The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller) is an average Joe New Yorker, working for Time Magazine. His life is dull, bland and listless. He lacks the adventure and excitement that he secretly craves and frequently day dreams, putting himself in exhilarating and romantically fulfilling positions. As news is announced that Time Magazine is to close, Walter is sent a roll of film from hunky adventure photographer Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn) who asks Walter to make sure that a particular photograph of his is considered for the final cover. The problem is that Sean’s photo never arrived and inspired by a secret love for a new co-worker, Walter breaks free of the shackles of everyday tedium and sets out to track down the illusive photographer not letting oceans, mountains or implausibility stop him.

It’s no coincidence that The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was released here in the UK on Boxing Day, being as it is the perfect film to uplift its target audience from their overly full, post Christmas slump. Like a bland Christmas turkey, it’s the sort of film that comes around once a year at the festive period and even though it isn’t as exciting as venison or lobster, you eat it because it’s the time of year that you’re meant to. There isn’t lots of nourishment and if you’re honest, it’s quite dry but you let it slide because there’s also cranberry sauce on your plate. But wait a minute, there is no cranberry sauce, there’s Ben Stiller and he’s shoving another fork full of turkey down your throat. Eat the turkey. Eat it.

Man of Steel

Eight years ago, Christopher Nolan reinvented a seemingly dead superhero franchise with his Dark Knight trilogy. Here he’s acting as a producer to attempt the same with another DC comic book hero and perhaps the most famous of all, Superman. There have been Superman films in the past of course and it’s only seven years since the forgettable Superman Returns hit screens to a decent critical and lukewarm box office reception. Taking control of Man of Steel is director Zack Snyder, a man a distinct style and experience of large, special effects movies. I’ve never had much affinity for the Superman character although I enjoyed the 90s TV series. The character, coupled with a director whose films I rarely enjoy lead me to having low expectations for the latest in a long line of superhero based blockbusters. Unfortunately even my low expectations failed to be met with Man of Steel, a dull movie which lasts for an age and goes nowhere.

The film does what all superhero re-boots are doing this century and gives us the origin story. The problem with Superman’s origin story is that it’s long and complex, or at least it is in this film. Spider-Man gets bitten by a spider, develops heightened senses and web stuff then goes with it. Batman invents stuff and goes from man to superhero. Superman though has a story which involves the end of a world, a race’s battle for survival, civil war, unusual childhood development and alienation before self discovery. That’s a lot to put in one movie and of course the movie doesn’t want to just give us the origin, it wants to entertain us with a villain and large scale battle. This results in a two and a half hour film which is full of long, unnecessary exposition and long winded flash backs.

Byzantium

Neil Jordan’s return to the vampire thriller feels a bit like a yo-yo. It ranges from excellent while held in the hand to incredibly dull while close to the ground but spends a lot of time somewhere in between. To take the analogy a step further, it also contains anticipation but like a yo-yo, you know where the anticipation is going to lead. The film portrays two female vampires who land in a small, run down sea-side town, two centuries after their making. Mother Clara (Gemma Arterton) works mainly as a prostitute to make ends meet while her gloomy daughter Eleanor (Saoirse Ronan) struggles to connect with her mother and is lost and lonely amongst their modern surroundings.

Byzantium is pitched somewhere between gothic thriller and family drama and doesn’t quite succeed at either. At its best it’s a poignant coming of age drama but it’s sometimes painfully slow and meanders between the modern day and early nineteen century when it might have worked better to stay in one or the other. The film is host to a wonderful performance from Saoirse Ronan which helps to elevate it above purely mundane and towards something of interest.

Night at the Museum

The perfect family film for a Bank Holiday Monday morning, Night at the Museum is a film in which history comes to life. Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) is divorced and unable to hold down a steady job in New York City. His ex-wife believes that the constant uprooting is affecting their ten year old son and pleads with him to settle down and get a steady job. Larry takes a job at the Museum of Natural History as a night watchman but soon discovers that the job is much harder than advertised as the exhibits literally come to life after dark.

