Review: Final Destination 5 (15) / Directed by: Steven Quayle / Screenplay by: Eric Heisserer / Starring: Nicholas D’Agosto, Emma Bell, Miles Fisher, Ellen Wroe, Tony Todd, PJ Byrne, David Koechner / Release Date: Out now

It takes an audacious film franchise to sell the audience the same film fives times over.  But  the mind game of titling the fourth entry in the now decade-long horror series as ‘The Final Destination’ (to fool dumb or short-term memory audiences into thinking this was a whole new series) has clearly been abandoned so now we have ‘Final Destination 5’ which looks at first as if it’s going to be business as usual until a couple of welcome plot twists manoeuvre the film into the position where it appears that this is – at last – the final destination for this particular series.

We’re on worryingly-familiar territory initially as we join a bunch of workers heading off on a coach to a team-bonding works retreat. They’re delayed by some repair work on a suspension bridge when one of their number, Sam Lawton (D’Agosto) has a vivid and horrifying premonition of disaster where the bridge collapses (spectacularly – I never have dreams with such great special effects) and they’re all splattered, sliced, diced, drowned, squashed and scalded to death. He quickly herds a group of them off the brudge just as the premonition – yep, you guessed it – starts to come true. They’ve cheated Death? But will Death be cheated? If you’ve seen any of the earlier films in the series you’ll know the answer to that one – no, Death won’t be cheated. Naughty Death.

One of the strengths of the ‘Final Destination’ series has been the novel way Death gets its revenge; the lucky few who escape each disaster are picked off one by one but there are no routine electric shocks or car accidents for any of this bunch. Death, across all five films, has been malevolent and clever in the way it picks off the survivors and much of the fun of the films is waiting for the deaths to happen, watching as circumstances slowly conspire together to fulfil Death’s grand plan. Here’s where the films have always been able to build up suspense and tension. Even though most of the characters in these movies tend to be thinly-sketched caricatures – there’s usually a bimbo or two, some fat, geeky bloke, a couple of cocky jocks, a middle-aged man or woman – we can’t help but feel apprehensive as the scenario that we know is going to lead to a grisly and explosive death sequence starts to set itself up. Gorehounds have always loved the inventive and colourful deaths the ‘Final Destination’ films have conjured up and this fifth movie doesn’t disappoint. So our survivors are slowly whittled down in increasingly-nasty ways; head popped by a falling statue, spanner through the skull, a stomach-churning gymnastics accident and, in a sequence I could only watch through my fingers such is my girly squeamishness – death during laser eye treatment. Nooooo!!

‘Final Destination 5’ seems to realise that the game’s pretty much up now, though. There are nods throughout the movie to earlier films and a neat change of track halfway through when the surviving survivors realise that they may be able to appease Death by taking the life of another person.  This only goes so far, though, ultimately serving to lead the film into a predictable dead end which even the odd visual double bluff can’t really justify. Death is, it seems, cheated once again – as it always is – and we wait patiently for the inevitable ‘surprise’ ending as Death strikes yet again when our lead characters least expect it, even if we did. But ‘FD5‘ has one more rather welcome twist up its sleeve as, in a neat piece of plotting, it’s revealed that the destiny of the final survivors of the suspension bridge disaster is inexorably bound up with people we’ve already met. And I’ll say no more other than that this smart, circular twist not only justifies this particular film but ultimately rounds off the whole series as one of the better and more satisfying horror franchises of the last few years. It’s neat, it’s clever and I’ll happily admit I didn’t see it coming.

That, I suspect, is it for the ‘Final Destination’ series – certainly the end credits, punctuated by reminders of all the deaths from the series – seems to suggest that this is the end of the line. And it’s a good place to go out, a decent film to finish off the run. Ten years, five films, one idea – that’s good going even by Hollwood standards.

Special features: The Blu Ray features lternate/extended death sequences , some filming footage pre and post-FX (so many green screens!) and a brief feature on the history of the series which is the sole DVD bonus.

 

Review: Apollo 18 (15) / Directed by: Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego / Written by: Brian Miller / Starring: Warren Christie, Ryan Robbins, Ali Liebert, Lloyd Owen / Released: Out Now

Late last year there was a fair amount of buzz around Apollo 18, it was a found footage movie in space after all and had Timur Bekmambetov attached as a producer. The intended March release date came and went and the film quietly snuck out into cinemas in early September. This is usually a sign that a movie is not good and whilst it’s true Apollo 18 is not good, not good at all, it’s not Evil Things either.

