Review of the Dark Knight

What doesn't kill you makes you stranger. So says the Joker in Christopher Nolan's second installment of the Batman franchise, The Dark Knight. Following on closely from the first film - Batman Begins - The Dark Knight sees Gotham City besieged by a new villain. A psychopath who wears make up and a purple suit, known only as the Joker. We are also introduced to the White Knight of Gotham - District Attorney Harvey Dent. What follows is two and a half hours of dark action that pushes the comic book movie genre to its limits. The theme of this movie is choice, and the consequence of the choices we make. It runs from the self proclaimed agent of chaos, the Joker, to rule abiding Batman (albeit his own rules) and Harvey Dent. It shows us how the consequences of your actions can be difficult to live with and will, for some, break you. This is a film with flaws. It is not the best movie of all time, possibly not even of the summer, but it is the first movie in a long time that I enjoyed from beginning to end and left the cinema feeling thoroughly satisfied. It had a STORY, pitch perfect performances from the ENTIRE CAST, not just Heath Ledger (although hats off to Heath and Mr Nolan for making my least favourite Bat-verse character incredibly watchable) great action sequences and a gritty, realistic tone (as much as is possible in a movie that centers on a millionaire who dresses up as a bat and fights crime on the mean streets of his city). Will this movie stand the test of time? I don't know, that will remain to be seen, but forget about the hyperbole, ignore the nay-sayers and go see it. I highly recommend it. 5/5.

Movie Review: Wall-E

Wall-E (which stands for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth class) is the last robot left on earth to tidy up the mess after all the humans have gone to dirty up space. He is a silent, sweet creature with a cockroach for a pet and is nostalgic for the old junk that he finds as he does his work. There is one thing missing in his life however - love and companionship - as modelled on the characters from his favourite movie Hello Dolly. Perhaps the sleek new robot who arrives out of the sky one day could be exactly what he's looking for?

Wall-E is the latest in Pixar's excellent stable of top notch animated movies. As always, the visuals do not disappoint. There is very little dialogue in this film, but as they say, a picture tells a thousand words. The personalities of the robots are developed with each little twitch and blink of their robotic bodies and I think the animators deserve an Oscar for making them so lovable with body language alone. The depictions of the abandoned earth are also excellent and I couldn't help but wish that I Am Legend had cgi as good. The mixture of the live action footage and the animation I thought jarred and I disliked the cartoony images of the future humans, which I felt let down the film as a whole. As far as the story goes, it is ambitious in dealing with love, loss, and the lassitude of the human race. However it does not have a strong plot within those themes and I am suspicious it will not have as great a rewatch value as their other movies. I also found Wall-E very sad and came out of the cinema quite depressed. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy it very much, but it didn't live up to the greats like The Incredibles and Ratatouille for me. 3 out of 5 stars.

Movie Review: Hancock

Will Smith is the titular character in this alternative super hero movie. Believing he is the only one of his kind, Hancock drinks a lot and saves people occasionally, but usually makes more of a mess rescuing someone than if he had done nothing. Into the fray steps Jason Bateman as a well wishing PR man who decides to transform Hancock into a superhero that everyone can love.

I left the cinema after seeing this movie feeling very confused. I felt that I had seen three different movies squashed together and I couldn't pick which one I disliked the most. There is the super hero movie, where our hero must discover his power and role in life and defeat the bad guys. There is the comedy movie - and at times Hancock does comedy with fantastic flare - where there are lots of jokes about the man who can fly but is reluctant to use his powers to help people out and then there is the third movie. The drama which, to my mind, was about invulnerability of youth, the vulnerability of loving people and having family and friends and the inevitable loss of power with age. None of these three themes were bad in themselves, but they each struggled for dominance without any one winning out and were put together with such obvious editing and mediocre special effects that as an overall piece of cinema it fell down.

There are a lot of things to like in Hancock and Will Smith is always enjoyable to watch, but it is so confused and messy that it is an unrewarding watch. On a side note, for those who are fans of Arrested Development, I couldn't help from thinking 'Rita and Michael got married!' while watching the movie (Jason Bateman and Charlize Theron play a married couple in the film). 2 out of 5 stars.

Ratatouille

Went to see the latest Pixar movie, Ratatouille, at the cinema this evening. I had heard very mixed reviews and, after Cars, I was somewhat apprehensive. There was a time when Pixar could do no wrong in my eyes. After a string of films that just got better and better - Toy Story, It's a Bugs Life (ok, that is my second least favorite), Toy Story 2, Monster's Inc, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles - I was bitterly disappointed with Cars. Not that it was a bad movie, mind, and the animation was fantastic, but it just didn't have the imagination and the heart that the other movies did. Ratatouille had me wondering if they had produced another clanger (no offence to the whistling pink mice who live on the moon). It didn't sound very promising to begin with - I mean, a rat who wants to be a chef in a human restaurant? It didn't sound like the greatest of ideas. Then again, when I first heard about The Incredibles I was completely nonplussed and now it is one of my all time favorite films. Like The Incredibles, Brad Bird wrote and directed Ratatouille and I should not have doubted him for a second. Ratatouille was a beautiful film, and I don't just mean that in a visual sense, although the animation was the best Pixar have produced to date. What I loved most about Ratatouille was the story and the characters. It had a real heart and a depth that transcended the fact that one of the main characters was a rat. Like The Incredibles before it, which wasn't really about super heroes, Ratatouille was more about friendship, family, following your dream and being true to yourself than it was about rats and kitchens. This is no dumbed down kids movie full of toilet humor. This is a fully rounded meaningful, fun, uplifting movie for the whole family. I thought it was fantastic. Some of the people I was with felt it was a little slow to start, but for me the pacing was excellent. I loved Remy (who was a rat) and they did not anthropomorphize him too much (if that is possible for a cooking rat). While the people were stylized, after watching them for a while you forgot they were animated and believed they were real. The voice acting was superb. The story line was exciting with a satisfying conclusion and there were enough laughs to keep me chuckling throughout. I think Pixar have returned to form with this gem of a movie. Miss it at your peril.

