War of the Worlds
It’s hard not to wonder what the point is. Even if Orson Welles’ version of H.G. Wells’ classic tale of Martian invasion hadn’t broken the mould for radio drama by causing panic across America there would be the 1953 film adaptation, still good after all these years. Then there are all the many TV versions and, of course, two utterly different yet equally great (in their way) modern movie updates in the huge blockbuster Independence Day and the cult comedy Mars Attacks! Yet this year there are no less than three different film takes on The War of the Worlds – even if this team up of megadirector Steven Spielberg and megastar Tom Cruise is the only one likely to see a release on this side of the pond.
Much like Independence Day, the special effects are massive, the dread of the approaching space ships is palpable, and the storyline is only tangentially related to H.G. Wells’ original novel. As with most previous adaptations, the action is also relocated to America – which makes sense in plot as well as commercial terms, as watching huge North American cities get disintegrated is always going to be more impressive than the destruction of balmy English villages.
However, this is where Spielberg’s take and that of the producers of Independence Day actually begins to diverge. Sensibly realising that spectacle is becoming a tad passé with the massive influx of sci-fi movies the last few years have brought, Hollywood’s favourite director has, much like with his Close Encounters of the Third Kind, opted for a more intimate approach to alien invasion. He focuses on a small group of ordinary people simply trying to survive, rather than the more standard blockbuster fare of larger than life heroes taking the battle to the aliens. Whereas Independence Day brought us the President of the United States battling flying saucers in an F-15 fighter jet, here the entire film is told from the perspective of one small family, with Cruise at its head, scrabbling through the chaos.
In this respect it is, despite the many changes from the original book, rather more faithful to Wells’ vision. Whereas most big sci-fi epics are rather impersonal with their constant quest for “the wow-factor”, here the audience can really begin to associate and identify with the plight of the movie’s heroes, simply because they are (bar Cruise’s pretty-boy features) so normal. Rather than an action movie, as the trailer may have made it appear, this is far more psychological – and as such, both more interesting and more terrifying.
Add to this mix a lush score from film soundtrack legend John Williams, the man responsible for the music of, amongst countless others, Star Wars, E.T. and Jaws, and wonderfully atmospheric cinematography from long-time Spielberg collaborator Janusz Kaminski – who did such wonders with Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List, and this makes for yet another roaring hit for the man who is already the most successful director in film history.
Sky Blue
Korean cinema is undergoing a major renaissance at the moment, with a series of minor hits and numerous relatively small-budget, critically acclaimed movies hitting film festivals worldwide. The majority have been heavily influenced by recent Japanese cinema – notably the likes of “Beat” Takeshi Kitano’s gangster flicks and the horror movies of Hideo Nakata and Takashi Miike. Now it seems they’re branching out into Japanese-style animation to boot.
Since the success of Hayao Miyazaki’s enchanting Spirited Away, western interest in Asian animated films seems to be on the rise. Perhaps with the spread of American feature-length cartoons away from merely Disney fairy tales with the likes of Toy Story and Shrek there is also a growing appreciation that cartoons are not merely for kids.
Until recently, if you wanted cartoons aimed at adults you’d go to Miyazaki’s homeland of Japan. There has been some interest in Japanese Anime ever since Akira burst onto our screens back in the late 1980s, and this latest animated sci-fi epic is very much in that mould – not least thanks to the designs of the futuristic motorbikes. But as it’s Korean, it looks like Japan may finally have a rival in the animation for grown-ups market.
Seven years in the making and with a price tag of $10 million – a lot for a Korean movie – Sky Blue was originally released as Wonderful Days back in 2003, but has only just made it to this part of the world. Set in a now fairly familiar post-apocalyptic future, the year is 2142, and the city of ECOBAN is running out of fuel, its scientist founders resorting to using human beings as furnace fodder to keep their dream alive. As is so often the case with this kind of science fiction set-up, a group of freedom fighters are determined to destroy the city and save the oppressed masses. It’s The Matrix without the alternate reality and robots, basically.
An innovative blend of traditional hand-drawn and computer animation, this is the kind of visual feast which the big screen was made for. In fact, it would be perfect for an IMAX screen, as the level of background detail is such that bigger is most certainly better. The fact that the plot is hardly original and the script nothing overly special is entirely incidental. The entire film is an sumptuous orgy of special effects and surrealist images of a dystopian future vaguely reminiscent of a combination of Akira and Blade Runner. Which, let’s face it, can’t be bad.
Although sometimes the blend of traditional and computer animation jars a tad, it is nonetheless the kind of eye-candy which all too rarely gets an outing on UK cinema screens, and as such should be taken full advantage of. Even with its flaws, this is one of those movies that really demonstrates the exhilarating power of the movies.
