Film Reviews

Doctor Stephen Strange’s (Benedict Cumberbatch) life changes after a car accident robs him of the use of his hands. When traditional medicine fails him, he looks for healing, and hope, in a mysterious cult. He quickly learns that the select group in Nepal is at the front line of a battle against unseen dark forces bent on destroying reality. Before long, Strange is forced to choose between his life of fortune and status or leave it all behind to defend the world as the most powerful sorcerer in existence.

The film has been compared to the Iron Man series – also from the digital stable of Marvel. Only, more subtle, with scene changing liquid like graphics, and a deeper sense of philosophical musings – principally from the enigmatic Tilda Swanton as the Ancient One.

Perfect casting as Swanton is ethereal and full of mystique and her shaven head and emotionless tones capture every scene. No need for too many digital enhancements here, but the swirling deep copper colour sequences throughout the film add considerably to the darker mood as the plot develops.

The plot might as well be biblical in its antiquity. Fallen angel Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) is amok and must be stopped. Together with other students Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Wong (Benedict Wong) Dr Strange’s destiny, once recovered, is to surgically remove Kaecilius from wreaking his deadly wroth on the world.

As Master and student, Cumberbatch and Swanton excel together.  There’s an intense egoistical quality to Doctor Strange’s taut makeup. Under the Ancient One’s searching tutelage he must re-discover himself – it’s not just his hands that need to heal.

All super heroes need super powers, of course, and Doctor Strange’s cloak begins to take on a life of its own as well as various magical forces and weapons with flames and sparks forged from the fiery depths.

Visually, it’s a joy to watch. The breadth and scope will take your breath away. But that doesn’t mean that the effects in any way overshadow strong lead roles. Deft comic touches like when Doctor Strange confuses a wifi password for a spell, spring the audience back to its senses just when it threatens to get all encompassing.

As we as are drawn, ever deeper, into the magical world we find Doctor Strange right in our face, his terse temper and abrupt actions jolt us into following his every movement – mainly because we never know what’s going on in his head.

Okay, it may be comic book stuff, but we are both captivated by the performances and held captivate in a private world for just long enough to begin to understand its strange complexity, inner dynamics which bind some characters together and set others apart and the fluctuating forces that move and shape its ever changing vision of reality.

Famous symbologist Professor Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) follows a trail of clues tied to Dante, the great medieval Renaissance poet. When Langdon wakes up in an Italian hospital with amnesia, he teams up with Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones), a doctor he hopes will help him recover his memories. Together, they race across Europe and against the clock to stop a madman (Ben Foster) from unleashing a virus that could wipe out half of the world’s population.

Well, that’s the official plot as far as it goes. And the whole film – even at two hours in length – fairly flies by. Hanks barely has time to solve the next puzzle before he’s off again in search of another missing clue in the cryptic crossword of Dante’s dance of life and death – all the while pursued by a myriad of goodies who are baddies, false friends, and government agents on their own agenda. And that’s all before he even has a chance to locate where the virus is really hidden.

Inferno begins with Hanks struggling to regain his memory having been apparently bashed on the head. In the penultimate scene he has a plaster on his forehead from another struggle. In between, he spends plenty of time scratching his head trying to work out what’s going on. In this he’s not alone.

But before we get ahead of ourselves – very easy when Hanks and Co are rushing from church to church to get to the baptismal font on time – let’s get back to the start.

Why try and wipe out half the world in the first place with a deadly virus? Well, it has something to do with getting back to the start – of civilisation and beginning all over again. Over- population can only be stopped by starting again with half the numbers – although how exactly half the world will die and the other half survive is beyond me.

Churlish of me to get all numerological when there’s a cataclysmic catastrophe on the watery horizon, I know. Put it down to a twisted genius who falls from grace (literally) in the opening scene.

Along the way there’s high jinks in the eves of a Florentine medieval church, with crashing results for someone. And an underwater finale, in a basement of another church, this time the Basilica cistern in Istanbul.

Irrfan Khan who plays Harry Sims, the shadowy head of a security firm and Elizabeth Sinskey (Sidse Babett Knudsen), Head of the World Health Organisation, and a former flame of Hanks, are part of the chasing pack with rogue operatives and honourable objectives which seem to conflict and coincide from scene to scene.

