Let Me In - Review

Just to get one thing clear from the get-go, John Ajvide Lindqvist’s original Lat Dan Ratte Komma In (Let The Right One In) was a contemporary masterpiece. If you saw it you’ll most likely agree with me, in terms of human emotion and sheer endearing sweetness it remains unparalleled. So how can, what has been dubbed by many as a pointless remake, even dream of being up to snuff? Simple: Don’t even try. That’s not an insult, it’s a compliment to everyone involved in Let Me In, particularly writer/director Matt Reeves. Reeves knows he can’t out-do what was already perfect, so he doesn’t go for it and try and make a film of the same emotional gravity, he sticks to his (and American film-makings) big, powerful, guns – the horror-thriller.

  

The structure of the original screenplay has been muddled around ever so slightly, but not to the degree where it’s unrecognisable. In fact, for the most part, events unfold in the same order as the original. There are a few changes in here, the addition of a Detective character (Elias Koteas) coupled with a new opening makes for a bit of a mystery element; the most impressive changes however come courtesy of Richard Jenkins’ magnificent interpretation of vampire Abby’s (Moretz) helper. I won’t say much, but Reeves elongates and emphasises Jenkins’ job as blood-harvester adding extra tension to produce what I can comfortably dub the best thriller-scene released this year.  It’s the tone and the pace that Reeves has really changed though; young loner Owen is still the same odd child looking for a chance to grow up and have a real connection, the (seemingly) young Abby is still the same sweet yet distinctly malicious vampire, but Reeves views them from a different perspective. Editing becomes key at this point, Reeves cuts the children’s time together to be shorter, no more long silences and touching moments of awkwardness – this film is a thriller through and through so Reeves keeps the pace up. A main difference is that in this version the vampire element stops being eerie and becomes full-blown terrifying, Reeves makes no attempt to keep Chloe Moretz looking cute, the morality of the movie may be even muddier than the originals and Reeves doesn’t hesitate to turn Abby into a full blown monster when he has to. The fact that Moretz and Smit-McPhee are almost unbelievably adorable keeps the sweetness of Lindqvist’s original script alive however. It’s jumpy, beautifully shot, unbearably tense and wonderfully acted. It’s pretty much impossible to remake a masterpiece only 2 years after it was released without inspiring cries of “blasphemy!” among fans, but 3 heroes of American indie cinema (Reeves, Moretz and Smit-McPhee) took on the challenge with care and devotion, and did one hell of a job. It’s not quite the masterpiece the original was, but one step below masterpiece ain’t a bad place to be.

8/10

The vampire movie is scary again.

The Green Hornet - Review

There is probably no filmmaker, alive or dead, more commonly popular with University students than Michel Gondry, a man whose oddball sensibility has gained him both respect and distinctiveness. Realistically it was only a matter of time before Gondry made a superhero movie, and he seems perfectly matched for the superhero origin story of The Green Hornet.

There are some pretty monumental hurdles the film has to get over however. For starters, this is no mere remake of a forgotten 60’s TV show; the Green Hornet’s influence is very much alive and kicking, especially if the heavy references in QT’s Kill Bill Vol.1 are anything to go by. This point brings me to The Green Hornet’s second, and possibly biggest, hurdle – kung-fu sidekick Kato. The original show, and by proxy the film also, is really all about Kato (a role made famous by none other than a young Bruce Lee); so actor Jay Chou has some undeniably gargantuan shoes to fill. Chou does admirably, displaying a fun on-screen presence and decent comic timing, and the unstoppable Kato is still the coolest thing on screen but the relationship between him and Rogen’s Green Hornet is less Batman and Robin and more Inspector Closeau and Cato Fong from the Pink Panther movies. This really is the folly of the whole movie, much more than the sluggish middle-section, the criminally underwritten villain and patchy script. The Green Hornet, self-admittedly, has no idea where it’s going; as Seth Rogen's Hornet, astutely and hilaraiously puts it, "Confused? You should be!". The ideas riff more on contemporary comic adaptations than on its source material; Rogen is still completely on his A-game, delivering some genuine laughs with a fun bromance between him and Kato, but it lacks the clear sense of drive and purpose that make superhero movies so great. It’s bookended by some great action-comedy scenes, but this is less like the fun Scott Pilgrim-esque romp we were expecting and more like what would happen if Judd Apatow made Batman Begins.

5/10

Lots of madness with little method.

