Brave

PG, 2012, Directed by Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman
Starring: Kelly Macdonald, Emma Thompson, Billy Connolly, Kevin McKidd

  Toys, Monsters, Superheroes, Cars, Waste-collecting robots; the Pixar list goes on, and will continue to do so as long as Pixar effortlessly manage to sustain their excellence, amidst some signs of - not so much stalling, than slowing down (the critical derision of Cars 2 from everybody bar 8-year old boys forms the integrity of that statement.) Fresh ideas may be sapping, with their last original offering being 2009’s Up - as well as two more sequels in the works - but with Pixar, (emphasis on the word 'but',) there’ll never be any empirical reason to lose faith.

 

Their latest, however, faces challenges: people have become content revisiting beloved characters, whether it’s Woody, Buzz or Lightning McQueen. Somewhat interestingly, one common link between the entire Pixar back-catalogue is that female leads are pretty scarce. So perhaps in an attempt to prove they are still the leading animated classic-churner in the movie kingdom, head honchos unveil Brave: an original fairytale about a Princess. Set in Scotland. It is fair to say excitement has been lower on the league table than with previous outings - with production troubles meaning female director Brenda Chapman and title The Bear and the Bow departed the shoot, paving the way for Mark Andrews to take the reigns - but it is very probable this may have worked in its advantage. After a solid opening proves that there is no fear in making the younger audience members fly off seats in fright, it grows ever apparent that Pixar still defy fear to transcend what is expected of them. Using their princess protagonist as a tool, Merida is a force to be reckoned with. Enduring her expectant day-to-day princess rituals, she showcases her desire for adventure through narration and visual spectacle that further prove Pixar can deprive you of breath easier than CG-driven live action set-pieces. Voiced by Kelly Macdonald, she is the heart and soul of the piece, with reliance on the audience taking to this character to embrace the end product. If at first you are put off by the talky folklore dialogue and Merida’s reckless attitude, by the film’s end you will more than likely have accepted her, not just down to the fire-haired teenage princess’s trajectory. The support surrounding her each select their attempts to show-steal; Billy Connolly’s King Fergus, a peg-legged booze-guzzler, or even Emma Thompson’s Queen Elinor, who gets embroiled into the film’s overarching plot in a way one genuinely might not expect via Julie Walters' bizarrly-concepted witch. 

Strip everything back however, and Brave – whether you like it or not – falls short of the mark. Perhaps this is due to the instant-classic nature of the studio’s previous, downright braver, efforts. But Brave’s most noble element is its insistence on not trying to better what has come before, instead opting to provide something on a smaller-scale than what no doubt will come next (Monsters, Inc. gets the prequel treatment next summer in Monsters University.) Meaning it's easier to embrace the film’s redeeming qualities, threatening to glow even brighter with a re-watch – if Brave even lingers long enough in your brain to warrant another.

The world sits even tighter for the return of Sully and Wazowski.

3.5/5

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The Dark Knight Rises

12, 2012, Directed by Christopher Nolan

Starring: Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Gary Oldman

When Christopher Nolan unveiled his incarnation of the caped crusader upon the unsuspecting world in 2005’s Batman Begins, it is doubtful that anybody – let’s craftily include Warner Bros in that – anticipated the extent to which Nolan’s talents would enthral the globe. The Dark Knight followed in 2008, resetting the precedent to a seemingly-insurmountable height (not solely due to the late Heath Ledger’s unforgettable Academy Award-winning turn as The Joker); and now The Dark Knight Rises, the final part of Nolan’s ‘planned’ trilogy of Batman films, providing closure on an epic scale to a series of films, that has already edged its way into the history books (record-breaking sales for the BFI Imax – days before release.) It may be easy to assume that this is going to be a showstopper...but the question remains, is it much cop?

Four words: Of course it is.

The beauty of the trilogy is that these have not merely been Batman films, but Chris Nolan films, a true filmmaker in the purest sense. This guy, in an industry progressively growing more obsessed with 3D, refreshingly sets out to craft standalone flicks as they were always meant to be seen. Not to say The Dark Knight Rises stands on its own two feet, mind; if Begins was the prologue that moulded Bruce Wayne into more than just a billionaire playboy that dons a batsuit, but something the past entries in the sparse Bat universe have somewhat lacked: a character, then The Dark Knight took Wayne’s ideals and, through The Joker, pushed them to the very edge of what he believed in most. This means Rises is the (164 minute) epilogue, profiling the conclusion to Bruce Wayne’s story, concluding where the previous left off but coming full circle also to tie up loose ends you never imagined required tying.

