Mother

Korean drama Mother is a story of maternal love. Bong Joon-ho director of The Host tells the story of a widowed woman (Kim Hye-ja) who sells herbs in a small Korean town. She looks after her only son Do-joon (Won Bin) who has an unspecified mental disability which makes him shy and come across as forgetful and dim-witted. He is referred to as a retard by those who know him and want to get a reaction from him. One night on his way home from a bar, Do-joon spots a teenage girl walking alone. He calls after her but then goes home. The next morning the girl is found dead and Do-joon is arrested for her murder. Convinced of his innocence, his mother stops at nothing to uncover the real killer.

The story is thoroughly enthralling and it twists and turns, constantly throwing up new clues or misdirections. I thought I had figured out who the killer was, and what their motives were on a number of occasions only to have another twist thwart my attempts to figure it out. The film is very good at giving obvious misdirected clues as well as subtle hints, some of which go nowhere while others are important. The story had me well and truly gripped.

Both lead actors are excellent. Kim Hye-ja, who won awards for her portrayal of the mother, is full of despair and determination and you can emphasise with her cause. You get the feeling from the outset that she will do literally anything to prove her son’s innocence and not stop until she has exhausted every line of enquiry. Won Bin is also very good as the mentally challenged Won Bin. It looks as though a lot of work went into researching his character and getting every facet spot on. Bong Joon-ho’s direction is quite superb. Each shot is exquisitely framed and the film looks very beautiful. He has also got superb performances from his cast.

The film has a satisfying climax which as well as tying up all the loose ends, gives complete closure to every part of the film. It was well worth waiting the 128 minutes to get to.

I haven’t got a bad word to say about the film but it lacks something I can’t quite put my finger on to make it a five star film. Nonetheless, it is remarkably well made and features some very poignant moments, particularly towards the end as well as great mystery and even a humorous first act.     

8/10

Cowboys & Aliens

Its 1873 and a man (Daniel Craig) wakes up in the desert of the Arizona Territory with a strange metal bracelet on his wrist. He doesn’t know who or where he is and is soon attacked by a posse of outlaws. After disposing of his attackers he rides to Absolution where he is again set upon and ends up in Jail. While being transported to another facility, the entire town is attacked from the air by unidentified crafts. It transpires that Absolution is under attack by aliens who are abducting the townsfolk and the man along with local rich man Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), bar owner Doc (Sam Rockwell) and a mysterious woman called Ella (Olivia Wilde) set out to track the aliens and save the towns people.

There was a lot said at the time the film was released that it was a ridiculous idea to have cowboys battling aliens but to me it is no more ridiculous than having an alien film set in the modern day and is a refreshing take on the genre. The Western sets and costumes look great and most of the cast fit the bill of Wild West inhabitants. The only person who doesn’t is Olivia Wilde who looks completely out of place with salon shaped eyebrows and GHD straightened hair. While Craig and Ford et al look the part in their costumes, her tight and clingy dress doesn’t look right either. I think her look was misjudged in an obvious attempt to attract a teenage male audience.

Jon Favreau’s direction is fine and he balances the fast paced sci-fi action with the slower western style of wide open vistas and gruff dialogue. The aliens are also well designed and look scary in enclosed spaces. When out in the open they lose their menace slightly but still look good.

I thought that the acting was also fine. Daniel Craig produces a convincing accent and suits the role. Harrison Ford is also good and seems well suited to the role he is playing. Sam Rockwell is under used and Olivia Wilde does well in her few scenes in which she has to act. The supporting cast is excellent and helps to fill out the Old West world that the film creates.