Biutiful - Review

The return of European indie favourite Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu sees a dying low-level criminal (Bardem) on the streets of Barcelona try to sort out his affairs before he passes, his experience made all the more poignant by his ability to communicate with lost spirits.

Homing his skills onto one protagonist and one location, which makes a radical change from his first three narrative-hopping films, Inarritu creates an undeniably profound and touching spectacle. When a filmmaker films on a single location, a location with personal meaning to them and/or central figures of the production, the risk always runs that said city will end up looking over-romanticised or unreal. Inarritu’s Barcelona, however, feels like a genuine city with some extreme characters who never fail to fascinate, but also never become too much like melodramatic caricatures. This is quite a feat as, technically speaking, the script is plagued with melodrama pitfalls and clichés – the crazy wife, said crazy wife sleeping with the protagonist’s brother, Kramer Vs. Kramer style single-dad troubles. But these aren’t the plot-points Inarritu gives credence to and characters who could easily be unlikable, and undeserving of empathy, become deeply moving – especially Bardem’s magnificent mixture of honourable grifter and loving father. Bardem is something truly incredible here, one of those performances which, alone, is worth the price of admission and then some. The performances are in no small part boosted by some eye-watering cinematography; emotionally intense close-ups and ingeniously composed wide-shots. If you have to find fault with this moody masterpiece you could take quarrel with its length, nearly clocking in at 2 and a half hours, perhaps some more conservative editing would keep the focus on the almost euphoric wonder that the sheer gorgeousness of the film emits. Saying this, it’s not really Inarritu’s style to have the flow go along too pleasantly; expect the euphoria to be broken up by some heavy-going nastiness. In short Biutiful is, well, beautiful; with Bardem giving the performance of the year.

9/10

A thing of heart-stopping beauty  

Harry Potter and the Rise of the Hypocrites: Part 1

I decided a long time ago that I wanted to to write something about how people don’t seem to expect, nor want, cinema to be intelligent, demanding or challenging. That cerebral stimulation was something you find in books and theatres, not cinemas. I, however, always found myself running out of steam, but lately I've found myself reinvigorated by the dawning of a new hysteria.  A new blockbuster, a literary adaptation, named Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was soon to be released and I found all of a sudden that my frustration was reignited. I wrote this just as Part 1 was being released.

Now I’m not suggesting I have something against Blockbuster-style, or what some would call emotion-machine, cinema; because I don’t. If I did I wouldn’t be championing a film like Inception which leans, very heavily, upon the tenants of Blockbuster cinema. Cinema is neither just what you’re saying nor just how you say it, but rather a combination of the two. Content is as important as style, in the sense that the two sort of bounce off of eachother, and Harry Potter can’t be faulted for being too loud and stupid (which it is) because loud and stupid is one of the many traits of cinema that make it utterly fantastic. No, the reason it bugs the shit out of me is distinctly more subtle. It’s the hypocrisy.

For over a century cinema has been criticised, demeaned and degraded because it’s viewed as base and moronic. Just a bit of fun. Certain films haven’t done much in the way of persuading public opinion that cinema is actually an art, or something equal to it at least, this much is undeniably true. Cinema has always had deep roots in the philosophy of “big, shiny and dumb is good”, and people have always looked down at it (subconsciously or otherwise) for this reason. Cinema, to these people (most people), will always be lesser than literature and theatre, it will always be meaningless and not worth getting excited about or debating.  But in doth stroll young Harry Potter with a set of films identical to the novels, a big sack of special effects marvels and some piss poor acting; and everybody fucking . loves. It. Sod Anton Corbijn’s next film: a muted, soul-searching, existential thriller; Harry Potter is here. I have never seen this amount of general excitement over a film, a film whose entire plot structure is already common knowledge. There it is, the hypocrisy, the fact that all those who refused to watch Avatar because it’s the clichéd special effects juggernaut of the decade, everyone who uses the term “American cinema” as a derogatory term or insult, they’re all lining up at midnight to catch a glimpse at an exaggerated, bloated, kids movie with less aesthetic purpose than Peaches Geldof. It’s Harry Potter’s free pass that really gets to me, his exemption from criticism, the fact that his very success on the silver screen serves only to slap real film-makers in the face. It’s a mockery, plain and simple. People will travel through sleet and through snow to see Harry Potter for one reason, and one reason only. Because it’s Harry Potter. Fuck the story, fuck the cinematography – hell- fuck the acting. It’s just Harry Potter, and why is that appealing? Because everyone read the books. Because it’s familiar, because there is absolutely no chance you will walk into that cinema and be offended, scared or perturbed. There’s a pretty good chance you won’t even have to look at the screen; you can walk out, buy some popcorn, got to the toilet, come back in 15 minutes later and still know exactly where you are. It makes the films subservient to the books; and through the fact that it is, and probably will be for a very long arse time, the most successful film franchise of all time it just makes cinema look moronic. What else can it possibly say. Do you know who made all of the Harry Potter films? Do you know who adapted the screenplays? Do you care? Has the change of directors and writers really made a difference? Is it even noticeable? Did anyone really take note when Dumbledore died the first fucking time!? The answer to all of those questions is most likely, and regrettably, no as I can scarcely recall them and I'm the weirdo who usually enjoys that kind of shit.

