Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

This movie is perfect. That is all.

Dark Shadows

If someone had told you that Tim Burton was set to direct a remake of a gothic soap opera in which a vampire is buried for almost 200 years before being unearthed in 1972, you’d probably say “That sounds about right.” Your response would be valid for a couple of reasons: Firstly, “gothic soap opera” is probably Burton’s secret phrase, a calming mantra he repeats to himself on stressful days at the office. Secondly, it’s a remake of an existing property, something Burton knows all too well. In fact, the last film he directed that wasn’t based on an existing property was Edward Scissorhands, back in 1990 (you could technically make a case for 1994’s Ed Wood, but given that it’s essentially biographic in nature, I’m going to disallow it. Awesome movie though). In that time Burton has become one of cinema’s foremost stylists, adding his unique aesthetic to properties ranging from comic books (Batman [1989]) to movies (The Planet of the Apes [2001]) and literature (the surprisingly un-Burtonesque Big Fish in 2003). So you then wouldn’t be surprised that Burton did, in fact, direct this film, and that it was called Dark Shadows. Glad we got that sorted.

Working from screenplay by Seth Grahame-Smith (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies; Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) from a story by Grahame-Smith and frequent Burton collaborator (there are a few of those in this) John August (Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), Burton has assembled a highly talented ensemble to bring the world of 1972 to life! Frequent Burton collaborator Johnny Depp (working with Burton for the eighth time) stars as Barnabas Collins, who we are introduced to in 1760, in the town of Collinsport, Maine, where his family runs the fishing industry around which the town is built. He runs afoul of the witch Angelique (Eva Green), jealous of his love for Josette (Bella Heathcote). She bewitches his love, forcing her to her doom, before turning him into a vampire and turning the townsfolk against him. They bury him, chained up in a coffin, where he is left to deal with his torment for all of time. Or until 1972, when he is dug up by some construction workers. He returns to the family estate, home to family matriarch Elizabeth (Michelle Pfeiffer, in her second collaboration with Burton), her brother Roger (Johnny Lee Miller), her 15-year-old daughter Carolyn (Chloe Grace Moretz), Roger’s 10-year-old son David (the awesomely named Gulliver McGrath), Dr Julia Hoffman (frequent Burton collaborator and gloriously, ridiculously bewigged Helena Bonham Carter) as David’s psychiatrist, Willie Looms (Jackie Earl Haley) as the manor’s caretaker, and Victoria Winters (Heathcote again), David’s governess and Josette’s reincarnation.

Barnabas’ return is a wonderfully minimalist sequence, his rescuers being picked off and fed upon one-by-one with a series of quick cuts. He returns to the modern day to find the witch Angelique has used her powers to start a rival fishing business to that of his family’s. At the same time, Dr Hoffman is trying to get her hands on Barnabas’ blood, under the guise of helping him become human again, so she can turn herself into a vampire and stop the ageing process. There’s a lot going on in this film. And the cast does a great job with the material. There isn’t really a weak link. Depp is admirably restrained in a role that could have been purely for laughs, and Pfeiffer, Bonham Carter and Green are all fun to watch, and Heathcote, who I’d not seen before this film, had an otherworldly, wide-eyed sweetness that I found very watchable.

The film has met with very much mixed reviews. I’ll admit to being disappointed by the tone.I was expecting much more of a comedy, and what little there was I found enjoyable. Particularly a set piece revolving around a passionate love scene, which is just as destructive as you’d imagine when a couple of supernatural entities get it on. It’s also visually interesting and incorporates some nice wirework to really sell the fact that these two aren’t just regular folk having a good time. As a family drama, one based on a soap opera, it’s entertaining enough, the message that love and family can help even the most tortured soul find a bit of peace, and that no matter how freaky you are, you’ll always have family, is simple and effective.

The biggest failing of the film is probably that it didn’t find the right mix between camp silliness and the gothic creepy spooky that Burton usually does so well. Which is a shame, because as is usually the case with Tim Burton, the film is wonderful looking. Frequent Burton collaborator Rick Heinricks once again knocks it out of the park, particularly the old mansion set itself, which is beautiful in its gothic other-worldliness, and the pre-credits sequence set in 1760, which is a gorgeous, moody, atmospheric piece, utilising every bit of the gothic sensibilities you’d expect to be on display perfectly. It’s not enough to save the film from being little more than average though. Perhaps a little less reverence to the material (both Burton and Depp were huge fans of the TV show) and a little more willingness to have fun could have made for a vastly more enjoyable film.

Battleship

I came into Battleship with incredibly low expectations, a result of generally poor reviews and an underwhelming performance at the box office. Also as a result of the fact that the premise in incredibly stupid – it’s Battleship:The Game: The Movie. Except the game was a game of chance and strategy. Not exactly filmable qualities. It would be like making Guess Who? The Movie. And while the idea of basing a movie on Battleship is silly, the execution is not as woeful as I’d been lead to believe. Don’t get me wrong, the movie is painfully average. But it does have a couple of redeeming features.

