The X-Files: I Want To Believe - Review by Robert Duffin

Director: Chris Carter
Screenwriters: Chris Carter & Frank Spotnitz
Running Time: 104 mins
Certificate: 12A
Released: 1st August

In the early 1990s writer Chris Carter, inspired by the report that 3.7 million Americans claimed to have been abducted by aliens, created the television phenomenon that was The X-Files. The rest as they say is history, and after nine seasons and one cinematic outing in 1998, the show has been forever cemented in popular culture. The famous theme tune, the slogans (“Trust No One”, “The Truth Is Out There”), “Spooky” Mulder, the sceptic Scully, and it even spawned a Brit Pop track from Welsh rock outfit Catatonia. Yet The X-Files was very much a product of its time, tapping into the ‘90s cultural obsession with all things supernatural and government conspiracies, fed by the rise of the Internet. In a post-9/11 world audiences are still intrigued by the workings of a shadowy government, but terrorism and security have overtaken aliens and flying saucers.

The TV episodes could be categorised in two ways: the “myth-arc” episodes, dealing with the alien/government conspiracy, and the “monster-of-the-week” episodes. X-Files: I Want To Believe is of the later, and it sees Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson), 6 years after the end of the series, being drawn back into the world of the FBI to investigate an unusual murder. Unfortunately the title is something of a misnomer as this feels like anything but an X-File. Psychic paedophile Father Joseph Crissman (a horribly miscast Billy Connolly) is having visions of the murder victim and is leading the FBI and our favourite rogue agents closer to the perpetrators. This mostly involves some really yawn inducing police detective work (include Amanda Peet’s Agent Dakota Whitney sniffing a used swimming costume and exclaiming ‘Chlorine!’ like she just found the cure for cancer) and some laborious dialogue scenes between our protagonists as they get angsty over faith and belief.

While the easy criticism levelled at TV-adaptations is that they feel like extended episodes of the series, it’s all too true here. Unlike the ’98 film which was incredibly cinematic (if narratively burdened by being a stop-gap between seasons), this feels like a cheap and rushed production, no surprise given it’s been written, produced and lensed in the last six months. Worst of all though is that this is clearly the worst X-File ever written. Psychic phenomena was dealt with better in the excellent episode ‘Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose’ with Peter Boyle from season 3, and the tension between the belief systems of Mulder and Scully is better examined in just about any episode you can pick at random. Fans and non-fans alike agreed that “monster-of-the-week” was the way to go, but this distasteful story of Russian scientists/sex abusers pales in comparison to classic stories like Squeeze (stretchy liver eating Eugene Victor Tooms) or Home (surely the most shocking scripted drama to be aired on TV).

Repugnant jokes and ludicrous assumptions about paedophilia aside (sexual abuse leads directly to homosexuality, apparently) it’s just left to wonder what the point of this was. With a mythology so tangled even Duchovny and Anderson can’t explain it, clearly there was no desire to bring closure to the TV show, yet it seems Carter was not willing to indulge fans in some nostalgia either. The locales are foreign to viewers, no Mulder’s apartment, no Syndicate, no black oil, no scary eye-less aliens, no Cigarette Smoking Man (okay, he’s ‘dead’ but it would have been enjoyable), finally, no fun in having these characters back whatsoever. Carter has recently claimed that a financial success will see Fox produce a mythology led film about the much-mooted alien invasion that was at the centre of the final season. However given this film was released the same week as The Dark Knight in the U.S. should ensure that the X-Files are once again boxed up and left on the shelves in the deepest, darkest basement of the FBI headquarters where they belong.

WALL.E - Review by Robert Duffin

Director: Andrew Stanton
Screenwriter: Andrew Stanton
Running Time: 98 mins
Certificate: U
Released: 18 July

The following review was originally published in the print edition of Montage at the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2008.

Some have split hairs over the inclusion of a film like WALL.E in the programme of a 'festival of discovery'; after all Pixar are hardly desperate for a distribution deal. However even the staunchest critic cannot fail to have their heart melted by the adventures of Earth's last robot. Abandoned on the planet that has seen the effects Al Gore warned us about, WALL.E is an exquisite comedy of manners, accented by dazzling visuals that reach a new level in the history of the craft. A robot protagonist, who communicates only in the blips and bleeps of legendary sound designer Ben Burtt, could have been a patience tester. Yet WALL.E is constructed with the nuts and bolts of humanity, a desire for companionship battling with Woody Allen-esque social dysfunction. Director Andrew Stanton and his team of animators have achieved that rare feat; a film that perfectly balances stunning visuals with a heartbreakingly intimate relationship at its core.

The Dark Knight - Review by Robert Duffin

Director: Christopher Nolan
Screenwriter: Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan and David S. Goyer
Running Time: 152 mins
Certificate: 12A
Released: Out Now

It’s a rivalry that has been raging since Batman Issue #1 (1940), and has since been waged across all the visual mediums, be it comics, television, films or video games. Now, Batman and The Joker have returned to the big screen for the first time together in nineteen years in what has become the most anticipated film of the summer, if not the decade. Bolstered by a stunning viral marketing campaign and heightened by the media frenzy surrounding the untimely death of Heath Ledger, there was so much anticipation going into this film it’s a wonder it didn’t buckle under the weight of it. Instead, it has become a phenomenon, both at the box office, with the critics and with the audiences who are returning to see it several times. Is it really worth the hype?

Since Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has been looking to step down as the masked vigilante Batman in the hopes that an official, elected, hero, can protect Gotham City. He sees his chance in the fearless new District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), and hopes his former love Rachael Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) will be awaiting him with opens arms. However Gotham has been rocked by the arrival of The Joker (Ledger), an urban terrorist who has seized power of the cities Mob families and is determined to destroy Batman, and prove that even a great man can be brought down to his murky moral depths.

What the Nolan Brothers and Goyer understand is what Tim Burton failed to grasp in the 1989 film; the true nature of the parallel relationship between Batman and The Joker. Where Burton forced a revenge narrative on them, The Dark Knight is the first film that successfully explores the mystic duality of the pair. Batman sees himself in The Joker; he sees where his own borderline psychosis could lead without his self-imposed rules. The Joker sees his greatest challenge in Batman; he is the one soul the self-proclaimed Agent of Chaos cannot corrupt. As The Joker says, “I think we are destined to dance like this forever.” At once a perfect summation of the classic hero/villain pairing, and also a taste of a possibility that will sadly never be fulfilled with these two actors behind the masks.

Now that it’s been brought up, yes, Heath Ledger is fantastic in the role. The Joker is a lip-smacking psycho with no morals and no cause. He just likes to watch the world burn, and thanks to Ledger’s magnetic presence; he ensures we’re all going along for the ride. While Ledger is the showiest, he is not the only great performer here: Bale returns to the role with aplomb, Eckhart effectively conveys the downfall of a great man and Gary Oldman, the most overlooked of all in this, is a wonderful Jim Gordon. Sensibly ignoring a trite origin story, The Joker simply exists, like Batman he is a constant, which allows Eckhart’s Dent arc to drive the film, which is essentially a battle for his soul between these two creatures of the night and by proxy becomes a war for the soul of Gotham City.

