TRON : LEGACY

Ok then, allow me – if I may – to set my stall out right from the start. I am unashamedly a Tron fan. This movie and I go waaaay back. This is another meaningful part of my childhood right here. When I was but a young lad in short trousers I owned a Tron duvet cover that was scientifically calibrated to be ‘100% awesome’. It had a picture of Tron on the duvet and lightcycles on the pillowcase. I wish I still had it. My friend, Nick Osbourne, had a fantastic LED Tron game. It played 3 different games on it which was high tech for them days! You could play a lightcycle race, the disc game and finally attempt to defeat the Master Control Program. It was the height of coolness (Nick also had a ‘Snoopy Tennis’ game which likewise very cool but that’s a story for another time). I also purchased the hardcover TRON storybook from Salmon’s Newsagent, and although I am currently unsure of its precise whereabouts, I must faithfully assume it is still somewhere in my parent’s house on account of the fact I have never authorised it for release to either charity shop nor car boot sale. It depicted the movie in storybook form complete with half page and full page stills from the film. In those heady days before the internet and dvd those movie storybooks were the next best thing and I loved them.

Anyway, having been irreparably harmed by The Phantom Menace, and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (it’s been two years but I’m still not over it. The pain is still raw) I was excited, yet subconsciously prepared for another such childhood ruining incident. I am therefore incredibly pleased to report that Tron: Legacy was GREAT!!! It was, in the words of Kevin Flynn, "Bio Electric Jazz". It was a party in my EYES and everyone was invited!

In 1989 Kevin Flynn disappears on his way to work. Leap to the present day and his son, Sam Flynn, now the absentee CEO of ENCOM, answers a mysterious page from his father’s office. Investigating the source he finds himself beamed into ‘The Grid’ where he must try to survive and bring home his trapped Father.

I have read differing reports since this came out. Most of the negative criticism revolving around the plot (or lack thereof), but I really don’t know what people were expecting. Reading the inanities of some fool on Aint It Cool News complaining that Jeff Bridges was too Lebowski-like, or missing the point of the cameo/in joke that was Cillian Murphy/Edward Dillinger, I came to realise the review really was just a big fat waste of the internet. Some people are destined to never be happy and completely miss the point of things. Perhaps Tron: Legacy will follow the path of the much maligned, yet criminally underrated Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow. Another stunningly beautiful film that makes up for minor plot flimsiness with a wealth of style, attractiveness and downright coolness that most other films can only ever pine after like a kicked dog.

I confess though, I was seduced by the visuals. But isn’t that the POINT of Tron, to a degree? I thought the design and the effects were jaw dropping, yet I relished the little details too, like the slightly distorted computer-y vocal effects, or Clu’s sidekick who looked like a cross between Lobot and one of the baddies from The Last Starfighter.

Jeff Bridges was great as always. Kevin Flynn is an idealistic old hippy and therefore you can't fail to think of The Dude. I admit when he faced off against Clu I was half expecting him to say "Well, yeah that's just like, your opinion, man"!! The CGI generated, fresh faced Jeff Bridges also worked remarkably well as Clu. Seeing as how Clu was a computer generated character within The Grid, the slightly unnatural look to him worked nicely. Garret Hedlund was solid as Sam Flynn, and Olivia Wilde mooned around for 2 hours with big doe eyes and an angular haircut and made every Tron nerd’s heart and brain explode simultaneously. Michael Sheen was superb as the Bowie-like Castor/Zuse. Stealing every scene he was in, and clearly having as much fun making the film as I had watching it.

Seeing Tron: Legacy in 3D IMAX, you really get the full benefit of how utterly STUNNING this movie looks. It made me feel a bit like the pretentious kid from American Beauty watching a plastic bag swoop around a car park on the wind. Just stop for a second and appreciate how incredible this film looks! Seeing Gem (Beau Garrett)’s mesmerising, spandex clad bum,  on a screen that was seven storey’s high (the 3rd largest in the World, no less) makes you realise what a wonderful World we live in. As the boffins toiled away for many moons (no pun intended) to develop the 3D technology, I wonder if they could ever have envisioned how it would have been put to such perfect a use as this. I’m sure you will join me next year in putting forward the names of those scientists for a Nobel Prize nomination. Humanity as a whole benefits from this.

