Reviews

Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais are behind two of my favourite ever TV shows in Extras and The Office. Unfortunately, neither of them have ever lit up the cinema screen (Gervais was ina couple of rather bad films) to the extent that many Biritsh film fans probably would've hoped. Finally, they're collaborating for a film called Cemetery Junction and, for the most part anyway, they're at their best.

The film is set in the 1970s; a semi-autobiographical comedy-drama about three young men reluctantly heading towards adulthood. It's set in Reading and has three total unknowns in the lead role, yet somehow the story works. You've got eager white-collar hopeful Freddie (Christian Cooke), lippy Jagger-ish rebel Bruce (Tom Hughes) and their lardy lovable friend Snork (Jack Doolan). The basic setup is that they want to get out of Reading and escape their tedious lives of messing about and getting drunk.

It's a pretty simple and unoriginal setup and the film does take a while to get going. Ricky Gervais' comedy work in films has been patchy in the past and in the first 30 minutes or so it worried me that Cemetery Junction looked to be going the same way as some of previous craptaculars like The Invention of Lying. The bad jokes and awkward euphemisms get in the way of the films cool, breezy 70s vibe that director Stephen Merchant has created. Basically, it felt like Gervais was trying too hard.

Luckily, things start to pick up later on and Gervais and Merchant's gift for creating fine comedy starts to show. The introduction of Ralph Fiennes, Felicity Jones and Emily Watson coincide with the films upturns in fortunes. Fiennes does a sharp sketch in callous entitlement as the boss from hell, and Emily Watson lends her sad wisdom to the role of his wife, an unappreciated person who wants her daughter (Felicity Jones) to fare better. It would be unfair to suggest that the 3 leads were a bit incompetent, but Gervais seemed to be using their youth as an excuse for cheap gags and puns before introducing some proper comedy when the more experienced trio turned up. It feels like we're in safer hands from here on, and the film's spreading warmth is its salvation.

That's not to say that the 3 leads are bad. Tom Hughes is especially good; he's charismatic and his timing is practically perfect. The other two don't fare quite as well, but improve as the film itself does.

Cemetery Junction got off to a worrying start. Gervais' writing was at odds with Merchants directing style until Ralph Fiennes and team turned up which seemed to flick Gervais' funny switch on and he started to turn out some really great moments. The first 30 minutes is undeniably awkward and dull, but if you can get through that then you'll find an exceptionally funny film in which Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant finally get their great comedy right on the big screen.

3/5

"Now that's what I call a thriller," I said to myself as I came out of The Ghost Writer. Having just seen the brilliant Alice Creed only last week, I wasn't expecting to see such a masterfully crafted thriller for a Good while yet. I watched Roman Polanski's newest film completely engaged and came out having seen one of the best films of 2010 so far without any doubt.

As the name suggests, the film is all about a ghost writer (Ewan McGregor) who is given the opportunity by his agent to write the completed memoirs of former British Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan). The writer flies out to Lang's oceanfront house on a remote island just off the East of the USA. He meets Lang, his wife Ruth (Olivia Williams) and also his aide Amelia (Kim Cattrall). You get the impression early on that Lang might be a bit of a bastard, he's having an affair with Amelia and is soon accused of sanctioning the kidnapping and torture of suspects. The World Court prepares an indictment. It would be unwise for Lang to return to Britain, and he flees to Washington. The ghost writer is left alone in the house and it all kicks off from there.

As you may have guessed, the story (based on a best-selling novel by Robert Harris) has more than few sly hints and winks towards Tony Blair. Adam Lang may as well have a Tony Blair nametag on the comparisons are so clear. Ewan McGregor's search for information is creepy, chilling and obviously rather thrilling as well. There are plenty of twists and exciting ideas that I won't spoil for you here.

The story is excellent as you'd expect considering it's based on a best-selling book and the author helped write the screenplay. Roman Ploanski's direction is also utterly brilliant. The film is perfectly edited and is subtle and thrilling at the same time. This film is the work of a man who knows how to direct a thriller; smooth, calm and ever so confident. It builds suspense instead of depending on shock and action.

It's helped a lot by the believable and excellent performances of the cast. My God I've been waiting a while for Ewan McGregor to be in anything decent (Star Wars and Angels and Demons, eurgh) but he delivers a brilliant performance here. Pierce Brosnan is to be commended as well for a smart and engaging performance, whilst his on-screen wife Olivia Williams projects the air of a wife who is committed to her husband in more than expected ways thanks to her great performance. Kim Cattrall is not as significantly involved and is clearly more suited to chick flicks but still manages a decent performance herself.

