent and own.

CAPTAIN MARVEL

CAPTAIN MARVEL is a game of two halves. I found the first half of the film utterly tedious, failing to fire with its buddy comedy and alien politics, but the second half to be really moving and powerful and wonderful.

The film starts with Brie Larson (ROOM) playing a human with superpowers and amnesia, being trained by a beefed-up Jude Law to fight as part of a Kree special forces unit against their hated Skrull enemy.  She crashes to earth sometime in the mid 1990s - well before the events of the current Marvel series - and tries to uncover the mystery of how she got her powers with the help of a friendly government agent called Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) and her old best friend Marie Rambeau (Lashana Lynch).  Turns out she was a kick-ass fighter pilot called Carol Danvers working for an inspirational woman called Mar-Vell (Annette Bening) who - turns out - was an alien who invented the original tesseract - a kind of super-energy source McGuffin that has wound its way through these films. And so Danvers and her sidekicks have to protect the tesseract from - they think  - the evil terrorist Skrull - especially their leader Talos played by Ben Mendelsohn in full evil villain guise.

Like I said - the first hour of this film seemed pretty tedious to me. I don't really engage with CGI filled alien planet fight scenes, especially when I don't care about either side. I also didn't really care about the early scenes on 1990s Earth other than some pop tune nostalgia.  I could see that the directors wanted to create a kind of buddy movie road-trip odd-couple comedy between Carol and Fury but I just didn't respond to it. I could see Samuel L Jackson trying to be funny but didn't laugh - and it didn't feel like anyone else in the cinema was laughing either. 

Where the film began to ignite for me was in its second half, broadly where we get a major plot twist regarding one of the characters. This allows that character to actually become the one driving the witty deadpan humour and the heart of the second half of the film.  I also really loved the relationship between Carol and Marie - which also takes place in the second half of the film. In fact, you could easily have played it as a gay relationship co-parenting a child, and I wonder if this film will achieve cult status on that level.  

Finally, its in the second half of the film that a lot of the feminist groundwork done in the first half pays off - it's where we see Captain Marvel as a hero who's main skill is obstinacy in the face of bigotry. She doesn't need a wise male mentor to give her advice or permission. She doesn't have a crisis of confidence. And she doesn't have a love interest (male or female apparently).  She just gets the job done, no mess, no fuss. This is refreshing in its straightforward empowerment but does make Captain Marvel a fairly unengaging superhero. She's the strong smart ethically grounded woman who basically never does anything wrong, never has any doubts, and doesn't really need her friends. Accordingly, it's no surprise that the MVP of this film is a cat. 

CAPTAIN MARVEL has a running time of 124 minutes and is rated PG-13. It is on global release. 

KING ARTHUR

I massively enjoyed Guy Ritchie's retelling of the KING ARTHUR myth - it was funny, fast-paced, had some really superb visuals and a kinetic score.  It sets itself up perfectly for a sequel that isn't going to happen because for some bizarre reason no-one else liked it.  Close your ears to their whining and give it a go because it's stonkingly good fun! 

In Ritchie's version of the tale, we have a mythical version of post-Roman Britain in which King Uther (Eric Bana) has been trained by a mage called Merlin and given a magical sword called Excalibur.  His evil brother Vortigern (Jude Law is superb cigar-chomping mode) kills his brother and seizes the crown but has one problem - Excalibur is stuck in a stone and he can't remove it.  He also has a second problem but he doesn't know it yet.  Uther's son Arthur (Charlie Hunnam) was saved as a baby and ended up being raised in a brothel.  The main action of this film sees him extract the sword from the stone, realise his true inheritance, struggle to accept it, but overcome this hesitation thanks to an ethereal Lady In The Lake, and save Britain from Vortigern's black magic. 

So far so good.  I have no truck with purists saying that Ritchie has changed the story.  It's a story that is endlessly malleable. It's a myth from an oral tradition that takes some shreds of actual history and runs wild, and has done for centuries. I also love how Guy Ritchie gets certain things really right - the clash between the forces of modernity and the old beliefs in magicks - this is Britain  at a time of deeply contested philosophy - pagan vs Christian - Briton vs Roman - you name it. 