From the moment the titles rolled, I was down with this movie. When the Lightcycles appeared for the first time I was grinning from ear to ear like a lunatic. The Daft Punk score is killer. Perfect almost. They put in a cameo at Castor’s sexy computer party, and channel the long lost mojo of John Carpenter. If there is any doubt from you at this point, let me spell it out: this is an exceedingly wonderful thing!

(As an aside I like to think that perhaps John Carpenter lost his movie mojo after going for a swim. Having completed his last great work, They Live, he popped into the local council swimming baths on the way home to do a few lengths. Having towelled off, dried his wavy 80’s lion hair, and sculpted his Fu Manchu moustache into its proper glory, I conceive that he got up to leave taking the wrong bag home with him! Instead of the bag containing his movie mojo, he returned home with someone’s wet swimming trunks and has, for the last 20 odd years, been making movies with a pair of damp speedos in the stead of his own raging cinematic genius. It would explain a great many things. Quite how this happened however, we can never be 100% certain. I like to think he picked up a similar looking, but incorrect bag. Perhaps it was the type of standard issue waterproof duffel bag we were issued in primary school. Perhaps it had a picture of a footballer on the front in order to make it more exciting. Whatever actually happened, it means John Carpenter’s mojo may still be in that municipal pool. Perhaps chucked on top of a locker by a school bully, or resting peacefully at the bottom of the changing room urinal alongside a solitary, moulded stud, Gola football boot.)

Finally I liked how it was titled Tron: Legacy and not something dreadfully unimaginative like Tron 2. Whenever there is a dismal numerical sequel title (hello ‘Die Hard 4.0’), all I can ever think about is Saul Rubinek’s quote from True Romance: “I have more taste in my penis”!

The title also helped the movie feel, not like a sequel, but like an extension of the story. The whole thing looked top to bottom phenomenal, and as a sequel, even though the story wasn't the strongest, it WORKED in the context of the first and didn't feel cheap! It was refreshing to see some last vestige of my childhood movie love not shit upon for a change, as well as being thoroughly enjoyable all round.

IMDB: Tron : Legacy

BUNNY AND THE BULL

This is a real gem of a film from director Paul King, whose work on the Mighty Boosh seems to have served, rather unfairly, as the main marketing point for this movie. There’s some Boosh styled silliness for sure and Noel Fielding and Julian Barrett provide laughs in some excellent supporting roles, but any comparisons would be misleading because the film is a warm, funny, inspired vision that is equal parts as amusing as it is poignant; and it should be judged very much on it’s own inventive merits.

It’s a tale told in flashback by Stephen, a lonely shut-in, recounting his travels around Europe with best mate Bunny, and Eloisa the fiery Spanish waitress they meet along the way. Essentially the film is a journey around Stephen’s mind with fantastic flourishes of imagination – a seafood restaurant is quite literally sketched out behind them, a horse race rendered in Captain Pugwash styled animation,  or the fearsome bull of the title depicted as a stomping, snorting, stop-motion amalgamation of cogs and scissors. This is a visually stunning movie with a great heart, and it’s a story well told.

It is also, crucially, very funny. Some great cameos abound, from Noel Fielding’s Spanish bullfighter to Julian Barrett’s disturbing canine obsessed hobo. With Richard Ayoade’s fantastically mundane Shoe Museum guide being the real standout.

There’s a nod to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as we traverse Simon’s memories and as a comparison, Eternal Sunshine stands as good one. Both movies blend the laughs and tears of the downtrodden hero to good effect.

In trying not to give away too much, it becomes hard to give away anything at all. Although the movie is best approached that way, it may explain why it was a hard sell. Bunny and the Bull is a film that defies categorisation – is it a comedy? Is it a tragedy? The answer is both. It moves effortlessly between being deliriously funny and genuinely touching poignancy. But the most important thing to take from it is joy at a film basking in inventiveness and creativity. They have crafted a beautiful, humorous tale without straying into either weak humour nor maudlin heart-string tugging. We have a film setting out to be original and unique and largely succeeding on all counts.

This film is warm, funny and inspired and deserves to be seen by anyone craving an example of film with boundless humour and imagination. For my money, it’s one of the films of the year. Wonderful.