So far I’ve had few complaints but my main problem with the film is that it’s really dull. There are aliens - Fighting cowboys - With lasers and stuff! But I felt really bored for most of the film and I was only really interested in finding out about how Daniel Craig came to be in the desert with a metal thing on his arm. I’m very surprised that the film wasn’t more exciting and it doesn’t live up to its title. Another problem was that the script made the action far too predictable. It is obvious for instance that Sam Rockwell’s inability to shoot will turn around and he will save someone. It is also obvious that Harrison Ford will admit to liking the Indian boy he bought up but seems to dislike. Also, there is a rather obvious mention of dynamite which comes back towards the end. The script is full of this sort of thing and everything is laid out in giant capital letters with few surprises or twists.

The film could learn something from Snakes on a Plane which is much more enjoyable. The film is played completely straight and I think it would have benefited from a bit of camp or even just a bit more comedy.

Overall the film has a really interesting idea at its centre and is well acted by a solid cast but doesn’t live up to its premise and takes itself too seriously.

6/10

Happy Feet

2006’s Academy Award for Best Animated Feature winner, Happy Feet is the story of a young Emperor penguin called Mumble (Elijah Wood) who is born with an inability to sing but happens to be a fantastic tap dancer. In the film, a penguin must choose a song to attract a mate so Mumble finds it difficult to fit in. His dancing puts him on the outskirts of penguin society and he eventually leaves his colony in search of aliens (humans) who are stealing his colonies fish. Along the way he meets some Mexican (for some reason) penguins and has an adventure on his way to saving his colony.

For me the film can be viewed in to ways. The first is as a children’s animation and the second is as a contemporary political analogy. As far as being a good children’s film goes, I don’t think it is funny enough and lacks the adventure of the likes of Finding Nemo. The penguins are cute though and it is funny to see a penguin tap dance. I think the film is much more successful in its subtle look at modern political, racial and religious tensions. The film goes to great lengths to have its lead character treat religion as superstitious nonsense which is very brave for a children’s film. Mumble is at logger heads with the religious establishment throughout the film and tries to uncover rational explanations for questions that the rest of the colony attributes to their penguin god. Like the fantastic Wall-E, the film has strong ecological themes. It is a damming study of the problems caused by human activity in and around the Antarctic.

Where the film’s solid political stance falls down is in its racial stereotyping. The only black inspired penguin is portrayed by Robin Williams as a jive-talking religious preacher while Mumble is joined by four Latino inspired penguins that are all party animal, women harassing Adelie penguins. The female Adelie’s are even more stereotypical than the males. I think that this type of stereotyping is lazy at best.

The songs are all fairly modern and well performed and the dancing is funny. Unfortunately, not much else is. The jokes are cheap and fall flat. Also the films central romantic thread feels a bit forgotten. On the plus side the animation looks great. Some scenes look real and the film makes great use of camera angles.

Overall, the film is a bit of a letdown. While I think its attitude towards religion deserves praise and the animation is very good, it is quite boring and not very funny. It has a good idea at its centre and I liked the central character but little else.

5/10

Into the Abyss

Werner Herzog’s latest documentary, Into the Abyss: A tale of death, a tale of life looks at the issue of Capital Punishment in America and specifically at the case of the convicted murderer Michael Perry who in October 2001, along with Jason Burkett, murdered three people in Conroe, Texas.

Unlike his last documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams in which Herzog provided much of the commentary in his hypnotic Bavarian monotone, in Into the Abyss he allows both the perpetrators of the murder and those that it affected to provide the majority of the dialogue save for some discerning and hard hitting questions and the occasional voice over from Herzog himself. This allows the story to be told from a first hand perspective and gives great insight as to the motives and consequences of the crime as well as the surrounding circumstances. One thing that the film uncovers is that not one person within the story, whether victim, perpetrator or those in the wider community has lived a happy or trouble free life. It uncovers a kind of underclass within the town of Conroe that perhaps runs through the rest of the country. It seems that everyone Herzog talks to has either been in jail, has had experience of violent crime or has experienced great tragedy. This was an eye opener for me and my girlfriend, coming from middle class families in the UK. It feels a million miles away from the America of the movies.