The Ghost Writer is simply a superbly well made film. It's directed by a guy who clearly knows what he's doing to the extent that he could make something equally as compelling in his sleep. It looks great and moves at a perfect rhythm so to keep the audience perfectly engaged and compelled to keep watching. The performances are superb too and the story is believable and enjoyable. As I said at the start, this is what I call a thriller.

5/5

I'll admit that it didn't take much persuasion for me to go and see Boogie Woogie, but even though I admit part of me went to see boobs, I also went for the all-star cast and interesting and unique concept. It's a film with a Hollywood cast set in present day London with a focus on the art scene of the city; exploring people like artists and collectors. It's a refreshingly unique and modern set-up for a film and it works.

The story itself focuses on a painting called the Boogie Woogie by an artist named Mondrian. It's currently in the ownership of Alfred Rhinegold (Christopher Lee) and his wife Alfreda (Joanna Lumley). Their fortune is declining and so Alfreda decides to put the painting up for sale. Among those interested are aggressive gallery owner and ambi-sexual Art Spindle (Danny Huston) and the deep-pocketed collector Bob Maclestone (Stellan Skarsgard). Bob is married to Jean (Gillian Anderson) who he frequently cheats on with his secretaries and assistants. Beth Freemantle (Heather Graham) works for Spindle but manages to get away thanks to her intimate relationship with Bob.

Then there's gallery girl Paige (Amanda Seyfried), whose financier dad bagged a fortune and helped launch his daughter before being caught and imprisoned for unspecified fraud. Also inhabiting the decadent art world of the film is emerging young painter Jo (Jack Huston), who snorts coke and beds the horny older wives of extravagant collectors. The final character of note is Elaine (Jamie Winstone). Elaine is a lesbian art student with a fondness for cocaine and Heather Graham's boobs.

As you can tell, it's a massive cast of extremely colourful characters full of drugs and sex. All the actors do a terrific job thanks to their sharp acting and also the witty dialogue provided by the interesting script.

The problem with having such a huge cast is that it's a bit hard to keep track of things. The main plot strand seems to be Lumley's character trying to sell the painting, but then all the other characters seem to have their own stories as well which need to be fitted in. As great as the characters are, there simply isn't enough time to develop them enough to make some of them worthwhile. Some of the sex also seems a bit forced, the lesbian subplot with heather Graham and Jamie Winstone is hot and all but is it really needed (my heart says yes, my brain says no)? The director Duncan Ward is clearly at home though as some research led me to discover that he has history in the art world. He manages to make it very compelling and keeps the slightly bewildering but also interesting plot enjoyable. He is most definitely in his element and it shows; the film looks great.

Boogie Woogie is a very entertaining film. The concept is unique, the cast is excellent, the script and dialogue are very amusing and it looks great. The director also puts in a fine shift. Unfortunately, there's just too much going on; it's a brave and daring effort to release a film so different and props to the cast for signing up to it. If you can keep your head around all the plot strands then the great performances and script will keep you entertained.

3/5

Before I start, let me first say that I walked into the cinema to watch How To Train Your Dragon with no expectations at all. Dreamworks have been going downhill since Shrek 2 and the title of this film, coupled with a huge 3D printed next to it, failed to get my hopes up too much either. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this is Dreamworks best film since Shrek 2, but then I realised that Dreamworks haven't made a good animation since Shrek 2. Oh dear.

After a fairly dull opening, we eventually get to the main story of the film which is about a young boy befriending a dragon which is meant to be the enemy of his people. In fact, it's a lot like Avatar in this regard. The boy in question is Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), son of the chieftain Stoick (Gerard Butler) of the island village Berk. Dragons attack said village and Hiccup manages to take down one known as Night-Fury. Rather than finish the job though, the boy befriends the dragon and is able to get to the top of his dragon training class ahead of his classmate Astrid (America Ferrera). Other classmates include Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Jonah Hill.

Already you can tell that the story is rather contrived and predictable with the only moment of true originality and laugh out loud hilarity coming in the opening scene in which dragons are burning down a village whilst Baruchel, Mintz-Plasse and Hill narrate over the top of it as if it's a perfectly normal thing to happen and they complain about their boring lives. Trust me, it will make all but the dullest of people laugh.