The film purports to be missing and recently released classified footage from a secret moon landing that occurred in the 70s and was released via a website called LunarTruth.com. We begin briefly meeting three astronauts and get a quick glimpse into their lives as they are informed that their particular Apollo mission to the moon has been cancelled. They then receive word that the mission will go ahead as planned but will be classified and off the record as they wish to again beat the Russians into space. We then pick up on the moon as two of the astronauts are sent to the surface in a lunar module. After many tedious scenes of life in space which are neither thrilling nor fascinating, the astronauts discover an abandoned Russian vessel on the surface and signs that something horrible has happened. One of the astronauts gets attacked, things start to go wrong and we find out that there may be something alive on the moon.

Have you seen the average season one episode of the X-Files entitled Space? Then you have basically seen this movie just better executed on every level. I hate that I have to resort to this but ‘found footage’ has to make sense in that context. I believe that when you are pretending that you have edited together recently discovered footage then by putting a score over the action you are kind of betraying your concept and worse, insulting the intelligence of your audience. From a certain standpoint it also makes sense that a mission to the moon would be documented but only to an extent. Here they have the camera on at all times and the camera as operated by one or two people is sometimes clearly held by a third person that the astronauts seemingly have no idea about, again careless. Finally are we to believe that the discovery made by the astronauts in this film, a discovery no other mission to space has ever made, would just be leaked carelessly by a government that still declares Area 51 does not exist?

I may just be picking holes and taking this too seriously but this kind of thing matters when you are expecting an audience to take your film seriously. Found footage movies are an easy way for studios to make money but it is fast becoming a lazy stand by in lieu of good story telling. Apollo 18 would probably work better as a web series run off the website it claims to be from. You would be better off watching the superior found footage web series Marble Hornets which is available on YouTube and is actually creepy and believable and best of all free.

The acting in this film is also some of the worst I have seen for a while. All three astronauts are supposed to be the ‘be all you can be’ type of proud American but it’s so shallow and hollow a performance that you never care what happens to them. Towards the end of the film an event takes place that actually makes the film come alive for a brief moment but is then ruined by an unbelievable decision made by one of these idiots combined with some of the worst effects shots from a film released in cinemas.

Avoid Apollo 18 at all costs, it’s lazy, boring and hollow and your valuable time is better spent elsewhere.

Review: Troll Hunter (15) / Written and directed by: Andre  Ovredal / Starring: Otto Jespersen, Glenn Erlund Tosterud, Johanna Merck, Tomas Alf Larsen / Released: 9th January 2012

The ‘found footage’ film fad shows no sign of running out of steam and why should it? Cheap movies, high concepts, big bucks – luvvly jubbly. But for every Paranormal Activity there’s an Apollo 18 and somewhere in between these extremes – more probably way outside, in fact – sits a rather startling novelty like Troll Hunter, writer/director Andre Ovredal’s bleak and yet refreshing Norweigan offering (thankfully, for those too lazy to read the screen and watch the film, there’s a decently-dubbed English language version available on the disc) which manages to perk up a sub-genre which is starting to look a bit flaccid.

Shaky, occasionally grainy footage (cleverly edited by the people who found it, as always) introduces us to Norweigan film students Thomas (Toesterud – who looks disconcertingly like Ant or Dec, I really couldn’t say which one) and Johanna (Morck) whose investigations into local bear-hunting lead them into contact with the surly, beardy Hans (Jespersen) who shoos them away when they try to join him as he travels across the country ostensibly trapping and killing bears. But these are damned persistent kids and in the middle of the night they find out that Hans is really in the employ of the TSS – the Troll Security Service – and he’s busy trying to keep a lid on the country’s burgeoning troll problem.

Troll Hunter differs from most of its ‘found footage’ forebears in a number of ways, most notably that these sorts of films often exist because the makers don’t have the financial resources or the technology to conjure up the visual scares. Not here though. The trolls which appear – frequently – throughout Troll Hunter are right there front and centre on the screen, raging and stamping, interacting with the human protagonists and frightening the living Norweigan crap out of them. Whilst Jespersen’s charismatic, brooding, matter-of-fact Hans is the film’s ‘hero’ figure, the trolls are the reason we’re here and they don’t disappoint. These are superbly and subtly realised creatures, evoking memories of some of Ray Harryhausen’s better efforts, great giant monstrosities striding across the landscape, lurching out from the distance, each of them distinct, some of them, with their huge hooters and their foul flatulence, initially quite comical. But they’re always threatening and disorientating because they’re the stuff of nightmare, creatures we remember from childhood fairy-tales and because they’re mythical creatures which have their roots in an unfamiliar culture which makes them seem even more terrifying. The final face-off just before daybreak in a desolate, snowy landscape between Hans and his van with its array of ultra-violet lights and the biggest troll of all – it’s displayed in the film’s striking poster image – is genuinely as exciting as anything in a bigger-budgetted Spielberg monster movie as Hans and the students flee from the troll which is lumbering after them and, at one point, overtakes them forcing them to swerve to avoid its giant feet as it strides ahead of them. Exhilirating.