Don’t think that I’m just focussing the hate all on Harry Potter though; Twilight is in the exact same boat. Twilight may even be more detrimental to the progression of cinema because, frankly, Summit Entertainment realised that they didn’t even have to spend any money on making the films. Millions of fans were going to watch them anyway. At least Harry Potter, since Prisoner of Azkaban, has had the decency to look big and glossy. Twilight submits its form of mockery via churning out some of the worst CGI, technical stunt-work and set-pieces in some of the highest grossing films ever made. It’s not much to ask for something bearable to watch if you have the misfortune to be watching it for reasons other than “I love Edward” or “I love Jacob”, is it? Now I know a counter-argument is going to emerge which will suggest that Twilight can account for its fanbase thanks, mostly, to the immense popularity of its 2 male leads; and since its very beginning droves of cinemagoers have gone to the cinema purely to see an actor or actress purely because they find them attractive. It can account for the rise of some of cinemas biggest icons. Monroe, Clooney, Valentino, Jolie. But being beautiful can only get you so far; back in his bad days Clooney could draw a crowd to a terrible rom-com, but nothing on the scale of Twilight. Nor, for that matter, can Robert Pattinson draw a crowd that big to one of his fucking awful romance pictures. It’s a safe, comfortable, familiarity that can only come from a film adapted from a pop-culture book that was only released a few years ago – that’s what makes these films succeed. It’s like a drink at your favourite bar, no chance you’re going to see something you don’t want to. Wasn’t cinema supposed to be daring? Scratch that. Isn’t art itself supposed to be daring? That’s what I find so fundamentally disheartening about these adaptations, they’re painfully boring. Some of the greatest films ever made are literary adaptations, some of them even come from sagas just like Harry Potter or Twilight did. The Lord of The Rings, for example; they’re fantastic, they’re adaptations and, most importantly, the books upon which they are based are over 50 years old. People still read them, but they weren’t at the forefront of contemporary interest. With Harry Potter/Twilight, the books were barely cold (in Harry Potter’s case they were still being written) and people jumped to watch a film about them, why? Why waste your money? Films adapted from extremely popular literary franchises just after they become popular exist for one reason, for one purpose – to be visual aids to the book. They’re pointless. If somebody really wanted to take the time and the effort to reimagine or reinterpret these books they’d wait until they’d stopped being such a fad at least. If you make an adaptation under those circumstances then there are no re-writes, there are no discrepancies between novel and film, no new characters, no new scenes, no changing the ending. It is the book, with pictures instead of words. For example: supposedly, in the Harry Potter franchise, Hogwarts looks exactly how J.K. Rowling envisaged it. If I wanted J.K. Rowling’s opinion and vision I’d read her book, if I’m paying for a film I want something new.

  

It’s not just the kid’s books either; Ron Howard (though he may be a hero to many cinema-lovers) is as equally guilty for jumping on the Dan Brown Da Vinci Code bandwagon. How is this supposed to make cinema look like anything other than worthless? I appreciate that cinema is an economy, it needs to make money and a films appeal has to be relevant to its budget. But this is just a self-admission by producers that cinema is subservient to literature, always has been, always will be. It’s not allowed to come up with its own ideas all by its silly little self. I say no, I say cinema is the artform of the modern age. I love it, I believe in it – I believe in what it can, and has, achieved. I think it’s better than this. I tell you now that Truffaut would turn in his god-damn grave if he saw the sorry state we’re in today. Truffaut wrote an essay entitled “A Certain Tendency of the French Cinema”, outlining his disdain over endless literary adaptations, over 50 years ago. It would appear that not a lot has changed. Haven’t some of the biggest, I’m not necessarily talking about great but big, filmmakers of all time systematically shown that we don’t need to keep doing this to ourselves? James Cameron as one man has progressed cinema forwards, in terms of technological capability and money, more than a thousand Harry Potters ever could; and he’s done it in just 8 feature films, all original concepts written for the screen. Spielberg, the man with the most impressive back catalogue of all time, how many of his legendary greats are literary adaptations? He’s re-imagined Sci-Fi classics War Of The Worlds and Minority Report (changing them both immensely) there was Jaws, but the studio bought the rights and started making the film before the novel was actually released, you could argue the novel was only a success because film producers invested in its advertising. The closest thing Spielberg has is The Color Purple, one stand-alone novel. What about the Coen Brothers? There’s the upcoming True Grit, which is based on another 50 year old novel, and a Cormac McCarthy adaptation, but lest we forget that Cormac McCarthy was acclaimed but is only a house-hold name because of the Coen Brothers.