From the offset, the feeling of finality feels imminent with every new scene. This is helped largely, perhaps, by the big bad at the centre of the piece: Bane. Churning out dialogue behind a horrifying-looking mask that only Nolan would be brave enough to put on a central villain in the most anticipated film of the year, Tom Hardy does all that is needed using his voice over expression. Yes, it might be difficult to hear what he’s bleedin’ saying sometimes, but you can tell from the reactions of peripheral characters that it probably isn’t nice. And all the more reason for a re-watch, to catch what you might not have heard before. An element depicted to near-perfection here is the overwhelming danger surrounding Bruce Wayne; it is staggeringly difficult to recall the last film witnessed where you truly fear for the hero’s safety as unrelentingly as you do here. Bane is a monster, a monster that wants – and probably could – break the Batman. Here, an unstoppable force seriously does meet an immovable object.

Welcome returns from Michael Caine's loyal and emotionally-invested butler Alfred providing much of the film’s (at times) overwhelming emotion, an enlarged role for Morgan Freeman's Lucius Fox (handed one of the film's best lines), not to mention Gary Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon, haunted by the lie he covered up to protect the name of Harvey Dent. But of the mix-bag of new characters introduced, the standout - and surprisingly, yet savvily most underused - is awarded to Anne Hathaway’s Selina Kyle. Crucially never once referred to as Catwoman, she is - as you’d expect from Nolan’s Gotham - grounded with a form of rationality, a feisty, charismatic thief who sets the screen alight and successfully saves the comic tone for when it is needed. But be under no allusion - this film is dark. Mention to Nolan-alumni Joseph Gordon-Levitt (as good, young cop John Blake) and Marion Cotillard (love and business interest, Miranda Tate) who both slot into proceedings well, regardless of fear of one too many new characters being introduced. These characters, at times, both aid Bruce in reminding him what his father taught him: why do we fall?

'So we can learn to pick ourselves up’. Or, in other words, Rise.

And when Bale’s Dark Knight Rises, he soars. The action is ramped up, with Nolan further proving he can shoot an on-location fistfight between a thousand extras as fluidly as he can shoot a conversation between two - without losing momentum, either. It is the merging of these two elements that have shaped these series of films into the phenomenon they are, with every viewer hanging on every word the brothers Nolan put into their script, co-written with David S. Goyer; Rises is an episode fans have been waiting on for four years.

When all is said and done, the trilogy's conclusion must sadly draw to its inevitable close before outstaying its welcome. Once the film's visually emotive and resonant final climax transpires in an ending (kind of) not dissimilar to that of Inception, with Hans Zimmer’s two-note Batman motif bursting from the speakers consequently leaving all hairs on the back of your neck on end – only then will it hit you with the force of Bane’s fist: Nolan has not only reinvented a franchise, but a genre – and with it, crafted what will endure as the defining trilogy of our generation.

5/5 

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The Woman in Black

2012, 12, Directed by James Watkins

Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Ciarán Hinds, Janet McTeer, Roger Allam

For anyone who has seen the stage play of Susan Hill’s chiller, you will be certain that The Woman in Black requires a great amount of courage to witness without peeking through your fingers, but also a lead with enough scope and credible chops to make cautiously opening doors and being genuinely terrified seem fresh with every scene. Step forward, erm, Daniel Radcliffe, ready to prove he isn’t just the scar-bearing Boy Who Lived, but lawyer Arthur Kipps, a widowed father tasked with sorting out the belongings of Alice Drablow in a house where things don’t just go bump in the night, but a whole lot more.

Let’s get this out the way: Radcliffe is good. He charges his way through the film with grace amongst the chaos that will undoubtedly make you jump, but quite bluntly will either petrify you or bore you. He carries the film – although any more heavy lifting thrown his way, and the struggle may have been effervescent. Kipps has lost his wife to childbirth and is a loyal father to his sole son (who you will be forgiven for thinking looks more suited to be his  younger brother). Yes, you care for the character, and yes, you fear for his safety. Commendation then to Jane Goldman, who has again proved she can write effective screenplays from respected source material (and can make a rocking chair the single spookiest thing on earth.)

But by the time the film’s divisive climax comes about, whether you’ll remember much about the whole affair long afterwards is somewhat debatable.Still, after becoming the most successful British horror flick in 20 years, and with a sequel already in the works, The Woman in Black evidently has a huge audience that will continue to lap up the antics. It's fair to say that there is a lot to sink your teeth into, but could do with more to chew on.

