Random DVD Round-Up 2 - CLASH OF THE TITANS

I would imagine that you have to try pretty hard to take material that is literally mythic, and a stellar cast, and produce a movie as plodding, hokey and unconvincing as CLASH OF THE TITANS. Director Louis Leterrier (THE INCREDIBLE HULK, THE TRANSPORTER) delivers a flick in which the CGI looks shittier than Harryhausen stop-motion and every single actor looks as automated as the Kraken. Leterrier has supermodels cast as Greek godesses and the not unattractive Mads Mikkelsen swinging a sword. He has Liam Neeson cast as Zeus; Ralph Fiennes cast as Hades and throws bit parts away on actors with the heft of Pete Postlethwaite. Most of all, he has a story filled with characters that have captivated audiences since thousands of years before Christ was born. And with all this, he creates a quivering mess. Shame, shame, shame.

This is, I suspect, what happens when you have a big budget, big actors and a lot of CGI. There's a sort of spreadsheet calculation that the movie simply can't fail. And yet, and yet, where is the directorial vision to cut through the large cast of characters and shape the underlying story? Where is the unique style of an epic like 300? Where is the producer to pull up the director and tell him that the eighty foot scorpion-Kraken is laughable?

Long story short, this movie sucks. But for the sake of form (and I can't believe I'm doing this because didn't we all learn this in school?) here's the plot summary. Zeus, chief God on Mount Olympus is pissed off because the people of Argos have become so arrogant that they refuse to worship him. In a fit of pique he allows his brother Hades to terrify the Argosians by unleashing a big beastie called the Krakan. Hades tells Zeus that this will cause the men to love him again and beg for his help; really Hades just wants to cause panic and seize power himself. So, back in Argos, the King's daughter Andromeda is to be sacrificed to the Kraken unless the demi-god Perseus (Sam Worthington - Aussie accent comical) can kill the Kraken first. He does this by cutting off the snake-addled head of Medusa (Natalia Vodianova) and using it is as a weapon. All this while Perseus has to come to terms with the fact that daddy was a god who forced himself upon mummy and then had his family killed. Perseus defeats the Kraken with the help of some buff Argossians (Mads Mikkelsen) and a hot chick who doesn't age (Gemma Arterton). And in an ending that defies legend with typical Hollywood producer arrogance, Perseus and Io have a nice romantic ending despite the fact she is pace legend basically his great grand-mother to the power of n.

Additional tags: Alexa Davalos, Elizabeth McGovern, Luke Treadaway, Travis Beacham, Phil Hay, Matt Manfredi, Beverley Cross, Agyness Deyn, Natalia Vodianova, Ramin Djawadi, Peter Mezies Jr

CLASH OF THE TITANS was released in April 2010 and is available on DVD and on iTunes.

DAYBREAKERS - Don't you want to get out of Cape Cod?

I really enjoyed DAYBREAKERS - the new vampire sci-fi flick from Aussie directors, Michael and Peter Spierig. The concept is clever, logically explored, the production design is imaginative and slick, and there's some genuinely cool gory special effects. I am shocked at just what a good job they did with such a low budget, and I can't wait to see what they do next.

So, down to the details. The concept is cool. In the near future, vampires have turned so many people that humans, and more importantly, the human blood that vampires crave, is a rare commodity. The remaining humans are hunted down and farmed for their blood by Sam Neill's powerful corporation, while the vampires desperately try to create a synthetic blood. Rations are cut, causing riots. Rich vamps are supplied - the poor become homeless, begging for a drop - and when they get nothing degenerate into feral, bat-like "subsiders". And then, the society that turned on humans, turns on itself. Set against the vampire majority are a group of human rebels and their vampire helpers, led by haematologist with a heart of gold, Ethan Hawke. Crazy ass former vamp Willem Defoe thinks he's found a cure for vampirism, which will solve the food crisis for good.....

I love the way the details of the hypothesis are worked out. I love the design of the houses, cars, and offices that allow a vampire population to live "normal" lives by night. I love the way in which all the shitty things in real life transfer and invert to the new world - like the fact that class distinctions still apply. I also love the casting of Ethan Hawke as the sympathetic vamp - ever since DEAD POETS SOCIETY he's been portraying ordinary schmos navigating through crazy events - and being utterly sympathetic all the while.

My only issue with DAYBREAKERS is a logical loophole. In a society that can farm humans for blood, why would they not also farm human ovaries and create test tube babies who could grow into a perpetual food supply? But really, I'm just being pernickety. DAYBREAKERS is a great-looking low-budget sci-fi vamp flick. It gets how to do gore. It gets how to do scares. And it gets how not to over-complicate a good thing.

DAYBREAKERS played Toronto 2009 and is currently on release in the UK, Canada, Poland, Russia and the USA. It opens on the 14th January in Singapore, Slovenia and Estonia. It opens on January 21st in Australia, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland and Sweden, It opens on January 28th in Argentina, the Netherlands and Thailand. It opens on February 5th in Norway; on March 17th in France; on March 19th in Italy and on April 15th in New Zealand.