Khan, aided by Paul Ritter (Friday Night Dinner tv series) injects a much needed sense of sardonic humour into a plot which, at times, is too earnest for its own good.

Interestingly, filming mass crowd scenes in such historic squares, meant having two sets of extras. A background of tourists and sightseers milling around the palazzos and a circle of professional extras reacting to the action taking place immediately in front of them.

 

After the best-selling Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons books and films, Inferno is very definitely in the same vein. Just don’t let the virus get anywhere near it.

My advice is to sit back and enjoy the rollercoaster ride through the Renaissance. It takes a warped genius to start off the plot but it won’t take a genius to work out the ending. That’s one clue I can give away for nothing.

Commuter Rachel Watson (Emily Blunt) catches daily glimpses of a seemingly perfect couple, Scott and Megan, (Luke Evans and Hayley Bennett) from the window of her train. As chance would have it, they live a few doors down from Rachel’s former home where her ex, Tom (Justin Theroux) and his new wife, Anna (Rebecca Ferguson) and young child reside.

One day, she witnesses something shocking unfold in the backyard of the strangers’ home. Rachel tells the authorities what she thinks she saw after learning that Megan is now missing and feared dead. Unable to trust her own memory, she begins her own traumatic investigation, while police suspect that Rachel may have crossed a dangerous line.

We soon learn that Rachel is an alcoholic slipping vodka from a water bottle. She’s lost her job and her alimony money appears to be spent on a season ticket to nowhere; which is where she’s heading for, faster than the express train can take her.

Is Rachel is an unreliable witness; both to her own feelings and has she truly lost the plot? Well, the plot line itself depends on it. If her version of reality is coloured by the bottle and her ex’s account of what happens when she hit it too hard, then can we really believe anything she tells us?

Emily Blunt is excellent as a woman falling apart before our very eyes – her own blood stained eyes revealing desperation and determination in equal measure. Seeing is disbelieving and if she can’t trust herself how can the viewer hope to distinguish fact from fiction?

Both couples suspect her motives, hardly surprising when she doubts her own intentions at times. Is she stalking her ex, and what designs does she have on his young child? Pretending to be a friend of the missing Megan, to her husband, to search for clues, hardly helps her cause, either.

This is a film where the search for truth (who killed Megan) seems, in part, an internal search for redemption and self-belief. Where’s there’s murder, manipulation is never far away and relationships are rarely what they seem. The fate of Rachel and the two couples are inextricably linked. It gradually becomes a case of working out who has the most to lose and to hide – and that doesn’t just apply to Rachel.

Add in a psychiatrist (Edgar Ramirez) and it soon becomes clear that Rachel is not the only troubled soul on the street.

Strong female leads and an all-female finale ensures that The Girl on a Train will leave you gripping the carriage rails. Buy a return ticket and ride with Rachel in this tale of suburban subterfuge, side-tracked all the time by false signs – just don’t pay much attention to the announcements on the way.

What happens when a new couple suddenly move in opposite and their attractive looks and glamorous lives appear to be too good to be true?

It’s time to spy on the neighbours. A little harmless jealousy soon gives way to intrigue as the well-meaning Gaffneys realise that their too good to be true neighbours are some kind of secret agents. Intrigue then turns into panic when they realise that they are under surveillance themselves.

The Gaffneys’ fairly ordinary lives are interrupted by the arrival of new neighbours, whose stunning looks are matched only by the worldly sophistication of their lives. Tim Jones (Jon Hamm) is an accomplished travel writer whose hobbies include blowing glass, and his wife, Natalie, (Gal Godot) is a social media consultant, cooking blogger and heroine to Sri Lankan orphans. The Gaffneys (Zach Galifianakis) and Isla Fisher) soon find themselves in the middle of a storm of international espionage that gives them a breathtaking glimpse of life outside their cul-de-sac.

The film has attracted largely negative reviews with critics commenting that the tame script wastes a strong cast with funny situations that are contrived and lightweight.