Troll Hunter has a very agreeable, drily-documentary feel to it. Hans rattles off the troll pecking order as if it’s common knowledge and there are welcome elements of Government conspiracy throughout, especially in an amusing coda after the inevitable ‘shock’ ending, the Norwegian prime minister casually lets slip the existence of trolls to a Norweigan TV-viewing public. I wonder..?

Frequently witty, sometimes off-putting but always engaging and enjoyable, Troll Hunter thankfully brings something new to the ‘found footage’ table if only by virtue of its European origins and sensibilities. Dread the in-production unnecessary US remake which will, more than likely, miss the entire point of the thing, and just savour the atmosphere of a good, old-fashioned monster movie with a difference.

Special features: Trailer, deleted and extended scenes, improvs and bloopers, visual effects feature, behind the scenes etc.

Review: Repo Man (18) / Directed and written by: Alex Cox / Starring: Emilio Estevez, Harry Dean Stanton, Tracey Walter / Release date: 20th February 2012

One of the cultest of cult movies, Alex Cox’s debut feature ‘Repo Man’, hailing from 1984, is a film that could only ever have really existed in the 1980s, shot through as it is with a shuddering post-punk (futile?) sense of anarchy, a flavour of Reagan-era impending Armageddon and a now-quaint and slightly naïve nihilism which rubs shoulders with the film’s early murmurings of conspiracy paranoia with a pre-Tarantino soundtrack of slick street speak and salty urban philosophy. It’s even got a bit of a story to it…

Otto (Estevez) is a feckless and disrespectful drifter who throws in his shelf-stacking job when he punches out his supervisor. Disaffected and disillusioned, he finds himself initiated as a ‘repo man’ after a chance encounter with car repossessor Bud (Stanton) and slowly he learns the street-smart ways of the ‘repo man’ as he’s drawn into the sleazy, ugly, gun-toting world of people who don’t pay their bills and the ruthless people who won’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Meanwhile, just to add a dash of colour, a 1964 Chevy Malibou is on its way to Los Angeles with a mysterious radioactive, extra-terrestrial cargo stowed away in its boot (sorry, trunk)…

Watching ‘Repo Man’ now, in the cold light of 2012, is an odd and distancing experience. Films from the 1980s, more than any other, tend to date themselves by virtue of that decade’s now-amusing fashions and music but ‘Repo Man’, with its brash punk ethic, just predates the thudding synths and big mullet hair which characterises (and often unfairly invalidates) 1980s movies. It sort of falls between two stools, upholding the slightly-stale mindset of a movement now well past its sell-by date and presenting characters who aren’t particularly pleasant and have no real moral code in their lives. ’Repo Man’ is full of grubby people; our hero Otto is swaggering and aimless but at least appears to be willing to learn a profession, even one as dubious as the automobile repossessor, whilst the ‘repo men’ themselves are sweaty and vulgar, motivated purely by profit and thinking nothing of pumping bullets into someone’s house when it looks as if they’re being given the bum’s rush. The film’s full of street gangs and car thieves and robbers and into all this we get the UFO conspiracists, desperate to prove the existence of alien life which has been hidden by the Government and the 64 Chevy Malibou that everyone wants to get their hands on before it’s too late.

‘Repo Man’ is a wild and schizophrenic movie and for the first hour it’s an oddly entertaining, stunningly photographed piece of work. But it suddenly loses its appeal, the story’s focus starts to drift as the Chevy and its cargo take centre stage and for once, the extra-terrestrial stuff seems a little bit less interesting than the tough story of the life of a trainee ‘repo man’. The whole thing becomes muddled and surreal towards the end as the Chevy becomes radioactive, everyone gets involved in gunfights and Cox decides to throw in everything including the kitchen sink in his determination to pad the film out to the required running time with logic and coherency thrown to the four winds.

Now I’ll happily accept I’m clearly not the disaffected demographic the film was intended for when it arrived in 1984 but it’s frustrating, coming to this legendary cult film anew, to find that, in many ways, it’s a wasted opportunity; it’s neither one thing – a gritty story of street survival – nor the other – a wild, knowing science-fiction romp. The two styles are uneasy bedfellows and in the end both stories are compromised because it’s clear that neither really has much in common and neither, ultimately, has anywhere much to go.