Speaking of which, said city has never been lensed quite as magnificently before. Nolan and his cinematographer Wally Pfister (who has photographed all of his films since Memento) take their influences from Michael Mann and Alan Mak & Andrew Lau (Infernal Affairs), creating beautiful panoramas in which to stage their action. The wonderful chase sequence between the Bat-Pod and the 18-wheeler truck across Gotham is awe-inspiring in its lack of CGI and dependence on physical effects. Even the opening bank heist, used as an IMAX trailer last December, is thrilling and nerve wracking in its simplicity and choreography.

Naturally it’s not perfect, the film suffers most from over-ambition and there’s an awful lot of plot to be squeezed into its two hours thirty minute running time. Some of the quieter moments of reflection are rushed passed all too quickly, leaving some of the emotional pay-offs dangling. Yet a blockbuster with smarts, ideas and ambition is such a rarity these days that to chide it for not always hitting the mark does not take away from the impressive achievement. The Dark Knight is a fantastic film experience that cements this vision of Batman as definitive, and takes the comic book movie to new heights.

Top 10: Movie Villains - Part 3

In honour of the arrival of Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight, in cinema’s now, Robert Duffin concludes the countdown of his top movie villains with the final three…

3. Sheriff of Nottingham (Alan Rickman) – Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)

“Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans, no more merciful beheadings, and call off Christmas!”

More often praised for his Hans Gruber role in Die Hard, Alan Rickman’s ultimate treatise in villainy is surely this, the role he turned down twice before finally accepting. His snarling, over the top Sheriff with his pithy one-liners is diabolical and joyous to watch, so much so that it’s easy to wish Kevin Costner’s Robin would sod off back to Sherwood. His scheme to screw Robin over by marrying his woman is true evil genius, and his hurried attempts to impregnate her as the hero storms the castle is black-as-tar twisted. Remains feared, even after he begrudgingly reveals his real name to be George.

2. Rev. Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum)- Night of the Hunter (1955)

“I can hear you whisperin' children, so I know you're down there. I can feel myself gettin' awful mad. I'm out of patience children. I'm coming to find you now.”

When director Charles Laughton described Harry Powell as a “diabolical shit” at the audition, Robert Mitchum rapidly shouted “Present!” securing him the role of a lifetime. Sporting the iconic LOVE and HATE tattoos on his knuckles, Powell is evil without the soft touch of humour of the Sheriff. This man of the cloth marries and then murders a woman, then stalks her children with his weapon of choice; the switchblade. Apparently Mitchum hated his co-star Shelly Winters so much that he claimed to have wished Laughton had used her in the scene where we see her character dead underwater. Truly creepy.

1.BOB (Frank Silva) – Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992)

“Bob is real! He comes in through my window at night. He's real. He's getting to know me now. He speaks to me.”

While some will continually spout the virtues of frequent poll toppers Hannibal Lecter or Darth Vader, I challenge anyone not to be truly terrified by Bob, the supernatural being from the television show Twin Peaks and it’s movie sequel. The horror of Bob is his twisted physicality, lurking behind bedroom dressers and hanging from your bedposts, or worse crawling over your living room couch to get you. Apparently, or so the legend goes, David Lynch one day had a sudden image of Frank Silva, who was at this point the show's set decorator, crouching in a sinister manner in Laura Palmer's bedroom. He went ahead and filmed the scene without really knowing how he could use it. Later on Lynch noticed that when he shot the scene of Laura's mother screaming that a reflection of Silva could be noticed in the mirror behind her, a freak accident that gave way to a legend. Watch these videos, and don’t have nightmares.

This concludes the top ten movie villains, agree or disagree with the choices? Then click on the comment box and let us know who was or should have been left out. Check out Montage over the weekend for our takes on The Dark Knight.

Top 10: Movie Villains - Part 2

Robert Duffin continues the countdown of his top ten movie villains in honour of the arrival of Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight, which opens in theatres this weekend…

7. Frank (Henry Fonda) - Once Upon A Time In The West (1968)

“People scare better when they’re dying.”

You can’t do a list of villains without someone from the Old West, and Fonda’s Frank just about pips all the others. One of cinema’s greatest heroes up until this point, Sergio Leone’s genius stroke of casting had Fonda play against type as a gunman for hire. The story goes that Fonda turned up on the set with a beard and contact lenses in an attempt to appear more like a bad guy. Leone quickly informed him that the best way to play it would be with his normal features, and suddenly those baby blues became the ice-cold stare of a killer.



6. Ming The Merciless (Max Von Sydow) - Flash Gordon (1980)

Zarkov: We are only interested in friendship. Why do you attack us?

Ming: Why not?

There’s just something incredibly satisfying about seeing a proper thesp ham it up a bit. Bergman’s actor of choice for displaying the intricacies of the human condition finally grows a silly beard, shaves his head and prances around in a red cape. Merciless ruler of the planet Mongo, Ming’s truly diabolical plan sees him sending the Moon out of orbit with his Death Ray in order to destroy the earth in a film producer Dino De Laurentiis had hoped Fellini would direct. Hmm. May the power of Ming compel you!



5. Baby Jane Hudson (Bette Davis) - Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

"Sister, sister, oh so fair, why is there blood all over your hair?"

Mired in the legendary feud between two great actresses is a truly iconic villain. Baby Jane is driven by something far more potent than a desire for power; she is an old woman desperate for the days when she was a child star, taking out her frustration on her invalid sister. Davis reportedly burst into tears when she saw herself in full make up on the set, and you can’t blame her. The caked on make-up mask adds a layer of horror to the wretched old hag whose shudder inducing performance of one of her childhood hit songs is equally disturbing and pitiable.



4. Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) - No Country For Old Men (2007)

"What's the most you've ever lost in a coin toss?"

A contemporary choice, but one that will no doubt remain on villain lists for decades to come. There’s almost something perversely enjoyable about watching Chigurh go about his business, further adding to the darkly comic tone that imbues the film. He arrives in scenes like an ominous storm cloud, forever changing the landscapes that he crosses, usually leaving them dripping with the blood of those who get in his way. Bardem’s performance is positively chilling, proving that even the devil has bad hair days. “Are you going to kill me?”… “Did you see me?”

Check out Montage tomorrow for Robert’s final 3 villains as well as the Montage review of The Dark Knight. In the meantime, discuss your top movie villains using our comment box.

Top 10: Movie Villains - Part 1

With the release of The Dark Knight imminent, and Heath Ledger’s Joker finally unleashed, it’s a good time to take stock and look back at some of cinema’s greatest villains. Robert Duffin has trawled through the evil, the camp, and the sinister to bring to you his top ten movie villains. The countdown begins today…

10. Khan (Ricardo Montalban) - Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

“From hell's heart, I stab at thee. For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee.”

A Star Trek character that manages to out-ham William Shatner? Well that’s can only be Khan. A genetically engineered super-soldier with a penchant for quoting classic literature while sporting pseudo-S&M clobber, flanked by a gang of ex-Chippendales (in real life), Khan is unique in more ways than one. The most important one however is that his maniacal nature does not produce bland desires for ‘world domination’; instead he just really wants to hurt Mr. Shatner. Fair enough.

