Tag Archives: fantasy

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey 3 star

January 22nd, 2013 by surlaroute

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Like so many others, I had massive reservations about this movie that only increased as it came closer to production and its now first of a trilogy yet still three hour long release. I guess I should say, I’m not the biggest fan of The Lord of the Rings – I’ve still never got around to reading the books (well maybe half of “Fellowship” when I was 14?), and I wasn’t bowled over by the Fellowship and Return of the King movies. But the one part of that trilogy that I do love – The Two Towers – I seriously, seriously, love that movie.

There was a point in the weeks running up to the release when my local multiplex listed showtimes and it became apparent they would be showing it in the new HFR format – finally, I thought, a reason to see it, which only made me realise just how little I wanted to see it. I didn’t ultimately see it in HFR – I figure if the format is a success there’ll be another chance to sample it for the first time with something more exciting.

If you haven’t sensed that I’m padding a lot here, well, clearly I am… I want to write a lot more here this year than I did last year (actually, I’ve already done that when I post this) and if it means typing up whatever comes to mind on a movie about which I have little to say, so be it. The big question here for me in the end was: did I get anything out of The Hobbit that I wouldn’t have got out of watching The Two Towers on blu-ray again? And the resounding answer is no. Did I get a huge warm fuzzy feeling every time the old Howard Shore themes kicked in, and when Bilbo finally gets accepted by Thorin? Yes. I totally did, and it didn’t feel anywhere near three hours long for me either.

Sucker Punch Sucker Punch 4 star

April 6th, 2011 by surlaroute

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Bah, I had trouble making this one gel as I kept thinking of different things to add. Rather than waste any more time trying to make it flow better (which simply isn’t gonna happen) I’m just gonna post the mess as it now stands… which seems rather fitting for the movie, now I come to think of it… I think a few of my points come through, and if they don’t, the two links cover everything else. It’s not a movie that warrants massive discussion, though, I feel. It’s eye candy: you like it or you don’t; you can’t help it if you do, and it needn’t hurt anyone unless you let it…

It perhaps goes without saying that I didn’t expect much from this… but I’m not going to deny, I still really wanted to see it, even after the worst of the reviews came in. I don’t know what made certain moviegoers expect anything else from this than what it delivers. One of my favourites, Mark Kermode, went so far as to suggest that director Zack Snyder might think he’s made another Inception, which is about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard him say. Yes, y’know what, I think I’ll invoke that most awful of recent phrases that get flung around at times like this – some people I’m afraid don’t “get” this movie at all. Not because it’s smart, clever, “game-changing”, but because it’s so insanely simple that people are looking for something that was never meant to be there.

If I described The Ward as “Girl, Interrupted with a bodycount” (which I didn’t – not here at least, not yet lol, one of the reviews that got away – but I would’ve…) then Sucker Punch is The Ward plus The Fall with all the visual insanity Snyder is known for (with the difference being here that I dug it). I can’t stress that enough – this movie is perhaps the most insane I’ve seen – I won’t even try to describe it – and I loved it.

There’s an objection to the movie that concerns itself with the exploitation of women surpassing any message of empowerment the movie purports to – or something to that effect. I’m loathe to get involved with an argument like this because to me it just seems so warped and depressing a way to approach a movie like this that I think it’s best ignored, but I’ll just say that surely such an argument is suggesting that women need some kind of special protection against being portrayed in a ridiculous popcorn movie that is not afforded men, and is hence a little patronising itself? In an equal and reasonable world, surely, violence against women in cinema would be just as unsurprising and unworthy of note (other than how awesomely it’s executed cinematically) as that against men? And given the fact that its director, Zack Snyder, gave us men dressed just as scantily ridiculous in his last two movies (Doctor Manhattan in Watchmen and, err, everyone in 300) doesn’t that even shoot down the “zomg they’re dressed like strippers!” argument?