Movies - v - Books: Part 1

As you all know, I love books and I love movies, and sometimes I love stories that are both books and movies. A lot of the books I've been reading recently have been adapted for the silver screen. In fact, the reason I read books like The Prestige (by Christopher Priest) and The Bone Collector (by Jeffrey Deaver) is because I had already seen them as movies and was curious to see how different the book was. And different they always are. Even the most faithful book to film transfer is going to change in the translation. That is because of the very different nature of the two media. Books allow the author time to develop characters, to go deep into a character's thoughts and feelings, to slowly build up a layered three dimensional perspective of who the characters are. You don't need that so much in a film. You already have an actor standing there, embodying everything that the character is. In books, it is the thoughts and feelings that make the character, but in movies, as in real life, it is the actions that maketh the man. We can't see their thoughts so we have to rely on what they say and do to understand what kind of person they are.

I have noticed that there seem to be two types of movie book.

Type #1 - Based On

The first type is when the film is as faithful to the book in all intents and purposes as it possibly can be. Ok, so they don't include all of the characters, subplots and minutiae (because there just isn't enough running time in the whole world) and true fans are bound to be disappointed, but the movie makers have made a really good stab at getting what the book is about down on film. These kind of films can be very hit and miss. Sometimes all the fundamentals are there, but the spirit of the book hasn't been captured or poor direction, bad acting and rubbish budget have let it down. Occasionally, what made a good book just doesn't translate to a good movie, or the book wasn't that great to begin with. On a rare few occasions, the written word and the moving image combine to make something wonderful. Very, very rarely though.

Type #2 - Inspired By

The second type plays much more fast and lose with its original source material and usually with better results. The books might have contributed as little as one single idea, a character or a pivotal event, but the creative process has continued and led to something bigger and better than the original novel. While the movies can often be as bad as in Type #1, they more often soar to heights that the source material could never have reached (BladeRunner, anyone?)

In the coming weeks I intend to compare and contrast several movies and their books that have inspired me in either medium and put them into one of the above categories. I will be limiting my choices to books which have been adapted only once, so there won't be any classics (don't get me started on the various adaptions of Dracula, Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice) and even the wonderful I Am Legend (and the two very far from wonderful movies inspired by it) will not be mentioned (because of the two very far from wonderful movies inspired by it). Likewise, books like Eragon and (sorry to mention them in the same breathe, so to speak) The Lord of the Rings will not be mentioned, because I haven't see the movies. While I don't have to like both the book and the movie, I will definitely like at least one of them, otherwise it will be no fun to write about them!

Sunday night movies

I was watching Channel 4's Sunday night movie double bill last night. First there was I, Robot with Will Smith, based on a short story by Isaac Asimov.

I saw this movie in 2004 when it came out and I enjoyed it, but I never really thought about watching it again and I only took the time to catch it on the telly because the robot, Sonny, is voiced by Alan Tudyk (Wash from Firefly and Serenity). In 2004 I didn't even know who Wash was! Imagine. I watched the movie again primarily to listen to Sonny's voice (and all I had to do was close my eyes and I saw Wash) but I got engrossed in the movie and really really enjoyed it. I would watch it again without hesitation. It has a good (although simple) story, good special effects and likable characters portrayed by competent actors. Definitely better than other Asimov adaptations (Bicentennial Man anyone? Shudder). Why is it that Philip K Dick (whose books I find difficult to read) makes such great movies (Bladerunner, Screamers) and Asimov (whose books and stories I love) makes such so-so movies?

Anyway, the second movie was 1995's Johnny Mnemonic with Keanu Reeves.

I remember watching this movie at the time and hating it, but I thought I would give it a go as a nostalgia trip. I couldn't believe how BAD it was! It was only made 11 years ago, but it is so creaky and dated, the quality of the film looks like it is twice as old. Keanu Reeves - a good looking guy with VERY limited acting skills - is SO BAD as the title character that I don't know how he got away with it. His delivery of hackneyed, corny lines is so inappropriate and devoid of modulation that it is hilarious. For anyone who doesn't know the plot, he is a data courier who uses his brain to smuggle downloaded secrets. His normal capacity is 80GB (which doesn't seem all that great) but he doubles his capacity to 160GB. I chuckled my way through the cardboard rubbish of the first ten minutes or so, but then I turned it off because it totally lost my interest.

In conclusion, two very different science fiction movies, with almost ten years between them:- one movie is good, engaging, entertaining and captivating, the other so bad it deserves to be sent into the dark dungeon where stinkers are left to disappear into oblivion.

Hot Fuzz

I went to see Hot Fuzz today. It is REALLY good and REALLY funny. I love Spaced and I love Shaun of the Dead, so Hot Fuzz ticked all the boxes for me. A lot of reviewers said that there are two types of comedy in this movie - a slow, Miss Marple kind at the beginning and an explosion laden Bad Boys take off at the end. They are correct in this, but critics have criticised the movie for this, saying it doesn't gel. I didn't find this at all. I thought it was hilarious from beginning to end and that the parody of block busters like Bad Boys was excellent. There aren't enough movies featuring sweet middle aged English women riding a bicycle while firing two hand guns! Simon Pegg has also got flack for playing his character Nick Angel so seriously. I thought he was excellent in this part and made Nick very likable. Thoroughly enjoyable all round.