The film also skirts around the cycle of violence and the fact that you are more likely to commit crime and go to jail if other members of your family have. Jason Burkett, who escaped the death penalty but was given a life sentence, grew up in a house without his father who was and still is in jail for murder. His brother was also in jail. Toward the end of the film, Herzog discovers that Burkett has smuggled his seamen out of the jail and has impregnated a woman who he met after he was convicted. The cycle continues.

Herzog makes it quite clear at the beginning of the film that he is against capital punishment and I suppose I should also lay my cards on the table and state that I agree. I completely understand the arguments for; justice, financial reasons, deterrent, making a person pay the full price, an eye for an eye etc but I personally believe that a state/country loses its moral high ground when it murders its own citizens, for any reason. I don’t think any state has a right to murder. I also believe that it doesn’t act as a deterrent as when you compare crime statistics you discover that the USA has a murder rate of 4.8 per 100,000 with Capital Punishment in place compared to 1.23 in the UK, 1.16 in Australia and 0.84 in Germany. Despite Herzog’s belief, the film remains pretty balanced and gives both those for and against an opportunity to state their reasons. My stance didn’t change but I definitely hated the two men the film documents and thought that the world would have been a much better place without them.

The film is very good at creating tension. In one particular scene, Herzog’s camera passes through the corridor towards the death camber, passed the cell in which an inmate spends their last night, passed a stack of bibles and two tables with flowers on them and through a thick metal door, into a room with a gurney, on which the inmates will die. The scene had me sweating and almost shaking. It is quite chilling. The whole film is edited superbly and uses music to great effect.

One of the downsides of the documentary is that it left me wanting to know much more about the case, the legal system and Conroe, Texas. At 105 minutes, I would have happily sat through another 30. Another problem is that it feels very televisual. This however is a problem that many documentaries face.

The film is bleak and troubling and doesn’t shy away from gruesome scenes and descriptions. It had my girlfriend and I discussing it all the way home which is something that few films manage and is a must watch for anyone with a vote in America.      

8/10

Additional. Since watching the film I've found out that it was compiled from just five hours of footage, which makes the resulting film even more remarkable. Along with the feature, Herzog has also made four 45 minute TV Documentaries about other inmates on Death Row which are currently airing on Channel 4 here in the UK and are well worth checking out.

The Host

Creature feature The Host is set in Seoul where an American pathologist orders his reluctant Korean assistant to pour hundreds of bottles of formaldehyde down the sink which in turn ends up in the Han River. Fast forward a couple of years and a giant monster is spotted hanging from a bridge over the Han and the film focuses its attention on one unremarkable family who are thrust into the middle of the extraordinary events which follow the monster’s first sighting and attack on the citizens of Seoul. Song kang-ho (Thirst, Joint Security Area) is the lead, playing a lazy and slow witted man who works at his fathers food stand. His daughter, played by Ko Ah-seong is a smart little girl who is abducted by the monster. Her father along with his brother Park Hae-il, sister Bae Doona and father Byeon Hee-bong try to evade the authorities and hunt down the monster to help save the girl.

The film contains elements of drama, comedy, horror and political commentary and is very successful at slipping from one genre to another in an instant. One moment Song Kang-ho is doing something silly or odd and the next he is screaming as he is tied down to undergo a lobotomy. The political themes and anti-American stance run throughout the film. The film’s opening idea is loosely based on a 2000 incident in which an American mortician dumped formaldehyde down the drains and into the Han and throughout, the US military are portrayed as uncaring towards the Korean population and willing to usurp the Korean Government to do what it wants, when it wants. The Anti-American theme is further exemplified by the fact that the film was lauded in North Korea which is unheard of for a South Korean film. The Anti-American stance makes me wonder why a Hollywood remake is being produced and as usual I wish it wasn’t. I’d like people to see the original and stop being so lazy and closed minded when it comes to reading subtitles.