3/5

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Young Adult

2011, 15, Directed by Jason Reitman
Starring: Charlize Theron, Patrick Wilson, Patton Oswalt, Elizabeth Reaser

Jason Reitman’s latest is quite similar to his previous forays into filmmaking, which has established him as somebody who likes to select an actor, then brandish them on screen for pretty much the entire running time. Aaron Eckhart in Thank You for Smoking; George Clooney in Up in the Air; he even went so far as to carve a star out of Ellen Page in Juno, the latter in which he teamed up with credible oscar-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody to churn out an ever-quotable tale about teen pregnancy. Re-teaming with Cody, Reitman’s Young Adult has much of the same appeal, but with a hint of tragedy. The person to take centre stage here is Charlize Theron, delivering yet another performance that could be branded ‘career best’. Here, she plays Mavis Gary, a thirty-something young adult novelist who ventures back to her hometown in Minnesota upon hearing that her childhood sweetheart, Buddy (Patrick Wilson) is now happily married with a child. For someone who carries the film, Mavis’ redeeming qualities are hard to come by; if she’s not fast-food scoffing or coke-guzzling, she’s necking shots or poking fun at a crippled man she barely remembers from her school days (a role with which comedian Patton Oswalt provides unlikely heart and soul in a film largely lacking in optimism.) Tasking herself with basically wrecking the happiness of somebody she still believes she loves, the embarrassing futility of her situation eventually pays off when, in what one could assume is a perfectly nuanced scene from Reitman, Cody and everybody in front of the camera, you realise how deeply scarred our protagonist actually is. It is to Cody’s credit that she ditches the Hollywood detox of unhappiness usually required to ensure an upbeat ending. Instead, as Reitman draws the film to a close with no fear of outstaying its welcome, the overarching feeling of pessimism may come out of nowhere to slap you in the face, luckily with Theron’s performance shining brighter than you ever could imagine. 

4/5 

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The Hunger Games

2012, 12, Directed by Gary Ross
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Woody Harrelson, Stanley Tucci

Teenagers placed in peril amongst a dangerous world unfamiliar to our own, with possible love triangles and bursts of action to boot. It would be no effort to dismiss The Hunger Games as the new Twilight on the block with the wave of the hands and an eye-roll. That would be a grave mistake.

Adapted from Suzanne Collins’ mega-selling trilogy opener of the same name (the author of which shares co-screenwriting duties, eliminating sub-plots enjoyable for reading in your back garden, but best left omitted on screen for the sake of your bladder), Gary Ross directs his depiction of District 12, one of many that comprise a dystopian North America after a rebellion gone wrong – albeit one at the lower end of the food chain, if you will. With immediacy, we are informed of the context of this world and how said rebellion brought about the titular Hunger Games, an annual event whereby two teenagers from each District are hand-picked to combat each other in an arena until one ‘lucky’ survivor remains – and it just so happens that this event is a television viewing phenomenon all the world round; Big Brother meets Battle Royale.

Katniss Everdeen is with who we are led through this experience with, slumming it out in her under-privileged District, killing squirrels in exchange for a single slice of bread. Winter’s Bone 2? Strangely not far off the mark, due to the ideal casting of up-and-coming superstar Jennifer Lawrence. She is our eyes, our ears. It becomes near impossible to ponder any other young actress (she’s 20) who it would be as little effort to endure 142 minutes with. Whatever Lawrence conveys, the audience feel its full effect, meaning that Katniss will linger in the memory once you’ve left the multiplex. This isn’t to say that there are not a few more aces in the pack: Stanley Tucci as the facially-tweaked pristine host of festivities, Caesar Flickerman), does his best smarmy, yet somehow charming grin ensuring you want to shake his hand and punch his face in equal measure; Elizabeth Banks proving she has strings to her bow as Effie Trinket, the fame obsessed ‘celebrity’ who gets to pick the tributes’ names out at the Reaping; and Woody Harrelson as drunken, obnoxious previous District 12 winner, Haymitch. All do oddball very well, and when this is combined with Gary Ross’ off-kilter shaky camerawork, the entire product feels largely offbeat. In terms of making The Hunger Games stand out from the crowd, Ross nails it.

Structured in such a way that the running time flies by (a few other films could benefit from this achievement) this invariably leads to some would-be classic moments feeling rushed, scrambled and not nearly as emotive as they should be. Granted, for a film that includes 24 teenagers fighting to the death, time cannot be delegated in forming an attachment with each one – especially when Katniss is our decided heroine. But delegation should have occurred more effectively with Josh Hutcherson’s Peeta Mellark, Katniss’ fellow District 12 tribute. His true intentions provide much speculation in the book, but seem to have been somewhat misplaced in the translation to screen making it difficult to form any opinion on the guy.