IMDB: Bunny And The Bull

THE AMERICAN

Directed by Anton Corbijn (who made the excellent Joy Division biopic Control) and starring George Clooney. The American is a very slow burn take on a conventional assassin-tries-to-leave-life-of-crime-behind movie.

It’s a slow, tense and arresting movie. After a stunning opening sequence, from which you feel like almost ANYTHING could happen, we follow Clooney’s ‘American’ into hiding in a small Italian town. The slowness of the film works very nicely from here on in, ratcheting up and grinding out the tension toward the movie’s inevitable finale.

In parts it is reminiscent of The Day of the Jackal, as Jack/Edward (Clooney) slowly constructs and tests the weapon he is building. His assassin’s life is one of meticulous solitude, and Corbijn makes the construction of this fearsome bespoke weapon look like beautiful craftsmanship in the hands of a master artisan.

Clooney’s character is a total blank. By the end of the movie we know virtually nothing more about him than we did at the start, other than a few (mostly implied) base facts. We learn early on that he is a solitary man, who will make the necessary hard decisions in order to keep things that way. However as he whiles away the days in the sleepy Italian town, his final job seeing him fashion a weapon in isolated seclusion, against his better judgement he finds himself with not only a friend, in the shape of the portly local priest; but also a super hot Italian sexpot girlfriend (Violante Placido) who lives her life with a typically Euro ‘clothes optional’ outlook.

Anton Corbijn has, unsurprisingly, a great eye for the visual. Whether the camera is lingering on Clooney’s impressive exercise regimen, peering through a car windshield at a motorway tunnel for a striking credit sequence, or taking in a bird’s eye view of the stunning Italian landscapes - like a feature film version of the ‘Earth From Above’ book –  the film is quite often fantastic to look at. If the story itself is perhaps a tad generic – hitman trying to leave ‘the life’ – then it is done with a panache that renders any genre staples as merely minor concerns.

Some berk in the cinema loudly denounced it as ‘shit’ the minute the credits rolled, but the more I think back on this movie, the more I like it. It’s almost like an art house action movie! For all of it’s slow pace, the attention never wanders, and at the end of it we are left with an enigmatic, stylish take on the hit man movie.

IMDB: The American

SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD

Let us be clear from the start. George A. Romero can rightfully lay claim to the status of ‘legendary’. His peerless, stunning, horror-classic triple whammy of Night Of The Living Dead, Dawn Of The Dead and Day Of The Dead have him rightfully revered across the globe. Those films are every bit as good as their reputation would have you believe and he should rake in the plaudits for the rest of his natural life and beyond.

Something, however, is rotten in Denmark.  Land Of The Dead was a towering disappointment. Diary Of The Dead was one of the most turgid pieces of crapulence I’ve ever had the misfortune to suffer through, and now here we have Survival Of The Dead, which I am sorry to say continues Mr Romero on his downward trajectory.

A gang of faux military survivors find themselves headed toward an island in order to take refuge from the zombie hordes. The island is essentially controlled by two feuding family men and the survivors find themselves caught up in the middle of it all.

At times Survival Of The Dead dared to suggest it might end up being halfway decent. Unfortunately it got quickly bogged down in a mess of appalling stereotypes, shit C.G.I., lame 'big noise scares' (come on George you're better than that), and a totally dumbfuck plot. The lowest ebb occurs when you think a main character has been killed, only to discover that they have, I shit you not, an identical twin!!!!

On the plus side it wasn't as bad as Diary of the Dead, but then neither are 99.9% of all the films ever made in the history of the Universe.

I really don’t know what to make of Mr George A. Romero these days. I had compared his recent career to George Lucas, and his own one man mission to destroy every bit of goodwill that people still harbour for him. But at least George Romero isn’t going back and tinkering with his own movies, or kicking a fond childhood memory square in the ballbag. So comparisons to the devil George Lucas are still a ways off. George Romero is still at least TRYING to recapture what made him great in the first place. And I appreciate that, I really do. At the risk of mixing my metaphors, if George Lucas is the Emperor, then George A. Romero is Darth Vader – I sense there is still good left in him.

