Robots
Cute character design? Check. Male and female leads for a bit of love interest? Check. Occasional movie references? Check. Yet another computer-animated movie with a big-name cast which is trying to appeal to adults as well as their kids? Surely not!
The big-name stars here are Ewan McGregor and Halle Berry, with the help of the likes of Robin Williams, Greg Kinnear, Mel Brooks, Jim Broadbent and Drew Carey. But oddly, despite McGregor being in the lead and the story being set in a bizarre world populated entirely by robots, his voice is practically unrecognisable due to a combination of one of his Big Fish-style American accents and an apparent attempt to imitate Tobey Maguire’s creaky, geeky tones from the Spider-Man movies. Why get in a big name if no one will realise it’s him? Still, this is a kids’ film, after all – the voices are meant to be slightly silly.
This is a fairly typical tale of an innocent country boy going to the big city, meeting some dodgy types and the girl of his dreams, making it big, and showing the dodgy city types the error of their ways. Albeit with an odd-looking mechanical country boy and a city populated with cybernetic swindlers. It’s all nicely-done stuff, with a decent amount of visual invention chucked in to the fairly standard storyline. The cross-city transport system which seems based on some kind of elaborate executive stress toy is a particularly nice touch, and the various cyborg characters are all lovingly detailed in their design.
But the danger with a film like this which is so reliant on technological expertise, and especially with one in which all the characters are machines, is that the scientific wizardry will get in the way of the storyline. What is always needed is a firm guiding hand in the shape of a director who knows precisely what they are trying to achieve. With the directorial team of Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldhana, of Ice Age fame, such a guiding vision is only to be expected. If they can make fluffy creatures wandering around an icy wasteland trying to avoid extinction appealing, surely they can manage it with robots?
Sure enough, while this is certainly no Incredibles, Wedge and Saldhana –aided and abetted by their starry cast – have managed to produce another very likeable children’s film. But that, sadly, is pretty much all it is. There is very little here to appeal to the adults, the humour being largely infantile and slapstick and, despite the big names and a few vague stabs as some in-jokes, there is none of the knowing humour of the likes of Antonio Banderas’ self-mocking turn in Shrek 2. Which is a bit of a shame, but still. What we’ve ended up with instead is a perfectly good way to amuse the kids for a couple of hours, and that’s always got to be worth something.
Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous
Sandra Bullock’s exploits as a geeky FBI agent turned beauty queen in 2000’s Miss Congeniality were an entertaining slice of lightweight farcical fun. Nothing too challenging, just a silly premise nicely supported by a likeable central performance, and greatly aided by Michael Caine in a superb supporting role as the gay beauty pageant coach and Star Trek’s William Shatner in a delightfully self-mocking turn as the show’s host.
Here, Bullock is back for pretty much more of the same inconsequential and inoffensive amusement. Kicking off shortly after her success at the first film’s pageant, Bullock’s Agent Hart has become something of a celebrity, adored by the media and with a book to promote. Keen for the positive publicity, the FBI are allowing her a lot of leeway to show the agency in a good light, and her crime-fighting skills seem to be slipping, when the news comes that some of her old pageant friends have been kidnapped. She naturally wants to get in on the case, but her bosses not only doubt her skills but also don’t want to risk losing their prime PR asset. To compromise she is given a bodyguard to help out, and it turns into a fairly typical female buddy cop movie.
Bullock is her typical ditzy on-screen presence, reviving the character from the original film with so little effort you could almost imagine that it’s because it is exactly the same character as she’s played in pretty much every film she’s ever made. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing – she has ably turned the Sandra Bullock persona into a likable and marketable commodity and achieved the near-impossible of maintaining her position as a sexy Hollywood star despite having hit her forties. For women in the cutthroat world of showbiz, that’s no mean feat. Of course, the fact that physically she’s hardly changed since her big break in 1993’s Demolition Man has probably helped a fair bit too.
