SOPHIE SCHOLL - THE LAST DAYS - hard work but essential viewing

SOPHIE SCHOLL - THE LAST DAYS/Sophie Scholl - Die letzten Tage is hard work. The subject matter is grim - all the more so because it really is a true story. The director, screen-writer, cinematographer and editor also take pains not to add any artificial suspense or plotting. What we have is a straightforward narrative in which not much actually happens. The film opens with a young woman called Sophie and her brother Hans printing anti-Nazi leaflets in a cellar. In the final days of World War Two envelopes have become scarce, so Hans decides that he will distribute this incendiary material by hand in the university in Munich. The next day, Sophie and Hans take the leaflets to the university but are caught in the act. So begins the main bulk of the film, which is the interrogation of Sophie by a man named Mohr. Her confession is extracted over many long conversations. The exchanges are fascinating - albeit dry rather than overtly dramatic. This has to be the right choice. Julia Jentsch (previously seen in the UK in The Edukators) portrays Sophie as steadfast and brave. Mohr is not a stereo-typical screaming Nazi but a man who utterly believes he is acting for the best and simply cannot comprehend why such a smart girl persists in her error. The final, shorter section of film shows Sophie's trial and punishment. It is here that the inverted morality is most exposed - with a judge using phrases such as "decency". It is a degradation of justice.

As I said this is a film that treats historic fact with respect. As a result, the film provides little relief for the viewer. It is hard work, but rewarding. I also find it incredibly encouraging that with movies such as this, as well as IM TOTEN WINKEL - HITLERS SEKRETAERIN/HITLER'S SECRETARY: BLIND SPOT and DER UNTERGANG/THE DOWNFALL, German film-makers are now able to engage fully with all aspects of the German war-time experience. Here is a genuine war-time heroine who chose bravely but also simply to follow her conscience. It makes, I feel, for essential viewing.

SOPHIE SCHOLL - THE LAST DAYS played at Berlin 2005 and has since opened in Germany, Austria and France. It opens in the UK today and in the US in February 2006.

THE LEGEND OF ZORRO - asinine

THE LEGEND OF ZORRO takes great production design, decent actors (Rufus Sewell, Catherine Zeta Jones, Antonio Banderas) and an iconic character and throws them away on one of the most asinine scripts I have seen on screen. The faithful plot, dash and wit of the original Banderas-Jones movie have been replaced by inferior physical comedy and a incredible, anachronistic plot. The basic idea is that it is ten years after the first movie. Zorro and his missus are married with a mini-Zorro in tow. She wants him to hang up his mask and be a devoted father: he needs the adoration of the crowd and the thrill of the chase. She demands a divorce, gets a swish French lover, and both uncover a plot to tilt the balance of power in the forthcoming American Civil War. The only innovation that works is the introduction of mini-Zorro, played with élan and superb comic timing by Adrian Alonso.

You know it’s going to be a duff ride when the opening scene has the bad guy fall balls-first onto a cactus plant. That supposition is only strengthened when, in a desperate and misguided attempt to appear topical, another bad-guy starts talking about developing a new Weapon of Mass Destruction that will be used in a pre-emptive strike on Washington. Needless to say, Zorro will try to stop him and put those oppressed Californian peasants on the road to democracy as they join the United States. Seriously. That is how ham-fisted the politics of this movie are. Believe me, no amount of hackneyed chase scenes or sword-swinging can make up for that kind of nonsense.

THE LEGEND OF ZORRO is on global release.

DOMINO - like a ferret on crystal meth

DOMINO is a failure of a movie. Shot and edited like a ferret on crystal myth, this movie is the most likely to cause motion sickness since RAG TALE. With so many freeze-frames, jump cuts, colour-saturated action sequences, it takes a real effort to actually concentrate on what is actually going on. Perhaps this is the intention of the director, because the plot is poor. Do not be fooled by the fact that the central concept is fascinating or that the screenplay was penned by Richard Kelley, the wuenderkind who wrote and directed DONNIE DARKO. Donnie Darko was a great flick but let's tell it like it is: Kelly screwed up a perfectly fascinating tale. For DOMINO is a very loose biopic of a woman called Domino Harvey. The daughter of a famous actor and a supermodel, Domino reacted against the stuffy British establishment and the Beverly Hills crowd. She got thrown out of a bunch of boarding schools and eventually became a bounty hunter in South L.A. Now, that's a story, and Tony Scott, director of TOP GUN, TRUE ROMANCE and SPY GAME, thought so too.

Here's the glitch. Kelly or Scott or whoever had the brainwave of overlaying Domino's story with a heist movie. Worse, a heist plot that is difficult to believe, so reliant is it on absurd coincidences. Then, just to add to the general chaos obscuring the central story, they added a whole bunch of fascinating but totally out-of-place discourse on pop-culture. There are lots of fun critiques of reality TV, for instance, but the satire is blunt and moves away from the point.

All of which makes DOMINO a rather uninvolving and annoying viewing experience. Who knew? A Christopher Walken film I would happily not see again.

DOMINO is on release in the US and UK. It goes on release in France on November 23rd 2005 and in Austria and Germany on December 29th.

