Cinema 2011 #49: 13 Assassins

“Your samurai brawls are crazy fun!”, shouts Kiga, the baker’s dozen in this sprawling Japanese saga, 13 Assassins. That this statement comes from a bloodied and wounded woodland killer, who’s been launching rocks at rivals’ heads for about 25 minutes into the epic 45-minute battle scene concluding Takashi Miike’s film, goes to show just how crazy this fun can be.

It’s mid 19th century Japan, and the old ways of the rising sun, the shogunate and the honour-bound samurai, are fading into the shadows of creeping modernity, but not before a sadistic enemy rises to threaten the peace. He’s Lord Naritsugu (Gorô Inagaki), above the law by family ties and getting ready to climb up the political ladder. A poker-faced monster, he kills, rapes, kills, maims, kills and literally uses children for target practice, while wrapped in the finest silks and waited on hand and foot by terrified denizens, whose feet and hands he’s likely to chop off on a whim. To defeat him, seasoned warrior Shinzaemon (Kôji Yakusho) is convinced to assemble the titular team of noble samurai, each fighting for his own honour and bringing something to the team (experience, youth, wiliness, comic relief).  Add to this some badass Home Alone DIY and a trek through the mountain forests, and it’s merely a hop, skip and a training-montage till the real fun begins.

Cinema 2011 #48: Attack the Block

Attack the Block, the directorial debut of the latter half of British surrealist DIY sketch comedians Adam and Joe, explodes onto our screen as a lo-fi comedic sci-fi blend of La haine, The Goonies and Predator. Set in the imposing tower-block estates of London on Bonfire Night, a far cry from the jolly trading geezers of Mandela House, it is the story of the incomprehensible violence meted out by the universe’s most misunderstood creature – the hoodie – when an extraterrestrial menace crash-lands on his turf.  Coming off the back of a string of clever British subversions of the sci-fi genre (Shawn of the Dead, FAQ about Time Travel, etc.), Joe Cornish here strikes a chord with a well-paced film that makes the most of its modest budget and novice actors.

It opens with Jodie Whittaker’s Nurse Sam making her way home to her south London flat, unaware of the youths, faces concealed and zipping along on their bikes like a pack of hunting wolves, ready to mug her. No romantic highwaymen here, the boys, led by physically dominant and de facto Alpha male Moses (John Boyega), terrorise Sam in a chilling and calculated assault, and were it not for the car-crushing arrival of a meteorite meters away leading to her escape, the audience really isn’t sure how much worse it could have gotten for her. Instead, the boys turn their attention to the small grey alien creature hitching a ride on the space rock, cornering it in a park and bludgeoning it to death amid a chorus of cheers and elation. Hauling their bounty back to the high-rise hideaway of local pot-dealer Ron (Nick Frost doing his reliably solid supporting stuff), it’s not long before many more meteors, carrying significantly bigger payloads, come smashing into the flats. And suddenly the boys, bound by honour and sporting worryingly available weapons, decide to rid their block of these space invaders, teaming up with Sam along the way.

Cinema 2011 #47: Hanna

“I just missed your heart.”

So goes the opening line of Joe Wright’s latest thriller, delivered by a brutal and trained killer, adept with arrow, knife, firearm and fist – a 16 year-old girl named Hanna. Yes, isn’t it always the way that you wait ages for juvenile lady assassins to turn up, and then they arrive in pairs? Last year we were treated to the tremendously stylised comic-book butchery of Hit Girl, but there’s a more serious edge to Saoirse Ronan’s badass than the purple-haired moppet with a machete in Kick Ass. The Irish actress, whose piercing blue eyes would even make Daniel Craig flinch, here takes on her biggest role to date, in a trippy and pounding thriller that reads just like a neo fairytale.

Once upon a time there was a little girl who got wiped off the grid. Instead of playing with dollies and riding a bike, she’s been conditioned to be the perfect killer by her rogue CIA Agent father (Eric Bana). She’s drilled daily, trained and pushed to the extreme in the formidable frosts of Arctic Finland by this unyielding man, and she’s become his acolyte, fluent in numerous languages, ready to strike, even in her sleep. And so they set a trap, all in the name of slaying the big bad wolf, a seductively shifty Cate Blanchett, who’s CIA bigwig Marissa watches events unfold through her mirror-mirror-on-the-wall cameras, all the better to see Hanna with when she goes on the run. A fairy godmother comes in the shape of a surrogate sister from a new age travelling family, and there are secrets, skinhead henchmen, and pumping techno beats, and like Hanna says, it just misses your heart and flies wide of the target.

Cinema 2011 #46: Water for Elephants

Roll up, roll up, girls and boys and feast your eyes on the glitzy razzmatazz of forbidden romance and pesky pachyderms in a Depression era travelling circus. Beneath this rambling Big Top you’ll gasp and marvel at the bearded ladies and somersaulting trapeze artists, be enthralled by the acrobatic equestrianism and chucklesome clowns. Just don’t peak behind the curtain, because underneath the slickly designed surface is a movie just a few coconuts shy of what it should be, and for director Francis Lawrence, there’s just no riggin’ the game.