Sadly, Caine has not returned for the sequel, but we do still at least get Shatner as one of the unfortunate abductees, allowing him plenty of space for yet more of his trademark overacting. When Shatner is on top self-aware form, he can be a true delight to watch, gamely lampooning his public persona to the max and happily weighing in with that wonderfully bizarre delivery which these days freely acknowledges that he will never be considered a great actor. He is – as long as he’s kept in relatively small doses, as here – some kind of comic genius.
Much as with the first film, there is little of any originality here. This is no great cinematic masterpiece. It is not reinventing any genres, experimenting with any new techniques, and is not going to win anyone involved any prizes. It is, however, a fun and silly slice of throwaway nonsense – and as such an ideal antidote to a hard week at the office.
Melinda and Melinda
There was once a time when a new Woody Allen film was a cause for celebration – especially if it were a new relationship comedy, as this film is. But his last really decent outing was back in 1999 with Sweet and Lowdown, since when he’s directed six movies, all of which were more or less massive flops – both critically and commercially. For those who have never seen Allen’s many masterpieces of the 70s and 80s, judging by his recent output it must be very hard to see what all the fuss is about. Even for his fans, a new Woody Allen film has, over the last few years, become not a cause for celebration but dismay. His former talent seemed utterly to have deserted him.
This, however, is finally that longed-for return to form. It’s no Allen classic, certainly, and will never earn a place up there with the likes of Sleeper, Annie Hall and Manhattan in the hall of fame, but nonetheless it is both far better than any of his last few films and genuinely funny and intriguing in its own right.
The Melindas of the title are actually just one person, played by Finding Neverland’s Radha Mitchell, and she’s entirely fictional – dreamed up thanks to a discussion of the relative merits of comedy and tragedy. As such this film is made up of two alternative storylines weaving in and out of each other, one comedic, one fairly straight tragic drama, with only their starting point, a New York dinner party, and Melinda herself in common. If it sounds similar to 1998’s Gwynneth Paltrow vehicle Sliding Doors, that’s because it is – Allen even uses the same device of using different hairstyles on the central actress to distinguish between the two plotlines.
But despite appearances, and despite the fact that Allen’s recent films largely seem to have been exercises in self-plagiarism, this is not a movie of mere derivativeness, but is actually an interesting and often amusing exploration of the age-old concerns at the heart of theatre.
Some of the problems of Allen’s recent outings remain, however. Now that he is getting on a bit (he will hit seventy this year), Allen tends to remain behind the camera, whereas he always used to take prominent lead roles – all of which were somehow pretty much the same character. Here some of the impressive ensemble cast, which includes Will Ferrell, Chlöe Sevigny and Johnny Lee Miller, make the mistake of previous recent Allen stars, notably Kenneth Branagh in 1998’s Celebrity, and seem to start trying to imitate both Allen’s delivery and mannerisms. This, sadly, often gets in the way of the twin plots, as it’s nearly impossible not to start comparing the imitations with the real thing.
Nonetheless, both storylines are sufficiently well-realised and convoluted to draw the audience in to their worlds of fiction-within-fiction, and Allen’s trademarks of sharp wit and uncanny insight into human nature are present in their droves. Sevigny and Mitchell are both on superb form, and the increasingly popular Ferrell – despite the occasional uncomfortable feelings that his character should be a foot shorter, much thinner, more Jewish and wearing glasses – continues to prove that his comic timing and slapstick skills could help him go far. As already mentioned, it’s not a Woody Allen classic; it is, however, exactly the kind of intelligent and funny film we always used to expect from the master of neurosis, and well worth a look.
Maria Full of Grace
Five years ago Steven Soderbergh brought the complexities of the international drug trade vividly to life in his astoundingly complex, documentary-style, Oscar-winning film Traffic. Whereas that movie featured multiple viewpoints, characters and storylines, Maria Full of Grace, despite dealing with the same central issues, features just one – that of an impoverished Columbian girl forced to become a drugs “mule”, trafficking heroin concealed in her stomach into the United States. What is lost of Soderbergh’s complexity is more than made up for by the sheer emotional connection this focus on one desperate and exploited individual helps bring about.