Anyway that’s pretty much all I have to say on that – to use that as your sole reason to dismiss the movie wholesale (as many have – clearly trying to impress someone) is about as dumb as Mark Kermode’s calling Inception the best film of last year purely because “it proves that blockbusters don’t have to be dumb” (for the record: there are actually reasons I’ll accept for Inception being the best film of last year – they include “I just loved it…” – but not that one… sorry but, to cite just one example, Pixar have been making intelligent blockbusters for _years_…)

That out of the way, I’ll just say this – I don’t know where some reviewers get off comparing this to Inception because they’re clearly entirely different movies, but since you mentioned it, I’d rather watch this than that any day because it knows it’s not trying for greatness and succeeds completely at what it does where Inception (in my opinion) falls far short of its lofty goals (or the ones that fans have assigned it). The movie’s frenetic nature reminded me a little of Scott Pilgrim, not that I’d really normally make that comparison either – but I’d rather watch this than that, even, because it doesn’t have a constant tone of hatred masked with false irony. It has beautiful young girls in awesome costumes which, yeh, I’ll call sexy – nothing I can do about that, it’s ludicrous to apologise for what turns you on. The action sequences are fantastically overblown. And at the end of the day, much to my surprise, it actually has something to say – something akin to Tideland‘s message, it just occurred to me: that we have inside our brains the capacity to deal with anything outside it. It’s vague and perhaps a bit cheesy, but true – certainly no less powerful than Inception‘s (yes I’ll go there again – I didn’t start it) “this sentence is false, but you gotta believe something” joyless, hollow perfection.

Bottom line is, it’s just a movie. I recently linked to this, far better, explanation of (at least) why the movie isn’t the end of the world with the comment, despite still recommending people read it, that I’m not sure if it deserves that much thought but since the naysayers were overthinking it so much it seemed only fair for somebody to do likewise in its favour. Maybe it’s because I watched it just an hour or so after Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams which so perfectly, simultaneously, made our individual artistic cries into the abyss of time seem both important as a whole yet worthless in their isolation. Sucker Punch is just one movie, and one that mainly sets out to simply be eye candy at that. If you think such a movie has the ability, in just 2 hours, to destroy 50 years of progress for women and society, I’m sorry but it’s you who are underestimating women. It’s a movie that clearly has more interest in having fun than saying anything important. I make no apologies for loving it.

Inkheart Inkheart 2 stars

May 21st, 2010 by surlaroute

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First of all, this definitely forms as good a double bill as expected with Bedtime Stories. Secondly, I have to say, I was watching this at very end of the night going into the early hours, so if I say I was kind of falling asleep towards the end, it is by no means solely the fault of the movie. But I will start by saying, I’m kind of astonished that of the two, this turned out to be the one that turned me off most.

On the surface Inkheart seems very similar to Bedtime Stories – the central character is a man able to make stories come into the real world just by reading them… and that man is played by Brendan Fraser, an actor known even more than Sandler for some pretty goofy and questionable comedy in the past. But really the similarities end there. This is a much darker, refined and frankly more ambitious story, and that’s kind of why I was so amazed to find it so lacking in comparison to Bedtime Stories. Also, in this one, the stories really come to life.

So how can such a movie with a supporting cast including Paul Bettany, Andy Serkis, Helen Mirren and Jim Broadbent be so much less than an Adam Sandler comedy with Keri Russell, Russell Brand, and Courtney Cox? I’m genuinely not sure. All I can say is though Inkheart has some great ideas, even beyond the basic set-up (I’m sure the book trilogy it is based on is far more engrossing), rather than run with them it seems to just plod. Not one character seems particular changed or even on the verge of changing at the end, or even particularly in need of change at the start – there are even characters, like the one from Arabian Nights, whose purpose in the story I’m at a real loss to justify. I’m afraid I really can’t think of anything else to say of it.

Bedtime Stories Bedtime Stories 4 star

May 21st, 2010 by surlaroute

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I was worried to say the least about using this to kickstart what will hopefully be a movie-watching habit as frequent as I used to have… though I’ve loved Adam Sandler on and off in the past, it’s a very up and down affair, and when it comes to this kind of Adam Sandler movie, at least how it looked from the trailer, I was pretty sure it’d be far too samey, toned down (it’s a Disney “family movie“…) and forgettable. On top of this, I didn’t quite see how the story was supposed to work. Being from Disney, too, and following so soon after Enchanted as it does, I feared that however they dealt with the nature of kids’ bedtime stories, they’d somehow manage to sully basic tenets of innocence as they did in that 2007 movie.