9. Maleficent (Voiced by Eleanor Audley) - Sleeping Beauty (1959)

“Now you shall deal with ME, o Prince - and all the powers of HELL!”

With Cinderella’s Evil Stepmother, and Disney’s greatest bitch Maleficent under her belt, perhaps this place should really go to the demonic vocal chords of Eleanor Audley. Unlike many of Disney’s villains there’s nothing goofy about Maleficent, and like Khan she isn’t driven by the usual villain causes. She doesn’t want to make her daughter Queen, nor is she governed by a murderous sense of vanity. What incurred the unstoppable wrath of Maleficent? She didn’t get invited to a party. Think about that next time you’re making up your invite list.

8. The Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) - The Terminator (1984)

“Listen. And understand. That terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.”

Before it learned Spanish slang and became a 12-year-old boys best friend, The Terminator was ripping out hearts, shooting old ladies and taking names. Well, just one name – Sarah Conner. The dead eyed, blank faced killing machine was the perfect role for the similarly attributed Schwarzenegger before he began to think he could actually act. Personally, having watched Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) first, returning to the original and seeing Ah-nuld as the bad guy produced an even greater impact.

Come back tomorrow for Part 2, and in the meantime, use the comment box to discuss the choices so far and show support for your favourite movie villains.

EIFF: Slingshot - Review by Robert Duffin

Director: Brillante Mendoza
Running Time: 86 mins
Sat 21 Jun, 19:00
Cineworld 6
Sun 22 Jun, 21:45
Cineworld 6

Filmed using handheld and hidden cameras, Brillante Mendoza's Philippines set urban drama is an urgent and visceral experience that grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go. Chronicling a few days in the life of an assortment of characters living in the slums of Manila, these disparate citizens steal, work, cheat and occasionally survive as an impending local election pervades their town. Blurring the line between documentary and fiction, Mendoza successfully juxtaposes poverty and desperation with the twisted ideologies of a crooked democracy as Mayoral candidates fuel crime and swap cash for votes. With six features in two years, and two screening at this year's EIFF, Mendoza is a talent to watch and Slingshot is a film that cannot be missed.

EIFF: Spike - Review by Robert Duffin

Director: Robert Beaucage
Running Time: 80 mins
Fri 20 Jun, 22:30
Filmhouse 1

The popularity of the Gothic in pop culture has been re-vamped in the last decade, and is frequently populated with non-threatening, misunderstood or simply misguided monsters just waiting to be tamed. Edward Scissorhands, Buffy's Angel and now you can add Spike (Edward Gusts) to the list. Not simply a monster, his attack on the protagonists of this tale is secretly motivated by a deep sense of longing and lost love from this prickly social misfit. Yet who knew a car full of lesbians, jocks and bimbos falling foul of a human/hedgehog hybrid could be so po-faced? Debut writer/director Robert Beaucage certainly has the visual panache; it's exceptionally well put together considering its humble budget. Deep inside beats a barbed heart of darkness, but what this fairy tale sorely lacks is true magic.

EIFF: TimeCrimes - Review by Robert Duffin

Director: Nacho Vigalando
Running Time: 88 mins
Sat 21 Jun, 22:25
Cameo 1

Perfectly programmed as a midnight screening, writer/director Nacho Vigalondo's time bending thriller sees the bumbling Hector (Karra Elejalde) stumble across what he thinks is a random murder, which results in him accidentally getting sent back in time. Quickly he realises the crime is somehow linked to his innocent activities earlier that day, and every mundane action becomes subject to the butterfly effect. Neither Hector nor audience are given much time to contemplate the farcical events, which is to no detriment. The time-travel genre is well worn, and Vigalondo's script deals in dog-eared clichés, yet there is something pleasant in his neat attempts at logic. Elejalde is a great everyman, comfortably balancing anguish and slapstick, and in one riotous sequence, nonchalantly retracing a chilling murder scene pretending to care. The latest in a recent spate of low budget Spanish horrors, Time Crimes doesn't have the fear factor of [REC] but is an effectively offbeat delight.

EIFF Q&A: Alex Orr - by Robert Duffin

Alex Orr, Director of EIFF Under The Radar entry Blood Car talks to Robert Duffin about the cult film in the making that's about to take audiences for a ride like no other.

Robert: What were the difficulties of getting the money together, selling the film etc for a project that was always going to be a 'cult film'?

Alex: Getting the money together for the film wasn't hard at all because we really didn't have any. I had about $5,000 of my own and me and a couple friends set off to make it, when we started gathering cast and crew and people started reading the script, they would say, "this is funny, let me help you out." We got most of our money from little investors that were friends and family and even our crew. It must be one of the few instances that a crew helped finance a film. As far as the term "cult" went, I don't think it ever entered my mind. We thought the film would be funny and we went to make it in a way that would set us apart from other films, in tone and style and lack of class. We didn't have a budget for a spectacle, so we made up for it by going in directions that other films wouldn't dare.

R: What did you think of the Grindhouse debacle last year, were they simply aiming too big with something so niche in a wide market? When you aim for something to become cult, are you being to self conscious?

A: Sure those films were a debacle financially but sis you see them? They were a good time! I don't think Death Proof is the kind of movie that plays in a double feature like that- it starts with that grindhouse feel, but it is not trashy enough and there's too much 'hanging out' , but on its own, I love that film. I'm glad they did what they set out to do, instead of trying to making something for everyone, I think that is the cult appeal, if you're trying to make something for everyone, you're really not making anything for anyone. They made two $50 million movies that they thought would make money, and they didn't- but big deal- most movies don't make money. I don't think you can consciously set out to make a 'cult classic' you just make a movie with a particular tone to your particular taste and sometimes it clicks with a group of people and sticks with them.

R: With a fuel crisis hitting the U.K. as we speak, where did the story idea originate, and what was the script to screen process like?

A: The story idea originated from horrible gas prices in the U.S. years ago that have just gotten worse. I co-wrote the film with my good friend, Adam Pinney and we were just pitching around ideas and someone said a car that runs on blood. We stopped and thought, I would like to see that. So we started outlining right away and furiously wrote the script. Since we were going to make the film out of pocket, the script to screen was happening right as we put things on the page. We didn't write things that were out of what we could do, no huge special effects or CG or any of that. We kept the size of the film manageable and just tried to live up to the title. If you see a film called Blood Car and you expect something pretty crazy, or I do anyway. If i hear of a title like that I want a film that doesn't have to worry about people being offended or how a test audience will take it, it just has to live up to its own standards.

R: How did you get the cast together? Where the hell did the inspired idea to cast Anna Chlumsky (My Girl) come from?!

A: The cast are all friends and people I had worked with before. The lead in the film, Mike Brune didn't even have a choice of whether he could do it or not- that's the great thing about having friends- when you set out on that first feature, they have to be there everyday, like helping you move. When we told him we wrote the film for him, he wasn't very excitied, but it grew on him when he knew he couldn't get out of it. As for Anna Chlumsky, I was the gaffer on a little feature the year before and met her on that, we got along great and we sent her the script and she liked it so that was that.