The lead actress, beautiful newcomer Catalina Sandino Moreno, has rightly received both an Oscar nomination and several awards for her incredibly moving portrayal of the put-upon young mule Maria Alavrez. The combination of her delicate and utterly sympathetic portrayal and writer/director Joshua Marston’s sensitive filmmaking must rank as one of the most powerful cinematic offerings of recent years. The plight of those forced into the drug trade through lack of economic clout, education or opportunities for escape from poverty through other means has rarely been so perfectly displayed.
This is, unsurprisingly, a very serious film with a very serious message. Whereas Soderbergh’s Traffic expertly demonstrated how illegal drugs affect the lives of their users, the users’ families, and those officials charged with combating the trade, this film manages to humanise those who bear the brunt of the danger of actually trafficking the drugs themselves. Whereas certain sections of the popular press would label women such as Maria as being as guilty as the bosses of the cartels they work for in the spreading of the pernicious influence of hard drugs on western society, this film amply shows that when it comes to drugs, everyone is a victim bar those at the very top of the chain.
This is a film which hard drug users should be forced to watch for its ability to bring harshly to life the sheer horror of the process by which they get their hits. It should be watched by everyone else to give a sense of the human cost in those impoverished lands from which most of the world’s illegal drugs originate. It deserves a wide an audience as possible.
Yes, it is hard to watch at times. Yes, it is a “difficult” subject. No, it is not the sort of film many would go to see out of choice thanks to a combination of its lack of explosions or special effects and the fear that, due to having a message, it may be a bit preachy. It is indeed preachy, but the sermon it delivers is neither tedious nor untimely, and the film is simply so well made, and the performances so perfect, that even without its central point it is an incredible piece of cinema. This sort of film is very rare indeed, and as such cannot be recommended highly enough.
Kinsey
In the mid 20th century an unknown zoology professor single-handedly altered the course of western civilisation. Alfred C. Kinsey’s name remains little known to the general public, but his research into sex and sexuality in the 1940s and 1950s for the first time shattered taboos about sexual behaviour which had more or less dominated society since the middle ages. His research was the first step on the road to the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s, and broke the barriers which had continued to stand in the way of equal for women and homosexuals.
This classic nerd - complete with trademark bow tie and a love of classical music and gardening - the son of a Methodist lay preacher, was the most unlikely hero of the wars of the sexes. Brought to life by the always superbly understated Liam Neeson more than sixty years after his research interests shifted from wasps to humans, this film could do much to reclaim his rightful place as the unwitting father of the modern permissive society.
The sheer impact of Kinsey’s work on the world in which we live is brought to life most clearly in scenes from a “hygiene” class at Indiana University, where Kinsey taught. The prudish professor in charge of the course, played by an almost gleefully over the top Tim Curry, spreads in all seriousness misinformation about sex which would, if taught today, probably be cause for a lawsuit. It is almost unbelievable that such untruths could have been treated as fact such a short time ago – especially by a supposedly civilised society.
While Kinsey’s sexual/scientific research lies right at the heart of the film, the presence of Liam Neeson in the lead alone should be enough to demonstrate that this is not mere titillation or scandal-mongering. Aside from his turn as a Jedi master in the abysmal Star Wars: Episode I, Neeson is hardly known for taking on mindless roles. Here, the exploration of the effects of Kinsey’s academic specialty on his marital life - and on those of his researchers – is just as much a focus as his findings. Plus, as should be expected, Neeson’s performance is practically flawless.
Considering the recent resurgence of the self-professed “moral majority” in the United States, this film’s subject matter is highly risky – a supreme irony, considering it was so many decades ago that Kinsey’s well-meaning research first caused such a stir. Despite the adoption of so many of his ideas, they are still – for some – both perverse and challenging.