‘Repo Man’ remains a swaggering brute of a film and it’s a shame to note that Cox’s potential, so evident in his often-accomplished script and inventive direction, was never really exploited in his stuttering future career. It’s a curio of a film, worth a look if you’ve not seen it before but in all honesty, to get the best from ‘Repo Man’ you really needed to be there at the time.

Special features: The film, released in Eureka’s ‘Masters of Cinema’ series, scrubs up well on Blu-ray although there’s some grain evident in darker sequences. Extras-wise this is about as definitive as it gets with a 44 page colour booklet full of Repo trivia, a new introduction to the history of the film’s troubled life from Cox himself, a roundtable discussion from 2005, a substantially re-edited TV version, missing scenes, an interview with Stanton, trailers, commentary and plenty more. Impressively comprehensive.

Review: Doctor Who – The Sensorites (PG) / Directed by: Frank Cox / Screenplay by: Peter R Newman / Starring: Wlliam Hartnell, William Russell, Jacqueline Hill, Carole Ann Ford, Peter Glaze, Lorne Cossette, Ilona Rodgers, Steven Dartnell, Eric Francis, Bartlett Mullins / Release date: January 23rd, 2012

There’s always a frisson of excitement when a ‘classic’ black-and-white ‘Doctor Who’ serial makes its way onto DVD. These early shows are, after all, what laid the foundations for the legend the show would become and more often than not newer fans who come to these old shows afresh are surprised by how enjoyable and engaging many of these ancient episodes are, nearly fifty years later. Whilst they obviously can’t hold a visual candle to the fizzing, colourful, widescreen thrills of the 21st century series, there’s usually much fun to be had amongst the black-and-white footage, the primitive production values and threepenny special effects rarely undermining well-written, intelligent and often well-meaning adventure stories. ‘Classic’ ‘Doctor Who’ is often a lot better than its critics give it credit for. But then there’s ‘The Sensorites’ and all bets are off…

A word to the wise. If you’re planning on adding the new ‘Sensorites’ DVD to your collection then please, for the Love of God, don’t try to watch the whole thing at once, I beg  you. Trust me, an episode at a time, several days apart, is the way to go with this one. Two episodes in a row will induce a sort of hazy, disorientating effect, three or four may well bring about a temporary catatonia with much rolling of the eyes into the back of the head. But, my friends, watching all six episodes in a row is not only utterly unthinkable, it’s almost guaranteed to cause an irreversible living rigor mortis and really, no amount of sniggering at William Hartnell’s legendary wanderings from the script are worth the sacrifice of a potentially full and healthy life.

I’m exaggerating, of course, for comic effect. But ‘The Sensorites’ really is a slog of a story. Screened in June 1964 when the show was still basking in the glow of the success of the first appearance of the Daleks some six months earlier, ‘The Sensorites’ is another one of those tricky outer space stories the series was running in between the more worthy historical serials and the sci-fi ones were often a bit of a problem back in the early days, particularly because of the perceived need to create new ‘monsters’ which could rival or even replicate the success of the Daleks. With all due respect, the Sensorites never stood a chance. The story actually starts off fairly promisingly and the first episode isn’t too much of a chore. There’s some nice character beats between the TARDIS crew – the Doctor, his granddaughter Susan, teachers Ian and Barbara. Initially distrustful and suspicious of one another right at the start of the show the year before, they’ve now become friends bonded by experience. As William Hartnell’s Doctor so nearly manages to put it: “it all  started out as a mild curiosity in a  junkyard and now it’s turned out to be quite a great spirit of adventure.” So there. Laughing happily and back-slapping apart, the TARDIS sets down upon the flight deck of a spacecraft locked in orbit around the planet Sense-Sphere (in the same Galaxy as the Ood-Sphere, home of the spaghetti- mouthed aliens from the David Tennant era, so we’re told in 2008’s ‘Planet of the Ood’) and the surviving crew-members are unconscious, initially presumed dead. But they suddenly awaken and tell the TARDIS crew that they’re under the malign mental influence of the Sensorites, the inhabitants of the Sense-Sphere, and that they’ll never be allowed to return to Earth. Much creepiness too as Susan and Barbara wander off and find themselves trapped behind a sealed (if clearly wooden) bulkhead with John, another mesmerised human astronaut, for threatening company. The climax of the episode is especially memorable, our first glimpse of a bewhiskered Sensorite floating in space and peering into the flight deck through the ship’s space-window (it’s not called that but I bet it would have been).