Humanity has discovered a so-called Goldilocks planet, one that is just the right combination of factors to support life. A message is sent. Six years later, the message is answered. The aliens arrive off the coast of Hawaii during international naval war games, where our hero, Lieutenant Alex Hooper (Taylor Kitsch), his brother Stone (seriously) (Alexander Skarsgard) and crewmates Rihanna and Jesse Plemons must save the day and prove to Admiral Shane (Liam Neeson) that Alex is good enough for his daughter Sam (Brooklyn Decker). I’d like to think that not wetting my pants at the sight of an alien invasion would be enough to convince someone I’m marriage material, let alone assuming command of an entire ship and saving the day. Maybe I need to think bigger.

Anyway, as mentioned earlier, the film is not without its charms. Chief of which is style. This is a good looking film. Director Peter Berg (Hancock, Smokin’ Aces) knows a thing or two about making films with style. This time he straight up imitates Michael Bay, which does nothing to dissuade viewers from thinking this is nothing but a Transformers clone without the Transformers. And when the trailer tells you it’s “From Hasbro the company that brought you Transformers” those opinions are only reinforced. On some level, that’s fair enough. Transformers made a ridiculous amount of money and Michael Bay is renowned (is that the right word? It seems too complementary) for his hyperactive visual style. If you’re going to imitate something, you may as well imitate something successful, right? I’m assuming that’s why there are so many Elvis impersonators in the world. A fix-the-ship montage set to ACDC’s Thunderstruck gave off the heavy scent of Iron Man, which I’m happy to let slide at this point, as that could be as much me as the film.

Screenwriters Jon and Erich Hoeber have worked with adapted properties before, writing the graphic novel adaptations Whiteout and RED, the latter of which was thoroughly entertaining (I’ve not seen the former). And this script has a few very entertaining moments in it, none of which are related to character or dialogue, unfortunately. The cast, which is solid, isn’t given anything remotely interesting to work with, and do their best in the circumstances. Taylor Kitsch has a couple of moments early in the film to demonstrate his considerable charm, particularly the scene in which he meets Sam, involving a comedic burrito theft set to Mancini’s Pink Panther Theme. From that point onwards, attempts are humour tend to fall flat, and the banter between characters just feels unnatural, hanging in the hair a moment before hitting the deck hard.

The film is anything but subtle – in the space of ten minutes we are given three speeches telling Hopper that he needs to pull his head in, that he has all the potential in the world but keeps squandering it. Three times in ten minutes. And the film is just too long. Even at two hours, it feels like so much could be cut to make this a tighter, fast-paced, blow-things-up and have some fun movie. Instead, there are periods where it drags heavily. The pacing of certain scenes seems designed to built tension that just isn’t there. The film lacks any sort of atmosphere, with the exception of one scene. That scene, involving a night time game of Battleship, complete with grid and red markers. It’s also the only scene that builds any sort of tension, and unfortunately, it’s over way too soon before it’s back to the explodey-‘splosions!

And there are a lot of explodey-‘splosions. The last half hour is a blur of CGI destruction. There are some neat set pieces, and it all looks nice, but it is definitely a triumph of style over substance. At no point did I really care what was going on, who was involved or whether they’d get out of it. Part of this can be due to the complete facelessness of the enemy. They’re some kind of outerspace lizard dudes. That’s pretty much all we know. They don’t have any personality and really don’t seem to have any motivation besides “Hey that planet is like ours! Do we need a new one? We do? Cool, let’s take it then.” And this is the problem with the film as a whole – a severe case of the generics. Which is an improvement on the craptastic dud I was expecting, and certainly made the enjoyable bits all the more enjoyable, but this isn’t a film I’d be recommending someone watch.

The Pirates! Band of Misfits

The Pirates! Band of Mistfits was a great deal of fun! I don’t recall the last time I’ve so thoroughly enjoyed a movie. Aardman animation have produced another charming, entertaining, and very funny film, based on the novel The Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists by Gideon Defoe (who also provided the screenplay).

The Pirates! finds our hero, The Pirate Captain (Hugh Grant), trying to win the prestigious Pirate of the Year, despite not being anywhere near as successful as his competitors. After boarding The Beagle looking to pillage treasure, The Pirate Captain is informed by Charles Darwin (David Tennant) that his rather fat parrot Polly is in fact the last dodo. And what better way to claim a fortune in loot than by showing off Polly in London at the Scientist of the Year awards? Adventure awaits. Along the way we learn the value of friendship and the power of believing in one’s self, but the film never allows itself to be dragged down by the message, and is an awful lot of fun throughout.

A number of simple and amusing gags, from the pirates being “masters of disguise” to monkey butlers to Queen Victoria on a donkey all give this film an exquisite daftness that is further enhanced by the characters names – alongside The Pirate Captain, his crew members are called The Pirate with a Scarf, The Albino Pirate, The Pirate with Gout, The Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate, and (my personal favourite) The Pirate Who Likes Sunsets and Kittens.

