Film - showing at a cinema near you
The Dark Knight
When Christopher Nolan gave us Batman Begins back in 2005, he brought a certain dourness to the previously brash world of cinematic comic book heroes. Here, he takes the director's chair again, and seems to bring the series to an even darker, moodier place. Christian Bale is back as the caped crusader, still chased by those demons, still looking one half chiselled superhero, one half American Psycho, but now also thoroughly unsettled when into Gotham City springs his nemesis, The Joker (a creepy, nerve-jangling and masterful performance by the late Heath Ledger), intent on wreaking havoc. It's the same old fight, the same old opponents, the same old love interest (here given a fresh twist by Maggie Gyllenhaal), but somehow The Dark Knight feels different. Gotham City itself is all glass and steel, more fragile-looking, while Batman is even more troubled, more elusive and more dragged down, it seems, by a sense of inevitable doom. The screens are crowded with superheroes this summer, but there are few as hauntingly impressive as this new, unsettling Batman.
12A, 152 mins
Baby Mama
There's something uncompromisingly light about Baby Mama, but as a showcase for the considerable comic talents of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler (not to mention a response to the laddish Apatow humour that has sprawled relentlessly across our screens recently in movies such as Knocked Up) it works rather adequately. One rather feels the sense of missed opportunity, though. Fey plays Kate, a woman in her late 30s, devoted to her career but beginning to fret that she has missed the boat, baby-wise. Accordingly, she hires the womb of Angie (Poehler), drawn as a sweet, trashy figure in hotpants. From thereon in, Baby Mama unfolds quite predictably. There are amusing appearances by Steve Martin as Kate's boss at the organic grocery chain, and by Greg Kinnear as a Johnny-come-lately love interest. But, by-and-large, one is left with the feeling that this film is not as funny as Fey and Poehler, nor as funny as most women you know, nor indeed as funny as Knocked Up. Is it really so difficult to get women's humour onto the big screen? Currently, one fears the answer is a thudding yes. 12A, 99 mins
Hancock
Cinema's infatuation with superheroes rolls ever onward with this story of John Hancock (Will Smith), the unwilling recipient of superhuman capabilities - flying, incredible strength, indestructibility... you know the drill. Rather than embracing his powers and the responsibilities they carry, Hancock hits the bottle and remains a perpetual grouch. When he saves the life of PR guru Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman), however, he is presented with an opportunity to overhaul his image with a stint in jail, a stretch in rehab and a few anger management classes. There is a pretty fine premise behind Hancock, and it floats along quite satisfactorily for the first quarter before one realises that the jokes just ain't that funny, and the plot is staggering off in an unexpected - and uninteresting - direction. As for the love interest... well, Charlize Theron is a knockout, but there is, to me, a complete lack of sexual chemistry between her and Smith. Poor Charlize is left to smoulder on her own. The interesting thing with Hancock will be to see whether the sheer audience-wooing clout of Will Smith can counteract the thorough limpness of this movie.
12A, 92 mins
Wanted
And so the summer blockbuster kerplunks into our laps. Adapted from Mark Millar's graphic novel, Wanted brings us the story of young Wes (James McAvoy) who has a dead-end job, is much-berated by his boss and largely ignored by his girlfriend. It seems, in short, that he will amount to very little. But meeting Angelina Jolie can have a strange effect on a fellow. Here, Jolie plays Fox, an assassin and member of The Fraternity - a secret society headed by the mysterious Sloan (Morgan Freeman) - which works to maintain civilisation by bumping off ne'er-do-wells. Fox recruits Wes when his estranged father (a top Fraternity assassin) is killed, and sets about transforming him into a well-honed, revenge-enacting machine. Wanted is actually tremendous fun and looks stunning, thanks to the art of Russian director Timur Bekmambetov. Jolie is here doing what she does best - smouldering and looking as if she might whup your sorry ass at any minute. And it's hard not to feel a rush of delight for McAvoy, who's cementing his big-league place in Hollywood with what amounts to a classy action thriller.
18, 110 mins
Buddha Collapsed out of Shame
Concerning a single day, and set amid the rubble of Afghanistan (specifically where there once stood a statue of Buddha that was destroyed by the Taliban), this is an extremely impressive debut by 19-year-old Iranian director Hana Makhmalbaf. Desperate to attend school, six-year-old Baktay (Nikbakht Noruz) goes trundling off in search of a new schoolbook, but is apprehended en route by a gang of boys busy playing war games and intent on taking her hostage. It's a troubling episode, and one is never certain how much of a game this truly is. At times Makhmalbaf's symbolism lands a little heavily (a scene involving a paper plane on fire perhaps spells things out a little too clearly) but nonetheless, Buddha Collapsed is an intelligent contribution and shows great promise.