When humdrum meets high taste, there’s a certain humour to be had from social awkwardness and feelings of inadequacy. Alas there’s not enough substance to the plot or real mystery to the mix despite Godot’s undoubted allure and all action style.

Jeff is the easy going, regular joe who works as a HR Manager at a tech plant and lets pretty much everyone use his computer.  He does a nice line in one line philosophy but pretty much everything else goes over his head. Karen is over-awed but curious about her new stunningly beautiful neighbour Natalie and sets out to tail her with comically disastrous results.

The dressing room scene where they meet up with Natalie’s long, lacy lingerie contrasting with Karen’s fat nickers which she’s only picked up as cover for stalking her sexy neighbour is an example of the comic contrasts between the two couples’ lifestyles.

Meanwhile Tim is treating Jeff’s to exotic food at an authentic Chinese restaurant that he didn’t know existed and then plying him with drink and leading questions about his work colleagues.

The Gaffney’s suspicions are finally aroused when Karen discovers Tim noising around Jeff’s office at a party they host. Natalie plays along with the male egos of Zach’s work mates when they invite her to play darts before three bullseyes puts them all firmly in their places.

After accidentally discovering a bug hidden in a piece of glasswork given to them by Tim, they decide to break into the Jones’ house to find out more about their mysterious neighbours.

They soon get caught up in car chases and hair raising situations well beyond their usual Friday night down the bar fare as they unwittingly help the secret agents track down industrial espionage at Jeff’s workplace.

Zach Galifianakis’s comic timing is impeccable and what humour there is comes largely from his deapan reactions to what’s going on around him. Isla Fisher also manages to wring out a few wry smiles with her gauche manner in adversity. The scene in which she’s crouched on the phone to her children advising them on which sandwiches to eat while being in a high speed chase raised a few chuckles.

Overall, it’s enjoyable enough but only amounts to a few set piece situations strung together with a threadbare cul de sac of a plot and all too obvious suspects. Still, on the positive side, Keeping Up with the Joneses is fast and pacey which is hardly surprising as Natalie’s lingerie stretches further than the story line.

Bridget Jones is back. After the hugely successful Bridget Jones’s Diary, the follow up – Bridget Jones; Edge of Reason suffered the curse of most comedy sequels.

I’ve always loved Bridget Jone’s appartment, the quirky flat full of colour, cosy cushions, slightly mismatched chairs and books everywhere. I always wanted to have the storage shelf she used for her plants, books and other pretty decorations.

The film was generally reckoned to be only on the edge of comedy at best. So after a twelve year break, dear Bridge is older but is she any wiser or funnier?

Fortunately, the answer is not really and resolutely every now and then.  As a character Bridget (Renee Zellweger) is definitely lovable but for whom? We warm to her all too familiar neurosis and quirky mannerisms but who will warm her heart and lead her to the promised land of holy matrimony?  Will it be the cool, repressed reserve of old flame Mark Darcy (Colin Firth)? If Bridget still holds a torch for him, it must be down to its dying embers by now.

She first meets up with Mr Darcy again at the funeral service for the missing presumed dead (Hugh Grant). From then on in, it’s a bumpy ride as she bumps into him more times than a trip to the dodgems. Love’s merry go round gets decidedly more messy (literally)  when she encounters charming American millionaire Jack Qwant (Patrick Dempsey) at Glastonbury.

The carousel of confusion is complete when she sleeps with both in quick succession and soon there’s a bump not even she can hide for long. Hardly surprising when you consider how accident prone Bridget is, but cue for chaos, jealousy, and laughter in equal measure as the love rivals compete with each other and their own emotions, for her favour.

It would have been perhaps more interesting and less cosily middle class, to have more of a contrast between the two suitors. How about a black lover? Or was that too risky and truly beyond the edge of reason for the real producers? Now that would have really given her social conscious mother (Gemma Jones) something to get uptight about, in the middle of her election campaign to be a parish councillor. And why does it always have to snow when Bridget visits her parents for Christmas?

Although Sally Phillips is back as Shazza, Bridget’s best mate, by now married and with kids, for me, the stand out role is played by another British actress, Sarah Solemani. Remember her from TV comedy Him and Her with Russell Tovey? As the news presenter Miranda, to Bridget Jones’ producer, she oozes class, professionalism and sexy poise, together with mischievous sense of adventure which all too soon leads Bridget astray.