I’ve seen this film a few times now but I’m not really sure why. It’s quite fun and passes a couple of hours but it’s by no stretch of the imagination, a classic. Night at the Museum is one of those films that you can put on and turn off the brain, allowing the noises and images to wash over you as your eyes glaze over. What it offers is silly fun and a treat for kids. Unfortunately I watched it alone, in my pyjamas.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Re-view

Films are released, they are discussed, they are judged and they are revered or forgotten. Occasionally after several years or even decades they are reassessed by fans and critics and their historical placing my rise or fall. I’ve decided to reassess a film myself but it isn’t a film I saw decades or even years ago, it’s a film I saw just four months and nineteen days ago. Like a lot of people who grew up watching Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy I couldn’t wait for the release of the first instalment of his second Middle Earth trilogy, The Hobbit and Unexpected Journey. I saw it just before Christmas last year and was hugely disappointed, so much so that I gave the film just 4/10 when I reviewed it. To put that into context, that’s the same rating I gave to Rock of Ages and We Bought a Zoo, two films I never want to see again.

For me the main problem with the movie was that it was ruined by one thing; 3D. I thought the 3D in The Hobbit was pointless (if you’ll excuse the pun). It darkened the screen, hiding the beautiful landscapes and made the scenes set underground as easy to see as a particularly difficult to see thing, being viewed by a blind man, facing the other way. The images were also fuzzy and the motion blur I got from the action scenes meant that I often just gave up and closed my eyes. All in all it was a disaster. So having reviewed the film and received exasperated looks from friends who read it, I vowed to re-view it when it came out on Blu-Ray. So was I right?

Oz the Great and Powerful

Oz the Great and Powerful is a film which feels like it’s snuck up on me. I was aware of its development and saw a billboard the other day but other than that it has had very little promotion for a $200 million movie. Still, while looking for something to watch at the cinema on a Friday night we found the movie was opening and risked a busy Friday screening to see the film blind. By blind, I mean without trailers and reviews etc. Not actually blind. That’s best saved for the Twilight movies.

Oz is based on the novels of L. Frank Baum and is a sequel of sorts to 1939’s The Wizard of Oz. The film is set in the same world and features many of the characters found in the MGM classic but is updated in tone and effects and focuses on the story of the Wizard of Oz – how he came to Oz and how he became who he was when Dorothy dropped in years later. The movie begins in beautiful monochrome black and white and 4:3 aspect ratio as we find ourselves in Kansas in 1905. The arrogant but charming circus magician Oz (James Franco) is having yet another disastrous appearance on stage and is booed off. Back in his caravan he spies a weightlifter coming for him after Oz interfered with his woman. Oz escapes aboard a hot air balloon and ends up in the eye of a tornado which transports him to the brightly coloured (and widescreen) Land of Oz. In Oz he meets the Witch Theodora (Mila Kunis) who asks for help in defeating the wicked Witch Glinda (Michelle Williams) in exchange for a place on the throne as King of Oz.

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Beasts of the Southern Wild is a fantasy drama set in the Louisiana bayou. Five year old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhane Wallis) is a young resident of The Bathtub, a small community cut off from the rest of the world by a levee. She lives there with her father Wink (Dwight Henry) a man who is desperately trying to teach his daughter self sufficiency due to the difficult nature of their home and a hidden illness. With a storm approaching The Bathtub many of the residents decide to leave but Hushpuppy and Wink stay to ride it out.

Beasts is a film that I’d heard a lot about and it has garnered several high profile awards and nominations including Best Picture, Best Actress and Best Director at the Oscars. I personally think that only the Best Actress nominee is justified but think that Beasts of the Southern Wild is a compelling and interesting film that takes poetic licence with a realistic setting.

Mirror Mirror

Based on the Grimm fairytale Snow White, Mirror Mirror is an uninspiring and unoriginal 2012 retelling starring Lilly Collins as Snow White and Julie Roberts as the Wicked Queen. The story differs slightly from the original fairytale in that it makes Snow more of a feminist hero in keeping with modern studio tastes. Otherwise it is fairly similar to the story that everyone knows. The film came out just a couple of months before another disastrous retelling of the same story, Snow White and the Huntsman and although I didn’t hate this version as much I certainly didn’t like it.

The best thing that Mirror Mirror has going for it are its lavish costumes and indeed the film has now been nominated for an Academy Award in that category joining the likes of W.E. and Transformers: Dark of the Moon as unlikely and infuriating recent recipients of Oscar nominations in technical categories. Mirror Mirror attempts a lighter tone than Huntsman but the comedy failed to raise a smile from my jaded face. The film is in the end an overly expensive rehashing of a story which has been told better in the past.