The story itself is very good and the family, well defined. As well as the obvious political statement it is a study of a family and each person’s roles within that family. Song Kang-ho (one of my favourite actors) is excellent, playing a completely different type of character to what I’ve seen him do before. Ko Ah-Seong is also very good and seems mature beyond her years. I’m not surprised to read that she won awards for the role. The direction is great with Bong Joon-ho utilizing camera angles that lead you to wonder where the monster is and which are designed to keep you on edge.

When I first saw the monster I thought that it was well designed but that the CGI looked a bit shiny. The more I watched however I realised that that was obviously done on purpose as the monster is predominantly water dwelling and in fact the CGI is very good. There is one sequence in particular when the monster is first spotted in which the GCI and direction come together wonderfully to create a magnificent chase scene. It is unusual in a monster film to be able to see the monster fully early on. In films such as Cloverfield you never get much more than a hint of the monster but here it is visible from the get go and I think that makes for an interesting and brave change.     

Overall the film is interesting and exhilarating and manages to fuse different genres and themes. There are laugh out loud moments and times where the film feels very poignant. In addition, Song Kang-ho is a joy to watch. 

8/10

The Pirates! An Adventure with Scientists/Band of Misfits

The Pirates! An Adventure with Scientists or Band of Misfits as it is known outside the UK for some reason, is the latest stop-motion feature from Aardman Animations, the studio behind the likes of Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run. It is based on the first two novels in the Pirates! Series by Gideon Defoe.

Set in 1837, the story follows the adventures of a pirate captain called Pirate Captain (Hugh Grant) in his attempts to win the Pirate of the Year competition for the first time. Despite being mostly deluded and incompetent he is actually kind at heart and has the respect of his crew. He is really up against it through when it comes to winning the competition because he is a pretty rubbish pirate and is up against the cream of the piratical world which includes Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek) and Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven). While attempting to rob a ship, Pirate Captain has a chance meeting with Charles Darwin (David Tennant) who notices that the ship’s parrot, Polly is in fact the world’s last Dodo. Darwin, the Captain and his crew travel to London to show the Scientific community their discovery but while there risk bumping into the staunchly anti-pirate, Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton).

As you’d expect from an Aardman production, the film is full of both subtle and not so subtle humour. One of the first things that made me laugh was the names of Pirate Captain’s crew. There is The Pirate with a Scarf (Marin Freeman), so named because he wears a scarf, The Pirate with Gout (Brendan Gleeson) who is fat, the Albino Pirate (Russell Tovey) and the best of them all, the Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate (Ashley Jensen) who is a woman in a fake beard. They are great names which bought a smile to my face each time they were used. A lot of the humour comes from the book on which the film is based but it is liberally laced with Aardman’s trademark subtlety. Every shop sign or wanted poster features a pun and there are nods to the likes of Blackadder. It’s the sort of film that will take several viewings in order to see all of the jokes.

The animation is top notch, as it should be. Aardman are the masters of their art and having dabbled in stop-motion animation myself (my most popular video can be seen here), I understand the time and effort that must go into making a stop-motion feature. Aardman has come a long way from the rough and ready clay models of The Wrong Trousers but the models still maintain their distinctive style and it is obvious that care has been taken during each of the millions of frames.

The voice cast is excellent. Most of the actors are instantly recognisable but David Tennant puts on a convincing accent for his interpretation of Charles Darwin. The actors help to make the scrip very funny and I’m pleased to see that the filmmakers have stuck with a mostly British cast and stayed away from an A-List star.

Pirate Captain isn't a fan of wearing 3D glasses

The soundtrack is enjoyable and uses songs which are not only great but fit the story perfectly. You can expect to hear the likes of The Clash, Flight of the Concords and Blur.