Anyway, this is KING ARTHUR with all the energy, vivid characterisation, underdog energy and sharp dialogue of LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS.  What's even more impressive is that despite all the jokes and lad-humour, the movie worked on a deeper level.  There's a particular character moment that actually moved me because I was so invested in the characters. And the way in which Ritchie imagines the Lady in the Lake is stunning. Of course there's also lots of cheap CGI and silly fight scenes but it doesn't matter - because I liked hanging out with this group of usurpers - I loved the moment at the end when order was restored and Goosefat Bill became Ser William again - I loved the diversity of the Knights of the Round Table, and I want my sequel GODAMMIT!

KING ARTHUR has a running time of 123 minutes and is rated PG-13. 

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

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



GUARDIAN OF THE GALAXY is hands-down the most fun I've had in a cinema over the past year. It's goofy, funny, smart, touching and at times plain balls-out crazy.  But when the lights came up I could have happily sat down to watch the movie all over again, and I can't wait for the sequel.  It reminded me of all the reasons we loved cinema as kids - of all those Saturday morning serial inspired movies like STAR WARS and INDIANA JONES with their epic quests and buddy comedy relationships. But even better, it reminded me of the richly imagined almost gothic worlds of Guillermo del Toro movies - worlds where people (and raccoons!) look battered and beaten rather than shiny and new.  There was something nostalgic about the very concept of the movie - a throwback to the great eighties action comedies - that went beyond its hokey mix-tape seventies sound-track.  I mean, I CARED about the talking tree and the psycho-raccoon, god help me. And I want to know what happens next!

PUSH - Soporific sci-fi chase flick

PUSH is an incoherent, derivative sci-fi flick from the team behind stylish noir comedy, LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN. SLEVIN was guilty of using its convoluted plot as a mere clothes rail for quirky characters and lavish set pieces. PUSH is guiltier still. Basically it's just a chase movie set in Hong Kong. Chris Evans, Dakota Fanning and Camilla Belle are psychically gifted ex-pats on the lam from the a clandestine government agency that wants to exploit them for military purposes. It plays like a mixture of HEROES and JUMPER, and starts of as a tolerably well-made, if over-familiar, sci-fi flick. About half way through the script breakds down completely, with yawn-inducing results.

PUSH is on release in the US, France, Romania, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Spain and the UK. It opens next week in Greece. It opens in March in Belgium, Singapore, Argentina and Turkey. It opens in April in Estonia, Italy, New Zealand and Poland. It opens on May 1st in Brazil and on August 13th in Germany.

IN AMERICA - witty, earnest biopic undone by cheap sentiment

Ariel: What are transvestites?
Christy: A man who dresses up as a woman.
Ariel: For Halloween?
Christy: No, all the time. All the time.
Ariel: Why?
Christy: It's just what they do here, OK?

It's this sort of dialogue that makes Jim Sheridan's 2002 film IN AMERICA a delight to watch. Much like BLAME IT ON FIDEL, it takes the point of view of a young girl living through family disruption in the near past. This time, instead of late 60s revolutionary Paris, we're in early 80s New York. Two young sisters are brought to America by their Irish parents. Mum is a waitress, dad is an out of work actor, and they live in a manky apartment building full of drug addicts and a threatening neighbour who screams a lot.

Paddy Considine and Samantha Morton are tremendous as the parents. I tend to think that Considine is rather overlooked compared to Morton. I've seen him do pathetic and sleazy in MY SUMMER OF LOVE and sinister and threatening in DEAD MAN'S SHOES. In this picture he shows the frustrations and insecurities of the father who can't provide for his children with a devestating passion in a pivotal scene with Djimon Hounsou.

