Rating: MM

Review of James Cameron’s uber-blockbuster and long anticipated space adventure epic, Avatar.

Director: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Giovanni Ribisi, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez
Running time: 162mins

So, finally, after 10 years in the making and endless industry hype and speculation about the ‘pioneering technology’ behind James Cameron’s movie juggernaut, Avatar is finally with us. And is it worth the wait? Well, its sadly hard to tell. From the off, the visuals of the film are stunning and literally breathtaking in places, with sweeping and swooping camera angles presenting spectacular vistas onto the brave new world of Pandora. The creature design (while being at times somewhat laughable – some animals are just too weird to be convincing) is well produced, particularly the Na’avi people themselves, their skin and hair looking completely real. Similarly, the action sequences with their smoke, fire and explosions are also deployed with astonishing detail. If for nothing else, Cameron (or in fact Weta Digital, the effects house behind the Lord of the Rings trilogy) must be praised for the production value of Avatar – he has created an utterly real new world with exciting vegetation, wildlife and landscapes that need at least 4 pairs of eyes to really appreciate them.

However, the same cannot be said for the film as a whole. The first problem lies with the basic premise and plot of the film – one we have seen before countless times: indigenous population of resource-rich land is threatened by another greedy civilisation, one hell bent on taking the precious <insert valuable natural commodity here> from the native people. One member of the invading settlers becomes integrated within the native people (often becoming romantically involved with the most attractive female of the tribe), goes on an emotional and spiritual journey, eventually switching sides to fight against his old comrades – we all know the story, from films such as Dances With Wolves to Pocahontas. And this is perhaps the main fault with Avatar – the narrative trajectory is so familiar and predictable that for the most part the film is spent in anticipation of the next part of a story that we KNOW is coming. We know that Jake and Neytiri will fall in love 30 minutes before they do, we know that soon enough Jake will turn against his fellow marines – and this predictability has an intensely negative effect on one’s viewing experience, making it crushingly dull. Whole 10-20 minute sections of the film are completely needless, apparently there to enhance the audience’s engagement with the world of Pandora – with the result being the opposite. It must be said that with a more disciplined director and editor, a good 40 minutes could have been left on the cutting room floor, the probable result being a more dynamic and engaging film – parts are numbingly tedious, with an anticlimactic conclusion that comes 20 minutes too late.

Despite Cameron having successfully created an amazing and believable new world, the characters that inhabit it elicit little or no sympathy, even in their desperate hour of need. The sight of the tortured and homeless Na’avi people do not tug at the heartstrings the way that the hoards of Rohan women and children do in the final act of The Two Towers, and this has nothing to do with the Na’avi being strange blue alien creatures. The problem is posed by Avatar essentially lacking emotional depth and heart. For all the strained looks and pained faces of Jake, Neytiri and their tribespeople, it is hard to feel for them in the way the film suggests we do.

Cameron’s other major sin to be atoned for is his apalling script. The lines are clunky and stupid but their hackneyed sentiments are repeated, with most ‘one-liners’ being spoken twice or three times, effectively becoming very irritating mantras – “Get the hell outta there!!!” As with the predictable plot, the dialogue walks straight into pitfalls of cliche. Having said this, the actors do very well with the drivel they are given. Sigourney Weaver is as good as ever, as is Zoe Saldana as the beautiful Neytiri. Newcomer Sam Worthington is likeable enough in the leading man role of Jake Sully, but sadly lacks the charm and charisma needed to be convincing.

In conclusion, with all its promise, visual flair and attempts at being a ‘new film experience’ Avatar is disappointingly mediocre, demonstrating that looks alone do not make a good film. Despite its stunning surface, there is little underneath.

Rating: MM

Rating: MMMM

Review of animated post-apocalypse noir 9, directed by Shane Acker and produced by Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov.

Director: Shane Acker
Starring: (voices) Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer
Running time: 79 mins

9 is set in the wastelands of a post-apocalyptic world, following a war between humans and machines. With human life all but extinguished on earth, the only survivors are the numbered cloth bag characters and sinister red lens-eyed beasts, which have more in common with the Terminator than our soft-bodied heroes.