Sadly for ‘The Sensorites’ (and us) it’s downhill after episode one. The story, such as it is, proceeds at a pace which would scarcely trouble a snail. The Sensorites themselves board the spaceship and whilst there are some good ideas in their characterisation – they’re telepathic, sensitive to loud sounds (so watch that snoring) – they’re basically just rather pot-bellied men in grey romper suits with plate-sized round feet and sashes around their necks, bald heads and a bit of bum-fluff on their faces. They’re hardly guaranteed to get anyone racing behind the sofa.

But to be fair to writer Peter R Newman, scaring the kiddies probably wasn’t really high on his agenda. His script is actually really rather good, mature and thoughtful, dealing with issues regarding trust and deception, fear of the unlike, duplicity and treachery. As such though it’s sluggish and stagey, wordy and worthy and clearly with not enough plot to sustain six episodes. The story creaks along and, when the Doctor, Ian and Susan travel (off-screen) down to the Sense-Sphere (Barbara wisely staying behind so the actress could go on holiday – somewhere sunny judging by the tan she’s acquired when she returns in episode five) it grinds to a halt under the weight of its continued exposition and the to-ing and fro-ing between various bickering Sensorite factions. It appears a deadly disease is killing the Sensorite people and the Doctor quickly discovers that there’s something nasty in the water supply. But who put it there and why? Four or five episodes later we find out and it’s all a bit underwhelming and fizzles out in a most perfunctory shoulder-shrugging fashion as if Newman had realised his box of tricks was empty and there was nowhere else to go.

Taken slowly, steadily, an episode at a time, it’s possible to make your way through ‘The Sensorites’ and it does have its own quaint, peculiar charms. Hartnell, never at his most comfortable in futuristic stories, wanders off-text frequently and there’s much fun to be had in watching the amusement/borderline panic in his fellow performer’s eyes as they wonder where the Hell he’s going this time. To be fair, he’s not the only culprit; there’s much fluffing and stumbling evident but generally everyone else remains earnest but there’s not much real conviction here, just a lot of actors going through the motions and, most probably, hoping the next one’s a bit more fun. You’ll be hoping much the same thing.

Special features: A quick mention for the restoration which makes stunningly vivid  episodes first (and last) broadcast an astonishing 48 years ago. The visual extra material  itself is naturally a bit thin on the ground  but there’s a rather charming documentary featuring comedian/fan Toby Hadoke and historian Richard Bignell on the trail of the writer Peter R Newman, about whom little is known, then-vision mixer Clive Doig (later a doyen of kid’s TV) recalls working on 1960s ‘Doctor Who’ and, Hadoke-moderated commentary with some surviving cast and crew aside, that’s just about your lot. You’ll probably find it’s enough.

Review: Final Destination 5 / Directed by: Steven Quale / Screenplay by: Eric Heisserer, Jeffrey Riddick  / Starring: Nicholas D’Aqosto, Emma Bell, Miles Fisher, Ellen Wroe, Jacqueline MacInnes Wood / Release date: Out now

After the abysmal The Final Destination, the franchise gets back on track in a big way with Final Destination 5 which is the best movie in the series since the second movie. You know the formula by now; young good looking types exposed to potential danger, one of them has a premonition and leads a few to safety only to see what they envisioned come true. The survivors carry on with their lives but Death comes calling for each of them in turn in nasty fashion. Oh and Tony Todd will show up and spout some enigmatic dialogue about how you shouldn’t piss off death. This is a high point for the franchise which hasn’t even made it into Saw like numbers yet despite being over ten years old.  Directed with confidence by Steven Quale who cut his teeth as a second unit director on some big movies, the fifth instalment carries on like it’s the first instalment in a brand new series and manages to breathe new life into the franchise.

Our story begins with some paper company sales and administration types going on a company team building retreat. Sam (Nicholas D’Agosto) has just broken up with Molly (Emma Bell) and is also conflicted about his future with the company having just been offered a job as an apprentice chef in Paris. Whilst crossing a bridge which is having work done on it, Sam has a vision of the bridge collapsing and his colleagues getting violently killed. Understandably freaked out, Sam gets off the company bus with Molly and several colleagues follow; they then witness the bridge collapse. They carry on with their lives but death is not happy and through a series of nasty accidents, Sam’s colleagues start to die in the order that he envisioned.