Based on Sara Gruen’s bestselling novel, Water for Elephants is touted as grand old-fashioned filmmaking, a stylised melodrama with a big name cast, and a romantic plot to make your heart gush. It opens with an elderly Jacob Jankowski (Hal Holbrook) telling the tale of his unexpected graduation from Ivy League veterinary student to railroad carny animal doc, swigging moonshine and stealing glances from the ringmaster’s missus (an underused Reese Witherspoon), all in the lead-up to one of the worst circus disaster in American history. The young Jacob takes the form of screen idol du jour Robert Pattinson, trying to ditch the histrionics of his glaring-big-haired-vampire day job, but who doesn’t really find anything to wrap his fangs around as this glaring-short-haired-Doolittle.

Cinema 2011 #45: Cedar Rapids

David Aldridge has, to quote the Radio Times, “spent the past 30 years watching square and rectangular screens” in an effort to hone his critical scrutiny of the week’s selection of cinematic fare. At the pleasure of the Great British licence fee-payer, David Aldridge is currently at the helm of BBC Radio Five Live’s weekly film and DVD phone-in programme, as well as a former editor of Film Review magazine. In short, David Aldridge is a professional, and thus, David Aldridge’s byline rides high on the poster of Cedar Rapids, blazing a guiding light to would be moviegoers of the virtues of the film, like some sort of cinephilic pharos amid the murky blockbusters of the Megaplex…

“… if you liked The Hangover you’ll love this”                                                                                                                                 - David Aldridge, BBC Radio 5 Live

Ladies and gentlemen, David Aldridge is an idiot.

Cinema 2011 #44: Arthur

Remake is such a magical word in terms of cinema, inspiring faith and revulsion in equal measure. The remake pricks the ears of the casual audience goer, assured that the film will offer recognisible storylines with happy endings. In critical circles, it pricks with disease-riddled needles the eyes of bewildered spectators, who think this is lazy LA-LA land milking an old cow for the tart droplets of juice left festering in her teats. And most predictively of all, the remake piques the interest of the blogging trolls who spread like wildfire that world wide whisper… it’s not as good as the original.

So yeah… Arthur.

It’s not as good as the original.

A light in the dark goes out...

It was with some sorrow that Dubliners and cinephiles across this woe-begotten country received the news on April 15th that Smithfield’s Lighthouse Cinema was officially ordered to wind up operations by Ms. Justice Mary Laffoy. After opening its doors in 2008, this art house cinema was a beacon of cultural light in the then blossoming borough of the city’s Northside, treating audiences to alternative, independent, documentary, classic and foreign language cinema often neglected by the bang-for-your-buck multiplex chains. An architectural treat of multi-coloured subterranean minimalism and plush vaudeville ruby red theatres, the Lighthouse employed 20 people and was witnessing a growing audience when the figurative and literal economic depression that continues to kick us in the balls on a daily basis resulted in this loss of cultural capital in our capital city.

Cinema 2011 #43: Thor

Thor’s a homo.

That’s pretty much the entire referencing point I had when it came to this, the latest installment in Marvel’s efforts to pull off the ultimate spectacle in superheroics and 3D derring-do. A 1987 Elisabeth Shue starring teen-flick favoured by my sister, Adventures in Babysitting. Well, that and a loose recollection of Norse mythology and its mead-chugging Viking warrior frat-boys after-living it up in Valhalla. Perhaps that is why I viewed Thor as the big gamble in Marvel’s mix, as convincing an audience, much grounded in pseudo-scientific superhero lore and post Dark Knight gritty realism, that a magical God from a non-Christian heaven could end up on Earth, fighting off baddies with a bewitched hammer named Mjolnir, is a pretty big feat. Throw into the mix a lead actor best known in these islands for playing the buff fella with a girl's name on Home & Away, a director famed for his Shakespearian roots and a film languishing in developmental Niflheim for years, and you get Thor. And by Odin’s beard, this god of thunder arrives with a bang.

The film tells the story of Thor, the Norse deity and crown prince of Asgard, whose father Odin is none too pleased with his offspring’s devil-may-care brawling and foolhardy antics. When Thor and his sidekicks go one step too far, causing an intracosmos war with the Jack Frost giants of Jotunheim, Odin, played with voiciferous gusto by Anthony Hopkins, banishes him to Earth. Separated from his godlike goodies (hammer and powers) until he can learn the humility to be a just and righteous leader, Thor becomes a bumbling, and genuinely funny, fish out of water when slumming it with us mere mortals. Luckily, he catches up with Natalie Portman’s Jane, an astrophysicist whose research has caught the eyes of secretive organization S.H.I.E.L.D. (the glue holding this sprawling superhero scrapbook together), who aims to help him out. And help he needs, as up in the heavens, brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) starts to sow seeds of dissent in an effort to bag the thrown.