R: What were the big challenges of achieving the special effects on a small budget?

A: We chopped a guy up in the trunk of the car and went through 50 or 60 gallons of blood on that shot alone. That was tough figuring it out, but I knew some horror guys that love any chance to make up a bunch of blood and sling it and shoot it and squirt it everywhere. To be honest the biggest challenge was getting all the blood out of the car we used for the blood car, which was my car. And we pretty much destroyed it during the production. I would drive it to and from set every morning and the windows would be splattered with blood, but I didn't want to clean it then because it might botch continuity, so my neighbors would give me some really great stares when we would cross paths on the way to work.

R: Who were your influences, visually and story wise, in the making of the film?

A: Sam Fuller was a big influence on the story, I love how he takes his plots right from the headlines. Roger Corman's A Bucket of Blood was a huge influence too. Not to mention Little Shop of Horrors and a ton of things I'm probably not even conscious of. Visually we borrowed from everywhere, Oliver Stone, Scorsese, Rebel Without a Cause, Kubrick, early Peter Jackson, Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas, Takashi Miike, Rashomon, The Godfather, Woody Allen, Psycho. You start looking at where to put the camera on a scene and you just go back to those great films, or films that weren't great but had something that just stuck with you.

R: Is there still 'true' cult cinema out there in between the endless sequels and cookie cutter horrors?

A: Hell yeah there are! They just aren't being on every screen in the country, they are on video and at film festivals with programming as good as EIFF. If you want movies that are different you just have to look for them, because they are out there waiting for you to discover them and help people see them.

Blood Car screens Thurs 19th June, 22:30, Filmhouse. Tickets available at the box office or at www.edfilmfest.org.uk

Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - Review by Robert Duffin

Director: Steven Spielberg
Screenwriter: David Koepp
Running Time: 121 mins
Certificate: 12A
Released: May 23rd

We last saw Indiana Jones riding off into the sunset following his last crusade, a fitting final image for one of cinema’s greatest heroes. Yet George Lucas, the serial franchise spoiler that he is, decided to drag Indy back through development hell via scripts from the likes of M. Night Shyamalan, Tom Stoppard and Frank Darabont. Finally, after Harrison Ford began to get cold feet two years ago, pre-production went into overdrive with Jurassic Park scribe David Koepp on writing duties. Now, after nineteen years of cultivating nostalgia for the three classic Indy adventures, Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is upon us, with the most important question being after all this time, was it worth it?

After all the huffing and puffing, the story finally agreed upon sees Indy captured by Russian KGB agent and psychic Irina (Cate Blanchett), double crossed by his friend Mac (Ray Winstone), forced to find an alien corpse in Area 51 that holds mystical powers. After a successful escape, Jones finds himself teamed with teenager greaser Mutt (Shia LaBoeuf) racing against the Russians in a search for the titular skulls, while trying to save old friends Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) and Professor Oxley (John Hurt) along the way.

After a forty-minute sojourn at the Temple of Exposition, the adventure kicks off proper. However, the muddled plot leaves the quest narrative lacking, essentially rewriting the Ark narrative with alien artefacts. It’s somewhat appropriate that we return to the government building that housed said Ark, because here the original raiders are out looking for their own long lost artefacts. Ford successfully steps back into his iconic role with grace, good humour and some well-played jokes about his age. Yet the script turns Henry Jones Jnr into a bumbling idiot who takes a back seat to every major event in the film and seems incapable of solving a Sudoku never mind a centuries old mystery. Unlike Ford, Steven Spielberg can’t simply step back in time and become the filmmaker he was in the 1980s. This is unmistakably a product of his autumn years, an era he clearly wanted to populate with more adult orientated films. Like his Jurassic Park sequel, The Lost World, he seems bored behind the camera, wasting some outstanding shots on minor sequences while Lucas and co. messed around with the rewrites.

Despite the worries, Shia LaBoeuf ends up being a be a great addition to the series, fully capable as Indy’s sidekick, even if he does tend to get more involved in the action in the second half of the film than the hero we came to cheer on. The rest of the cast are sadly underdeveloped. Ray Winstone’s Mac constantly switches allegiances resulting in general apathy towards his character, Cate Blanchett hams it up and dusts of that accent she ‘perfected’ in The Good German, and John Hurt just literally babbles nonsense for an hour. Karen Allen is fantastic and only in her scenes with Ford do we really get that sense of old school Indy, yet she is wasted and given little to do.

The heavy use of CGI, despite the assurances of producer Frank Marshall that it would feel like it was made only years after 89s Last Crusade, is what cripples the film most. The action scenes, while well choreographed, lack any dramatic punch or tension because they are all done on green screen. From a franchise that championed excellent stunt work in the 80s, it’s disheartening to see little pixelated people doing most of the hard work. While no one is going to vouch for the original trilogy as historical documents, Crystal Skull’s cartoonish qualities are ramped up to 11 and it feels entirely like a George Lucas product. There’s some animated prairie dogs to up the cute factor during the opening sequence, Mutt befriends a pack of monkeys and goes swinging around like Tarzan, Indy escapes the detonation of an atomic bomb by hiding in a refrigerator (!) and of course, very little appears to be filmed on location, resulting in zero wonder or magnitude, giving the film the look and feel of a Star Wars prequel or worse a Pirates of the Caribbean movie. A heavy use of CGI, plus Janusz Kaminski’s delicate pearly white lighting results in a sluggish action film that never truly feels or looks like an Indiana Jones movie. George Lucas’ comment that it was "like it was shot 3 years after the Last Crusade, you'd never know there was 20 years between shooting", proves his even more deluded than we all feared.

As someone who at five years old desperately wanted to be an archaeologist because of Indiana Jones, I really wanted to like this film. Yet this isn’t the film all the fans were hoping for, nor is it a film that non-fans can embrace. The script is horrible, a complete mess and apparently a Frankenstein’s Monster amalgamation of various rejected Indy and other adventure screenplays. There is no pay off to this movie, no development for this icon, and no real reason to bring Indy back other than to make a stack of cash. While The Last Crusade provided a fitting denouement as Indy rode off into the sunset, the ending is bland and offers a minor set up for another one somewhere down the line. Spielberg, Lucas, Ford – just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

Guilty Pleasures of the Cinematic Kind

In this instalment, Robert Duffin’s well stocked vault of guilty pleasures brings to you the film that children of the 80s have long been suppressing from their memories. Respect the Cox!

It’s the question that every little group of cinephiles eventually get around to: what was the first film you ever saw in the cinema? When the merry band that is Montage first posed the question, the crop of mid-1980s classics that were thrown around were inimitable; Raiders Of The Lost Ark, E.T., Back To The Future and some re-releases of classic early Disney animations. I bit my lip in apprehension as it came to be my turn to reveal the film that shaped my future with the medium that is film.

“Erm, Masters of the Universe…and I had to leave before it finished because I was too scared.”