Madagascar
It’s always tempting, when visiting a zoo, to feel sorry for all the animals locked up in their cages. They should surely be out in the wild – roaming the vast African plains, wandering through lush jungles, or diving into crystal-clear waters in search of fresh fish – not cooped up in tiny enclosures being fed meat they haven’t hunted themselves or chewing on dried hay rather than sweet green grass. That film about the theme park killer whale, Free Willy, only emphasised this tendency, as the mighty beast befriended a small boy before that ridiculously cheesy yet strangely satisfying moment where he leapt the enclosure wall to freedom.
Of course, what that movie didn’t show was what happened to the real whale when it was released into the wild. After a few weeks of acclimatisation, the effectively tame orca wandered off for a few days to try to catch some fish on its own. She failed dismally, and soon came skulking back to her erstwhile captors in search of a spot of lunch. In fact, she never managed to hack it in the real world. For most zoo animals the same would be true – captivity has bred complacency, and they can never survive on their own.
Here, a bunch of cocky zoo creatures – principally Alex the Lion, Marty the Zebra, Melman the Giraffe and Gloria the Hippo, voiced by Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer and Jada Pinkett Smith respectively – decide they fancy seeing life beyond their cages. Charging through the city in which their zoo is based they have a stupendous time. But it’s not so much fun when they find themselves deported, shipwrecked and washed up on the shores of Africa – well, Madagascar to be precise, hence the title – and have to try and get by not only in the world in which they were meant to live but also with its inhabitants.
This latest computer-animated kids’ flick from Dreamworks has some good concepts and a decent cast. But coming as it does hot on the heels of their rather disappointing Shark Tale, which also had a good concept but benefited from a truly great cast, many may be a bit wary. There are surely only so many wacky talking animals flicks these people can get away with, and if they couldn’t get an underwater gangster movie with Will Smith, Angelina Jolie, Jack Black and Robert De Niro to work, how can they fare better with a cast that includes the guy responsible for Ali-G?
Well, here’s how – penguins. Penguins are brilliantly silly creatures anyway, but turn them into devious masterminds who work like a S.W.A.T. team to organise a series of escapes from captivity and you’re on to a real winner. If your kids don’t love the penguins get them to a doctor post haste – there’s something wrong with them.
These silly creatures don’t quite manage to lift the film to the level of the likes of a Shrek or a Toy Story, but the penguins alone will at least ensure that your time at the cinema isn’t a total waste. Not a great movie, but not a bad one either. But then, it is for kids.
Dark Water
In 2002, cult Japanese horror director Hideo Nakata released an understated yet highly effective psychological horror flick, which focussed on a recently-divorced woman fearing she’s going mad in a strange and foreboding apartment block where objects seem to move of their own accord and, from somewhere up above, water is constantly seeping. After the runaway success of Nakata’s cursed video-based Ringu a few years earlier, such a retrained take on sinister seemed to have less immediate appeal to audiences, even though it was adapted from a novel by the same author and many critics raved.
This is the American remake, a phrase which often horrifies fans of Asian horror movies far more than the contents of the films they love so much. Never mind haunted videos and ghostly, murderous beings crawling out of television sets, with remakes there is always the danger of the dreaded curse of Hollywoodisation. American studios seem to have a tendency towards simplifying and dumbing down the often very finely nuanced atmospheres of the originals in a desperate attempt to appeal to western audiences more used to the blood and guts horror of the likes of Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street.
No such danger here. Although Nakata himself is not directing, as he did with the disappointing US remake of his own sequel to Ringu, Brazilian director Walter Salles has captured the spirit of the original perfectly, and if anything used the pressures of Hollywood to his own advantage with a cast packed with people whose very presence adds to expectations of the unexpected.
If the likes of Brits Tim Roth and Pete Postelthwaite turn up in an American movie, they are usually playing someone a tad dodgy. Likewise put generally affable character actor John C Reilly in a sinister setting, his most recognisable screen persona of the put-upon everyman becomes slightly distorted, and his past roles as various good natured chaps lend the film an added air of uncertainty – he may, after all, be playing against type. Chuck in Shelley Duvall, still best known for Stanley Kubrick’s masterful horror of suspense The Shining, and Dougray Scott, who has played a fair few baddies in his time, and you’ve got the makings of a very promising film.
But his is merely the supporting cast. The film actually revolves almost entirely around the always superb Jennifer Connelly and her gradually growing unease and ever-approaching psychosis as she tries to create something approaching a regular family life amidst the darkly threatening corridors of the hulking apartment building.
But even with such a fine cast, atmosphere is everything. Thankfully Salles has enlisted the aid of some masters of the art, with cinematographer Alfonso Beato making the very best of Térèse DePrez’s grimy sets and David Lynch’s favourite composer Angelo Badalamente complementing the whole with a trademark darkness of a score. For once the Hollywoodisation has not been a bastardisation. In fact, it could even top the original. Just don’t go and see it on your own…
Wedding Crashers
A buddy movie cum romantic comedy starring Vince (Swingers) Vaughn and Owen (Starsky and Hutch) Wilson. It’s got to be good, right?