Nevertheless Romero does seem to be following the ‘John Carpenter 2 Point Career Progression Plan’:

1) Make stunning, genre defining films of complete unparalleled awesomeness.
2) Suddenly and without warning, go completely shit.

It may be best for all concerned if Mr George A. Romero were to drift gracefully into retirement. He doesn’t have to get a ‘real job’. No one wants that. But based on his early works, here is a man who should never have to buy another drink or steak dinner for the rest of his life. Combine that with a couple of conventions a year and he’d be all set.

It must be noted that Survival Of The Dead is at least watchable, which is more than can be said for Diary Of The Dead, but when you compare it to Romero’s back catalogue it’s just not cutting the mustard.

IMDB: Survival Of The Dead

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD

To sum it up this film is one long, 2 hour-odd shouty argument, made to feel as if it lasts for about 15 billion years! Two married arseholes, hector back and forth at each other about their first world problems until you just can't take any more of it. It's full of 'emoting' and the sort of bellowed monologue that is like catnip to the serious actor. No doubt when the script came through both Winslet and DiCaprio probably thought it had 'Oscar' written through it like a stick of rock. Unfortunately the dialogue is the kind of preachy eulogising that nobody in reality actually ever speaks like, and whilst I concede the time period was far more rigid regarding the roles of men and women in society, with two central characters who care nothing for each other, it begs the question of why the fuck should the audience? Tedious.

IMDB: Revolutionary Road

SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD

Based on a comic book series which uncharacteristically, I have NOT read, Edgar Wright’s third movie is the simple story of the titular Mr Pilgrim – local indie band member, ringer-T wearing, fluffy hairdo’ed hipster – who must defeat the 7 Evil Exes of his current squeeze, Ramona Flowers, if he wants to continue to woo her.

Going into this movie, I was indeed wondering if Edgar Wright could work outside of his comfort zone of a Pegg/Frost comedy vehicle? And the answer is a resounding ‘yes’. Scott Pilgrim Vs The World is HUGELY enjoyable. It rolls more like a video game than a comic book movie, with defeated villains that turn into coins, power up’s and end of level bosses. It’s wildly imaginative and wrings every ounce of inspiration into what essentially boils down to a series of fights between Michael Cera and his various nemeses.

Displaying the usual Edgar Wright jump cut flourishes, but acknowledging it as almost a trademark of his and mucking around with it somewhat (NOTE: rewatching HOT FUZZ recently, whilst a lot more enjoyable on second view, it is a bit too kinetic and OTT with it’s jump cut montages and so on, making it hard to watch in certain places. Still overall it benefits from a second view with lower expectations), the movie is a visual party with all sorts of smart, entertaining editing and graphic devices to help get us on board with Scott and his mission.

Even as an aloof, cheating, indie hipster, Michael Cera is still essentially playing Michael Cera / George-Michael Bluth / Paulie Bleeker with a slight edge to him. I can see this is beginning to wear quite thin with a lot of folk and I can certainly understand it, but in all honesty it still works for me. I like him.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead, as Ramona Flowers, the object of Scott’s affections most certainly qualifies for the adjective ‘super hot’ and it’s good to see her in a decent role for once instead of being underused like in DIE HARD 4.0 and DEATH PROOF.

Jason Schwartzman, as the villan Gideon Graves, is spot on. Although he was undeniably great in RUSHMORE, Schwartzman bugs me. I find him to be kind of smarmy. He exhibits that kind of smug twattishness that he’s exuded in everything else ever since. But it’s perfect in this instance, for a playing a smug twat!!

One of the highlights for me was Brandon Routh as the vegan Evil Ex Todd Ingram. Bestowed with super telekinetic powers by virtue of his self righteous vegan-ness. The best line in the whole movie falls to him:
“You know how you only use 10% of your brain? That’s cause the other 90% is filled up with curds and whey”

Topping things off, there is an excellent small cameo from the totally underrated Thomas Jane (of The Mist, Punisher and Hung fame), as one of the vegan police officers!

Another of the many plus points about this film is that Scott Pilgrim’s band, Sex Bob-Omb are actually pretty good! But it should be pointed out at this juncture that any ‘try-hard’ band that goes out and ACTUALLY calls itself Sex Bob-Omb deserves to have their junk repeatedly slammed in successively heavy car doors, ‘fore it would be a vomitously disgusting name choice.