Indeed some of the best scenes involve the interplay between the two as in when Solemi is being fed duff lines to repeat to startled guests due to Bridget’s continual mix ups and mis haps in the production box.

Another British favourite Emma Thompson excels as the taciturn Doctor whose consulting rooms become the theatre of farce as the plot finally gives birth to the identity of the real father. Let’s face it, with so many twists and turns, it was hardly likely to be a peaceful pregnancy, now was it? What’s the fun in that?

When reviewing a film, it’s always worth trying to take step back and note which particular scenes the audience laugh at the most. The extended sequence leading up to Bridget’s waters breaking and both Frith and then Dempsey trying to get her to hospital, via a three wheel Italian delivery van and then each carrying her and shoving her through the hospital’s revolving doors, elicited a continuous roar of mirth for several minutes.

All in all, it may be largely familiar, predictable comedy territory, but the seeds of laughter are sown thick on the ground for all to see. Bridget Jones is left holding the baby with a loving father, whoever he might be.

We leave entertained, although not at the prospect that there might be a further follow up in the future. Let’s leave Bridget to her happiness, for once! What excites me more, is the prospect that after her performance here, sassy, Sarah Solemani might be up for a leading lady role. Producers more savvy than Bridget Jones, please take note…

Prepared to be scared! Isn’t that what the movie trailer for every horror or supernatural movie screams out at you? A white knuckle ride through the suspension of belief and the willing and unwilling submission to a journey of terror and a full frontal assault on every audio visual sensation available? If we anticipate being scared witless (I’m being polite here) that doesn’t mean that we’ll be actually ready when it comes – in whatever shape or form.

And what preparation do we take? Take the other half with us so that when it gets really tense – we can squeeze up and see who screams the loudest? Or spook each other up when only one of us is really scared? That way movie producers get double screams and double sales? After all, do couples go to horror movies on their own?

Not in our instance, certainly. It was very much a case of ‘I’ll go, if you go – or only if you go with me!” And so, we sat down in our seats, a trifle uneasily to Ouija – Origins of Evil and prepared to be scared.

First the supernatural plot. In 1967 Los Angeles, widowed mother Alice Zander (Elizabeth Reaser) unwittingly invites authentic evil into her home by adding a new stunt to increase her séance scam business. When the merciless spirit overtakes her youngest daughter Doris (Lulu Wilson), the small family must confront unthinkable fears to save her and send her possessor back to the other side.

The film captures the spirit of the sixties perfectly and the free and easy west coast lifestyle, in particular. This bit is very easy on the eye. So the innocence of youth, in the form of the elder daughter, on verge of womanhood, is a perfect backcloth, for the darker demons in store in the cellar.

Yes, the cellar, where else? In this case, walls don’t have ears so much as hidden skulls who in a previous bodily life had their tongues ripped out and are looking (naturally or unnaturally) for mouth to talk from.  This takes the form of the angelic looking young daughter who gets possessed and ends up speaking for them.

If possession is nine tenths of the law then surely her mom ought to look for an attorney to help? But no, who better to confront these demonic forces than the local good looking Catholic priest played by Henry Thomas. Especially as in another life, the two of them could have been more than just friends. We, the audience, are on familiar ground here already, even if none of the characters appear to know what’s going on.

Overall, Ouija has the feel of a made for tv movie and not one of the big budget box office sets. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, in that there’s not an over reliance on raiding the special effects budget at the expense of a bit of old fashioned dialogue and character development.

So what of the test of the old adage for writers (or screenwriters); either write something different or better? Ouija is neither sadly – sadly because it’s not meant to be melodramatic, either.

Like facing a tired boxer, we know what to expect and when to expect it. This is cinematic shadow boxing. The slights of hand, too often miss their mark so we don’t have to put our fingers to our eyes to see where the next scary punch is coming from. And although people die, there’s no real killer blow.

We may have squirmed now and again but neither of us ever made it to the edge of our seats.

Prepared to be scared? Perhaps we prepared too well.