By all means a filmmaker can and should adapt a novel into a film, they should adapt whatever they want; and vice versa, don’t forget that novels are written about films. But why are we defending, so ardently, these pieces of obvious mediocrity? Why are we still trying to find a meaning in the blatantly vapid Twilight movies? Why are we still treating Harry Potter like an original fantasy thriller? These films have no artistic freedom, they live and die by what their source material tells them. Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich may be churning out some of the most idiotic things ever produced by mankind, but they’re still ideas written originally for the screen. Sure Michael Bay is now in the business of making movies about toys, but how much narrative guideline can you derive from a toy? Not a lot. Let Harry Potter films be made, I’m not saying they should be banned, let people watch loud dumb epics. But don’t walk around thinking that they’re immune from your other criticisms of cinema. They’re big, stupid films – big stupid films exist – but cinema has something more to offer. It’s not here purely for your personal amusement, it’s here to challenge you; challenge you in ways that other artforms, like literature, aren’t capable of. I think it’s about damn time people started to accept that maybe the reason that some people don’t like cinema is because it makes them feel like they’ve been outsmarted, because it moved at a pace that was beyond their comfort zone. So next time you see something you don’t fully understand, that doesn’t carry you along pleasantly, that makes you work a little bit –  give it the same courtesy that you would a novel: consider that it’s like that because maybe, just maybe, the person who made it was smarter than you.

I Am Number Four - Review

Whether you found the final decisions of the Academy at the Oscars to be just, unjust or just out-right boring and predictable one thing is for certain – the award season is well and truly over. Now let’s get back to some big, loud and mind-numbingly stupid action/romance pictures in preparation for summer! Kicking off the season of stupidity comes enthusiastic new-comer I Am Number Four, which tells the story of the titular Number Four – one of nine infant aliens saved from his massacred planet, before its complete destruction, now living on earth. At first it’s easy to see why Number Four bears the quality mark of a Steven Spielberg producing credit; stories of lost aliens and coming of age schmaltz are no stranger to Spielberg. However the story takes on some pretty morbid overtones thanks largely to the evil intergalactic nemeses of our fair hero, pointy-teethed space Vikings who come in search of worlds to plunder and decimate. Normally the concept of “young alien boy must come of age and defend earth from seemingly motiveless and nasty looking space demons” would conjure images of Disney and Saturday-morning-kids-show levels of seriousness. In steps our saviour, Mr Caruso.

Caruso has made a name for himself by doing something rather interesting that, thankfully, Hollywood seems to be appreciating – making teen movies, with gore. The young director topped the box-office in the US a while back with his Hitchcock inspired sleeper hit “Disturbia” which saw another disgruntled teen, played by the much more watchable Shia LaBeouf, spying on a neighbour who looks suspiciously like a serial killer. So Caruso’s name alone brings a lot of darkness with it. His vision of the evil antagonists “the Mogadorians” (or “Mogs” for short) sees them doing some pretty nasty shit; when people die in Harry Potter they get shot with a flash of green light, when people die in this story they’re usually getting stabbed to death by big arse knives. Expect some, almost surreal, weirdness from the stories ghoulishly OTT villains. Having already killed the first three of the chosen survivors of planet “Lorien”, they begin their relentless hunt of our beleaguered hero. This brings us nicely to our actors, aforementioned Number Four is played by home-grown talent/pretty-face Alex Pettyfer who some may (unfortunately) remember as the young Alex Rider in the misguided movie adaptation of Anthony Horowitz’s teen-super-spy novels. Pettyfer isn’t bad, nor is he exactly anything to write home about; the role realistically doesn’t ask him to do anything other than to stand there and look kinda moody and pretty. But there are a lot of moments where you feel Pettyfer could have injected a lot more humour into the film, he just didn’t, instead spending all his time being all Edward Cullen moody and mysterious. This is the beginning of some Twilight-inspired problems that I’ll come back to later. The all-important love interest of the piece comes courtesy of Glee’s Dianna Agron. Again, Agron functions comfortably meeting any expectations but brings a nice bit of super-cute eye candy for the male audience who get may be getting tired of looking at Pettyfer being tall, dark and mysterious. The always terrific-no-matter-what-he’s-in Timothy Olyphant lights up the first hour or so of the film as Number Four’s body-guard while Number Four himself gets to grips with alien-hormones in the form of superpowers and his equally angsty affections for the young, free-spirited, Sarah (Agron).