So it is a blessed relief that the film, artfully and sensitively written and directed by the man behind the superb 1998 biopic of homosexual 1930s film director James Whale Gods and Monsters, manages to avoid kowtowing to American pressure groups who would far rather sex had remained the taboo it was before Kinsey arrived on the scene. Kinsey’s occasionally obsessive devotion to research which many would still call immoral is neither condemned nor lauded. Most today would say that the ends – the liberation of women and the decline in persecution of practices once deemed beyond the pale – were almost entirely good. The film does not judge, and whether or not Kinsey’s means justified these ends is left entirely up to the audience to decide. It’s an odd subject for a biopic but, despite initially seeming like it will have little to say in our post-Kinsey age, still has the ability to provoke much thought.
Hitch
Nope, not a biopic of uber-director Alfred Hitchcock, but the latest vehicle for Will Smith – returning to his familiar Fresh Prince of Bel Air style comedy after a series of sub-par turns in the likes of Men in Black II, Bad Boys II, I Robot and Shark Tale. This is the Will Smith we all know and love – charming, witty, and showing impeccable comic timing. Thankfully he’s also refrained from singing the theme song this time…
Smith plays Alex Hitchens, appropriately nicknamed “Hitch” as his vocation is to help hapless blokes, as he himself used to be, to get hitched to the women of their dreams. As he puts it, he’s a “date doctor”. It has been dubbed, in some quarters, as “Black Eye for the White Guy” after the recent popularity of the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy TV series – and that is pretty much spot on.
Although Hitch could seem like a busybody – poking his nose into other people’s relationships and offering initially unasked-for advice, his easy likeability and unforced charisma somehow makes the fact that no one ever seems to punch him for getting involved entirely believable. The fact that, even after he’s hired by these unlucky love-hunters, money is never seen to change hands only adds to the sense that he is practically impossible to dislike.
Of course, Smith simply helping out others, as amusing as some of the set-ups – especially those involving Kevin James of the US TV sitcom The King of Queens – may be is hardly in itself enough for a movie, even for the notoriously slight plots of the romantic comedy genre. So, naturally enough, he falls for someone himself and – surprise, surprise – the power of true love seems instantly to rob him of all his smooth sophistication as he regresses to the kind of klutzy incompetence which it is his job to rid others of.
Cue an array of slapstick antics and cringe-making embarrassments as Smith desperately tries to woo the woman of his dreams – played by the equally entirely likeable and utterly gorgeous up-and-coming Latino actress Eva Mendes, who seems rapidly to be surpassing J-Lo in the Hollywood Hispanic hottie stakes.
The whole film is utterly predictable and entirely devoid of originality, naturally, but – like Hitch himself – it is both funny and practically impossible to dislike. They really should have released it a month ago to catch the Valentine’s Day crowd as it is, unsurprisingly considering it’s a romantic comedy with a male lead whom both sexes can like and a female lead that men will lust after, an ideal date movie. Unchallenging, but amusing and fun.
Constantine
This is certainly not a regular comic book superhero movie. How often have you seen Superman lurk around in the shadows, battling demons and angels and trying to con the devil himself? How often have you seen such a movie in which the superhero in question not only refrains from wearing a garish costume, but is also dying of lung cancer brought about from his addiction to cigarettes?
John Constantine is a kind of self-centred freelance occult investigator, following his instincts and putting his magical powers to good use while battling some fairly impressive special effects (provided courtesy of the guy behind the effects on the X-Men movies). Teaming up with Rachel Weisz’s police detective, investigating the apparent suicide of her sister, he uncovers something somewhat more sinister beneath the surface. Cue appearances from voodoo DJs, transgender angels and even Satan himself in a beautifully-shot and skilfully-directed piece of darkly noirish sci-fi.
For those who have read any of the superb comic book series, Hellblazer, on which this film is based, the casting of Keanu Reeves as Constantine initially seems a travesty. Constantine is a sorcerer versed in the dark arts, a devious and practically amoral character who antagonises the forces of good as much as those of evil in the twisted underbelly of society which he inhabits. All this more or less remains in the film adaptation. But – shock horror – in the comic, Constantine was blond and Liverpudlian, but in the film he’s got dark hair and is American! Oh no!