For at least the movie’s entire first act, I remained horribly skeptical. This movie takes a bizarre amount of time to set itself up, and even once the strange/not-so-strange-afterall things start happening to Sandler in the real world, it takes a long time for the movie to really explain itself. Example: the gumball rain you see in the trailer. It’s a great moment that seems to be the first absolute reveal that “omg what happens in the bedtime stories happens in real life” … and all the choices made in this scene, the camera, editing, music, make it feel like a big moment – they practically do the Shawshank thing, for heaven’s sake – but then we see that it’s merely a gumball truck crashed on an overpass above Sandler’s car. The movie is kind of filled with such semi-anti-climaxes. I guess this is simply my fault for expecting something more magical from the trailer etc. Make no mistake, there’s no magic in this story, just coincidence that may or may not occur as a result of belief in magic. I can’t argue that this, however, is in its way almost more fulfilling.

What I eventually remembered here, too, was that I’ve actually really loved some of those samey old Adam Sandler movies more than I expected, and though this movie is certainly kid-_safe_ (whether they’re kid-_friendly_ I’ll say something about in a moment…) it is really in the end absolutely a member of that sub-genre Sandler has become known for. There’s a scene at the end here when his character has to deliver a presentation to his boss following a spectacular song-and-dance number by Guy Pearce, the villain, and his team. It’s to be the big summing up of the story, Sandler’s big moment, but just prior to the scene he has his tongue stung by a bee, so he’s talking gibberish (like the alien in the kids’ story that was told just the night before). His friend, played by Russell Brand, translates. It’s one of those classic Sandler scenes, like the final speech in Mr. Deeds or Billy Madison, as silly and hilarious as it is, if it catches you in the right mood, actually also just a little touching.

If there’s something wrong with the movie, it could be just that. For sure, you can feel safe enough showing your kids this movie or even letting them watch it alone, there’s nothing per se that’s inappropriate for the under 12s… but it is very much the kind of “family movie” where the “bits for kids” and “bits for adults” are well delineated and this could alienate younger viewers. This is perfectly illustrated early on when Sandler’s character tells the kids the first bedtime story, and he gives the character in the story that represents him the name “Mr. Underappreciated”, until one of the kids says, “what’s underdemeciated?” forcing him to rename the character, “Sir Fix-a-lot”. (Oh-ho-ho. Kids are dumb, right?)

I don’t like such condescending attitudes to children at all, even in small and subtle doses, especially in a movie with Walt Disney’s name on it, a man who always said you should speak to children no differently than you speak to adults* – and it doesn’t end there with this movie. Just in case they get bored at any point (like during the aforementioned quite excruciating set-up act), there’s always the enormous-eyed guinea pig, at complete odds with the otherwise “the magic’s all in your head” stance of the story, on hand to entertain. I think the movie could’ve been that bit better if they had just run with the idea that Sandler’s belief that the stories really affect reality is just a misunderstanding – like the felix felicis that helps Ron succeed at Quidditch in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, for example, even though he never took it… it’s the belief that these things are possible that makes them happen, not any real supernatural force. In short, a little confidence.

That small issue aside, it’s still not enough to ruin the overall joy I got from this movie. Once it got going I barely stopped laughing, often very out loud. It’s a typical Disney good-triumphs-over-evil story and, despite the “family-friendly” moniker, an Adam Sandler movie all the way (just in case that’s important to you). I frankly adored it in the end, and will watch it again for sure.

* “I don’t believe in talking down to children. I don’t believe in talking down to any certain segment. I like to kind of just talk in a general way to the audience.” – Walt Disney

Alice in Wonderland [1933] Alice in Wonderland [1933] 3 star

May 19th, 2010 by surlaroute

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It’s kinda amazing I haven’t seen this rather lavish Hollywood version of one of my favourite books yet, especially in these past few years of being particularly enamoured of all things Alice. I was reminded of its existence while watching Dreamchild again recently so I finally decided to get hold of it… sadly, it was the shorter 75 minute version, not the 90 minute cut that apparently exists elsewhere. I didn’t have particularly high expectations of it, mostly because you don’t really hear about it much at all, and almost immediately as it started, I set myself up for a difficult hour, as Alice first graces the screen looking practically in her 20s or 30s, in any case the oldest looking Alice (not counting the elderly Liddell in “Dreamchild” of course) I’ve ever seen (the actress, I’ve since learned, was 19; the character claims 12 years and 4 months lol).

But it’s incredibly hard not to love this movie in the end. Indeed, if it had only been made a few years later and done the same “fantasy world in colour” trick of The Wizard of Oz and had only one song more memorable than the few it has, I’m almost certain it would be just as beloved as the Judy Garland movie.