The Wizard of Oz

Now. I’m not going to sit here and say that The Wizard of Oz isn’t a good film because it is. It was ahead of it’s time technically and the Technicolor still looks magnificent after seventy years but The Wizard of Oz isn’t a great film. The story is so weak it is almost homeopathic and it also ranks as amongst the most annoying films I’ve ever seen. I seem to have a habit of slating films which other people love (see The Lion King, North by Northwest, BladeRunner) but I’m not doing it to be contentious. I personally think The Wizard of Oz is overrated and when you really watch it rather than just look at it, you start to notice all sorts of problems and plot holes.

Everyone knows the story. It is ingrained in our psyches and phrases such as “We’re not in Kansas anymore”, “Ding dong, the witch is dead” and “Fly my pretties” are sentences which are quoted in every day language. Similarly the characters are so well known that even if I described them as the green one, the hay bail, the robot or the furry thirties gangster, you’d know instantly who I was talking about. The Wizard of Oz is just something that we know inside out whether we’ve never seen it or have seen it a hundred times. But just because something is well known, it doesn’t mean it is good. After all, we all know who Hitler was and he wasn’t very nice at all.

An Unexpected Journey

Around sixty years before the events of The Lord of the Rings trilogy a young Hobbit called Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) was whisked off for what became a life changing adventure. An Unexpected Journey is based on the first few chapters of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit but contains almost all the highlights of the book I read as a teenager. After a tortured pre production that included a change of writer and director, problems with studio financing, the temporary loss of it’s central actor and location issues, An Unexpected Journey is finally here and even for a year which featured the likes of Prometheus, The Dark Knight Rises and So Undercover, this was the film that I’d been looking forward to the most all year. I saw the film close to a week ago now and am only just writing a review. Generally I’ll put pen to paper or rather finger to keyboard within twenty-four hours of seeing a movie but my experience of An Unexpected Journey made me put off writing in the hope of a second viewing. With Christmas around the corner and a trip back to my hometown looming I probably won’t get to see the film again until 2013 but will probably update my review once I have. The reason for wanting to see it again before writing a review is because the impossible happened; I didn’t like it.

Pan's Labyrinth

Guillermo del Toro’s dark fairy tale Pan’s Labyrinth has been on my list of films to watch for years and I’ve finally got around to seeing it. I’ve had no excuse as my girlfriend bought it at least two years ago and it has been sitting on my shelf gathering dust ever since. I’ve found that Pan’s Labyrinth is the sort of film that comes up in conversation with people who generally don’t watch films that aren’t in English and won numerous awards upon its release. My girlfriend is a big fan and though I enjoyed the effects and historical side to the story, I wasn’t completely won over by it.

In Fascist Spain a young girl called Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) is forced to leave her home and move to the countryside where he mother’s new husband is beating into submission the remnants of the anti-Fascist rebels. The girl has an affinity for fairytales and soon meets a fairy who takes her into a labyrinth. There she meets a goat like creature called a Fawn who tells her that she is a long lost Princess and must complete three tasks in order to be united with her Royal father. The fairytale is set against the backdrop of a vicious new regime made real by Ofelia’s new stepfather Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez).

The Return of the King

The third and final chapter of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Return of the King broke records both financially and critically. It became only the second film to surpass $1 Billion at the box office and received a record equalling eleven Academy Awards having won in every category it was nominated for. It also became only the second sequel to win Best Picture and the first to win when its predecessor hadn’t. Much like The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, I loved the film upon its initial release and also like the first two; my affinity has waned in the subsequent years. Personally I don’t think it is much better than the other two films and have a feeling that its huge awards haul has more to do with the series as a whole than the individual film.

While Frodo, Sam and Gollum edge ever closer to Mordor, Gondor’s capital Minas Tirith comes under attack from an even larger Orc force than was present at the battle of Helms Deep. Gandalf sends word to Rohan and an old alliance is rekindled as the two nations of men stand side by side one final time. Even with help, Gondor looks set to fall unless Aragorn is able to muster fresh troops and Frodo is able to destroy the Ring.