These days, I can make it all the way to the end credits and the only scary thing about it is how big a buzz I get out of watching a giant Scandinavian with a bad mullet kickin’ some ass in leather Y-fronts. The anticipation was fever pitch in the summer of 1987 for the first live action adaptation of the cartoon series He-Man and The Masters of the Universe. Made by Filmation and based on the beloved Mattel toy line, of which I was avid collector, it was to be an usual experience for the uber-fans and indeed anyone who even had a passing knowledge of the cartoon series. Nowadays major production companies handle high valued properties, but the He-Man franchise was handed to the Cannon Group. Beginning with some niche Israeli films, which earned them an Academy Award, Cannon bankrolled a year of projects that would ultimately cripple them. One of them was Masters of the Universe, which they aggressively marketed, using the tagline: “The Star Wars of the 1980s.” Uh-Oh.

The pastel world of Planet Eternia? Try some boulder quarries somewhere in California. The child friendly world of magic and affable elves? Swapped in favour of cyborgs, laser guns and grotesque deformed dwarves. The film infamously ditched the mythology of the cartoon, and mainly due to the budget, introduced a tonal Cosmic Key, which allows inter-dimensional travel. Except the only dimension other than the boulder quarry is a John Hughes-tastic 1987 where Courtney Cox is having some serious teen angst. Castle Greyskull was besieged by the hordes of Snake Mountain and I’m supposed to care about some girl leaving her job at KFC? Gone was Prince Adam as well, He-Man was simply He-Man (Dolph Lundgren), S&M gear clad muscleman who makes the soldiers of 300 look positively straight.

Lundgren was coming off a successful stint as the evil Commie in Rocky IV, and after Sylvester Stallone passed on this script he suggested Dolph take the part. With friends like those, who needs agents? His broken English is bad enough, worse is the fact that no stuntman could be found to match his physique hence the horrific stunt work. The sword fights are hilarious as Dolph clearly struggles to wield the heavy Sword of Power; you’re lucky if he hits his attacker’s sword once per duel. Yet there’s something endearing about the mullet sporting buffoon, and I love the scene where he walks into a music shop in his undies-cape combo and no one bats an eyelid.

It was, after all, the 1980s and boy are we never allowed to forget it. Courtney Cox’s Julie and her boyfriend Kevin (Robert Duncan McNeil, yes it is Tom Paris of Star Trek Voyager) have an entire emotional bonding scene underscored by that classic track Livin’ In A Box. The mental dwarf Gwildor (Willow’s Billy Barty) also decides to pimp a pink Cadillac with Eternian technology – the sight of Dolph Lundgren being driven around in a neon pink car by a ginger dwarf is something you’ll never forget. When the leader of the goodies is so bland you’d hope for some delightful supporting characters but sadly none are to be found. Man At Arms (Jon Cypher) and his daughter Teela (Chelsea Field) do little other than steal fried chicken and bemoan Earthlings for eating animals. Courtney Cox tries her best but really just runs around screaming, wishing she were back dancing in the dark with Bruce Springsteen. Thankfully though the bald James Tolkan, Headmaster Strickland from Back to the Future, turns up as Detective Lubic who helps Kevin rebuild the cosmic key with – get this – a keyboard and some wires! By this point it’s probably not even worth wondering why he then plays a Tears For Fears song to send them back to Eternia.

Sadly, production would limit the amount of on location photography, which resulted in another classic moment as an army of super troopers emerge from a time portal in suburban L.A. and no one else bothers to check this out other than He-Man and his intrepid gang of misfits. Clearly this is the same suburb that the T Rex from The Lost World visited so many years later.

As with any film of this kind, the true joy is to be found in the villains. There’s Evil Lyn (Meg Foster), who is…well, she’s pretty evil. Clearly the University of Villainy needs a new director of nomenclature, although she does wear a fruit bowl on her head so perhaps she dropped out and is just winging this gig hoping Skeletor doesn’t notice. Then there’s Karg (Robert Towers) a rather disturbing cross between Tina Turner and Abu Hamza, plus the lizard-like Saurod played by Pons Maar who also terrified us as the leader of the Wheelers in Return to Oz. Above all though is Skeletor, no longer the purple hood-wearing clown, sniggering away at his pithy one-liners. Striding into Castle Greyskull is Frank Langella’s Skeletor, swathed in black ominously cracking his staff on the marble floors. He has the Sorceress trapped in an energy force field, he has finally taken Grey Skull, he is on the verge of victory…. he is a scary bastard. Inside this kitsch 80s car crash is one of the most underrated villain performances in cinema.

Langella performs real magic, making something out of completely nothing. The most clichéd lines become truly menacing – “tell me of the loneliness of good He-Man, is it equal to the loneliness of evil?”. In the way that talented actors such as Ian MacDiarmid, Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart have in recent times, Langella takes stilted dialogue born of hooey mythology and leaves you thinking he’s delivering Shakespeare; his technique is unreservedly theatrical. He snarls and projects every line regardless of context, writhes upon the throne of Greyskull, and violently flares up without warning. He has an authoritative yet maniacal screen presence that is every bit the equal to Darth Vader, perhaps providing the only truth in the aforementioned tag line. His dialogue is also great to drop into casual conversations to see if anyone remembers it, sadly “I ache to SMASH YOU OUT OF EXISTENCE! To DRIVE your cursed face FROM MY MEMORIES FOREVER!” usually just gets me a funny look.

Sadly Masters of the Universe was dead from the get go, with director Gary Goddard having to fund the final battle out of his own pocket. To think his biggest achievement since this is to go unaccredited as Man At Beach in X-Men is rather distressing, however I doubt he went bankrupt filming that finale. One moment Skeletor (now wearing a golden chandelier on his head calling himself God…try and keep up) is zapping He-Man with his finger electricity (just like Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars!) in the grand Greyskull set, but by the time He-Man gets back the Sword of Power (and tingles our spines with “I HAVE THE POWER”) and announces their final duel, they seem to be fighting in a very dark room with a red light bulb on somewhere. After Skeletor is thrown down a big air shaft (more Star Wars!), he pops up at the end of the credits in some pink liquid shouting, “I’ll be back”, but sadly it was not to be. The sets were built for a sequel, but after losing the licensing Cannon turned it into the Jean Claude Van Damme vehicle Cyborg. While He-Man is supposedly making a big screen return sometime in the near future, under the watchful dollar sign eyes of producer Joel Silver, I’ll always cherish this nostalgia over whatever CGI heavy, non-Scandinavian muscleman version they eventually release. However, if any of you feel compelled by this insight to seek out Masters of the Universe I say go for it, and of course “Good Journey.”

No one got that either did they? Bah!

Iron Man - Review by Robert Duffin

Director: Jon Favreau
Screenwriters: Mark Fergus & Hawk Otsby and Art Marcum & Matt Holloway
Running Time: 126 mins
Certificate: 12A
Released: 2nd May

“I’m not really the superhero type, I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, most of you know all about that.” Is it quote from Tony Stark or the actor who portrays him, Robert Downey Jnr? Perhaps a little bit of both. Iron Man, after all, completes Downey Jnr’s years long Hollywood rehabilitation, finally turning him into the bankable box office draw that drugs and alcohol seemingly destroyed years ago. That’s not to say Iron Man is a dead cert smash hit, in fact it’s the riskiest of all the summer blockbusters this year. It’s the first film by Marvel Studios, the now completely independent company, and it is not based on a comic book series that has been enveloped by pop culture like Spider-Man or Batman. In a summer season over saturated by superheroes, is there room for a new one?