While my girlfriend, most of the adult audience and myself enjoyed the film, the young children in the audience seemed a little bored by it. I don’t think there was enough in the film to keep the young children entertained and a lot of the humour was going over their head. It is almost like the film has been pitched at an adult audience, which is fine and worked, but with a U rating and an Easter release, lots of children will go and may be disappointed.

This is not Aardman’s best work but it was an enjoyable 88 minutes that featured plenty of laughs and a fairly interesting but in the end throw away plot. I would definitely go back to watch the sequel and will watch it again when it is inevitably shown on TV during a future Christmas period.    

7/10

Morning Glory

Morning Glory is a 2010 comedy (apparently) drama set in New York. Becky Fuller (Rachel McAdams) is an up and coming TV News producer who loses her job on a New Jersey TV show due to budget cuts. She lands a job in New York City at Daybreak, a national morning network show which is struggling with poor ratings and a lack of funding and direction. Becky sacks the male anchor and tries to get veteran journalist Mike Pomeroy (Harrison Ford) to join co anchor Colleen Peck (Diane Keaton) in fronting the show. Pomeroy has to accept due to a clause in his contract but makes it clear both on and off air that he is above the show and doesn’t want to be there. Somehow Becky must try to improve the ratings before her boss Jerry Barnes (Jeff Goldblum) cancels the show.

Do you think she will manage it? Will Mike Pomeroy come around and save the show? Will Becky end up in a relationship with the hot guy she meets on her first day? Of course she will. The plot is so obvious you might as well have a director’s commentary telling you what is going to happen next. It isn’t just the plot that’s obvious but specific parts of the dialogue. I found myself saying what characters were about to say before they said it. The film treats its audience like idiots, as does the TV show which they are trying to save. It is the kind of sunny, happy, vacuous show that is on some channels in the morning. You know the type. Here in the UK it’s whatever is shitting all over the screen if you tune into ITV in the morning. I was actually routing for the arrogant and grumpy Pomeroy when he tried to inject some current affairs in amongst the stories of psychic pets and celebrity name changes. Occasionally the script will make fun of these types of shows but then go straight back to telling Pomeroy he can’t talk about the news.

The film has one of those terribly annoying and patronising soundtracks which sound like a tampon advert. Every time Becky makes strides we get some uplifting warbling from Natasha Bedingfield and then some slow schmaltz when she hits hard times. It’s predictable and lazy.

There are so many idiotic problems with the film. After losing her job, Becky is offered a job in NYC which is one of the most expensive cities in the world. She is told she will be earning half what she earned in New Jersey but moves in to an apartment that is large enough to swing several cats. Also, while she is still on the verge of having her failing show cancelled, she is offered her dream job on The Today Show, which makes no sense. What makes even less sense is that she turns down her dream because Harrison Ford makes a bloody frittata on TV! It’s infuriating. The Daybreak office is unrealistically unkempt. The filmmakers try to get across the idea that the show is in turmoil by having everyone speak at once in a production meeting and showing that the door knobs are broken. I’m pretty sure that even the forth biggest morning show in the richest nation on earth could replace a couple of f***ing door knobs! This film is so stupid!

This is a truly terrible film but is partially salvaged by four excellent actors. At least three of them should have gone nowhere near it but nonetheless, all four are good. Rachel McAdams is affable as Becky. This is a role she is comfortable in but has done many times before and since. Diane Keaton is believable as a news anchor and Jeff Goldbum is good in a very small role but is by no means stretched. The standout is Harrison Ford though who, although playing a version of himself brings some gravitas to the film. His character really seems like he doesn’t want to be there, but that could just be the actor’s emotions showing through. Patrick Wilson also features but has so little to do it is hardly worth mentioning him. He basically has to flirt with Rachel McAdams and act sad when she thinks about work too much.

I wouldn’t recommend this film to anyone. Even for fans of the normal Rachel McAdams rom-com type films, this would be disappointing. It isn’t funny, nor is the idea interesting. The romantic storyline feels like it was added on the set and if not for some fine actors paying their bills I wouldn’t have made it to the end. There is nothing to like here.