The Two Towers

Following on from 2001’s The Fellowship of the Ring, the second instalment of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy finds the Fellowship disbanded. The plot follows what remains of the party in three separate storylines which barely cross paths. Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas set about trying to find Merry and Pippen while killing as many Orcs as they can along the way. The aforementioned Hobbits meanwhile end up in a strange forest full of giant tree herders known as Ents and Frodo and his companion Sam head on towards Mordor, determined to destroy the One Ring. It isn’t long though before they are joined by another companion, Gollum, the former owner of the ring, a creature torn apart by its power and hold over him.

Much like The Fellowship I loved The Two Towers when I first saw it but as my enjoyment of the first has diminished over time, the same can be said for its sequel, only more so. In terms of how much I enjoy the trilogy, this middle part is my least favourite, though not by much. This instalment also has themes which stretch beyond the reach of Middle Earth such as industrialisation and ecology. It also features a battle which lasts close to forty minutes and is considered by many to be one of the greatest ever committed to the big screen.

The Fellowship of the Ring

In December 2001 the film world was enthralled by the first part of New Zealand Director Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Not since Cecil B. DeMille’s Biblical epics of the 1950s had filmmaking been seen on such a scale as Jackson’s Fantasy adaptation. Going on to make close to $900 million worldwide and the recipient of four Oscars and five BAFTAS including Best Film, The Fellowship of the Ring helped to shape the way films began to be produced in the early part of cinema’s second century. Shot entirely in the Director’s home nation over several years the Lord of the Rings trilogy soon became one of the most successful and critically acclaimed film trilogies of all time and eleven years ago I thought it was one of the best things I’d ever seen.

Featuring a large ensemble cast the plot of the first film focuses on the grouping of nine individuals who team up to destroy a powerful ring that threatens to destroy peace in Middle Earth. Hobbits Frodo, Samwise, Merry and Pippen join Wizard Gandalf, Dwarf Gimli, Elf Legolas and men Aragorn and Boromir as they set out from the Elven city of Rivendell on a quest to Mordor to ‘cast the ring into the fiery chasm from whence it came.’ Along the way their progress is halted by suspicion, in fighting, and Orcs, a vicious Elf like creature, bred for war.

A Trip to the Moon

You may notice the tag line at the top of this page reads ‘Reviewing 100 Years of Film’; well I’m going back even further here with Georges Melies fantastic Le Voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the Moon). The most famous of Melies many hundreds of short films, A Trip to the Moon is loosely based on two popular turn of the century novels, From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne and The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells. At a meeting of astronomers, one man proposes a trip to the Moon. Despite some discord among the members, five people agree to travel with the man and launch from a giant gun inside a bullet shaped rocket. When they get to the Moon they witness incredible celestial sights from its surface before encountering aliens who ‘take them to their leader’.

Despite looking fairly primitive now one hundred and ten years after its release, A Trip to the Moon was, for its time, incredibly advanced both in story and execution and is considered as the first Science Fiction film ever to be produced. The film features some incredible animation which is mixed with physical props, effects and editing to create a surreal vision of the Moon over sixty-five years before man ever set foot upon its surface.

Yellow Submarine

"It's all in the mind y'know"

Yellow Submarine is a 1968 psychedelic animated musical fantasy featuring the songs of The Beatles. The music hating Blue Meanines attack Pepper Land, draining the countryside of colour and turning its inhabitants into immobile statues. Only one man, Old Fred (Lance Percival) manages to escape, doing so in a yellow submarine. He travels to Liverpool where he enlists the help of The Beatles to save Pepper Land from the Blue Meanie menace. On their journey to Pepper Land the five of them travel through several strange seas which include The Sea of Holes, The Sea of Green and The Sea of Nothing before making it to Pepper Land to take on the Meanies. All the way they are accompanied by a selection of Beatles songs which the plot ties into.

Although the film was based on the song of the same name by Lennon & McCartney, The Beatles actually had very little to do with the film with actors impersonating the Fab Four. The band only appears as themselves in the brief closing scene. The slightly off voice work adds to the cartoon feel of the film while their actual songs provide a fantastic accompanying soundtrack.