From the synopsis you may assume that this is business as usual but where this differs from most of the other films in the franchise is with Steven Quale’s skill with creating suspense and tension. Each sequence is excruciatingly tense as the potential accidents mount up and we see potential causes of death suddenly be eliminated as something we didn’t even see swoops in and violently takes a life. Making it worse is the situation in which each victim finds themselves. We get nasty scenes involving acupuncture, laser eye surgery and worst of all gymnastics. Each time there are close ups of sparking wires, flammable liquids and sharp edges and you think that one of them will come into play at some point but then it doesn’t. Added to this new found skill at the death scenes is the initial bridge destruction sequence which is spectacular, the only drawback being the fact that as I don’t have a 3D TV some of the effect is lost when it comes to the shots that are clearly composed with the 3D format in mind.

The film also introduces a different concept from the other movies and goes a step further to suggest that once you are marked for death you can take another life and appease the reaper and then it will pass you by. This added facet of the mythology means that the narrative takes on an extra dimension and you end up with twice the suspense as characters go to desperate lengths to cheat death. The film also ends on a surprising note that I did not see coming which makes you think about the whole saga in a different light. That’s not to say that this is some deep meditation on death and loss, the series is still all about the death scene and is as deep as a puddle.

Final Destination 5 is everything that later instalments in horror franchises should be, it’s a well-worn formula made fresh by a director with actual skill that explores new territory. As a crowd pleasing horror movie from a decade old franchise this film is something to be applauded.

Extras: Alternate Death Scenes, Visual Effects featurette.

 

Review: Cowboys & Aliens / Directed by: Jon Favreau / Screenplay by: Robert Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby / Starring:Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell, Adam Beach, Paul Dano / Release date: Out now 

There are some ideas which are brilliant in their simplicity that lead to critically acclaimed blockbuster films, (the 1994 film Speed comes to mind). Then there are ideas which are almost too good that inevitably Hollywood will spend too much money on the final product until the result is a mere shell of that initial idea. Such is the case with Cowboys & Aliens which has five screenwriters credited with the screenplay and is a film so over-developed that the final product is bland blockbuster filmmaking by numbers.

The film begins with Jake Lonegran (Daniel Craig) waking up in the desert with no memory of who he is or how he got there. He has some kind of metallic device attached to his wrist and is wounded. After despatching a bunch of bandits who harass him, he heads into town. There he runs afoul of the son of a wealthy and ruthless cattle farmer Woodrow Dollarhyde (Harrison Ford) and finds out he is wanted by the law for crimes he does not remember. Lonegran also attracts the attention of a local prostitute (Olivia Wilde) who seems to be very interested in his new fancy wrist contraption. Suddenly (and it seems to happen this quickly) aliens attack the town and kidnap half of the townsfolk including Dollarhyde’s son. Jake finds that his wrist jewellery is actually a weapon and the only thing that has an effect on the aliens craft and technology. Dollarhyde, Lonegran and the towns people form an uneasy alliance and go out to find the kidnapped and destroy the alien menace.

For those of you who like Westerns, all the usual tropes are present and correct. You have the mysterious man with (initially) no name. You have the ruthless land baron, the ineffectual sheriff, the kindly preacher, whore with a heart of gold and the bumbling bartender. It feels very much like its ticking off clichés and joining the dots before an alien even shows up. The film is also surprisingly brutal, people are stabbed and shot violently in the opening scene and it doesn’t downplay the gritty realism in any way, which is why I think ultimately the film doesn’t work as it’s not sure what it wants to be. The aliens are not given short shrift either and when they actually are on screen they are just as viscous and brutal as the cowboys. It’s a film called Cowboys & Aliens and should write itself based on the potential of that premise. Sadly the film does not commit to either genre fully and all the grit in the world makes no difference if you are going to have stupid CGI aliens show up.

When a big blockbuster film is in development, it’s not unusual for another writer to be brought on board to polish up the dialogue or bring up the action quota. When a film has five credited writers, it’s usually a bad sign. I can imagine Cowboys & Aliens initial script being a fun genre mash up along the lines of Tremors or Attack the Block. By bringing in more and more writers during the development phase, what was good about the script has been diluted and lost as the studio tried to make as safe a blockbuster as possible. Add to this a director that does not know what type of film he is trying to make and it was never going to end well.

The script is ultimately what lets the film down; the aliens’ motivations make very little sense. For a race of dumb, brutish frog gorilla type things they sure do have some shiny technology. Their reasons for attacking us also seem to be just to mine gold, for what purpose is never made clear, which is ridiculous and is up there with the logic displayed by the aliens in M.Night Shyamalan’s Signs. Olivia Wilde’s character has a big reveal part way through the film which we will not spoil, but will say it’s something that no doubt at some point made sense to one of the writers working on this and seems to have been forgotten by the subsequent writers so just sits there not making any sense at all as merely an excuse to get Wilde naked. We wish they had just gone silly with this film we really do, not Meet the Spartans type of silly but just had fun and ramped up the ridiculousness of it all and gone full blown violent and gory. Anything would be better than the end result as it’s just so bland and joyless.