The cast is full of solid, entertaining performances all-round. Hugh Grant makes for a charming and likable Pirate Captain and Tim Freeman does his best Tim Freeman as the trusty right-hand man. It’s a cracking cast all-round really – Imelda Staunton, Tennant, Jeremy Piven and Salma Hayek all put in enjoyable turns, but special mention (and perfect casting high-fives) must go to Brian Blessed as The Pirate King. I mean, seriously, is there another voice out there that could possibly do justice to a character called The Pirate King? No. No there isn’t.

Immediately after watching The Pirates! Band of Misfits, I wanted to watch it again. I can’t think of a higher recommendation than that really.

The Hunger Games

There may be spoilers below, so readers, you’ve been warned. Also note that these reviews are very much my own opinions, no matter how poorly stated they may be. They’re honest responses to the film as I saw it, and are not meant to be a slight on the filmmakers in any way.

I have a confession to make. I’ve not read The Hunger Games or any of its sequels. The only idea I had as to what it was about was the nutshell summary “Like Battle Royal, but rated PG.” So I was going into this film blind. And the only reason I was aware of it at all is because it made an awful lot of money – http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=hungergames.htm, and seemed to be one of those zeitgeist-grabbing, everyone-is-talking-about-it movies that tend to sneak up on me every summer while I’m waiting for the next science fiction epic or comic adaptation to hit the screen. It also received positive reviews in general – an 85% Fresh Rating from http://www.rottentomatoes.com being evidence of this. And, while the film was enjoyable in parts, it wasn’t anywhere near as good as I was hoping. Here

The film offered very little by way of setup to the world the story takes place in. A brief text introduction tells us that there are “districts” that volunteer children for penance for their uprising. What uprising? I have no idea. Our hero, Katniss Everdeen, played by Jennifer Lawrence, volunteers to participate in the games so that her sister doesn’t have to. It’s a nice narrative touch to have her volunteer, demonstrating strength of character and a desire to protect that we’ll see from Katniss throughout the film. The other tribute is a chap named Peeta Mellark (Joel Hutcherson), who has a crush on Katniss because of course he does.

Anyway, the tributes go to The Capitol for a few days training and introduction to the world. Director Gary Ross seems to be have misinterpreted the maxim “show, don’t tell”, as we get repeated sequences of Lenny Kravitz, as one of our hero’s mentors, explaining to her what’s going to happen next. And then we see that happen. Not the most efficient storytelling. Coupled with this are a number of flashbacks that make absolutely no sense. They don’t introduce anything new, they put a stop to any momentum the story may have had, which albeit in this first 45 minutes, isn’t much, and they honestly confused the hell out of me. On first watch, I thought perhaps there was a problem with my DVD, but apparently no, all the scenes were in the right place.

Then we get to the part I like to call “The Violentest Truman Show Ever!”, wherein a bunch of kids are made to kill each other on national television. Again, I’m not entirely sure why. It must also be pointed out here that Katniss is not much of a hero. She almost gets killed a number of times, gets herself stuck up a tree while a gang of other kids waits for her to come down so they can kill her. She only gets out of that thanks to a helpful idea from another participant, and it almost costs her her life anyway. Then later on she almost gets her throat cut, but is instead saved by another participant, who I’m not sure even had a line of dialogue in the film until now, and who is not seen again, being killed offscreen a bit later on. Genuine moments of resourcefulness and inspiration are few and far between, which is disappointing, especially given the dearth of legitimate female action heroes out there. And speaking of genuine moments, the film all but glosses over what I felt was the most important part of the whole story – the death of one of the tributes leads to riots in one of the districts. This gets about three minutes of screen time as the riots are quickly quelled. But to me, that should have been the crux of the story. This girl goes in to the arena, and through her actions changes the world. And maybe that’s what will happen in the sequels – I don’t know, I’ve not read the books. But for such a major moment to be glossed over like that is a massive storytelling mistake.

The Hunger Games manages to assemble a pretty impressive cast, but sometimes I’m not sure they were all making the same movie. Lawrence put in the best performance I’ve seen her give, and the rest of the kids are tolerable, but the more experienced actors are all over the place tonally. Elizabeth Banks and Stanley Tucci ham it up for all they’re worth; Donald Sutherland is cranky and dictatorial because that’s his character, damn it! Lenny Kravitz is in the movie for some reason, and Woody Harrelson is solid as the mentor who initially doubts (and drinks!) but is taught to believe as the kids grow and learn and what have you. The movie gets points for set design and nice location work, making it a very nice film to look at.

And overall, it wasn’t terrible. There were a few enjoyable sequences, but I feel, as I mentioned earlier, that the film missed the point. There was potential for a great story about a warrior giving a downtrodden people hope, and inspiration, and a motivation to change their circumstances, but instead we got a pretty average tale of one girl’s quest to not die alongside some guy she barely knows.