Red Riding Hood

"There's a big, bad wolf and someone has to stop it"

Following an unconvincing swoop through a CGI Medieval landscape we somehow arrive in what appears to be an American Medieval village that is being ravaged by a werewolf. Our heroine, Valerie (Amanda Seyfried) is a young woman who lives in the village. She is in love with woodcutter Peter (Shiloh Fernandez) but has been betrothed to the son of a wealthy blacksmith called Henry (Max Irons). Shortly after the wolf returns from a long absence and begins to kill, a (possibly) Dutch witch hunter called Father Solomon (Gary Oldman) rides into town inside a giant metallic elephant with a retinue of some African fellas and a Japanese chap. Solomon tries to hunt the wolf down while Valerie, given a red hood by her grandma, and her two love interests track the wolf as well.

This film is just an excuse for yet another tween Twilightified love triangle story. This effort has added fairytale elements, silly dancing and awful music. The plot is preposterous and the dialogue feels like it’s been lifted from half heard conversations at a Californian mall. This is by far the worst film I’ve seen in months, possibly all year.

Beetlejuice

"Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice"

A young couple (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) are driving back from town one day when they crash their car and die. It takes them a while to realise though as they end up back in their house but with a new family, father (Jeffrey Jones), Step-mum (Catherine O’Hara) and Goth Daughter (Winona Ryder) moving in. As they become aware of their death they try to haunt the family in order to get them to leave but despite turning to the ‘Handbook for the Recently Deceased’ for help, they are unable to be seen. Instead they turn to a bio-exorcist called Betelgeuse, a crazed, perverted and unstable dead man who agrees to help scare the family off.

Unbelievably I’d never seen this film before having confused it in my head with Candyman, a film I saw aged about seven which caused nightmares for months. I’m so glad I’ve finally watched this bizarre comedy/horror. The film contains everything that the best Tim Burton films do; odd characters and locations, unusual and distinctive sets and darkly comic plotlines.

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter

"However history remembers me before I was a President, it shall only remember a fraction of the truth..."

In 1818 a young boy by the name of Abraham Lincoln (Benjamin Walker) witnesses his mother’s murder and vows to get revenge on the man who took her life. In his late teens he finally plucks up the courage to enact his revenge but when he fires a pistol at the head of the assassin, the man simply gets back up and attacks the young Lincoln. The young man is saved by a strange man called Henry Sturgess (Dominic Cooper) who tells the future President about the existence of vampires and teaches him the art of killing them. Lincoln dedicates his life to the destruction of vampires but finds in later life that words and deeds outweigh the power of his axe and he eventually becomes a Lawyer and later President of the Union. During his Presidency the vampire rich South declares war on the North in the hope of creating a nation for vampires.

This film is a case of a title that is better than the movie. The idea behind it sounds great; that one of America’s most beloved Presidents was also secretly a Vampire Hunter, but the execution doesn’t live up to the premise. I’ve recently read books about the American Civil War and Lincoln’s assassination so probably know more than the average Brit about the President and this period of America’s history and there were nice details, incidents and characters taken from the period and Lincoln’s life that were included to give a bit of authenticity to the story. The truth, with the added inclusion of vampires could have created a really good film but alas it is not.

Spider-Man 3

"Everybody needs help sometimes Peter, even Spider-Man"

The final part of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy finds Peter Parker finally enjoying life. Things are going well for him; he’s top of his class, closer than ever to MJ and still has time to fight crime as Spider-Man. If anything Peter has become over arrogant with his all round success and this comes back to bite him when an extra terrestrial parasite which amplifies the characteristics of its host attaches itself to Peter and turns his Spidey suit black. Now more cocky and arrogant than ever Peter has little time for MJ and they drift apart. At the same time an escaped criminal accidentally ends up in a particle accelerator filled with sand. The sand fuses with his body and turns him into the Sandman – Spider-Man’s latest nemesis.

This is generally regarded to be the worst of the Raimi Spider-Man films but personally I’d put it second, slightly ahead of Spider-Man While there is an enormous amount wrong with the film, I actually think that the story is the strongest of the three. I like how the film looks at Peter Parker’s psychological state and how the alien parasite is able to effect how and who he is. His relationship with Mary Jane becomes fractured after ending on a high in Spider-Man 2 and this creates plenty of drama and commotion. Add this to Harry’s ever growing disdain for Spider-Man and you have the makings of a decent plot. As a result of focussing more on Parker/Spider-Man’s turmoil, the villain characters suffer a little and the Sandman’s back-story is only briefly touched upon. Venom is only really seen in a few scenes as an arrogant up and comer before becoming a super villain.