The film opens with a confused 9 (Elijah Wood) apparently lost in the wilderness of what used to be a city. He happens upon fellow cloth-bag 2, who is something of an inventor, managing to fix 9’s broken voice box. The pair are then joined by half-blind 5 (John C. Reilly) but their meeting is cut painfully short by the arrival of the ‘cat beast’, a devilish mechanical feline who captures 2 and carries him off to its lair. What follows is a daring rescue attempt which accidentally brings about the reawakening of the huge machine ‘brain’ which appears hell bent on wiping out every last trace of life on earth. For an animated film with characters that are undeniably cute (their huge Bambi eyes are the clincher), 9 is in no way another computerised story for children.

Packed with moments that are unsettling, frightening and challenging, 9 cements itself as animated fare for adults, to the film’s credit – there are enough genuine horror devices to push the film’s 12A rating, one of which is a horrible dementor’s kiss type sequence that is truly disturbing. The film’s premise and story is highly original and fresh, told with clever flashback sequences that are part of the action and not merely exposition for its own sake. 9 also fundamentally has good storytelling, an element that more filmmakers should prioritise a la Andrew Lasseter and his team at Pixar. Acker presents the characters as rounded and unique (despite being numbered, not named) with neat touches such as 6’s striped asylum-like clothing linking his madman persona and a scene in which fat stooge 8 apparently uses a magnet to get high.

The voice talent is good, with an impressive set of actors enlisted to provide the dialogue, including Christopher Plummer as the aging 1 and Jennifer Connelly as the high-kicking 7. Yet the actors are given a script of such weakness that its cliché ridden holes threaten to bring down a film of such promise. The dialogue is terrible, composed of one hackneyed expression after another, which is disappointing indeed as the premise and plot of the film is original and fresh. However, the film is saved by its unique visual style and its wonderfully endearing cloth bag characters, a clever meeting of the organic and artificial, with their soft bodies and metal parts. Overall, 9 is a well paced, well structured piece of sci-fi animation, beautifully told with moments of terror and poignancy. Great stuff.

Rating: MMMM

Reposting of my review of the new Disney-Pixar film Up, which I saw in June at Glastonbury Festival in the Pilton Palais cinema tent.

Director: Pete Docter, Bob Peterson
Starring: (voices) Edward Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai
Running time: 96mins

Up follows grumpy old-age-pensioner Carl Fredricksen following a life-long dream to visit South America, inadvertently bringing a new friend with him, in the form of the eager to help Russell – an 8 year old boy intent on helping Mr Fredricksen in order for him to gain his ‘assisting the elderly’ explorer scout badge. However, it is not the South American adventure section of the film which displays the usual Pixar magic; the portions of the film which take place in Mr Fredricksen and Russell’s home town seem to have a different quality to the rest.

The first meeting of Mr Fredricksen and his future wife Ellie is very well conceived and scripted with touches of physical comedy and charming characterisation – character development which is enhanced by a wonderful montage of Carl and Ellie’s life together (the couple’s families seated on either side of the church at their wedding is fantastic) from childhood sweethearts to elderly couple. This set-piece is heartbreaking, handling the highs and lows of their life with delicacy. Everything about Up’s presentation of the Carl-Ellie relationship is charming and delightful whilst never becoming saccharine-soaked and overly sentimental. Sadly as Ellie dies, Carl becomes a slightly bitter and grumpy old man, but remains endearing and likeable. He does typical old-person things with a familiar dislike of outside help (namely the ever-eager Russell and the prospect of living in a retirement home) which magically seem to maintain an element of freshness; Up demonstrates that characterisation can be thorough and well developed even with such limited running time.

As the action moves to South America (courtesy of the thousands of balloons attached to Mr Fredricksen’s house) the tone of the film shifts also, moving away from sweet and gentle and becomes more of a buddy comedy/road movie with the bickering Mr Fredricksen and Russell making an engaging (albeit slightly odd) pair – the sequences in which they pull the house along by a tether rope are particularly good. As the pair cross continents they meet an exotic wild bird which Russell names Kevin (despite later discovering Kevin to be a female with a number of baby Kevins) and a number of talking dogs – luckily these characters escape the usual Disney talking-animal schtick by ingenious collar devices which project what they are thinking through a speaker, a device which allows for some wonderful comedy, with the evil canine leader apparently having a voice hilariously incongruous to his stature and appearance. That the collars project what the dogs are thinking and not what they are saying means that with their ‘dialogue’ come random outbursts of typical dog behaviour, namely shouts of “SQUIRREL!!!” which are priceless.