In any other case, these squabbles would hinder the enjoyment of the film. But here we have a blistering opener and a successful introduction to the universe of Panem. The beauty of The Hunger Games’ potential stems from the way in which a widespread appeal combines with questions that arise being relevant to today’s society. Rather than being conducted in an obvious manner, instead it will leave thoughts strong in your mind afterwards.

The Hunger Games will leave you peckish for more.

 3.5/5

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Battleship

12, 2012, Directed by Peter Berg
Starring: Taylor Kitsch, Brooklyn Decker, Rihanna, Liam Neeson

When a film is promoted as coming from ‘the same company that brought you Transformers’, there is good reason to be wary. Hasbro is that company, and their latest money-making venture (c’mon, why else would they promote it that way?!) is a film version of the love-it-or-hate-it game Battleships, as seen by Friday Night Light’s creator and Hancock director, Peter Berg.

The film takes an early misstep with Berg making the fatal error of painting his world and the worn out characters that fill it as loveable comedic buffoons, even going as far as to include the Pink Panther theme as part of the soundtrack to enhance the hilarity of an extraordinarily bizarre opening segment to what is promised to be an effects-driven action flick. The error be fatal due to the attempted veer in the direction of seriousness when the alien life forms that prove trouble for our navy fleet make one hell of a splash on earth. Taking these characters seriously proves troublesome in itself, hindered even more so by the dialogue (written by brother’s Eric and Jon Hoeber) that is so disastrously clunky, it could sink ships no matter what battle was thrown its way (perhaps this was realised, leading to an exchange where a scientist responds to a certain patriotic line by quipping 'who says that?'). All the acting talent do their best with what they have, which happens to be not a lot. Lead Taylor Kitsch as Hopper manages to escape without being as unlikeable as he should be – kudos to him.

It is fearful that everybody involved feels that they are involved in something of a game-changer; a blockbuster to rival rich vigilantes, men dressed in black and those Avengers. Okay, so the entire affair is not an unbearable one, with Berg proving he can capture impressively crafted effects-driven action that the most uninterested person wouldn’t roll their eyes at, as well as a few (read very few) scenes of promise (not to mention an out-there scene where the fleet adopt the actual rules of the game Battleships in an attempt to save the world... and you know, justify the film.) But everything else is too lacklustre to make it count; not even Neeson can salvage this. At 131 minutes, fit with sentimental sub-plots and people quipping snappy lines before blowing things up, the game here needs to be drastically raised if it wants to rub shoulders with the big dogs.

But if mindless, unrewarding mayhem is what you’re searching for - or you just fancy seeing Rihanna fire some heavy artillery - watch Battleship on repeat. 

1.5/5

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Like Crazy

2011, 15, Directed by Drake Doremus
Starring: Felicity Jones, Anton Yelchin, Jennifer Lawrence, Alex Kingston

Like Crazy is a love story with a twist: Jacob is an American student, whilst Anna is a British student living in America. They fall in love, pre-empting Anna to make the decision that she will outstay the expiry date of her visa, all to spend the summer with her one true love. This is the initial plot of the film, showing us (weirdly fleetingly) the process of how the two met and why they love each other so much (naturally as a furniture designer, he romantically builds her a chair…). When Anna returns home and attempts to visit Jacob back in America, she is denied entry forcing them both into a battle to prevent them from being kept apart. But it all grows tough, especially when new interests enter the fray. Cue lots of nights out where one text’s the other, the recipient reading said text and sheepishly putting the phone back into their pocket.

The problem with Like Crazy is minimal, bearing in mind the many positives. The structure preambles along, with no clear sense of direction; the whole film seems like a series of repeated events played out with different emotions often bordering on tedious. But it is to the credit of Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones, who play the hapless romantics, that everything remains watchable and grounded in reality (even though the events are said to be based on the director’s real-life experiences). Mention must go to Jennifer Lawrence, who plays the new girl Jacob sees when in America – this actress, most recently seen in The Hunger Games, is definitely the next big thing. For those who can relate to the idea of a long-distance relationship and the struggle in the up-keep of this, Like Crazy will be everything you want from a romantic film. For everyone else, you will feel all the emotions the film wants you to feel, but without leaving you anything to chew on afterwards.

All in all, a bittersweet film elevated by the performances, providing some sort of promise.

3/5 

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