I had loads of annual leave that wanted using up before the end of next month so spent the past fortnight chilling at home and getting various things organised. This mostly consisted of spring-cleaning the house but when that was all done I started nailing a few song ideas down then sat back to watch some movies I’d been promising myself to see.
Fortunately I enjoyed pretty much all of them. Red Cliff was great, Shutter Island was a mindf***, Green Zone was also great, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief was kinda fun…even Tim Burton’s take on Alice in Wonderland wasn’t as bad as I expected. I got through rather a lot of beer and ice cream during all this…
Red Cliff
Talk about John Woo on form…I’m glad I didn’t read about how it’s edited down from a four hour double feature because that might’ve made me more sceptical. It’s in the style of what I see as the new Chinese martial arts epics in the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon vein; the ones that have coaxed English-speaking viewers into watching foreign language films every now and then. It has all the over-the-top battle scenes with better-than-real-life special effects and all that other stuff that makes for mindless entertainment but beyond the awe-inspiring combat and eye candy it’s a solid story, even in its abridged form.
I can’t say how historically accurate it is (I suspect there’s a lot of artistic licence employed here) but that’s hardly the point to the exercise. It’s bold, visually impressive, well-acted and has some really clever moments that employ some fantastic tactical plot devices. I also like the way that the two sides were shown as having differences of opinion as opposed to some good versus evil: it was more political – and emotional – than I expected it to be. Worth a rewatch too.
Green Zone
Talking of throwing politics and decent acting into an action thriller, I was impressed with the latest Greengrass/Damon collaboration. It takes the hand-held camera gunfights and car chases into post-Saddam Iraq and adds the thorny issues of the WMDs and regime changes to what would otherwise be another forgettable action-fest. I found it struck a good balance between thrills and intelligence.
It’s best to ignore Matt Damon’s self-parody in Team America: World Police because he’s actually a good actor in terms of bringing humanity to the heroic character archetype who normally shows as much personality as a used teabag. Here, Damon is playing an honest yet straightforward US soldier in charge of one of the teams sent out to track down those notorious weapons. What I really appreciated is that his portrayal felt convincing and provided a strong moral reference-point but at the same time the film made a brave effort to deliver its socio-political messages in between the edge-of-your-seat moments. Yeah, it felt like The Bourne Baghdad but I found that to be a good thing.
Shutter Island
I can’t say much about the plot here because it’s so reliant on the numerous twists and turns to deliver the chills and intrigue. Leonardio DiCaprio is another actor who, in my view, is pretty talented by the standards of the big-star Hollywood names who are usually cast for their looks rather than acting ability. This is certainly grittier: he’s a US marshal with a flashback-riddled past and the film takes us into some really dark territory with German death camps, tragic murders and a very creepy island jail for the criminally insane.
I must admit I’ve not seen nearly enough Scorsese films, but I really liked the way the gothic horror thing – a genre that I’m a little tired of – turned into a psycho-thriller that kept me guessing at every turn. The background music was a little overdone but otherwise it’s an extremely creepy – and therefore effective – chiller. A bit of a departure for DiCaprio, but that was half the fun.
Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief
I’ll admit that I didn’t intend to watch this; it was my sister’s birthday and since I couldn’t think of what to buy her as a present I offered to take her to the pictures and let her choose the film. This one then isn’t what I’d usually watch but as family movies go it was a lot of fun.
The set-pieces and SFX were run-of-the-mill for this sort of story but I found the presence of beings from Classical Greek myth to be especially fun and inventive. It has all the hip youthfulness but there were some neat, more adult-orientated, jokes thrown in to keep older viewers entertained. I’m sure the sequel will be better too.
Alice in Wonderland
Did I enjoy this? Yes. Is it actually *good*? Well, yes. And no. Getting the negatives out of the way first, I don’t think Burton should have gone for a Disney script because it was devoid of Carroll’s satire and wordplay, and felt too simplistic for me. Mia Wasikowska could’ve performed the lead role better I suppose but I think she was really upstaged by the supporting cast, who read like a who’s-who of the best British actors and actresses in the industry today.
The obvious appeal is the Tim Burton aesthetic – his vision is the closest I’ve yet seen to what I imagine of Carroll’s world (I loved both of the Alice novels). But the supporting cast were stellar: there couldn’t be a better choice of voice for the Cheshire Cat than Stephen Fry, and the same goes for Alan Rickman as the most sarcastic Catterpillar ever. Helena Bonham-Carter’s Red Queen was wonderfully demented (I’m certain she was modelled on Elizabeth I in Blackadder) and Burton’s insistence on casting Johnny Depp in almost everything he directs was actually justified this time: his turn as the Mad Hatter was affecting and gloriously creepy.
The idea of a grown-up Alice was a good one – if you want the original story, there’s the old animated Disney version and two of the greatest fantasy novels – but as a memorable film it was a bit of a missed opportunity. The visual and acting side of things were fine but as great as Burton is in gorgeous set-pieces, he needed a better screenplay to work with.
As an aside, I couldn’t help but wonder if Burton is familiar with Fate/Stay Night…
This made me chuckle a bit, and highlighted to me how daft the finale was in relation to the rest of the film.