3/10

Tenebrae

Tenebrae is a 1982 giallo horror/thriller from one of the kings of the giallo subgenre, Dario Argento. American horror writer Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa) is in Rome to promote his latest novel Tenebrae. Shortly before his arrival, a young woman is murdered in the city using the same method as the killer in his latest book. The local Police ask for his help as more murders take place using the same method. Eventually the murderer is discovered but the murders continue, leading both the Police and the author searching for a second killer.

The film features all of the major trademarks of the giallo subgenre. There are plenty of extended murder scenes which feature excessive blood letting. There is a ‘whodunit’ plot and the film is laced with unnecessary sex and nudity. The music that accompanies the film is the distinctive and funky work of frequent Argento collaborators, Goblin (Title Music here).

The plot is interesting enough but I was able to figure out most of the surprises before they happened and predict one of the two killers. Thematically it is quite similar to the last film I saw The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, in that it explores violence that is specifically aimed at women and features scene of sadism. The story is also quite similar to the recent John Cusack film The Raven.

Argento shows that he is a master of working behind the camera with this stylish and precise film. It features some wonderful cinematography and a couple of beautiful and technically difficult tracking shots. He is also unafraid to show graphic violence which gained it the ‘Video Nasty’ label in the UK and meant it was banned until 1999. While the violence is gory and a little shocking, it is not more so that today’s ‘torture porn’ style films such as Saw or The Human Centipede and is not gory for the sake of it. The horror itself isn’t very scary. I didn’t jump or feel tense but it is the violence and blood letting which got the film banned. Many of the female characters walked around half naked and most of the violence is aimed at them which probably didn’t help when it came to censorship.

The acing is completely over the top and for the most part, terrible. I have seen few films with acting as bad as this. Nevertheless I didn’t let this annoy me as most of the cast were working in a second language. This is actually what annoyed me. Despite being set in Italy and featuring a mostly Italian cast, the film was shot in English in order to be more widely accessible in America. As a result the dialogue feels clunky and badly written and it often looks dubbed when it isn’t because the sound and picture are out of sync. I think it would have been a better film had it been in Italian.   

Overall the film is a little uneven and suffers from poor acting but is an fascinating study of sexual deviancy and violence as well as paranoia and madness. It is a must see for any giallo fans or fans of early 80s horror in general and features a great, funky soundtrack.

6/10

The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo

2009’s The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo is the first of two recent film adaptations of the best selling novel by Swedish author Stieg Larsson. It centres on the hunt for answers after a young girl was murdered in 1966. Writer Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) has recently been found guilty of libel and is due to be spending a few months in prison. On behalf of Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube) a young investigator called Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) does some background research on Blomkvist and Vanger asks him to help solve the mystery surrounding his niece’s disappearance forty years ago. Blomkvist accepts and travels to the island upon which many of the Vanger family are based and where the missing girl, Harriet was last seen. As Blomkvist begins to gather clues and evidence, Salander continues to hack into his computer and becomes interested in both him and the case. Eventually she cracks a clue and sends her findings to Blomkvist who finds her and persuades her to help him. She is at first reluctant but agrees. Together the two try to uncover the mystery and end up uncovering much more than they ever expected to or even wanted to.

Having now seen the film I can now totally understand why the novel has gained such a large following and has sold as many copies as it has (53 million for the trilogy combined). The plot is fascinating and intriguing and is delivered at a steady pace. It successfully feeds just enough information to keep you interested but not enough to allow you to have it all figured out too early. It is quite literally a thrilling Thriller.