The comic’s fans do, however, have a point – albeit one which misses the fundamental difference between comics and film. Constantine’s adventures on the page were far more philosophically complex and psychologically dark than those on display here, certainly. And in the comics Constantine’s companion, Chas, is a middle aged cockney taxi driver, not a young black street kid.
But what this neglects to acknowledge is that the comic book character has been around for over twenty years, allowing for a huge amount of character development and a vast array of plots - whereas this film lasts but two hours. It would be impossible to distil twenty years worth of anything into just two hours without losing something, but in the filmmakers’ defence they have chosen to adapt some of the very best storylines of that twenty year run.
For those fans who can get over the idea that their hero is no longer blond or British, the essence of the comic remains. Keanu is, amazingly, a good Constantine. He maintains precisely the right level of dark, tortured brooding, contempt for the world that has given him such a raw deal, and yet simultaneously the sense of underlying decency which always appealed the most to fans of the comics. He is an ideal film antihero – one part Humphrey Bogart, one part Clint Eastwood – and although the film may not quite be enough to blow you away, the concepts are intriguing and it looks fantastic. And in any case, once you’ve seen it you can pop to your local bookstore and catch up on twenty years’ worth of Constantine’s more complex adventures.
9 Songs
All you need to know is that this is the film which caused a major ruckus last year when it emerged that its respected British director, Michael Winterbottom (of Welcome to Sarajevo, Wonderland and 24 Hour Party People fame), had got his lead actors, the experienced Kieran O’Brien and newcomer Margot Stilley, to have real, explicit, penetrative sex on camera. Absolutely nothing left to the imagination. Absolutely nothing faked.
Yes, this is basically porn – but porn presented in a manner which allows various pseudo-intellectuals the room to blather unconvincingly about how it’s not porn, it’s art. Because – hey – it’s all a flashback as the guy reminisces about his relationship, yeah? And all he seems to be able to remember is, like, the music gigs he went to and the sex, yeah? Because, like, that’s like where his head was at the time, yeah? It’s, like, confronting us with harsh truths about the superficiality and egocentricity of the inner workings of the male psyche, yeah?
Abject nonsense – it’s porn, plain and simple. And it doesn’t even have the benefit of being good porn. If you’re watching it in the hope of titillation, unless you’re fourteen you’ll be sorely disappointed. And if you’re fourteen, you shouldn’t be watching it anyway – it’s got a well-deserved 18 certificate.
The only argument going for the “it’s art” brigade is that it is almost entirely unerotic and devoid of and genuine sense of sensuality. But much good art is incredibly sensual and erotic – without the need to pay a woman to take her clothes off and perform various rather tedious-seeming sexual acts. Quite what Winterbottom was trying to achieve – beyond getting to see an attractive young woman naked and demeaned and earning himself a reputation for being a dirty old man – is impossible to work out.
It is also entirely without any kind of plot. The film is basically just sex scene, music, sex scene, music throughout its entire length. No character progression, no revelations, no surprises, no interest.
The only redeeming feature, beyond the fact that at 69 minutes it is mercifully shot, is the music - intercut with the sex as excerpts from the gigs the couple apparently went to at London’s Brixton Academy. The hip and trendy likes of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Von Bondies, Super Fury Animals, Dandy Warhols, Franz Ferdinand and Primal Scream fill out the few parts of the film that don’t involve banal intercourse and brief snippets of entirely unenlightening and uninspired dialogue.
In other words, the soundtrack could be worth picking up, but that’s about the only thing going for this turgid mess of a cheap and unimaginative skin flick. In fact, it may almost be worth showing to fourteen year olds, if only to show them that sex isn’t necessarily all its cracked up to be and can be just as tediously boring as any maths lesson.