Sadly, the movie is completely undercut by a rather simplistic, sentimental plot thread in which the scary African neighbour is, in fact, a pussycat, and everyone just gets on swimmingly. I can't say I'm sorry that IN AMERICA lost any of its three nominations at the Academy Awards.

IN AMERICA played Toronto 2002 and Sundance 2003. It is available on DVD and on iTunes. Samantha Morton was nominated for Best Actress but lost to Charlize Theron for her role in MONSTER. Djimon Hounsou was nominated for Best Supporting Actor but lost to Tim Robbins in MYSTIC RIVER. Jim, Naomi and Kirsten Sheridan were nominated for Best Original Screenplay but lost to Sofia Coppola for LOST IN TRANSLATION.

NEVER BACK DOWN - macho bullshit

NEVER BACK DOWN is a piss-poor movie in which Tom Cruise' mini-me and Volchok from The O.C beat the crap out of each other while Mandy Lane looks on adoringly. The movie tries to cast a veneer of Grecian morality over its fascist enjoyment of oiled up, buff blokes pounding each other senseless, and briefly hints at girl on girl fights, so that's okay with women's lib, right?! Wrong. I'm not sure what's more stupid: the ludicrous premise of this film; the fact that I fell for the free tickets and sacrificed 2 hours of my time watching it; or the people who actually take a vicarious thrill from watching what is essentially glammed-up happy-slapping on YouTube.

NEVER BACK DOWN is on release in the US, Canada, Australia and the UK. It is released in Russia, France and Spain later in April and opens in Germany and Iceland in May.

BLOOD DIAMOND succeeds despite the sentiment

From the director of THE LAST SAMURAI and the writer of K-PAX....! Not a great pedigree, but BLOOD DIAMOND works as a tolerably interesting thriller with strong performances, albeit overlaid with an annoying layer of liberal sentiment. Not that I'm against liberal sentiment: naturally, we should not buy diamonds that are used to finance civil wars. But as a reasonably well-informed adult I do not need Edward Zwick to tell me this. I especially don't need him to tell me this in such a heavy-handed manner, with a politican literally lecturing me from a podium.

The good news is that BLOOD DIAMOND succeeds as a decent thriller despite its clumsy attempt at agit-prop. It's fundamentally a chase story. Djimon Hounsou is outstanding in his portrayal of an African man who finds an enormous rough diamond of incalculable value. He wants to use it to leverage a better life in Europe with his family. Meanwhile, his young son has been captured by the rebel army and is being trained as a child soldier. This is by far, the most interesting and scary strand of the movie. Hounsou's character forms a sort of devil's pact with a white Zimbabwean mercenary played by Leonardo di Caprio. Caprio's character is an ultra-realist to the point of cruel cynicism. He doesn't give a rats ass about anyone, including Hounsou's character's family, but also wants to use the diamond as an exit route from Africa. To that end, he's willing to help the African. The third player is an idealistic American journalist played by Jennifer Connelly. She'll help out Hounsou and play along with di Caprio in exchange for a real story of corruption in a diamond company that is clearly meant to approximate De Beers.

I love the movie's exploration of the harsh reality of life in war-torn Africa. And I love that despite it's good intentions it still has a glossy, fast-paced Hollywood feel. I also think all three lead performances are strong, and from my limited experience, find Leonardo di Caprio's accent convincing. (He sounds just like the cricketer, Kevin Pietersen!) So it gets a marginal thumbs-up. The big minus point is that for a movie that claims to be harsh and realistic it has as saccharine an ending as you could want, reminiscent of the fairy-tale ending from THE CONSTANT GARDENER.

BLOOD DIAMOND is already on release in the US, Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Brazil and Taiwan. It opens in Hong Kong on the 18th and Belgium, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Estonia, Iceland, Italy, Norway and the UK on the 26th. It opens in France on the 31st, Hungary on Feb 1st, and in Finland, Spain, Sweden, Turkey on the 9th. It opens in Argentina on Feb 15th and in Japan on March 31st.

Is ERAGON the CONAN of our times?