It's not just the script that feels a bit contrived though. The directors Chris Sandler and Dean Deblois previously worked on Lilo and Stitch and it clearly shows because the dragon may as well be Stitch. The Scottish accents throughout the film all sound like Mike Myers from Shrek except a million times worse. Just get some real Scotsman for God's sake, why is Jay Baruchel playing a Scottish kid!? Just so Dreamworks can have a big name on the poster, JUST GET A REAL BLOODY SCOTSMAN! Actually, give them some credit they did get Gerard Butler and David Tennant but I still don't get the obsession with big A-listers in animated films.

The moral message is also annoyingly unoriginal and so blatantly forced down the throat of the audience that I choked on my popcorn. How many times to kids need to learn the values of accepting outsiders and being nice to your father? The big surprise to me though was that the 3D was actually pretty damn good. The action sequences were also surprisingly well done for an animated film and these were (along with the funny opening I previously mentioned) easily the stand out moments from the film. It's definitely the best looking and most vibrant animation I've seen from Dreamworks.

How To Train Your Dragon is not a terrible film. It's funny in parts and looks great in 3D with some really excellent action sequences. However, it's so contrived and forgettable that I really don't think Pixar need to worry. They've still got the animation crown and Dreamworks are showing no signs of grabbing it away from them.

2/5

Kick-Ass. The Dark Knight. Avatar. Sherlock Holmes. These multi-million Hollywood behemoths have recently proved that blockbusters are perhaps no longer the mindless orgy of explosions and crap acting that we had previously expected. Clash of the Titans is directed by Louis Leterrier and having recently worked on the Hulk reboot in 2008 I had decently high hopes for his latest effort. Unfortunately, Clash of the Titans is, whilst great to look at, pretty darn rubbish.

Good old swashbuckling Greek myth adventure films of the past always had likable and entertaining stories to make up for their laughable special effects. This remake on the other hand has a ridiculous and stupid storyline that is easily summed up by the film's set-up. Basically, Perseus (Sam Worthington) is annoyed with Zeus (Liam Neeson) because the God punished a mortal king (Jason Flemyng) by posing as him and getting busy with his wife. The humans of Argos are fed up with the Gods and their treatment of mortals and decide to start rebelling. For some unknown reason, the God are a bit weedy and so need to call upon Hades (Ralph Fiennes) and his pet Kraken to help defeat the human uprising. From here on it's the basic and boring hero's tale in which the god awful (pun not intended) Sam Worthington fights some monsters, gets with a sexy lady (Gemma Arterton) and saves the day. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

OK, maybe the lacklustre plot is sparked into life by some good acting? It isn't.

As already mentioned, Sam Worthington is as bad as he was in Avatar and in Terminator Salvation. Gemma Arterton looks nice but does little else and Liam Neeson looks as bored as he did in The Phantom Menace. Ralph Fiennes gives the best performance of the lot but don't expect any Oscar nominations for this bunch (perhaps a few Razzies though).

As I said at the start, Clash of the Titans does look quite spectacular. The special effects are top of the tier and the battle scenes are quite impressive. However, put te 3D glasses on and it's a different story. It was clearly tacked on rather than carefully constructed like in Avatar and it clearly shows. The 3D scenes have a blurry, bleeding look, like a busy watercolor. If you want to know what's happening, flat may be a better bet. In other scenes, actors seem to pop out against flat backgrounds like figures in a children's pop-up book.

I came out of the cinema disappointed. The film had a decent cast, a proved blockbuster director, a good opportunity to expand on a much loved story and it just does not work. The acting is generally poor, the story is a joke and the 3D is terrible. In 2D this is a standard and uninteresting CGI-filled blockbuster which is leagues behind the top tier examples of the other Hollywood blockbusters of the past few years. It's big, brash and boring.

1/5

Emma Thompson had her role in the upcoming Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows so that she could focus on Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang, the sequel to the 2005 family hit Nanny McPhee which she starred in and wrote. The new film has an all-star cast just as the first, is fantastically British, is charming and witty and appeals to all ages. It also fits into the rare group of films in which the sequel is better than the original. Yeah, it's quite good.

This time around, Nanny McPhee is called upon by Mrs Green (Maggie Gyllenhaal) to help her with her 2 children and another 2 she's looking after for her brother (a high ranking war official played by Ralph Fiennes) while her husband (Ewan McGregor) is away at war. The story follows a similar pattern as the first with Thompson's character teaching the kids vital life lessons, encountering a potentially terrible situation (evil uncle Rhys Ifans wants to sell their farm, oh no!) and then bobbing along towards the inevitably happy ending. It's kept interesting and entertaining though by the constant flurry of gags for the adults and good use of slapstick for the kids.