The film opens nicely, if unspectacularly, with the death of Number Three and moves nicely along as we see the poor Number Four and his protector, Henri, demonstrate the lonely life of aliens on the run. However, it’s when our young hero decides “universe be damned, I want to go to High School and be a real boy” the film begins to slow into a swamp of problems. If you feel like you’ve heard the story of a ridiculously good-looking, abnormal and super-humanly gifted teenager going to High School and falling for a normal but kind of loner-ish and oddball girl before – it’s because you have. It’s called Twilight, in case you didn’t know, and its influence can’t help but rear its ugly head. What begins, and ends, as a very fun mild-sci-fi romp is bogged down by a middle section of pure Twilight “I’m only 17 but I’ll love you forever and ever” dross. The story, as a whole, takes most of its inspiration from Superman canon about the lonely destiny of an alien superhero , who is the last of his kind. But, and I say this seriously, people who fuel the Twilight-mania by fanatically watching the films for a bit of mindless fun, you should be aware of one simple fact: you’re potentially destroying cinema for the rest of us by making studios think this crap is all teenagers want to watch. Saying this, if you can survive the family-friendly mush of loving a girl because she takes pictures which automatically makes her super-deep, you shall be rewarded. The last 40 minutes of I Am Number Four explodes into something that can only be described as spectacular. Having been, finally, tracked down by the evil Mogs and their, actually pretty scary, giant-bat-things our hero’s make a very-welcomed gear change into kick-ass mode and Caruso comes well and truly into his element. The last 40 minutes of I Am Number Four contains more, and better, action than every Twilight and Harry Potter film combined. Teresa Palmer’s leather-clad super-bitch Number Six enters the fray and changes bland schmaltz into gymnastic gun and sword play with some added monster fighting as they take the film out with one hell of a bang. Your feeling goes straight from “I Am Number Bored” to “I Am actually pretty god-damned impressed”. With plotlines fully formed and questions to be answered the film leaves you genuinely wanting more, and nothing has had this much potential for greatness for quite a while.

5/10

Harry Potter on crack.           

The Kids Are All Right - Review

‘Tis the season, the greatest season of them all – awards season - and the buzz is flying pretty excitedly around family-drama dark horse The Kids Are All Right. The hub-ub surrounds its, very modern, plotline concerning the relationship between a lesbian couple, their teenage children and the children’s biological (sperm-donor) father.

The film bursts into life with some nifty, hand-drawn, opening credits as Vampire Weekend blasts out from the speakers to the image of young men cycling down the street in suburbia knocking over bins. It appears you’re in for a fun ride full of wit, humour and colourful observations on modern family life. This is half true. Or rather, this attempts to be true. Sadly the fun indie opening sequence is a cheque the film refuses to cash. It’s definitely funny, but this is down more to some sterling performances from the ensemble rather than originating from a witty script. The realism works, don’t get me wrong, but you’ll be left wanting. Realism is only ever truly affecting when we’re watching real people in abnormal circumstances, not extreme but abnormal. The film, however, sadly finds a way to take a very untraditional Hollywood family drama and make it overbearingly traditional. The taut relationships and inadequacies are insightful and fun until the film strays into the safety net of all rom-coms wherein which there is an illicit affair, the dream is wrecked and the spouses must compromise and go through the mandatory “marriage is so god damn hard, it really is” speech. This said the holy trinity of Ruffalo, Moore and Bening makes for a veritable bonanza of award worthy performances. Ruffalo impresses yet again but this just adds to the let-down as his, tremendously important, character springs forth from nowhere and then again disappears there. If the producers set out to make a film highlighting how gay relationships are as boring and clichéd as straight ones – well, mission accomplished guys.

5/10

The Kids Are Over-hyped.