Perhaps the only major problem with Iron Man is that it’s another origin story, with Marvel once again sticking to the belief that superheroes can’t simply turn up fully formed. Industrialist and billionaire Tony Stark (Downey Jnr) has made a living developing new weapons technologies; he’s a cocky, womanising capitalist. However after he’s captured in Afghanistan by terrorists, he discovers his weapons are not only being used to defend and when he’s asked to build them a Jericho missile, he comes up with another plan.

The updating of the Stark/Iron Man origin story from Vietnam to Afghanistan was a choice made by director Jon Favreau, and if weren’t for Iron Man liberating villagers like some kind of American saviour, it would almost work. Yet shady politics are not lingered on for long, and Downey Jnr steals the show and saves the day. His Stark is essentially an extension of the fast-talking, quick quipping persona we all recognize, but the knowing humour and fun he brings to the role is a refreshing change from the angst-ridden teenagers that usually populate the genre. Sardonic one-liners, self-depreciation and deadpan timing, Downey’s Stark is a joy to spend two hours to with.

The process of building the Iron Man armoured suit, the first version in the Afghan cave, the second in his Californian retreat, is good fun and a real thrill. Favreau’s limitations as an action director are evident; there are actually only two short action set pieces, but Stark fine-tuning the suit, crashing about his lab and eventually soaring over the L.A. skyline to the thrashing guitar soundtrack was a delight. The occasional dip into the capitalist turn humanitarian character arc can be a little po faced, but Downey sells it.

The supporting cast and their actions can be, as with most origin stories, a little dull. Jeff Bridge’s nefarious Obadiah Stane is a little too Lex Luthor, although there is some small joy to be had seeing The Dude as a nasty consumerist, shrugging off Stark Industries renewable energy programmes as “something to appease those damn hippies.” Terrence Howard and Gwyneth Paltrow are solid as the standard best friend and secretary respectively. But we’re never allowed to forget this is the Tony Stark show, and for the brief periods he is off screen the films wilts a little.

It’s far from a perfect film, but if anything it’ll leave to looking forward to the inevitable sequel, which won’t be hamstrung by having to tell you how Stark became Iron Man and can be a little looser with the story. The risk for Marvel Studios has seemingly paid off, and without the constraints of appeasing big studios like Fox and Sony, they have even allowed this film to hint at the wider Marvel Universe including references to S.H.I.E.L.D. and the upcoming Hulk reboot. After a truly dire summer season in 2007, Iron Man and sees that 2008 is off to a much better start.

Leatherheads - Review by Robert Duffin

Director: George Clooney
Screenwriter: Duncan Brantley & Rick Reilly
Running Time: 114 mins
Certificate: PG
Release Date: April 11th

George Clooney has clearly never heard of the phrase “once bitten, twice shy.” After the arduous 40s noir homage The Good German and the Hepburn/Tracy aping stinker Intolerable Cruelty, he once again feels the urge to revisit a genre from the Golden Age of Hollywood; the screwball comedy. Leatherheads, set in the world of 1920s American Football, is not exactly what was expected from Clooney the director. After finding his footing with his debut Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, he struck gold with the sublime Good Night, and Good Luck. After a few years of being Hollywood’s favourite politically conscious lefty (fronting the likes of Syriana and Michael Clayton), perhaps the former World’s Sexiest Man went looking for his funny bone.

Long before the bright lights and packed stadiums, pro-football was a strictly college only sport. Older stars like Dodge Connelly (Clooney), captain of the Duluth Bulldogs, have seen better days but are never out of bright ideas. The team is going under after having their sponsorship pulled, so Connelly coerces agent CC Frazier (Jonathan Pryce) into loaning the Bulldogs his star college player Carter “The Bullet” Rutherford (John Krasinski) to turn their fortunes around. The spanner in the works is spunky reporter (was there any other kind in those days?) Lexie Littleton (Renee Zelleweger), who has discovered that Rutherford’s status as a war hero has been exaggerated and is out to “cook his goose.” A Philadelphia Story love triangle ensues, as Lexie struggles with ruining the prospects of the naïve Carter and the hopes of the roguish Dodge.

Clooney has freely admitted in the press to utilising the style of his favourite films and filmmakers to inform his own directorial efforts, and it’s evident here that he’s aiming for somewhere between Howard Hawks and The Coen Brothers. Dodge and Lexie are played like Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday, the nutty characters and over the top performances paying equal homage to Bringing Up Baby and The Lady Eve. The trademark rapid-fire dialogue and barb trading, which Clooney excels at, are present and correct and no one has achieved quite as much sass as Zelleweger since Jennifer Jason Leigh in The Hudsucker Proxy. As filmmaker Clooney pulls off the period stylings fairly well, keeps things moving at a snappy pace and, along with cinematographer Newton Thomas Siegel, creates a gorgeous sepia toned nostalgic aesthetic.

In recent weeks Clooney has quit the WGA over being refused writing credit on this project. One has to wonder why he would want a credit, as the screenplay is the biggest letdown of the whole enterprise. Credited writers Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly previously worked together on Sports Illustrated, but fail to make this work as a sports film, offering very little insight into the development of the sport, and the laughs don’t always work either. While Clooney and Zelleweger have practiced their shtick before, in O Brother Where Art Thou and Down With Love respectively, John Krasinski looks a little uncomfortable and often resorts to mugging for laughs. The film coasts for too long, the love triangle amounting to very little, and the final football game, a genre cliché that should be easy to pull off for the talent involved, falls flat and rests on an absurd final seconds tactic.

However, this is a not as sizable a chink in the Clooney armour as were Good German and Intolerable Cruelty. Gorgeous George, through sheer force of will, makes it work despite its flaws; in a season of froth it is easily the one film that won’t leave you feeling like you’ve lost some brain cells in the theatre. Yet despite wearing it’s lack of pretension on it’s sleeve, there is a deep twinge of disappointment somewhere deep inside that Clooney chose a project of such little substance to follow his mighty McCarthy era masterpiece. The screwball genre and that style of filmmaking is over George, add the Preston Sturges box set to your Christmas list and turn to it whenever this urge takes over again.

Son of Rambow - Review by Robert Duffin

Director: Garth Jennings
Screenwriter: Garth Jennings
Running Time: 96 mins
Certificate: 12A
Released: April 4th

With the real Rambo currently blasting Burma to bits, it’s hard to remember a time when the Vietnam vet wasn’t the brunt of pop culture jokes. Heck, in the world of media overload it’s hard to imagine a time when a twelve-year-old boy could possibly have been prevented from getting near a television. Yet in Son of Rambow, writer/director Garth Jennings takes us back to 1982, when Rambo was less politically suspect and movie downloads were but a glint in Steve Jobs’ eye. Boisterous pre-teen Lee Carter (Will Poulter) is an outsider at school who spends his spare time making pirate videos in his local cinema, hooking up multiple VCRs in his garage so his older brother can sell them. Sitting outside the Heads office Lee meets meek Will (Bill Milner), who is from a household governed by a religious sect. They spark an unlikely friendship, and after Will is exposed to the world of John Rambo, the two decide to film their own sequel in attempt to win Channel 4’s Screen Test competition.