Notably, despite the title, it is much more based in fact on the second book “Through the Looking Glass”, which if you know the books is indication itself of the film’s surprisingly intellectual aspirations. Though it’s perfectly possible to enjoy the movie for its surface sheen (the set design is certainly up there with that of the later Oz), the actual screenplay (by Joseph Mankiewicz, who later wrote All About Eve among other Hollywood classics) retains many of that book’s more complicated nonsense exchanges. I don’t know what was cut from the longer version, but this version hops around Carroll’s world in a frankly disjointed way but so long as you’re comfortable with the nonsense at the core (which, in Wonderland, you really oughta be), it’s not too much of an issue.

Anyhoo, it’s not up there for me with the likes of my fave musical version of the story with Fiona Fullerton or Disney’s eyepoppingly aesthetic 50s version (to say nothing of Tim Burton’s more recent take, as I still haven’t seen it), but I would say at the least that it deserves to be seen and known a lot more than I feel it has been so far. There’s barely an Alice adaption not worth seeing, as there are simply so many approaches and interpretations to be made (whether you like them or not), and this was no exception.

Inglourious Basterds Inglourious Basterds 5 star

November 18th, 2009 by surlaroute

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This was another incredibly pleasant (if that’s the right word) surprise. I wouldn’t say I’ve exactly gone off Quentin Tarantino as a director but my initial approach to his films has become increasingly apprehensive since Kill Bill. I thought Kill Bill was perfect in every way, but when the Grindhouse thing came along I thought at first, no that’s taking the Kill Bill “thing” too far … though, of course, Death Proof grew on me with subsequent viewings (at the very least, sitting next to Planet Terror as it does, it appears to be some kind of masterpiece …).

Inglourious Basterds seemed like it was going to have even more problems for me as a viewer. The first being – though of course Tarantino has been planning this movie for over a decade – we’ve had two of these Nazi revenge stories very recently in the form of Defiance and Valkyrie so by now the “genre” almost seems old hat. The difference with Tarantino’s version, however, is the highly fictionalised way his story of WWII turns out. That in itself, however, while others whose reviews I read seemed to revel in the delight of seeing that part of history end the way we may all wish it did, really didn’t interest me so much. Call it the first surprise, then, how “into it” I found myself as the explosive finale goes down.

Second was a similar problem to that I expected to have with Valkyrie – and I loved Valkyrie, so I should’ve have been so concerned. It’s really some of the casting that worried me here – seeing actors like Tom Cruise in Valkyrie or Brad Pitt and worse, Eli Roth, here in period costume, especially in this stylised, fictionalised version of the time, really didn’t look to me like it would work even a fraction as well as it ultimately does. There’s an almost cheeky moment in the very first scene (or “Chapter”) of Inglourious Basterds that seemed to me like a reference or jab at the way Bryan Singer segued into having all his “Germans” speak English for 95% of Valkyrie. Here, a character literally just says to another character that his knowledge of the language they are speaking (French) has been exhausted, does he mind if he switches to English? It’s a clever moment, but it’s ultimately surprising just how much of this movie’s dialogue still needs subtitles, with all dialogue being spoken in the language that makes sense for the scene, and that to me is a Good Thing. Anyway, not for one moment did I have the issues with Pitt and Roth that I expected. For Roth in particular it may in fact be his best-cast role yet. I still don’t like to see him on the screen, I’d much prefer him get behind the camera again … but for this particular character, that works. The Basterds themselves, in fact, don’t occupy as much screentime as you might expect, with as much time given over to Mélanie Laurent and Jacky Ido’s story or the brilliantly wicked Christoph Waltz as the movie’s principal villain. So even if you still find Roth and co. unpalatable, there’s plenty more in the ensemble to get excited about.

Then there’s the soundtrack. Though I’ve never had a problem with Tarantino’s use of music, it’s again an aspect of his work that I’ve worried about more with everything since Kill Bill, where it seemed to me he had pushed it as far as it would go. There was the comment he made about this movie in particular that struck me as particularly arrogant, when asked about his use of archive music, that he didn’t want another artist making a mark on his work. (“I just don’t like the idea of giving that much power to anybody on one of my movies,” LA Times) All of that said, it is hard to think about these things when the movie is in front of you and the likes of Ennio Morricone are serenading your ears. There’s little to say but that what music he uses works … even the Bowie. The only moments where I questioned the soundtrack, in fact, were two short snippets of tunes he had previously used, in Kill Bill, but they’re really too brief to mention.