Cinema 2011 #42: Beastly

Falling in line with the Spring/Summer collection of seemingly unstoppable marketing of leftover emo clothing to teenage girls in the Twilight trend, Beastly, based on the teen novel by Alex Finn, is a mercifully short reimagining of the classic French fairytale La belle et la bête, best known to English-speaking audiences as Beauty and the Beast. Fewer Angela Lansbury voiced teapots, more heroin chic stylings, this version casts number four on the list of Hollywood heartthrobs Alex Pettyfer as all-round douchebag Kyle, the pretty-boy with a heart of mould. His mean-spirited and self-promoting behaviour catches the eye of classmate and witch Kendra (Mary-Kate Olsen), who quickly curses Special K, taking his screen idol looks and giving him a year to find someone to love him, or else he’ll stay this way forever. Beastly aims to attract all manner of high schoolers with the addition of Vanessa Hudgens, as the beauty in the bunch, the daughter of a junkie named Lindy, with a heart of gold and IQ to match.

The film itself, by director Daniel Barnz, is dull and tedious, even at a mere 86-minute runtime, and numerous problems and issues present themselves throughout. First and foremost is Kyle’s unflappable following in the high school he attends in Manhattan. He’s literally the most obnoxious character you’re likely to see on screen this year, winning over his adoring fans by making quasi-fascist claims to cleanse the school of ugos and fuglies, all in the name of environmentalism. Pettyfer, carving a nascent career out of taking his shirt off, has neither the charisma nor even the presence to pull this off. Furthermore, we’re supposed to be agog when they reveal his hideous transformation into hideous beast. In the book, it’s classic fangs and fur, but here they opt for some sort of edgy boyish Blofeld, with a few piercings and tattoos to give him that yob sheen. And to be honest, he still looks like he could be a poster boy, granted for Marilyn Manson’s new fragrance.

Cinema 2011 #41: The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec

There’s something very French about director Luc Besson’s latest offering, The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec. Évidement, you say, fondling your onions in your Breton Stripe shirt, given that it’s a French film, in the French language about a feisty Franco femme and the general bonhomie her titular experiences evoke. Non non, mon ami, we know we’re in jolly Jeunet territory here from the get go, as a silken-tongued omniscient narrator introduces the story by listing the minutest of details concerning a secondary character whose very insignificance is the driving force behind the entire plot. Yes, ever since Mlle. Poulain wowed audiences with her wide-eyed whimsy spanning multiple-character arcs, the all-knowing raconteur has fast become a Gallic cinematic fait accompli. In this adventure, M. Je-sais-tout’s observational powers revolve around Adèle Blanc-Sec, an adventurer and novelist in a beautifully realised Belle Époque Paris.

There’s a good dollop of fun to be had in this French rehash of adventure movies that remains loyal to its comic book origins, with a polished sheen on a relatively shoestring budget. While it may not be as lavishly exciting as classic Indiana Jones, Adèle’s escapades are cheerful and slapstick, and look sumptuous on screen. The story, however, is a tad overcooked, with the plot a laborious and multi-stranded mess. No stone is left unturned as we take in archeology, fantasy, zoology, necromancy, paleontology and Egyptology, not to mention a half-boiled love interest, a barmy game hunter, a peckish policeman, a psychic professor and the dangers of sibling rivalry on the tennis court.

Cinema 2011 #40: Scream 4

Back in 1996, horror-movie director Wes Craven redefined the slasher genre by making a slasher film about people who had watched slasher films. That is to say, with one shrill Scream, Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson created characters who knew the homicidal futility of answering the phone, running up the stairs, walking past dimly lit doorframes, and daring to utter the death-warrant words I’ll be right back when a ghost-faced fiend is bumming around with a butcher’s knife. The film was a huge critical and commercial success, with cinema buffs tickled pink with the self-referential writing and audiences suitably bejesused by the set-piece slayings. Rated 18, it packed a grisly punch and spawned two sequels before heroine Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) got to grips with caller ID and retirement from being the worst friend to have since Jessica Fletcher.

More than a decade later, and the Scream series gets a long awaited fourgy of blood-splattered babes and knowing dweebs to torture and dice up, with typical humour and red herrings to throw you off the scent. This time round Sidney’s made the rather foolish decision to add her old stomping ground of Woodsboro onto the list of stops of her book promotion junket. And wouldn’t you know it, it’s not long after she rolls into town when her niece (Emma Roberts) and chums get turned to chump by Sidney’s biggest fan.

Cinema 2011 #39: Red Riding Hood

So it’s this sexy fantasy film, that’s got all these veiled references to sex, with a sexpot lead actress, who pouts and stares a lot, sexily, and these two sexy guys fighting over her, one of whom may or may not be a sexy werewolf. And it’s not Twilight? Even though it’s got the same director. Framing everything in twisty angles and splashes of sexy colour. So, more like Twilight 2: Twi Harder?

It’s sort of difficult to avoid the inevitable comparison of Catherine Hardwicke’s latest paean to pubescent girls, Red Riding Hood, to the behemoth saga she started back in 2008. Both stories focus on one girl’s sexual magnetism over two beefcakes against the backdrop of daydream fancying and nightmarish monsters. Both films contain a female lead who deserves better material and veterans who frankly should know better. Both films will make you laugh, unintentionally. Frequently. And most tragically of all, both films mark another nail in the coffin of previously promising director.