SERENITY - sub-standard derivative sci-fi nonsense

My abiding impression of SERENITY is that it feels like a pilot for a TV show. It’s hard to say whether I was subconsciously influenced by the knowledge that the movie does indeed have its roots in a cancelled TV show, Firefly. I don’t think so. In fact, it is hard to think of a movie I have seen with fewer preconceptions. SERENITY was written and directed by Joss Whedon who also came up with Buff the Vampire Slayer. I’ve never seen an episode of Buffy or Firefly, and I didn’t recognise anyone in the cast-list of Serenity other than Chiwetel Ejiofor. As to the subject matter, I had a vague idea that it was set on a space-ship. Well, here’s the skinny for all non-fans of the TV show. SERENITY is set in a dystopian future where humans have colonised other planets. They are ruled by a benevolent dictatorship called The Alliance – the outcome of a civil war that is hinted at. Now, somewhat predictably, absolute power is corrupting The Alliance and the powers-that-be have messed with the mind of a 17-year old girl called River. She is psychic, traumatised and can turn into a lethal killing machine at the drop of a hat. Her brother, a mild-mannered doctor, sacrifices his career and cash to break her out and most of the movie is a series of chases as the authorities try to catch her again.

I have to say that pretty much the only thing I liked about this movie was the ever-brilliant Chiwetel Ejiofor’s performance as The Alliance’s assassin. Wielding a sword, some hard-core martial arts moves and a self-awareness that is chilling – Ejiofor made sub-standard schlock sci-fi material look credible. As for the rest, well, it’s best summed up with the word “sub-standard”. The world that Whedon has created is insufficiently detailed and lacks the instant authenticity of, say, Star Wars. Whedon’s cause isn’t helped by the obviously low-budget special effects or the clear rip-offs of Star Wars. The crew aboard Serenity seem to me to be a lazy conflation of the chaps in the Millennium Falcon, The Matrix movies and even more bizarrely, Young Guns. The crew-members all speak in an unconvincing pastiche of Wild West slang – itself a horrible pastiche! Worse still, I got the feeling that the actors, bar Ejiofor, were also sub-standard. The kind of people who get cast in day-time TV shows because they aren’t quite talented or pretty enough to make it in the movies. To cap it all off the use of the camera, editing and sound is entirely pedestrian. The movie is shot as if for TV, and every so often you hear an actor utter a line of dialogue against a crescendo of sound followed by a fade to black and you think, “This is where they should insert the ad break!”

To sum up, not only did I find this movie puerile, derivative and poorly made, it convinced me that I need never check out the TV series Firefly. I am, however, curious to check out Buffy, if only out of curiosity. Surely such a popular show cannot be as bad as this?

SERENITY is on release in the US and UK. It rolls into France on October 19th 2005 and into France & Austria on November 24th.

THE MAN - what a waste of talent

THE MAN is a formulaic and only occasionally funny cop-buddy movie. The set up is that Samuel L Jackson, Bad-ass and Jedi, is a hard-as-nails cop. His partner has just gone down for corruption, so that Jackson is under suspicion. His mission is to take out a big-time dealer by pretending that he is also a corrupt cop. Unfortunately, the villain of the piece - played with a surprisingly large dollop of credibility by former British boy-band member, Luke Goss - mistakes Eugene Levy for the corrupt cop. Now, Eugene Levy is best known to all of us as the sweet dad in American Pie or as the sweet put-upon husband in a string of mockumentaries like BEST IN SHOW or A MIGHTY WIND. In order to make it credible that the villain would actually believe Levy is a criminal, the script-writers work had on the incidental and frankly, ridiculous, plot details. But you know - any of these odd-couple mistaken-identity movies rely on you buying into the absurd plot set-up. Whether the film still works depends on whether there is genuine chemistry between the two leads and whether the gags are actually funny. Unfortunately for this movie, I found the relationship between Jackson and Levy unfunny and abusive. How many more times do we have to see a wise-cracking hard-ass black guy take the piss out of a geeky white guy? This stuff is tired. Worse still, it generates bad cinema - anyone who doesn't believe me after seeing THE MAN should check out that horribly Queen Latifah-Jimmy Fallon flick TAXI. So, please Hollywood, let's bury this genre or at least get in better funny-men to do the script.


THE MAN goes on release in the UK and US today and hits France on January 11th 2006.

THE FORTY YEAR OLD VIRGIN - a surprisingly sweet comedy

I have a tremendous affection for the new comedy THE FORTY YEAR OLD VIRGIN. It pulls of the rare trick of combining fairly explicit frat-boy humour with the more sympathetic touch-feely quality of a straightforward romantic comedy. The story is simple: a bunch of guys work in an electrical retailer. One day the guys find out that one of the team, Andy Sitzer (played brilliantly by Steve Carrell) is a forty-year old virgin. This prompts them to “lay down the knowledge” on him and try to get him laid. However, Andy is a fundamentally decent guy and manages to form a relationship with a cool woman who works across the street (played by the ever-brilliant Catherine Keener.) That’s pretty much it. Along the way, we have a lot of out-and-out physical comedy, some wry observational comedy and a warm fuzzy feeling. Kudos to writer-director Judd Apatow for coming with such a finely balanced script (in conjunction with Carrell.) Kudos to Carrell and Keener for creating a genuinely feel-good movie. And kudos to the talented ensemble cast, including Paul Rudd, Jane Lynch, Romany Malco and Seth Rogen. So, I implore you, do not be put off by the explicit title to this movie. It is far sweeter than the title implies.

THE FORTY YEAR OLD VIRGIN is on release in the US and UK. It goes on release in Germany on September 29th 2005, in Austria on October 5th and in France on November 9th.