Still, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World is undoubtedly just one big entertaining riot of a movie. The best computer game movie, not based on a computer game. I did not expect to enjoy this half as much as I did and I honestly thought it was utterly fantastic. LOVED it. Go see.

IMDB: Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

PREDATORS

It’s been 23 years since Arnie, Jesse Ventura and Carl Weathers et al went bush in the Central American jungle to do battle with a vicious hunter from another world, and 20 years since Danny Glover and Bill Paxton mixed it up with another Predator on the streets of LA. In the intervening years the Alien Vs Predator movies sullied the great names of two of the best sci fi monsters in history.  So a proper Predator sequel was long overdue in order to restore the family name as it were. The good news is that PREDATORS delivers. It serves up exactly what you want from a Predator movie. A gang of selected mercenaries, criminals and general badasses find themselves in an alien jungle on an alien world, pitted against an unholy triumvirate of salivating Predators out to hunt them for sport. Without deviating a great deal from the original plotline PREDATORS manages to be a lot of fun without being mindblowing. It’s respectful to the original in a way in which the idiotic ‘versus’ movies were most definitely not. It captures the feel of the original and stands tall as a nice continuation of the Predator lineage. Adrien Brody is convincing as a hardboiled mercenary, and the likes of Danny Trejo and Laurence Fishburne are always good value. It's not reinventing the wheel, but then what’s wrong with the wheel? No-one has had a problem with the wheel for thousands of years. PREDATORS serves up exactly what you expect from a Predator sequel and is no less enjoyable for it. It’s good, fun sci-fi action.

IMDB: Predators

NOTE: This review is shorter, and a departure from the usual style because I wrote it as a 250-300 word entry for a competition to win passes to the Melbourne International Film Festival. So instead of my usual long winded ramble, enjoy some brevity for a change!

KICK ASS

Kick Ass is the story of wannabe superhero Dave Lizewski, a comic book obsessed nerd, who when faced with the question of ‘why don’t people become Superheroes?’ cannot think of a single good enough reason not to nut up and give it a go himself. Not even a near death beating at the hands of some thugs and severe hospitalisation can stack up enough in the ‘negative column’, and so he dons a dark green wetsuit and claims the moniker ‘Kick Ass’.

After his second foray into the world of masked vigilantism, a bystander records his exploits, uploads it to the internet and before he knows it Kick Ass is a phenomenon. But fame also brings infamy, and the attentions of the local mafia boss Frank D’Amico, who doesn’t want costumed heroes horning in on his racket.  Added to this mix are a brutal daughter/father crime fighting team known as Hit Girl and Big Daddy, and a mysterious and equally popular masked hero by the name of Red Mist.

This is of course the movie the Daily Mail threw one of its trademark ‘ban this sick filth’ hissyfits about courtesy of a 10 year old girl getting shot, slicing up bad guys with a ninja sword, and uttering the word ‘cunt’. Watching director Matthew Vaughn sit incredulously on The One Show sofa while Adrian Chiles and that bland woman jabbered on about how it seemed like an amoral film despite only one of them having actually seen it (and admitting to finding it funny to boot), was yet another stunning indictment that the World is heading inescapably toward a reality previously only seen in Mike Judge’s IDIOCRACY.

Kick Ass is additionally, and far more interestingly, based on a toweringly superior comic book. Yes, the movie is fun. Great fun, in point of fact. You simply can’t go wrong with a 10 year old massacring bad guys to the tune of The Dickies ‘Banana Splits’, or Nicholas Cage battering the hell out of a massive cadre of mobsters in one single-take epic beatdown. However, the thing that was most disappointing about the Kick Ass movie is that when you read the comic you can see what it COULD have been. And whilst the movie is good, it could have been so much more! Despite all its coolness the movie struggles to climb out of generic superhero territory. All the brilliant aspects of the comic that took it away from standard origin fare, infusing a healthy dose of reality and elevating it above the obvious or the predictable seem to have been excised from the script.