ERAGON is a fantasy adventure flick set in a vaguely Medieval European land populated with elves, dwarves, dragons and a teenage boy of humble origins on a valiant quest to save the world from a despotic ruler. Sound familiar?!

Anyone over the age of around twelve would be well advised to give it a wide berth. This is no LORD OF THE RINGS or STAR WARS - it is not a childrens' fantasy flick capable of reaching out beyond the target demographic. There are two reasons for this: first, both the story and the way in which whole sequences are scripted and photographed bite the ass of Lord of the Rings and Star Wars so badly I am amazed the author hasn't been bankrupted from lawsuits. The plundering is so blatant that it's almost endearing in its shameless cash-hungriness. The key point is that there is nothing here that you haven’t seen before.

The second reason to avoid ERAGON is that while the special effects are actually rather good, the acting is appalling. Jeremy Irons spends much of the first segment doing his Old Ben Kenobi routine with an accent lifted from Derek and Clive. John Malkovich hams it up in a low-rent costume as the evil king and Robert Carlyle plays his sub-Grima Wormtongue side-kick in spoooooky contact lenses and a bad wig. They have ensnared a young helpless princess who calls out in her dreams to Eragon - her only hope! The princess is played by an actress called Sienna Guillory who looks rather bland and bored and altogether too old for her love interest - our erstwhile hero. And the hero, meanwhile, is played by a young lad called Edward Speelers who seems like a low-rent version of the kid from STORMBREAKER. Why is that all young British actors have a dodgy blonde dye-job circa 1983 Wham?! To add insult to injury, we are presented with pop-singer, Joss Stone, in a bizarre cameo as a mystic with a Kentish accent and too much eye-liner and Djimon Hounsou reduced to playing a rebel leader with an accent from The OC.

It's all rather risible and I was about to condemn this flick as being piss-poor until I realised that it could well be the CONAN of our times - so camp, so ridiculous that it's a stalwart of the Friday night beerfest, not to mention the party I throw annually in honour of the Gubernator's birthday!

ERAGON is on release in Egypt, Indonesia, Singapore, Australia, Belarus, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Slovenia, South Korea, Thailand, Ukraine, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, India, Ireland, Latvia, Mexico, Norway, Peru, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the UK, the US, Venezuala and Japan. It opens in Belgium, France and Switzerland in December 20th and in Italy on the 22nd. It opens in Brazil on December 29th and in Argentina on January 4th.

BEAUTY SHOP - warm-hearted, mildy amusing rom-com

BEAUTY SHOP features a bunch of actors of considerable talent, charisma and charm, not least Queen Latifah, Alicia Silverstone, Kevin Bacon, Andie MacDowell, Mena Suvari and Djimon Hounsou. That this warm-hearted romantic comedy manages to entertain at all is entirely down to their performances. Because everything else about this film is cliched and/or ham-fisted. I put this down to the fact that the production team, as talented as they might be, have little experience of cinema behind them. The director has a background in music video, the writers have done some TV and, ominously, the suck-fest that was Mariah Carey's GLITTER. As a result we get a truly derivative and predictable movie with some blunt attempts at handling racial politics thrown in. The story is that Queen Latifah is a marvellous hair dresser who works for a pretentious (literally) salon-owner played by Kevin Bacon. One day, she decides to leave and open a Beauty Shop in her local neighbourhood. She takes with her a white hairstylist played by Alicia Silverstone. It's the kind of film wherein when it transpires that a hunky but sensitive handyman turns out to live above the Beauty Shop, we KNOW that he and Latifah will get together. Similarly, when the other black stylists give Alicia Silverstone's character a hard time at first, thanks to the magic of cinema, all will be harmony and love by the end. Perhaps I am being too hard on this movie. If it leaves you with a warm fuzzy feeling then isn't the genre-contract fulfilled? But I don't know. There is something deeply frustrating in seeing Queen Latifah et al pump out this unimaginative cinematic fare.

BEAUTY SHOP opened in the US in March and opens in the UK today. It hits France on September 28th 2005.