Daniel Craig certainly looks the part as the ‘man with no name’ gunslinger but when he is called on to actually act or give motivating speeches he just looks uncomfortable. Thank goodness then for Harrison Ford who finally comes to life after years in a coma and has a whale of a time as a ruthless, snarling cattle farmer. The rest of the cast is made up of quality supporting players like Clancy Brown, Sam Rockwell and Paul Dano who all make the most of their clichéd characters.

Cowboys & Aliens is a safe, standard Saturday night rental prospect but if you are expecting true thrills or something that doesn’t follow the expected route then look elsewhere.

Extras: Extended version of the film (Blu-Ray only), Commentary with John Favreau, Interview with John Favreau, Igniting the Sky; The making of ‘Cowboys & Aliens’.

Review: Doctor Who – U.N.I.T. Files (PG) / Directed by: Paddy Russell, Barry Letts /Written by: Malcolm Hulke, Terry Nation / Starring: Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen, Nicholas Courtney, Richard Franklin, John Levene, Ian Marter / Released: January 9th 2012

In their haste to get the entire classic ‘Doctor Who’ canon released on DVD, the BBC/2entertain have been forced to throw some unlikely bedfellows together in loosely-themed boxsets just to get some of the series’ less-regarded stories out of the way.

2011 gave us curios like the ‘Earth Story’ boxset which combined a 1960s William Hartnell cowboy serial (’The Gunfighters’) with a something-and-nothing Peter Davison 1984 two-parter (‘The Awakening’) purely on the basis, presumably, that both stories were set on Earth. 2012 kicks off with ‘U.N.I.T. Files’, two stories which showcase the antics of the show’s 1970’s six-man army, the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, the paramilitary organisation commanded by the redoubtable Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney) which formed the backdrop to the show during much of the run of the third Doctor (Pertwee) and into the early days of his successor (Tom Baker). Unfortunately the stories in this boxset ‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs’ (1974) and ‘The Android Invasion’ (1976) really don’t showcase either U.N.I.T. or ‘Doctor Who’ in the best light. In truth, U.N.I.T. could be better represented by still-unreleased stories such as ‘Terror of the Zygons’ and ‘The Daemons’ but these are far better stories and are clearly destined for higher-profile releases within the next twelve months or so. ‘Dinosaurs’ and ‘Android Invasion’, it seems, have been slung together because they’re on no-one’s list of favourites and they might just as well be randomly partnered in an attempt to bolster one another and to provide a nice shiny new boxset to kick off the new year. 

Determined fans of the original ‘Doctor Who’ have become used to defending their show from cries of “the special effects were lousy!” with the riposte “ah, but it wasn’t about the effects, it was about the stories” – and by and large it remains a fair point. As ‘Doctor Who’ fans we all agree that the risible rat in ‘The Talons of Weng-Chiang’ (1977) and the disastrous dragon in ‘The Caves of Androzani’ (1984) don’t detract from the fact that these are two classic stories whose reputations are barely sullied by one or two ill-judged visuals. The six-part Pertwee serial ‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs’, however, is a trickier proposition; here’s a clever, intelligent story (albeit with a slightly preachy ‘make the most of the world you’ve got’ morality) with some good performances, a sharp script, well-rounded characters… and it’s all utterly scuppered by diabolical visual effects. The story is a prime example of ‘Doctor Who’ doing what it had pretty much always tried to do, its ambition far outreaching the capabilities of its budget but this time falling flat on its face. Because if you call your story ‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs’ you really need to step up to the plate and make sure that your dinosaurs can cut the mustard. But – and to be fair to the production team of the time, it wasn’t all their fault as they outsourced the effects work to a company who assured them they could create some believable dinosaurs for the serial – the creatures presented in ‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs’ looked appalling even in 1974, years before the miracle of CGI would make such animation fairly rudimentary. Trust me, I was there when this was shown originally and I can remember sitting  slack-jawed in disbelief at the ineptitude of the special effects my favourite show had dared to inflict upon its audience. To be fair, the DVD makes no excuses for the effects, preferring to adopt a shrugged-shouldered “Oh well” approach in the disc’s special features, but it’s still hard – sometimes nigh impossible – to immerse yourself in the story properly when every few minutes you’re subjected to some dreadful static shot of a rubber tyrannosaurus waving its feeble arms about and being so clearly manoeuvred by its tail by some desperate off-camera stagehand. If you’ve not seen the story before prepare to be awed by the opening of episode six where a brontosaurus engages in fearful combat with a tyrannosaur by putting its rubber head in its mouth as the inflexible tyrannosaur plainly fails to bend at the knees. Elsewhere we get flapping plastic pterodactyls and the odd grazing stegosaurus which just about passes muster because it’s not required to do anything other than just stand there in a model set and move very slightly.