I really try to roll spoiler free on this blog wherever possible, but there’s no way to make my point about the movie versus the comic here without giving the game away. So before you click the little box below, I urge you strongly to see the film and read the book. But if you’re not one for good advice, then fairly warned be thee, says I - there lie spoilers ahead:

Spoilers:

Kick Ass/Dave never kills anyone in the book. And it’s better this way. This is because Dave is a normal teenage comic nerd. He probably couldn’t kill anyone if he tried. Hit Girl can, and does, because she has been trained most her life to do it and it’s normal to her. There’s no rocket pack sequence. Dave doesn’t suddenly go badass and kill people left right and centre. He can’t do it. And he doesn’t. It’s out of character for him to do so.

The Big Daddy character is not an ex cop like in the film. In the comic this seemingly predictable genre cliché turns out to be a cover story for the fact he is a highly delusional, mentally disturbed comic nerd (like Dave but better prepared) who kidnapped his daughter under the misguided pretext of wanting to give her an exciting life!! Financing their crime fighting via the sale of ultra rare comics, they selected the mob boss at random. The ex-cop story was a front and entirely untrue.

In both book and movie Dave moons after Katie Deauxma, and as she mistakenly assumes he is gay finds himself haplessly playing along and perpetuating the lie that he is her gay best friend. The principal difference is that the movie opts for a schmaltzy, corny, and let’s face it highly unrealistic resolution which sees Katie fall for him after he confesses he has been lying to her. The book handles it far better, with a bitter dose of reality. Having laid his heart on the line to Katie and admitted he’s not really gay she rightly takes umbrage with the fact he has been lying to her for months and tells him to go fuck himself. The hero does not get the girl. The hero gets dumped, thumped and lonely.

To a degree it almost feels like the filmmakers completely missed the point as to what made the comic great.  There was nothing they omitted from the book that could not have worked on the screen, and so therefore I can’t really think of any reason for them to have made those choices other than incomprehension of the source material. And knowing what they had to work with in terms of the book, I felt there was quite a large bit of room for improvement.

Nevertheless, and don’t get me wrong, this film is a lot of fun. Enjoyable, and one of the better movies of 2010 so far. Nicholas Cage, Mark Strong and Chloe Moretz are all riotously good. So in conclusion, it’s funny, violent and entertaining, which are the majority of your bases covered. Despite its flaws Kick Ass still comes recommended and is definitely worth a watch.

IMDB: Kick Ass

IRON MAN 2

It’s fair comment, to say that I was a HUGE fan of the first IRON MAN, is quite the understatement. I utterly LOVED that movie. As a background I like comics, I used to read Marvel as a young lad, I have enjoyed mostly all of the recent spate of comic book movies (EVEN Daredevil and Ghostrider!), and it was totally and completely ‘my cup of tea’. As far as the Marvel adaptations go, in fact as far as the Superhero comic book movies go, the first IRON MAN was the STAR WARS of the genre. The cream of the crop, the bees knees, the icing on the cake. I loved it, you dig?

So on then to IRON MAN 2 which is basically more of the same, and in my book that is a very very very good thing. Now you can wax lyrical about important films, and moving films, and socio political films and as well you should. Cinema should be about that. It should be challenging and should ask questions of you and treat you with intelligence. There are of course other times when cinema should be FUN. And IRON MAN and IRON MAN 2 are just a pure masterclass in enjoyable cinema. It does exactly what you want from an IRON MAN film. It’s no good coming away from this movie and criticising its politics or for being too gung-ho, as I saw one ridiculous local paper do, because you’re missing the point entirely.  It’s about a superhero in a metal suit. It delivers in spades what summer blockbuster after summer blockbuster just cannot seem to manage. It’s cool and it’s fun and it rules. Hard.

The story picks up immediately after the end of the first movie and concerns a three pronged attack on Tony Stark/Iron Man.  Firstly the military trying to commandeer his Iron Man technology, secondly the ruthless Ivan Vanko seeking vengeance on the Stark family, and thirdly the fact that the Arc Reactor that keeps Tony Stark alive and powers the Iron Man suit is very slowly poisoning him.

Tony Stark is as narcissistic as ever. Still a rich dick, but this time motivated by trying to help humanity as a whole. He will still bask in the glory of enforcing World peace though, and is enjoying his IRON MAN fame as if he were a rock star.  There are hints of his recklessness, and nods perhaps toward the famous alcoholism of the comic. But for the time being this Tony Stark is still just about in control.