With the film’s climactic final act come some excellent action sequences, involving planes and high-altitude antics all of which are well executed and visually impressive. However, as with the the early parts of the film, Up’s character-driven scenes steal the film, with the closing moments belonging to the now firm friendship between Mr Fredricksen and Russell. In all, Up is highly entertaining animated fun with a lot of heart and bags of charm.

Rating: MMMM

Review of extra-terrestrial sci-fi thriller District 9 produced by Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings) and directed by Neil Blomkamp

Director: Neil Blomkamp
Starring: Sharlto Copley, Vanessa Haywood, Jason Cope, Louis Minnaar, David James
Running time: 112 mins

WARNING: This review contains PLOT SPOILERS

In District 9’s fictional 1980s, an alien mothership comes to a mid-air standstill over the South African city of Johannesburg, subsequently bringing an alien species to Earth – the residents of a far distant planet who soon come to make their homes in the city’s outlying scrubland, district 9. The human inhabitants of Johannesburg however become prejudiced, intolerant and aggressive towards the new alien immigrants, becoming hostile and giving them the slur of ‘Prawns’ for their Piscean appearance. This prejudice develops into outright social unrest, forcing the government to serve ‘eviction notices’ and re-house the aliens. However, as one might expect with moving an entire colony of people, the government’s plan is met with unexpected problems.

District 9 begins with documentary-style footage of the mysterious alien spacecraft coming to a halt over South Africa’s second city and talking heads discussing the social and cultural impact the alien visitors had on the country, thus presenting the film’s premise  - a plot which has many elements of a more pedestrian film but is never clichéd, having a certain quality of freshness about it. This is partly due to the distinct socio-political commentary that runs throughout the film, touching on themes of racial intolerance, discrimination and autocracy, the plethora of social problems still alive in South Africa in the aftermath of apartheid – a commentary which to this critic at least, is one of the film’s trump cards.

The other is the performance of Sharlto Copley as main protagonist Wikus van der Merwe – the head of the government led team in charge of moving the alien community from their homes in district 9 to what is effectively a concentration camp. Copley plays Wikus as essentially an everyman, but one for which there is great deal of of moral ambiguity, rendering him a more intriguing character as a result. The supporting players are also very good, in particular Louis Minnaar and David James. However, credit must go to the CG artists in charge of rendering the facial expressions and twitches of Christopher Johnson (the main ‘Prawn’ character), conveying as much emotion and inner turmoil as we see in his human (and non-CG) counterpart Wikus.

District 9’s shaky, steadi-cam driven visual style, while not being in any way innovative (seen memorably before in The Blair Witch Project and more recently in Cloverfield), seems fresh, unique and completely in keeping with tone and plot, making a perfect marriage between the two. The presentation of the Alien technology and weaponry is equally good, as is Wickus’ agony and visceral disgust at his physical transformation into one of the ‘Prawn’ species, presented in horrific detail that will have those more lily-livered audience members squirming in their seats. As thrilling as all this is however, the film loses pace in a tricky third act which plods along comparatively slowly compared to the rest of the film.

District 9’s climax sets up the possibility for a sequel naturally, in a subtle way that leaves room for the story to continue, an exciting prospect with a film this promising. A well structured, thought provoking, thrilling and thoroughly entertaining alternative to the regular Hollywood sci-fi gloss – hopefully in the future we might see a District 10.

Rating: MMMM

Review of the latest film of the Harry Potter franchise, sixth film Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince which sees Harry and Dumbledore unite to search into Voldemort’s past in an effort to discover secrets that will lead them to destroy him.