Jennings preserves the whimsical tone of his underrated adaptation of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and creates an aesthetic akin to Michel Gondry tackling Grange Hill. The homemade effects, perfected in his music video work as part of Hammer and Tongs, are delights as doodles from Will’s notebook such as an evil Scarecrow and a flying dog come to lo-fi life, and the outlandish stunts attempted by the boys won’t fail to raise a smile. The heart of the film is in their relationship, with is beautifully played by Poulter and Milner. The range of emotions portrayed by these young debuting actors creates something touching and sweet without the saccharine that could have so easily emerged. Yet it is once their relationship and the filmmaking process is invaded by the lacklustre supporting characters that the film loses its way.

There’s Didier (Jules Sitruk), a French exchange student stereotype complete with an extravagant taste for fashion and make up, an androgynous poser who should never have been more than a visual gag. Once he and his band of lackeys take over the film, things become hectic and out of control, and Jennings seems to lose his thread. The wonderful Jessica Stevenson is similarly wasted in his role as Will’s Amish-like mother, whose entire oppressive religious upbringing subplot is predictable and a little dull. For a film about kids in the 80s and cinema, there’s a crippling lack of edge in examining an era that brought us The Goonies and Stand By Me. Ultimately Son of Rambow outstays its welcome, and despite visual panache and two endearing leads ends up feeling like a very typical and occasionally lame British comedy.

On DVD: The Assasination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - Review by Robert Duffin

Director: Andrew Dominik
Screenwriter: Andrew Dominik
Running Time: 160
Certificate: 15
DVD Distributor: Warner Home Video

Long considered dead, the Western has seen somewhat of a revival in the last few years. While many see Unforgiven as the eulogy to a departed genre, we have been afforded such classics recently as The Three Burials of Melquiedas Estrada and The Proposition to confirm that there’s life in the Old West yet. What we had in 2007 however was not merely modern filmmakers flirting with aged cinematic conventions. Not since the battle between High Noon and Rio Bravo has the Western been so politically charged, acting as a mirror reflecting on society and cultural values. While There Will Be Blood weaved an allegorical tale of the battle between capitalism and religion and No Country For Old Men presented a treatise on societies inherent evils, Jesse James is about perils and pitfalls of celebrity and mythmaking.

Primarily it’s a story about hero-worship. Robert Ford (Casey Affleck) is a 19th Century fanboy, collecting cheap paperback stories about the daring James Gang, led by the enigmatic and undoubtedly alluring Jesse (Brad Pitt). This incarnation of James is an egomaniac that has bought into his own legend and believes himself invulnerable. The tragedy of the character is that he is no longer the legend who fought with Confederate mercenaries but is instead simply bandit running around with a gang of incompetents. Pitt is typically twitchy in the role, echoing his manic turns in 12 Monkeys and Fight Club, but in his quieter pensive moments evokes the broken spirit of the would be legend.

Far more interesting is the character crafted by the magnetic Casey Affleck, the true star of the show. Robert Ford is a nobody who dreams of the adoration afforded his hero, and the attempts to position himself under the wing of Jesse James are cringe worthy to watch. Even though the James myth is eventually laid bare before him as a media ruse, Ford still craves the empty fame of his idol and enters into a complicit dance of death, which results in the titular assassination. James, apparently intent or writing his own history, seems to set up his own demise, which suits the weasel Ford who even in his most famous hour is revealed to be weak. Although Ford goes on to achieve the fame he craved, it is ultimately his undoing and not on his own terms, leading to history condemning him forever, trapped in and damned by the myth he yearned for.

Long time Coen Brothers collaborator Roger Deakins, capturing the legend and myth of the James gang, uses deliberate softness around the edge of the image to recreate the photography of the time in this beautifully lensed film. The train robbery sequence might be the most gorgeous image captured on screen this year. Dominik’s second film is a marvellous effort, referencing genre touchstones from The Searchers to the work of Sergio Leone, and mixing to great effect visual poetry, brutal satire and gritty realism. Disastrous box office aside, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford will be remembered for years to come.

DVD Special Features:

The 1-Disc Edition is a barebones release. The 2-Disc limited collector's edition of The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford contains the following extras:-

A hard-back premium packaging with a 44-page book all about the film, the legend and the characters- A bonus disc featuring the documentary Death of An Outlaw that examines the life and death of the real Jesse James and includes interviews with all the key cast and filmmakers.

Love In The Time Of Cholera - Review by Robert Duffin

Director: Mike Newell
Screenwriter: Ronald Harwood
Running Time: 139 mins
Certificate: 18
Released: 21st March

There’s no sorrier sight than a would be awards picture sneaking out from the shadows post-Oscars hoping no one notices. Love In The Time of Cholera should have been a serious contender to Atonement for the throne of prestige period film of the year. It has the literary calibre, being based on Nobel Prize winning Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s celebrated 1985 novel of the same name, the cinematic quality, directed by Mike Newell (Four Weddings) and scripted by Ronald Harwood (The Pianist), and a cross cultural pick of top performers. Yet there was nary a nomination to be seen this awards season; somehow it all went wrong.

The tale of lovers separated by the cultural and political upheaval of their war torn country is the type of narrative the awards bodies usually go ga ga for, but not here, and it’s easy to see why. Florentino (Javier Bardem) and Fermina (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) fall in love at first sight, but everything from the direction, to the acting and the screenplay sabotage any type of emotional connection that may have existed in the source material. Javier Bardem, who for the last few months has been walking on water in the eyes of cinephiles and critics alike, now finds himself washed up in the surf of mediocrity that is this performance. His on screen flame, Mezzogiorno, barely registers a flicker of charm, nor does she exude the magical charisma required to help you understand why Florentino would pine for her for fifty plus years. There is simply no credibility to their romance.

Unusually the casting and make-up deserve a thorough drumming for the plethora of blunders on show here. Florentino is portrayed in his teens by the youthful Unax Ugalde, who then ages dramatically into the thirty something and thirty looking Bardem while the remainder of the cast remain the same age. It’s needlessly distracting, as is the ageing make up, truly the bane of these types of films. While Bardem’s transformation into a seventy year old is marginally convincing, having Mezzogiorno bemoan her age while looking like a twenty year old in a grey wig is unintentionally hilarious. It’s like cutting out the middleman on the inevitable road parody.

Speaking of laughs, they are here in abundance! Witness Benjamin Bratt, as Fermina’s suitor Dr. Urbino, diagnosing irritable bowel syndrome by nuzzling her naked breasts. Or there is John Leguizamo as her vicious father Lorenzo who delivers all his dialogue whilst baring his teeth, spitting and spluttering all over the gorgeous sets. Or there’s young Florentino, reading poetry and eating flowers from a garden bush for no apparent reason…. it goes on and on. Newell, whose previous film was Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire, clearly relishes in tackling more adult subjects (more specifically, naked women) but somehow Potter remains the more affecting drama. Harwood, recently bestowed with awards for his screenplay for The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, clearly left this gathering dust in the ‘to do’ pile. The politics of the age are scrapped almost completely; time shifts are confusing and dialogue cringe inducing.