I had never really been that fond of Robert Downey Jr in the past. Stemming mainly from his performance in the abjectly wretched NATURAL BORN KILLERS.  But with IRON MAN he is a revelation. He IS Tony Stark, and once again he is fantastic in this second film. Likewise Scarlett Johansson’s ubiquity has often left me cold. Whilst I liked her in Ghost World, Lost In Translation and Vicky Christina Barcelona, it often feels like you can’t open a magazine or turn on the telly or even pass a bus shelter without her blank expression vacating out at you from an advertisement for perfume or one of the billion films she’s made – she must work 365 days a year!! That said, I thought she was good in IRON MAN 2, and her fighting was especially convincing.

Don Cheadle was great as Rhodey/Warmachine. Barring his useless English accent in Oceans 11, he is never anything less than excellent and should frankly have been the first choice from the get go. Gwyneth Paltrow was also excellent again as Pepper Potts, and John Favreau gives himself more screen time this time around and it was more enjoyable for it.

For the villans, Mickey Rourke was good, but upstaged by Sam Rockwell who at times could have walked off with the movie. If Rockwell has ever been in a bad film then I’m yet to see it. His addition to the IRON MAN cast was a triumph. If you like nothing else in this film you have got to love his weapons speech – “if this thing was any smarter it would write a book... and then it would read it to you”. Brilliant.

If there is a minor gripe, it’s that both films have essentially relied on a villain in a similarly powered super suit to fight Iron Man at the end. I think a third instalment would benefit from some variety there. But it really is a small gripe. IRON MAN 2 is as thoroughly enjoyable as the first one, and as far as cool, enjoyable, downright entertaining cinema goes, the IRON MAN movies are peerless.

IMDB: IRON MAN 2

Also, check out these incredible posters for IRON MAN 2. The first of which is by the super awesome Tyler Stout (and I wish I had been able to get this before it sold out at light speed) and the second is by the equally awesome Mike Saputo (which I did manage to get my grubby mitts on!)

THE DARJEELING LIMITED

Now this was a strange one. I went to see this at the movies when it came out, full of fanboy exuberance, and really did not care for it much at all. I re-watched it on dvd and it was like watching a different movie. I utterly loved it!

I can’t really explain the drastic differences in my opinion from first watch to second, other than assuming certain mitigating factors coloured my judgement the first time around.

For starters I am a big Wes Anderson fan. Rushmore sits in or around my top 10 of all time, and The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic were both complete and utter joy.  As a 33 year old I have never grown out of that Christmas Day Syndrome, whereby I build up something I’m looking forward to, to the point of overexcitement – be it a band (Framtid) or movie (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull). Then either rabid enthusiasm or crushing disappointment ensues.

Secondly, my enjoyment the first time around was dulled by cinema idiots. The kind of art house douche that is at pains to illustrate how much they ‘get’ the film more than anyone else. The ‘fake art-house laugh’™ is almost as nerve grating as the drink slurping, sweet rustling multiplex cattle. In this instance a middle aged hippy woman, sat next to me, drinking a herbal tea and laughing out loud at a light switch being turned on! That’s not a ‘joke’. Laughing at something no one else is laughing at doesn’t mean you’re understanding the movie on a deeper level, it means you’re a cretin.

Anyway, Wes Anderson’s fifth movie concerns 3 brothers, reunited in India, a year after the death of their father. Taking a journey on the eponymous train, the goal is to connect again as brothers and (like all good backpackers in India) ‘find themselves’. 

The movie kicks off with a self contained ‘part one’ – Hotel Chevalier. This focuses on Jason Schwartzman and his ex-girlfriend Natalie Portman.  There’s a large amount of mystery over precisely what happened/is happening between them. What makes it cool is that the full back story is clearly there – but as the audience you’re only a party to a portion of it. It doesn’t feel like its ambiguity is contrived, or that it was written with the intent to confuse or simply for the sake of being enigmatic. Moreover, watching it feels like you’re scratching the surface of a fleshed out relationship between the two characters, but you only need this snippet of their typical interaction in order to better understand the events in ‘part 2’.