TBC, 81 mins
Savage Grace
Across decades and continents, from post-World War II America to 1960s London, we follow the shocking true story of Tony Baekeland (Eddie Redmayne) and his parents Brooks (Stephen Dillane) and Barbara (Julianne Moore). Brooks has inherited the family plastics empire but lacks ambition. Barbara is deeply pretentious and laden down with intellectual aspirations. Despite these blemishes, the Baekelands undoubtedly sit in a rather enviable position: rich, beautiful, feted. But the higher you sit, the harder you fall. And fall they do, into a mess of infidelities, incestuous relationships and murder. One rather expects Savage Grace to be tremendous - after all, the director is Tom Kalin, who debuted with the excellent Swoon, and the star and real centre of the film is the exceptional Julianne Moore. But there's something uneasy and unconvincing about this movie; for all its impeccable, lint-free appearance and studiously recreated period interiors, there is a lack of a heart, its emotions seemingly delivered from very far away, as if by semaphore.
15, 97 mins
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
A couple of years on from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, we now have the second installment of Disney's adaptation of CS Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia series. But a lot has changed in Narnia: while it's wartime in Blighty, in the land through the wardrobe door the creatures have all disappeared, the great hall lies ruined, and dour-faced men in body armour rumble about, fiendishly plotting. At the heart of the distress sits poor Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) and his viperous uncle Miraz (Sergio Castellitto) who has taken the throne from Caspian's father. When Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna Popplewell), Edmund (Skandar Keynes) and Lucy (Georgie Henley), Narnia's exiled kings and queens, are flung back into this world - all glorious manners and innocent faces - it seems the very least they can do is sort things out. The Chronicles take a darker, more ominous turn here, and all the glowering might prove a little too much for younger children. Yet for the older ones this is a smashing film - with war, political intrigue, a burgeoning romance between the Prince and Susan, and of course the full gamut of furry critters. It's perfect children's entertainment.
PG, 147 mins
WALL-E
WALL-E, Pixar's latest - and most wonderful - animated film, tells the story of a rubbish recycling machine (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) who trundles around an apocalyptic wasteland once known as Earth, in the company of his cockroach pal. Until, that is, he falls in love with another machine - the sleek and sophisticated research probe, Eve - who has been sent to inspect the state of the planet by an exiled human race. Inspired by a videotape of the film Hello, Dolly! that informs him on matters romantic, he attempts to woo the good Eve and ends up pursuing her across the galaxy. But this is not a mere robotic love story; it's a tale of man's short-sightedness and his destruction of our world in a flurry of waste and megastores. Mankind now lives on a far-flung space station where humans have ballooned into a kind of physical, mental and moral blubberiness. It is, you gather, a warning bell, a sounding of the alarm, to let us know what we could so easily become. Accordingly, WALL-E is charged with a deep melancholy, a sadness kindled by both the passing of our planet and by the fact that, despite it all, love still exists in what mankind has created. Absolutely brilliant stuff.
U, 98 mins
Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging
Gurinder Chadha has demonstrated her ability to convincingly portray the world of adolescent girls before, in the feted Bend It Like Beckham. This time she's addressing those hellish years when girls' interaction is more popularity contest than friendship (see also Heathers and Jawbreaker) and boys loom large on the horizon. Both problems dominate the life of 15-year-old Georgia (Georgia Groome). She's stewing away in teenage misery on the south coast in Eastbourne and is head-over-heels with new boy Robbie (Aaron Johnson), who comes equipped with a twin brother Tom (Sean Bourke) who quickly becomes the object of her best friend's affection. It isn't the fieriest movie, perhaps, but it is a charmer - in a gentle, resolutely un-American way. The cast squawks and rages and flounces its way through to the conclusion in precisely the way that teenage girls are wont to do - and if only for that, Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging deserves applause.
12A, 100 mins
Donkey Punch
Out on the Med, a group of young British holidaymakers are enjoying the summer on a luxury yacht, all gaiety, raunch, hard partying, drink and drugs - until one of them meets an untimely and bizarre end. Suddenly the mood sours, unleashing a taut - if unremarkable - psychological thriller. Despite its ordinariness, Donkey Punch already carries with it a whiff of infamy - its stars and director have been forced to defend its orgy scenes, and, in particular, its unsettling, sex-related death. The scandal appears to have painted over the film's fundamental flaws. Sensationalism aside, there is nonetheless something hopeful about Donkey Punch: made on an extremely small budget by first-time director Oliver Blackburn, and starring a host of young actors including Jaime Winstone and Sian Breckin, there is a certain fresh-air feeling to this movie that comes from the sound of a new generation of British talent hurrying in.