Director: David Yates
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Michael Gambon, Alan Rickman, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson
Running time: 153 mins

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the second film about the boy wizard to be directed by David Yates (his first outing in the franchise being film #5, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) with films #1 and #2 helmed by Chris Columbus, the third by Alfonso Cuaron and the fourth by Mike Newell. Interestingly, where the second film suffered with a lack of freshness by Columbus once more taking the reins, Half-Blood Prince also suffers.

But just where the film falls down seems on the surface hard to pinpoint. On the whole (with a few glaring exceptions) the performances are reasonably good, the production value and visual effects are faultless, the dialogue is acceptable and for those wishing to pick holes in the book-to-screen transition, there is little to criticise. Where the problem comes however, is in the film’s pace which lacks dynamism and any sense of rhythm. Some scenes concentrate heavily on the mystery surrounding the identity of the Half-Blood Prince (which Harry comes across in an old school textbook) while others neglect this part of the plot completely. Quidditch seems to feature heavily, which seems incongruous to the film’s advertised tone – the franchise getting darker as Voldemort’s power grows. It must be said that far too much of the film is given over to the pangs of teenage love and raging hormones – all of which are important elements in the source material but here take up far too many scenes.

Having said that the performances are fairly good, this is only true of the adult actors and a very small number of their younger counterparts. Daniel Radcliffe is as ever painfully hit-and-miss, with some scenes feeling cringingly awkward whereas others are fairly good (the scene involving the lucky potion Felix Felicis in particular) . In comparison, Jim Broadbent  is excellent as new Potions teacher Professor Horace Slughorn, as is Michael Gambon as the illustrious Albus Dumbledore. Rupert Grint continues to demonstrate brilliant comic timing and excellent performance skills in his reprisal of Ron Weasley. Sadly, as ever, Emma Watson struggles in her portrayal of Hermione Granger as she has done in the previous films. However, she fares better than Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley) who is extremely poor – her relationship and ‘blossoming romance’ with Harry withers on screen with a complete lack of chemistry. However, the two young actors as the young Tom Riddle (at ages 11 and 16 respectively), Hero Fiennes-Tiffin and Frank Dillane are superb, with the two performances maintaining a tension between sinister and eerie and a creepy seductiveness.

Other elements of the film are also good, the visual effects in particular – the inky thoughts tipping into the Pensieve are excellent, as is the fire wielded by Dumbledore near the film’s climax. However, there is an inescapable feeling of mediocrity running more or less throughout the entire film which cannot be evaded even by the aforementioned firy adventures of Harry and Dumbledore and their consequences. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is perhaps the weakest in the canon since the excellence of film number four – and sadly the curse of keeping the same director is set to continue with Yates at the helm of the franchise’s final instalments.

Rating: MMM

Review of the new Disney-Pixar film Up, not released in cinemas until October this year but screened at Glastonbury Festival in the Pilton Palais cinema tent.

Director: Pete Docter, Bob Peterson
Starring: (voices) Edward Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai
Running time: 96mins

Up follows grumpy old-age-pensioner Carl Fredricksen following a life-long dream to visit South America, inadvertently bringing a new friend with him, in the form of the eager to help Russell – an 8 year old boy intent on helping Mr Fredricksen in order for him to gain his ‘assisting the elderly’ explorer scout badge. However, it is not the South American adventure section of the film which displays the usual Pixar magic; the portions of the film which take place in Mr Fredricksen and Russell’s home town seem to have a different quality to the rest. The first meeting of Mr Fredricksen and his future wife Ellie is very well conceived and scripted with touches of physical comedy and charming characterisation, character development which is enhanced by a wonderful montage of Carl and Ellie’s life together (the couple’s families seated on either side of the church at their wedding is fantastic) from childhood sweethearts to elderly couple. This set-piece is very sweet and moving, handling the highs and lows of their life with delicacy. Everything about Up’s presentation of the Carl-Ellie relationship is charming and delightful whilst never becoming saccharine-soaked and overly sentimental. Sadly as Ellie dies, Carl becomes a slightly bitter and grumpy old man, but remains endearing and likeable. He does typical old-person things with a familiar dislike of outside help (namely the ever-eager Russell and the prospect of living in a retirement home) which magically seem to maintain an element of freshness; Up demonstrates that characterisation can be thorough and well developed even with such limited running time.