HARRY BROWN - the only permissable bigotry

These days you can't hate people on the grounds of their race, sexual orientation, religion or political views. The only permissable form of bigotry in the UK is the hatred of the white working class, and in particular, white working class kids. The right-wing middle-class media make a living from depicting chav kids as feral, dope-addled, knife-wielding granny botherers and social menaces. English society is in decay! Suburbia is lawless! And it's all because a bunch of uneducated kids have taken to drinking cans of Super-tenants outside Burger King at 11 at night while wearing fake Burberry caps, and driving modified Novas. It says a lot about how insecure post-modern, recession-bound Britain is that the only new cinema we seem to be capable of producing is either lauding the "glory" days of 1980s soccer hooliganism (punching people IS our proud heritage) or decrying working class violence. Whether the films are glorifying or condemning chav-violence, they are still making the lethal assumption that this is the way life is. And you think to yourself, does Mike Leigh work in vain?

HARRY BROWN is a good film. It's technically well-made, visually impressive, suspenseful, and features a great central performance from Michael Caine as a pensioner who turns violent on the teenage drug-pushers terrorising his estate. There's a satisfyingly slow-build to a pretty convincing revenge thriller. Caine has some nice Tarantino-style one-liners while dispatching a dope-peddler. There's even some astute critiquing of how the police are riven by spin and politicking. Emily Mortimer gives a nuanced performance and Iain Glenn is absolutely menacing. There's no denying it - this is a good film. I would have really loved it had I not been continually wary of the fact that I was watching a sort of middle-class angst-porn, designed to push all my buttons as a tax-paying constructive member of society meant to be living in fear of being knifed on the Central Line.

I don't buy the Daily Mail and I'm not buying this. I don't care how nice the packaging and how gritty the performances.

HARRY BROWN played Toronto 2009 and is on release in the UK. It opens in the Netherlands on February 25th 2010.

BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE - derivative, plotless nonsense

BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE had potential, making the final product even more tragic. In post-WWII Japan, half demon / half human Saya (Gianna Jun) teams up with the mysterious "Council" - an ancient and semi-official organisation dedicated to fighting the forces of darkness - to avenge her human father's death at the hands of a particularly vicious vampire - Onigen. Sound a little like BLADE? That's because it is a little like BLADE, except with a female lead, low-tech weaponry, no boning, and massive plot holes.

In fact, the gaps in the plot were so gaping that the whole experience was rather surreal. Several times I thought I'd nodded off for 10 minutes and missed a bunch of stuff - but no, it was just repeatedly non-sequitor. Things just happen ex-nihilo - characters turn on other characters with no discernible motive or cause. There is no build up towards anything - no progression toward some form of resolution - no real character development.

A love story is thrown in there, and just as suddenly thrown out. Demons appear out of nowhere, without any warning or reason, triggering another poorly animated fight scene before the next aimless plot moment. Characters drive along cliff-top roads for no good reason, going nowhere that we know of, only to act as a prop for random high speed sword slashing.

At one point, a demon chases an airplane with the main character in pursuit. We don't know why. We don't know who or what is on the plane, why the demon is after it, or how the main character knew the demon would be there. What is more confusing is that the demon has wings, and thus has no need of aerial transportation. These weird "how did they know that?" and "why is this happening?" and "that doesn't make sense..." moments maintain a sense of almost complete disconnectedness in the audience throughout.

Thus the film "progresses", jumping from vampire to vampire, eventually reaching a climax that was so deus ex machina and anti-climactic that I walked out to go to the loo believing it to be a dream sequence midway through the film. I piss, come back, and to my utter confusion find the credits rolling. WTF? **THAT** was the end?? Ya woh? Nothing actually happened!

So, overall, this is one to miss. The only semi-entertaining moment was when I realised the Army General in the first third of the movie was actually Larry Lamb, Peggy's errant ex in Eastenders, explaining his piss poor American accent. But that, and an uneasy sense of confusion and disorientation, really wasn't worth the eight quid fifty I paid to get in. Two thumbs down.

London Film Festival Day 6 - HUNGER

Debutant writer-director Steve McQueen has made one of the most austere, brutal films of the festival so far - an unshrinking depiction of the conditions inside the infamous Maze prison at the height of the Dirty Protests, and Bobby Sands' fatal hunger strike.

As the movie opens, we see a middle-aged man eat breakfast and then leave the house. He checks underneath his car, and we realise that he's a prison guard in fear of his life. It's 1981, and he works at the Maze prison just outside Belfast during the Troubles. The next forty minutes give us an unflinching depiction of dirty protests with little dialogue but a brilliant sound-track that captures every scrunch of a sweater and every thud of cudgel on riot shields. The Republican prisoners look like savages - long hair, unwashed, wearing a blanket or a towel at most, living on mattresses crawling in maggots, walls smeared in excrement, mouldering food heaped in the corners of their cells. Every now and then, the riot police are called in and the prisoners are taken out kicking and screaming for a forced bath while their cells are hosed down. You feel the desperation of men who believe that their only option is to dehumanise themselves, and pity for the prison guards who in brutalising the prisoners to keep order are also brutalising themselves.