Nasty man

Many of the themes of the film are quite dark and have had to be tackled delicately. One of the main themes is violence by men, towards women and indeed the original Swedish title is Men who hate women. There are a few grizzly and quite frankly horrific scenes, one of which has stayed with me the day after seeing it. The films lead female, Lisbeth Salander has undergone some quite horrific acts at the hands of men, many of which are played out during the film and this gives us an understanding as to why she has turned into the woman she has. She is very distanced, especially around men. She is cold and introverted and has difficulty connecting with people. She is sexually ambiguous and shows great hostility towards men who do women harm as a result of her traumatic childhood. All of these traits are performed wonderfully by Noomi Rapace who is simply sublime as Salander. The male lead Mikael Blomkvist is an intelligent and dedicated investigative journalist and Michael Nyqvist plays him well. He is very believable but his performance is completely overshadowed by that of Noomi Rapace.

Whodunnit?

Another theme which has a place in Sweden is Nazism. This is something that is still quite a contentious subject in the country as many Swedes joined their Aryan cousins, the Germans during World War II. I was shocked to discover in a recent book on the subject that towards the end of the War there were many Swedes, Norwegian and even French volunteers fighting in the streets of Berlin when most of the German’s had been killed or had surrendered. This murky past is explored in the film and becomes a major part of the deduction the two leads undertake.   

The film kept me on the edge of my seat throughout. Salander is a compelling heroine who I was rooting for in every scene is which she was able to enact some revenge on those who had wronged her. Towards the end as all the loose ends had been tied up, I felt that the film carried on for two long but this was obviously to set the story up for the sequel. I also felt that at 152 minutes it was on the long side but having said that there is little I’d want to take out. In regards to the graphic sexual violence, although disturbing I thought that it was necessary in order to show the audience what Salander has had to go through. The film is a great thriller which features a gripping and horrific story and some fantastic acting from Noomi Rapace who deserves all of the nominations and awards that she won for the role.  

8/10

Time Bandits

Terry Gilliam’s 1981 fantasy film Time Bandits is about a young boy called Kevin (Craig Warnock) who is one night awakened by a gang of time travelling dwarfs who have stolen a map from ‘the Creator’ which they are using to steal treasure. Kevin joins the gang and travels to the middle ages and ancient Greece amongst other times and places and eventually ends up facing off against Evil (David Warner) in a battle of quite literally good vs. evil.

From what I’d read of the plot beforehand I was hoping for a kind of Goonies crossed with Brazil but what I got didn’t live up to either of those films. While Terry Gilliam’s directorial style is all over the film with lavish and unusual sets and costumes and his distinct animation, it lacked the humour of the Python films and the drama and intrigue of the likes of Brazil or 12 Monkeys. The film is obviously aimed at a younger audience than those films and perhaps a younger audience would have enjoyed it more than me.

Craig Warnock, playing the central character of Kevin was really annoying but I liked the gang of dwarfs. They each had their own little eccentricities and quirks and were sometimes amusing. John Cleese has an excellent cameo as Robin Hood in which he channels Prince Philip. His few minutes on screen were very funny. Sean Connery is another with a small cameo, playing King Agamemnon but a version of the King who has a passion for magic. He is fine, but like Cleese is under used. Co-writer Michael Palin has a couple of cameos and his small roles are the funniest of the film.

One of my main problems with the film is that it lacked the laughs you’d expect from a Palin-Gilliam co written piece. There is the odd subtle bit of humour laced here and there but they are few and far between. The film focuses too heavily on the adventure which isn’t actually that interesting. Maybe it isn’t meant to be that funny but I think the film would have been greatly improved had it been so.

There was one moment towards the end which I liked and thought was bold. This came when Kevin asks ‘the Creator’ why so many people had to die in order for him to carry out a little experiment. As an atheist, I liked this little question as it is something I personally would love to ask ‘the Creator’ did it exist. Why cause so much suffering when you don’t need to and can stop it? It’s a nice sly question which might have children watching asking their parents and priests the same thing.  

On the whole the film is fine but lacks excitement and humour. The sets and effects are superb and the cameos good. I just expected a lot more from Gilliam, who is a fantastic film maker.  

5/10