As the action moves to South America (courtesy of the thousands of balloons attached to Mr Fredricksen’s house) the tone of the film shifts also, moving away from sweet and gentle and becomes more of a buddy comedy/road movie with the bickering Mr Fredricksen and Russell making an engaging (albeit slightly odd) pair – the sequences in which they pull the house along by a tether rope are particularly good. As the pair cross continents they meet an exotic wild bird which Russell names Kevin (despite later discovering Kevin to be a female with a number of baby Kevins) and a number of talking dogs – luckily these characters escape the usual Disney talking-animal schtick by ingenious collar devices which project what they are thinking through a speaker, a device which allows for some wonderful comedy, with the evil canine leader apparently having a voice hilariously incongruous to his stature and appearance. That the collars project what the dogs are thinking and not what they are saying means that with their ‘dialogue’ come random outbursts of typical dog behaviour, namely shouts of “SQUIRREL!!!” which are priceless.

With the film’s climactic final act come some excellent action sequences, involving planes and high-altitude antics all of which are well executed and visually impressive. However, as with the the early parts of the film, Up’s character-driven scenes steal the film, with the closing moments belonging to the now firm friendship between Mr Fredricksen and Russell. In all, Up is highly entertaining animated fun with a lot of heart and bags of charm.

Rating: MMMM

Rating: MM

The first review originally written for Maz’s Movie Memorandum, of Michael Bay’s sequel to his 2007 summer box-office smash, Transformers.

Director: Michael Bay
Starring: Shia La Beouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, John Turturro
Running Time: 150 mins

As with most Michael Bay films and its predecessor, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is expectedly a triumph of style over substance. The film opens with a frenetic action sequence which gives way to some pleasing lighter scenes, involving the loveable (if somewhat unlikely) hero Sam Witwicky and his family. However, these scenes and other more character-driven moments seem few and far between in a film that is almost entirely composed of explosions and clouds of scattered dust.

Having said this though, the film is good solid summer fare, with a few witty lines here and there and enough charm to keep the audience interested. Where the film falls down however, is in the deployment of a troublesome third act, in which the film loses all sense of pace (the film feels 45 minutes too long) and in fact, narrative trajectory; it takes a monologue of exposition from a new old-man transformer (found and re-awoken by the protagonists at a visit to the Smithsonian Museum, of Night at the Museum 2 fame) to make things clear – a lack of clarity and obscure plot that this film shares with the original, something that Bay and his writers clearly haven’t managed to improve upon, despite a seemingly infinite budget. This, it appears has been spent entirely on visual effects, all of which are admittedly stunning, but are nothing we haven’t seen before.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen demonstrates that in a franchise, both premise and characters need an element of freshness to really succeed. Shia La Boeuf returns as Sam, a likeable enough character, but with far less to do than in the first Transformers film which certainly gave La Beouf more scope to develop the role. Perennial men’s magazine favourite Megan Fox also reprises her role of Sam’s love interest Mikaela, but seems to appear only in the capacity of the token gorgeous girl, wearing skimpy shorts and running around screaming for her boyfriend – her only saving grace being that she can hot-wire a car.

In this second outing of the Transformers franchise there seems to be far less dialogue between characters and much more time given to gratuitous action sequences with more transformers than one can really keep up with. And keeping up appears a hard task – in fact truthfully, staying focused is harder, as the film really does suffer from being just that bit too long. In all, for a summer blockbuster there is enough to keep audiences happy, but only just.

Rating: MM (add another if you’re a fan of the toys/cartoon)

Review of Bolt first published in a February 2009 issue Spark*, the newspaper of Reading University Students’ Union.