18, 99 mins
Journey to the Centre of the Earth
This is the second screen adaptation of the Jules Verne novel of 1864, in which the science fiction author envisioned the centre of the earth to be a land of oceans and dinosaurs. The 1959 version starred Pat Boone, but this time, enjoying a modernised script, we have Brendan Fraser as Trevor Anderson, a university professor and expert in seismology who is still haunted by the disappearance of his brother Max some years earlier. When Max's stroppy teenage son Sean (Josh Hutcherson) comes to visit, he brings along some of Max's documents, including an annotated copy of the Verne novel in which he has floated his own theories about how to reach the earth's centre. Trevor and Sean promptly rush off to Iceland with Max's notes as their map, where they meet the frostily gorgeous tour guide Hannah (Anna Briem), and together they all go crashing into the earth. What follows is a science fiction film that is at once thrilling, tender and funny, and a glorious celebration of CGI. Indeed, the greatest achievement of this incarnation of Journey is perhaps the balance it strikes between big, splashy special effects and Fraser's thoroughly likable humour - it's a combination that saves this film from tumbling into true Vernian geekdom.
12A, 92 mins
City of Men
City of Men can be viewed as a companion piece to 2002's City of God, the documentary-style account of life amid the lawless backstreets of Rio de Janeiro directed by Fernando Meirelles - who has often collaborated with City of Men director Paulo Morelli. The films also share two of their actors, Douglas Silva and Darlan Cunha, who last time were 11-year-old boys, and are now 18-year-old 'men': Ace (Silva), married and with a newborn son, and Wallace (Cunha), who is searching for his own father. Both are gangsters, and when violence erupts in their neighbourhood, the two friends find that they are caught on opposite sides. City of Men lacks the snarl of City of God, but that is not to its detriment - the purpose of this movie, after all, is not so much to expose the horror and violence of slum life, as to work out how relationships (particularly friendships and the bond between father and son) can continue to survive in such a setting. This it does with warmth and an arresting candour.
15, 106 mins
Mamma Mia!
Since it opened in 1999, Mamma Mia! has become one of the most successful and best-loved stage productions in the world, and its transfer to the screen has therefore been hotly anticipated. Blessedly, the cinematic version is an absolute gem, full of energy and gusto, and bolstered by a gung-ho cast and the writer, director and producer of the stage play. For those unfamiliar with the story, Mamma Mia! relates the tale of Donna Sheridan (Meryl Streep), the proprietor of a Greek taverna, who, having passed the 1970s somewhat promiscuously, has a daughter named Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), fathered potentially by one of three men. Now that Sophie is due to wed she wants to know which of these men should be walking her down the aisle - Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth or Stellan Skarsgard. One should add that - this being a musical - the story is told to the tune of Abba's greatest hits. The three paternal candidates all bring a certain disorientated charm to the screen, but it's the women who flourish here - not only Streep and Seyfried, but also Julie Walters and Christine Baranski in their supporting roles. Amid all the buffed-up action flicks and the chirpy-voiced animations haunting our screens this summer, Mamma Mia! provides the more voluptuous, womanly film choice.
12A, 108 mins
The Edge of Love
This much-awaited Dylan Thomas biopic starring Sienna Miller and Keira Knightley (with a screenplay by Knightley's mother, Sharman MacDonald) had the potential to be a puffy and over-trumpeted exercise in movie-star indulgence. But in fact it triumphs as a film of great beauty and Britishness. The film focuses less on Thomas's poetry and more on the women in his life (they are, after all, more photogenic): his wife Caitlin (Miller) and the lovely Vera (Knightley), his childhood sweetheart. It's 1941, and Vera has established a nice line in entertaining the troops, winning the heart of a captain named William Killick (Cillian Murphy). But when William trots off to war, Vera embarks upon a kind of windswept love triangle with Caitlin and Thomas (Matthew Rhys). The most startling revelation in The Edge of Love is surely Miller, who, after all the canoodling and boho-ing about, suddenly reveals herself to be an actress of some clout. The movie makes for a surprising - and lovely - start to the summer.
15, 110 mins
Reviews by Laura Barton
FIRST POSTED
JULY 24, 2008