This is, simply, a terrifically made movie that works almost flawlessly, and I think you’ll find that hard to deny even if you disagree with the idea of it. There are those who still think of Tarantino as some kind of manchild who makes fanboyish movies that serve no purpose than to fulfil geeky fantasies and there’s plenty in all of his recent work including this that matches that description. But there’s too much here – more than ever before in his work – that shows a real artist’s hand. It’s too technically proficient and assured to be dismissed as the B-movie wish-fulfilment it might first appear to be. To be perfectly honest, I’m almost inclined to agree with Brad Pitt’s last line which I’m sure is pretty much Tarantino speaking for himself, and he should be so proud: “This might just be my masterpiece.” On a first viewing I find it hard to disagree, for it truly blew me away.

Land of the Lost Land of the Lost 3 star

September 7th, 2009 by surlaroute

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So, yeh, sue me but I got more out of watching this than I did watching Half-Blood Prince. I had read so many bad reviews of it shortly before watching it and they almost had me convinced, but I kept seeing Brad Silberling’s name on the director’s chair and I just couldn’t believe he could make a less than half-decent movie ‘cos he never has. I shouldn’t have doubted it for a second. Silberling has done two kinds of movies in his career so far, kind of alternating between the effects-driven kids movies like Casper, Lemony Snicket and this, and the more mature stories dealing with more mature relationships, which have steadily gone down in scale over the years from City of Angels to Moonlight Mile to his most recent 10 Items of Less. It’s interesting that the first two of the effects-driven movies, too, dealt with pretty powerful emotional stuff too, all of Silberling’s work, until 10 Items at least, always dealing heavily with loss. Needless to say, I expected none of that here, but I knew he wouldn’t just make an effects movie.

Okay, well, I’ll admit, that’s exactly what he has made here. But this guy really knows how to do that and stay interesting in my opinion. Even though surely shot on the usual Hollywood bankroll, the effects here reminded me of the fast and loose style Robert Rodriguez stumbled upon in making the first two Spy Kids movies on trademark tight budget. They’re having fun with this and it translates right onto the film, through the projector and into the audience: at least, for this audience it did. I laughed almost constantly for the duration and entirely “got” the slightly sillier aspects of the production. Anna Friel being allowed (in fact, apparently Silberling insisted) to keep her Mancunian accent is a wonderful bonus.

Spirit of the Beehive Spirit of the Beehive 4 star

March 5th, 2009 by surlaroute

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I don’t know what led me to believe this, but it has to be said up front that I came to this expecting another horror movie – or, at least, something more horrific than what I got. This again has a very slow start – and a very slow middle … and a very slow end … – but it kept my focus for the most part because I really couldn’t fathom what, if anything, it was about. I found the first half hour or so wonderful, the sparse life of a tiny village going on around a little hall where most of its population, including our young heroines, are gathered seeing James Whale’s Frankenstein for the first time. We see the Spanish introduction to the movie, and then we’re cut away to the beehives of the title, seemingly disjointed.

There’s an odd pace to the editing throughout here, scenes start and finish before we’re able to fully comprehend their relevance and this would be a bad thing if it weren’t for the fact that, I admit, it put me far from ease. We see the children here kind of testing their boundaries and then, from the germ of cinematic fantasy exacerbated by her elder sister’s suggestion, one of the youngest of those children taking the line between that fantasy and reality just a tad too far. Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth certainly owes a lot to this movie – this is almost like that movie with the visual effects taken out, in fact.

Ana meets the Monster

If it weren’t for the adorable and constant presence of the two young girls here (the youngest, Ana, would’ve made the perfect Alice in Wonderland IMHO), I admit I would’ve found this too dull and arduous a viewing. Even still it’s a movie it’ll take me a long time to watch again. But I know that if and when I do, it will probably grow on me immeasurably. What struck me most about it is how I could never have guessed when it was made if asked – I didn’t check the year before putting it on, only assuming that it was old, but the photography is so clean and the costumes etc so timeless, I really wouldn’t have known if it was made much more recently. At first look it’s at least a better Frankenstein “spinoff” than Gods and Monsters, for example, and I can only give it the benefit of the doubt. I hope I can find the time to come back to this some day.