Director: Byron Howard, Chris Williams
Starring: (voices) John Travolta, Miley Cyrus
Running Time: 96mins

If there is one undisputable fact about Bolt, it is the level of cuteness of its eponymous hero, the ‘super’ dog Bolt. But sadly, for all his sweet fuzziness (and when I say he’s cute, I mean CUTE), Bolt never really pulls the heartstrings the way that Wall.E did. And this is mainly because he is totally outshone by Rhino the hamster, the “master of stealth”, who by his own words, is “awesome!!!”. As stories go, the premise of the film isn’t half bad, in fact its quite original. Performing ‘actor’ dog is the star of a primetime television show in which he routinely saves his beloved ‘person’ Penny from the clutches of the evil ‘Green-Eyed Man’. Bolt however, does not realise that in reality he doesn’t have special powers like his famous ‘Super Bark’, and begins on a painful journey of self-discovery, learning how to be a ‘normal’ dog in the process.

In terms of characterisation, Bolt (voiced by John Travolta), and his feline friend Mittens (voiced by Susie Essman) are both characters who maintain a tension between being mildly sympathetic and fairly irritating in equal measure. Penny, Bolt’s on and off screen owner, (voiced by Miley Cyrus) only just manages to hold the audience’s sympathy, partly due to her genuine concern and love for her dog, conveyed in the photos of the pair of them that she collects (pictures highly reminiscent of the travelling gnome in Amelie).

Rhino, as previously mentioned, is the best character in the whole film, injecting into the last 45minutes some much needed laughs. And it is this, aside from the essential charm, that is what really lets the film down. All the pacy and defty handled action sequences and set pieces (and these are in abundance) just cannot make up for good dialogue. The repartee between dog and cat is laboured and clichéd, with their in-fighting and grumbling becoming grating after only 20 minutes.

The film does have its moments of charm, with the introduction of some peculiar Italian American pigeons, a fleeting glimpse of the hamster-obsessed little old lady who Rhino manages to escape from and the sweet series of montages that chart Bolt’s progress in learning about the things that normal dogs do. However, these vignettes and sequences do not make up for the overriding sense of banality which pervades the film. The jokes fall flat, the banter is poor, and if you don’t like the dog after the first act, it will certainly hamper your enjoyment of the film. Solid family half-term fare, just don’t expect anything amazing.

Rating: MM

Rating: MM

Review of Igor first published in an October 2008 issue Spark*, the newspaper of Reading University Students’ Union.

Director: Anthony Leonidas
Starring: (voices)  John Cusack, Steve Buscemi, Sean Hayes
Running time: 87 mins

In the town of ‘Malaria’, the race of hunchbacked ‘igors’ are ridiculed as deformed and worthless beings, enslaved as assistants to the ‘evil scientists’ (apparently in abundance in this town) and forced to “pull the switch!” for their various malevolent inventions. One of these poor creatures is the eponymous Igor (John Cusack), the dutiful servant to the evil Dr Glickenstein (John Cleese) who doesn’t seem to fit the ‘evil’ cultural work ethic that abounds in Malaria. Naturally good-hearted Igor is accompanied by friends that he himself has created (in secret obviously), Scamper the immortal rabbit (a brilliant Steve Buscemi) and ‘Brain’ (the often hit-and-miss Sean Hayes). Together with these two trusty sidekicks, Igor embarks on a perilous adventure involving a potential coup-d’état, physics (and chemistry and biology) defying antics and saving the day right at the end.

In terms of voice talent, the cast is pretty impressive, ranging from A-listers John Cusack and Jay Leno to more offbeat personalities such as Eddie Izzard (wonderfully camp and gothed up) and John Cleese. Carving sympathetic, developed characters from essentially pixellated walking clichés must be a hard task and the actors pull it off well.

However, as an overall cinematic experience, Igor just can’t get past its overriding sense of formula. As someone who actually really likes childrens’ films (Horton Hears A Who! is clearly one of the best films of 2008!) and a generous helping of gothic-tinged cinema, Igor seemed like the perfect film for me. Sadly though, I couldn’t help but feel that it was punching above its weight, desperately trying to aim as high as Wall.E for entertainment value and engagement with the adults in the audience. However, Igor does in places boast a pretty funky jazz style soundtrack (making a great contrast with the film’s gothic noir look) and some really wonderful references and homages to Frankenstein. All in all, a fun night out for kids at Halloween, but for all its Tim Burtonesque influences, Nightmare Before Christmas this isn’t.

Rating: MM