Vaughn and Wilson are best mates whose principle pastime seems to involve the seduction of as many women as possible. Being cunning, amoral types they’re only after one night stands and couldn’t care less about anything other than getting their wicked way. Being typical lazy men, anything which involves too much effort simply isn’t worth it – even women. So they opt to hang out at the one place where it’s guaranteed that single women are going to be emotional and off their guard – weddings.
Director David Dobkin, best known for the Owen Wilson / Jackie Chan action comedy sequel Shanghai Knights, manages to bring out the best of the material and cast – including a number of supporting players who may seem somewhat familiar, from Will Ferrell and Christopher Walken to Isla Fisher from Aussie soap Home and Away.
Even so, with leads less charming and amusing than Wilson and Vaughn, this set-up could have crashed and burned from the get-go simply for its unapologetically devious and misogynistic premise.
Both are, however, thankfully on absolutely top form, and make the very most of a script which could, in less capable hands, have otherwise fallen a bit flat. As Wilson accidentally meets the woman of his dreams, Vaughn gets mistaken by one hapless girl as the man of her dreams and the two buddies’ friendship starts to go awry, they are each able to hold attention and interest individually as well as part of a duo.
Vaughn, as the – shall we say – less sensitive of the two, not to mention the mastermind of the wedding crashing plan, naturally gets most of the best lines, with Wilson picking up the more standard romantic lead role alongside his love interest Rachel “Mean Girls” McAdams. But Wilson has such a uniquely laid-back style, a bit like a hunky, blond Jimmy Stewart, he more than holds his own even with the less interesting part.
It’s a fun film with a fun premise which, while featuring a whole array of what are little more than sexist stereotypes and set-ups, still manages to remain endearing and sweet at its core. In lesser hands than those of Wilson and Vaughn, who make a great double act which will doubtless be revived in future ventures as Wilson’s team-ups with Jackie Chan and Ben Stiller have already, it could have been uncomfortably chauvinistic. Thankfully they pull it off with aplomb.
The Fantastic Four
Yep, it’s the summer, so it’s yet another movie based on a comic book. We’ve already had Batman Begins, Sin City and Constantine this year, and we’ve still got V for Vendetta and more sequels to X-Men and Spider-man plus a revival of the Superman franchise to look forward to over the coming months, not to mention countless other comic book projects which are currently chugging their way through the Hollywood pipeline to cash in on the superhero genre’s successes of recent years.
For those unfamiliar with this particular superhero team, the Fantastic Four bear little resemblance to Enid Blyton’s Famous Five or Secret Seven beyond their hobby of occasionally trying to thwart crimes. There are few lashings of ginger beer, more lashings of over-the-top action and special effects.
The Four are boyfriend and girlfriend astronauts-cum-scientists Reed Richards and Susan Storm, plus Susan’s brother Johnny and their fellow astronaut Ben Grimm. On a jaunt into space they run into the usual comic book disaster which leaves them all with superpowers – Reed able to stretch his body, Susan to become invisible and create force fields, Johnny to fly and turn into a human fireball, with Ben getting the raw deal of turning into a hulking, super-strong lump of orange rock.
With the exception of “Human Torch” Johnny, you might think that these powers are lacking somewhat. You’d be right. The Fantastic Four have always been a little bit stupid – no cool adamantium claws like Wolverine, no webslinging like Spider-man, no laser eyes like Superman, and no dark psychological problems like Batman. Ben Grimm’s transformation into “The Thing” makes him little more than a slightly more articulate orange version of The Incredible Hulk, while Reed’s stretching ability is simply silly and Susan’s invisibility-cum-mild telepathy is hardly either that useful or impressive.
And then we’ve got the Four’s arch-enemy, the rather dumb sounding Victor Von Doom who, unsurprisingly with a name like that, is a metal-clad supervillain with the rather unimaginative moniker of “Doctor Doom”. The usual battles and fights and the like ensue. To add insult to silly premise injury, they’ve even messed around with the characters a bit, ensuring the fans of the comics are up in arms.
To be fair director Tim Story, the man behind comedy hit Barbershop, makes the best of a bad premise, but with such incredibly uninspiring characters to work with their cast – of whom Ioan Gruffudd and Jessica Alba as Reed and Susan are probably the best known – does little but struggle. The special effects are, as with most films these days, pretty good, but somewhat let down by the decision for “The Thing” to be portrayed via a man in a prosthetic bodysuit rather than CGI, making him rather less impressive-looking than could have been managed had they made him a tad bigger and more agile.
In short, certainly not the best comic book adaptation to date. But it’s still by no means terrible. If you fancy a silly slice of sci-fi, this will while away a couple of hours fairly happily.