The movie (and train) moves ahead, charting their story in a typically styled Wes Anderson universe.  The story and its little touches excel, like the camera exploring the train in much the same way as the boat was investigated in The Life Aquatic. The soundtrack, as much a part of the movie as it would be in a Scorsese or Tarantino flick. A cameo from an Anderson favourite. And the successful mix of genuinely funny humour and pathos.

Watching the Darjeeling Limited again, bereft of all baggage (unlike the brothers and their matching luggage) I enjoyed it thoroughly.  Superb.

IMBD: THE DARJEELING LIMITED

AVATAR

Righto, let’s see what all the fuss about Avatar is then. I felt I had to go see this thing in 3D, which naturally requires a trip to the movie house.  Of late I have come to despise the larger cinemas, because the presence of the incessant talking, crunching, noise making, head-hurtingly selfish ‘Great’ British public, soils the enjoyment of the film with the taste of caustic bile. Thusly a cold Tuesday night at the cinema furthest out of town was deemed to be the best time and place to attend. And it largely worked. There were no real problems to sully the experience; not counting the stupid layout of the cinema which posits each seat directly behind the one in front - instead of the more logical shift to the side so one can see between the gap in the seats - in case one is unfortunately seated behind a basketball player or a child with a ‘virtual planetoid’ perched on top of their neck.

Much hoo-ha has been made by Mr James Cameron about his groundbreaking 3D technology, but off the bat I should mention that as a child, on a family holiday to Walt Disney World MGM studios I did happen to see an excellent Muppet feature which employed PRECISELY the same 3D technology as evidenced in Avatar. Empire magazine mentioned Cameron’s Terminator 3D ride as being the genesis for Avatar’s groundbreaking effects, but that in itself was clearly just carrying on the work from Muppets 3D. Hell, even Michael Jackson got in on this 3D lark decades ago with Captain Eo, so it’s not like this is brand new or anything. (Incidentally I’m sure I saw on the news (ok, ok Newsround) that they were resurrecting Captain Eo in light of Michael Jackson’s demise? Which is interesting considering no one would touch him (pun intended) when they thought he was a sex pest.)

Anyway, onward to this Avatar review. I would say most of what has been already said and written about it is accurate. The plot is thin and predictable. It could have been bashed out in five minutes on the back of a napkin.  Crippled marine Jake Sully travels in his brothers stead, to the densely forested planet of Pandora to participate in the Avatar programme, and help to secure mining rights for the ravaged Earth he has left behind. He soon finds himself indentifying more with the natives than his own ‘Sky People’, as they attempt to take Pandora by force.

There were some great, interesting aspects of the mythology. I loved how the Na’vi bonded with the creatures and the forest itself through these sort of strands connected to their bodies. They could feel and understand the animals and forest. It was a nice idea and very well conveyed. The idea and execution of the Avatars themselves was nice too. The intriguing idea of being able to inhabit another body, played out very well against the opposing backdrops of a military stronghold and a tribal village in the jungle.

There were times when, at first, it seemed derivative – for example huge human mech walkers which initially brought to mind the Matrix – until it dawns upon you that Cameron pretty much invented that for the movies with the ‘loaders’ in ALIENS, and the Matrix was ripping off HIM! The Aliens theme continued in the form of Giovanni Ribisi’s character, who was basically Carter Burke from Aliens. He was even called Parker which made the glaring similarities to Paul Reiser’s character shine through like a white dwarf.

Further on the downside, the central plot  concerned some wildly naff ‘noble savage’ / earth worshipping stuff that would make even the most new age of hippies blush into his tie dye and shrink into his Birkenstocks.

But for all the things that didn’t work, there was some truly seamless CGI scenery and exciting action, that you just can’t discount in terms of the thrill and vision of it all. The Na’vi bonding and riding with the Banshees produced some genuinely vertigo-inducing flight sequences. Swooping through the canopy and above the mountains at a dizzying speed. Whilst in the tiny details the movie relishes the imaginatively conjured botany and ecosystem of Pandora.

Initially I did not really know what to make of Avatar. There’s much to love, and likewise much that left me cold. But there’s no denying it was an entertaining watch. Nowhere near Camerons best work, but it’s impossible not enjoy the sheer spectacle of it.

IMDB: AVATAR