While this tale of a man who waits for love by sleeping with 600 women has apparently enchanted a generation of readers, it’s big screen incarnation will surely bewitch no one. What went wrong with this teams attempt to bag those coveted nominations? Everything, apparently. What could have been a sweeping period romance has become a severe dose of cinematic dysentery.

On DVD: Beowulf - Review by Robert Duffin

Director: Robert Zemeckis

Screenwriters: Roger Avary & Neil Gaiman

Running Time: 112 mins

Certificate: 12

DVD Distributor: Warner Brothers Home Entertainment

When you get your DVD copy of last autumn’s blockbuster Beowulf, you’ll be sad to discover there are no 3D specs included. Unlike the Robert Rodriguez’s messy Spy Kids 3D: Game Over, we’re not afforded the opportunity of reliving the experience in our living rooms, which begs the question: what’s the point? If you can’t cower in fear from the monster Grendel as he attacks the Danish kingdom of King Horthgar (Anthony Hopkins), before Beowulf (Ray Winston) arrives to save the day, then why bother? Well, English Lit students who don’t have the patience to read a poem could do worse.

The main problem with the film is that director Robert Zemeckis’ beloved technology creates extraordinarily pixelated Madame Tussauds wax works that are unable to express the nuanced performances. Dead eyes and limp limbs leave the experience feeling a little flat. It's hard to identify with Beowulf when he's swinging around buck naked, defying gravity and protecting his modesty Austin Powers style when it looks so fake (the swinging that is, clearly they don't have a programme to create a convincing CGI penis, but of course they can do breasts).

It’s debateable whether Beowulf is even a film. Sure it has a narrative, but then so do the Shrek and Spider-Man rides at Universal Studios. There’s definitely a script but it’s populated with one-dimensional ciphers despite the involvement of two very talented scribes - Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary. The problem is it's barely a narrative, more like a video game; it’s only there to get us between the big fights. It also has the aesthetic of a video game, offering nothing you couldn't get on your games console these days.

Regardless, Beowulf has its moments of entertaining spectacle, and is perhaps the next generation of Blockbuster in the making. The kinetic aerial battle with a dragon towards the end is truly spectacular, but was made so by the 3D technology, which brings us back to the problem of seeing it on DVD. To have been there at the baby steps of something a little different was strangely intriguing, but without the spears flying into your face, Beowulf is startlingly, even more gruelling to endure.

DVD Special Features:

The Theatrical Cut single-disc release is barebones. The Director’s Cut two-disc release offers the following extras:
Reading Between the Lines: The Making of Beowulf
The Origins of Beowulf
Beowulf’s Beast of Burden
Art of Beowulf
Deleted Scenes

Vantage Point - Review by Robert Duffin

Director: Pete Travis
Screenwriter: Barry L. Levy
Running Time: 90 mins
Certificate: 12A
Release Date: Out Now.

For a narrative device as famous as the multiple perspectives in Rashomon, it’s surprising how few times it’s been used in the fifty-eight years since it’s innovation. Tarantino employed it briefly in Jackie Brown and to an extent in Reservoir Dogs, and then of course there was The Usual Suspects, the dire Bruce Willis vehicle Basic and the dull fairy tale spoof Hoodwinked. Ostensibly the lesson to be learned is don’t take on the device lightly, and clearly the brains behind the much-delayed Vantage Point weren’t listening.

Here we follow a group of characters that are witness to the attempted assassination of the President of the United States (William Hurt) as he makes a public address at a peace summit in Spain, and of course things are not as they seem. There’s a liberal sprinkling of body doubles, double crossings and remote controlled desk fans utilised to tell this contrived tale that leaves you wondering which came first; the story or the gimmick? Instead of revealing layers of plot, the rewind button is used to show the expensive explosions from different angles and is eventually abandoned for the final twenty-minute car chase. Most puzzling is that the shifting perspective does not reveal the biggest twist; instead a character recollects events he clearly wasn’t present for. A true Kobayashi moment.

First time writer Barry L. Levy’s screenplay was clearly in need of a rewrite or at least a liberal edit. His characters are all one note; we have the secret service man back on the job after losing his nerve (Dennis Quaid), a tourist on holiday with marital problems (Forrest Whittaker), an agent coerced into working for the bad guys (Edgar Ramirez), and an apparently gormless cop (Eduardo Noriega) who was duped into bringing a bomb to the summit. Thankfully the quality of the cast manages to keep the script merely teetering on the brink of disaster.

Brit helmer Pete Travis, who worked with Paul Greengrass (United 93, Bourne Ultimatum) on the TV movie Omagh, tries to replicate his mentor’s success but his style is a little too slick and safe to truly bring us visceral thrills on that level. Also surprising, given his pedigree, is the complete lack of engaging politics on any level. The terrorists are nameless, their cause unknown, their plot shaky at best. Is it really acceptable to be so boneheaded with these issues? What’s most frustrating however is the potentially superior action film in Vantage Point that is so desperate to escape the clutches of Hollywood mediocrity. On paper a political conspiracy seen from multiple perspectives has so much potential for smarts and thrills, but despite brief moments where it manages to punch above its weight; Vantage Point is uniformly underwhelming.

FFF Preview: Boxes - by Robert Duffin

Director: Jane Birkin
Screenwriter: Jane Birkin
Certificate: TBC
Running Time:95 mins

French Film Festival Screening Times:
Glasgow GFT 8th March 6pm
Edinburgh Filmhouse 9th March 6pm
London Cineworld 12th March 1,3,7pm

Jane Birkin, swingin’ 60s London icon, celebrates her 60th year by making her directorial debut with Boxes. Birkin first appeared as a model in Antonioni’s masterful Blowup, and then cemented herself in pop culture history by recording the number one single ‘Je T’aime…moi non plus’ with her then husband, French chanson Serge Gainsbourg. While appearing in films and making music over the next three decades, she has collaborated with a variety of artists from Feist and Franz Ferdinand to Yann Tiersen and Rufus Wainwright.

The loosely biographical narrative of Boxes follows Anna (played by Birkin) as she relocates to her new home in Brittany and literally unleashes the ghosts of her past as she rifles through and unpacks boxes. The film may have been made on the cheap, but Birkin has clearly pulled in the favours, attracting a starry cast including John Hurt, Geraldine Chaplin, Michel Piccoli, Tcheky Karyo, and Lou Doillon who step in to loosely represent everyone from the aforementioned Serge and daughter Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jacques Doillon, and others from her rich and varied life.

Boxes does see Birkin at her most honest, and she doesn’t shy away from criticising herself. The performances of her collected chums are also universally interesting, however her handling of the surreal elements of the plotting leave a lot to be desired. The film is far too self-referential for it’s own good, and Birkin takes a story that could have been a universal tale of familial relationships and turns into a self-indulgent curio. She’s undeniably full of inventive ideas, but struggles to effectively transfer them to her chosen medium. Definitely a film for Birkin diehards only, and even they might find it a chore.