What the prisoners are protesting is their right to Special Category Status. It's the old beef. They think they are freedom-fighters and political prisoners. Mrs Thatcher's government says that they are simply criminals and should be treated accordingly. There is a stand-off. Accordingly, at the mid-point of the film, Bobby Sands has a meeting with a priest and discusses his intention to start a second hunger strike. This scene is the heart of the film and is absolutely gripping. It's basically a single-take fixed camera shot with Sands and the priest facing each other across a table, sideways on to the audience. The two men establish a rapport and engage in a debate about what the strike could achieve and what the price of failure would be. Liam Cunningham's priest is quick-witted and brooks no nonsense. Michael Fassbinder's Sands is articulate and steadfast. The priest asks Sands straight out if he's in it for the fame or if he's simply committing suicide. Sands argues that he'll be a masthead for recruitment if he dies, which turned out to be the case.

The final half of the film shows us, once again with minimal dialogue, how a man starves himself to death. Fassbinder really does lose the weight, and the bleeding sores look pitifullu authentic. With no melodrama, no fuss, just simple bureaucratic note-taking, Sands simply wastes away, the white sheet is pulled over his body, and the movie ends.

Steve McQueen's film strikes a fine balance between explaining the stance on each side - showing the consequences of violence both for the prison guards and for the prisoners. It never sensationalises or glorifies but merely shows us, unblinkingly, what's involved in such extreme choices. It's a strength of the movie that while I came out of the film essentially unchanged in my political stance on the Maze and Sands' actions, I felt that I could finally understand and empathise with his choice, and almost, but not quite, respect the resolution it must have taken.

As Mrs Thatcher said, "Mr. Sands was a convicted criminal. He chose to take his own life. It was a choice that his organisation did not allow to many of its victims". This film shows us the thought behind that choice - both his choice to be an active Republican and his choice to starve himself - in an insightful, intelligent, honest manner. Michael Fassbinder and Steve McQueen deserve all the plaudits they are receiving.

HUNGER played Cannes where Steve McQueen won the Camera d'Or, Sydney where it won the Sydney Prize, Toronto where it won the Discovery Award, New York and London 2008. It is currently on release in Grece and the Netherlands and opens in the UK on October 31st. It opens in Belgium on November 12th and in France on November 19th.

THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR - mindless fun, yay!

As I said in my review of HELLBOY II, the action-adventure romantic-comedy is one of the hardest genres to pull off. It demands a disciplined approach to plotting and the ability to keep the audience engaged in an emotional story despite all the whistles and bangs of the set-piece action sequences. In short, the director needs to be a master of technology, action, comedy and bring it all together in a coherent whole. When adventure movies work, they are about as much fun as you can have at the cinema. They exploit the scale and the group participation that you can only get with a packed house on opening night in a really big screen. I defy you to enjoy anything more than the opening night of HELLBOY II or, back in the day, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARC or THE GOONIES. INDIANA JONES 4 should've given us that thrill but it didn't.

THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR certainly isn't in the class of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, and it owes those movies a debt of gratitude for set pieces in Shanghai and scenes at archeological digs. But THE MUMMY series, of which this is the best yet, certainly ticks all the right boxes for an entertaining, undemanding night out at the cinema. The movies have a lot of energy, exciting chase scenes and exotic locations, and for the most part roll along at a rapid pace throwing a good few laughs along the way.

In this episode, Rick and Evy are disgruntled with boring post-war married life, and take up the Foreign Office's offer to deliver a precious jewel to Shanghai. It turns out that the jewel will help resurrect an ancient Chinese emperor and his Terracotta Army - artefacts that Rick and Evy's son Alex just happens to have excavated. So follows much running, leaping, flying, wise-cracking and romancing.

The obvious glitches are the casting of a boy who looks way to old relative to his parents, and the fact that Maria Bello, fine actress though she is, being unable to pull off an English accent. It's also a bit frustrating to see Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh in a movie but no awesome martial arts sequences. However, this is more than compensated for by Brendan Fraser's trademark gusto, and John Hannah's ability to make cheesy lines like "My ass is on fire: spank my ass!" funny.

THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR is on release in Argentina, Chile, Hong Kong, Hungary, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Korea, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, India, Mexico, Panama, Poland, Spain, Turkey, the USA, Venezuela, Egypt, France, Iceland, Indonesia and the UK. It opens this weekend in Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Norway, Pakistan, Romania, Sweden and Japan, It opens next weekend in Belgium, Croatia, Slovenia, Japan and Israel. The movie opens in September in Australia, Greece, New Zealand and Italy.

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.