The humour works because the cast are so good. Thompson's delivery is perfect and there's also a fantastically funny cameo appearance from Bill Bailey. Emma Thompson also wrote the script for this film and so she should really take 95% of the credit for the entertainment. The rest of the cast do a great job too though, with Ralph Fiennes standing out as he always does and the kids are also to be commended even though they aren't quite as good as those from the first film. Although, like in 2006's Stormbreaker, having Ewan McGregor in there seems just like an excuse to have a big name on the poster because he really adds nothing to the film.

Director Susanna White should get a healthy dose of kudos too. The film looks brilliant with it's bright colours and old fashioned British feel. Filmed in modest locations such as Oxfordshire and Surrey, the film shows that you don't need all the green screen in the world to have a damn good looking film.

I could praise the director and the cast all day, but the real star of the show is of course Emma Thompson. She's not only brilliant as the titular character, the script she's written is also fantastically funny and entertaining. Big respect to her for turning down the big budget Harry Potter to put her heart and soul into this modes family British film - it shows she put a lot into this film and as a result it's the best family film I've seen this year so far.

4/5

In 2007, director Matthew Vaughan and writer Jane Goldman flipped the fantasy genre upside down and made it fresh with the brilliant Stardust. Three years later, they've done it to the superhero genre with Kick-Ass and it's bloody brilliant. There are swearing 11 year old girls, weedy kids in wetsuits decapitating henchmen, Nicolas Cage is actually pretty damn good and it's laugh out loud funny all the way through. It's simply a great piece of entertainment.

The film's premise seems pretty familiar at first. Dave Lezweski (Aaron Johnson) is a nerdy teen with girl problems who wishes he was a superhero. In fact, the film even starts with him saying, "Who am I? You sure you wanna know......." in a blatant spoof of Tobey Maguire in Spider-Man and it sets the tone perfectly straight away. He orders a wetsuit from eBay, goes out to fight crime and quickly becomes a YouTube, Facebook and Myspace sensation. An unfortunate accident leads him to having metal plates in his bones, a clear nod to Wolverine. Eventually his antics get the attention of baddie Mafia boss Frank Di'Amico (Mark Strong) and he uses his son Red Mist (himself a wannabe superhero played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse) to try and stop Kick-Ass. The real concern for Di'Amico though is Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz).

Whilst we're on the topic of Big Daddy and Hit Girl, they're really quite brilliant. Cage's character is a former cop with a ridiculous moustache who's spent 11 years of his life training his daughter Moretz into a lethal assassin. During their escapades he resembles Batman and she is something entirely new. She dismembers her enemies, throws daggers into their faces and refers to them openly with the worst word in the English language (yes, the one that begins with c, it's quite funny). The two of them ar completely deranged, Big Daddy shoots his own daughter with a shotgun in combat training and in return for her perseverance he buys her an ice cream. It's some real crazy stuff.

The casting, as in Stardust, is perfect. All the actors do a fantastic job. Aaron Johnson is perfectly cast and is fantastic in the role, Mark Strong is still the perfect villain in the whole film industry and Mintz-Plasse is also very strong. As you may well have guessed though, Cage and Moretz steal the show. Nicolas Cage is an absolute revelation. Years and years of looking dead bored in films like Knowing and National Treasure, he's clearly having great fun in the role. He also does a mean Alan West impersonation when he becomes his superhero alter-ego. Chloe Moretz though is absolutely terrific. An 11 year old saying ridiculous swear words should just be funny because it's an 11 year old saying ridiculous swear words, but her comic timing is so good that it's funny more from her perfect performance rather than just the fact that they're funny lines she gets to say. The Daily Mail will tell you otherwise, but she's a real hoot and a sure future star.

I've focused a lot on Hit Girl and Big Daddy and this could've been a real problem for the film. They're such great characters that it would have been easy to neglect the main plot. Thankfully though, Jane Goldman has crafted a masterful script to go with the great characters and dialogue. The focus always goes back to Dave's story and there's even a nice little romance sub-plot that's been weaved effortlessly within all the great action and comedy.

The action itself is actually pretty damn good too. There's plenty of blood and gore but it's all choreographed really well and is great to watch. There's hardly any CGI involved which is a fantastic change from overblown crap like Clash of the Titans.

As good as the actors are and as good as Jane Goldman's script is, the director Matthew Vaughan is the real hero of the film. Stardust was fantastic but this takes him onto a whole new level and I'm sure plenty more Hollywood studios will come calling for him now. He's brought together a great cast and created the most entertaining film I've seen in a long time.

Quite frankly, if I see anything more entertaining at the cinema this year then I'll eat a pair of socks dipped in guacamole.

5/5