Silver City
A clumsy, inarticulate and apparently rather stupid guy running for high political office after a lifetime messing about, largely because his father’s already a successful politician with good connections? Sound a tad like a certain George W. Bush, perchance? This political satire from cult indy director John “Sunshine State” Sayles is, however, thankfully more than merely another jab at the current U.S. President – although there are jabs aplenty.
The always superbly subtle Chris Cooper is Dicky Pilager, son of veteran Colorado senator Jud Pilager, and is following his father into the family business by running for governor. His mastermind campaign strategist Karl Rove – sorry, Chuck Raven (Richard Dreyfuss) – is evidently the brains of the operation and, when the hapless candidate drags a corpse out of a lake while fishing for a campaign ad, takes charge of the situation, calling in a former hot-shot journalist to investigate any links between the stiff and the Pilager dynasty’s enemies that might be exploited for the campaign.
Cooper’s performance as Bush – sorry, Pilager – is absolutely spot-on, a near-perfect pastiche of the current president’s various idiosyncrasies, but still different enough to be more than just impersonation and allow room for deeper characterisation than merely aping a prominent real-life figure would allow. Chuck in a great turn from Dreyfuss and a supporting cast that includes the likes of Tim Roth, Billy Zane, Kris Kristofferson, Daryl Hannah and Thora Birch and you’ve got the makings of a good little film.
While the British general election earlier this year passed by with little scandal or incident, the prevalence of money in almost all American political races ensures that at all levels there is scope for surprises and corruption. While most American political movies focus on Washington and the White House, having a glimpse at the state level, even such an irreverent look as this, can help build a better understanding at just how different U.S. politics is from our own.
Of course the main concern with any political movie, satire or not, and especially one revolving around the uncovering of a devious conspiracy, is whether the basic premise is plausible. Could the complex web of interconnections between the Pilagers and their rivals, the lies, the dodgy deals all be kept secret for so long? Well, let’s face it, if it took thirty years for Deep Throat’s true identity to be uncovered, and he was the most mysterious figure at the heart of the biggest political scandal in American history, then yes – it is entirely plausible. That doesn’t stop it from being silly, but then this is at least in part a satire, so a bit of silliness is probably allowed.
Though by no means one of those must-see political movies like Nixon or All the President’s Men, Silver City still has much to recommend it to anyone even slightly interested in American politics – and in this day and age who can afford not to be?
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Tim Burton’s take on Roald Dahl’s classic children’s tale of a young boy who wins a tour of the mysterious Willy Wonka’s fantastic sweet factory has been awaited with a mixture of expectation and dread.
The Gene Wilder-starring 1971 film version of the story, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is for many an all-time favourite thanks to its combination of a superb central performance, the weirdness of the Oompa-Loompas and a number of catchy songs, and its fans have been fearing a desecration of their fond memories. Equally, Tim Burton has not been on best form over the last few years, with Big Fish not being up to the standard of his earlier masterpieces like Edward Scissorhands and his “re-imagining” of Planet of the Apes being, even to his most ardent fans, a load of old rubbish.
The fact that this is another Burton “re-imagining” of a favourite cult classic has led many to fear the worst, but at the same time it is a return to the kind of territory in which he has so often excelled – an eccentric loner in a weird world which allows plenty of scope for Burton’s trademark visual inventiveness. And then there’s the fact that the always excellent Johnny Depp has taken the Wonka role and really made it his own, basing it on a combination of weirdo popstar Michael Jackson and shock-rocker Marilyn Manson just as he based Pirates of the Carribean’s Jack Sparrow on Rolling Stone Keith Richards, adding promise of something truly special.
Oddly, considering this version has the boy Charlie in the title and the 1971 version opted to push Willy Wonka, whereas the child was the main focus of the earlier film, here Depp’s Wonka not only steals the show but is the main focus of the movie. Let’s face it, a reclusive and eccentric sweet manufacturer is always going to be more fun and interesting to watch than a sweet and innocent, poverty-stricken boy. So whereas Wilder’s Wonka was odd without explanation, here we are treated to flashbacks revealing the genesis of this utterly weird entrepreneur, and how he came to be living in his bizarre factory with only the dwarf-like Oompa-Loompas (complete with their song and dance numbers) for company.
This extra characterisation, missing from both book and earlier film, adds much, works superbly, and ensures that few fans of the 1971 version will resent this new take on Dahl’s tale. It also means that, in the wake of Michael Jackson’s acquittal, it will be hard not to see parallels with the erstwhile King of Pop, as Wonka is, beyond being merely just another eccentric innocent in a long line of Burton odd-ball heroes, quite uncannily like that plastic-faced megastar.
It is about time that Burton had a real return to form, and this is it – plus we’ve still got the Depp-starring, Burton-directed Corpse Bride to look forward to later in the year.