Beyond the dreadful dinosaurs there really is a decent story here, late period Pertwee slipping down a gear from the high points of the year before but still boasting a compelling  storyline (mad/misguided scientist and chums plan to ‘roll back’ time and return the polluted Earth to a prehistoric state) and an intelligent script. Pertwee, never more avuncular, his hair never more bouffant, is looking a little fuller-figured than before but, with the benefit of hindsight (and this was the serial broadcasting when the BBC announced his retirement from the role) it’s clear to see that an era was slowly winding down. Elisabeth Sladen, in her second serial as Sarah Jane Smith, gives the story a bit of extra energy and the first episode, with the Doctor and Sarah arriving in an evacuated, desolate London, is hugely effective and still oddly-creepy. Elsewhere there’s plenty of jeopardy, much escaping and recapturing, some hair-raising character illogicality and ultimately a bit of a flat ending which involves the Doctor pushing a big red lever.

‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs’ is a rare example of a ‘Doctor Who’ serial utterly undermined by its poor visuals and whilst there’s still much here to recommend as a story it’s virtually impossible to look beyond the terrible effects and no amount of creative excuses can paper over the cracks this time.

Two years later the Doctor (Tom Baker) and Sarah arrive back on another apparently-deserted Earth in ‘The Android Invasion’, Terry Nation’s first non-Dalek story for the series since 1964. In the meantime Nation had been working on slick ABC/ITC shows like ‘The Avengers’ and ‘The Champions’ and their influence is startlingly-obvious in the first episode, the best of the bunch, which plays like an episode of ‘Department S’ as the travellers wander around a peaceful English village attacked by spacemen with guns in their fingers. Director (and former series producer) Barry Letts gives the first episode real pace with plentiful atmospheric location footage but the story starts to fall apart from episode two with the introduction of the rhino-headed Kraals and their cumbersome plan to take over the Earth after replicating an English village and replacing its inhabitants with androids. But U.N.I.T. and its troops are pretty much incidental – Nicholas Courtney’s unavailability for filming meant that the Brigadier was “away in Geneva” for the duration and former stalwarts Benton (John Levene, for whom this was to be a last, and rather ignominious, series appearance) and Harry Sullivan (Ian Marter) are emotionless android replicas for most of the serial. As the plot lumbers towards its fanciful and rather dreary conclusion (part of which involves a spectacularly-inane twist involving a major supporting character and an eye patch), it’s really only Tom Baker (still a couple of years away from the point where he started to take the role somewhat less seriously) and Elisabeth Sladen, their on-screen relationship now pretty much fully-established, who keep the story’s momentum going when everything else around them has thundered into tedium. ‘The Android Invasion’ has a bit of mid-1970s period charm to it but it’s stodgy, dreary stuff, one of those unexceptional ‘bedrock’ ‘Doctor Who’ stories which helped cement the series’ ongoing reputation and kept the show ticking over until something more inspired came along.

‘U.N.I.T. Files’ makes a fair fist of presenting two of the series’ less-than-finest serials in a decent light but there’s really only so much even 2entertain can do with a sow’s ear so this boxset can really only be recommended for the die-hard completist and, in the case of ‘Dinosaurs’ for lovers of seriously bad special effects. 

Special features: Both stories are well-served by typically thorough bonus material. Broadcaster Matthew Sweet sensibly ignores ‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs’’ visual shortcomings and focuses upon the story itself in the ‘People,  Power and Puppetry’ documentary, ‘Now and Then’ revisits many of the story’s central London locations and, perhaps not surprisingly, finds many of them either demolished or barely recognisable, a couple of deleted/extended scenes, Jon Pertwee visits Billy Smart’s circus in his latest gadget, the space-age Who mobile (which made its debut in the serial), a short interview with Lis Sladen from 2003 and, as an optional bonus on disc one, the first episode, which has only existed as a black-and-white print in the BBC Archives, restored to colour. It’s not a perfect restoration and it’s certainly not broadcast quality but at least it means the serial is now complete and in colour for the first time in years. A decent extras package is completed by the usual commentaries and production texts. ‘The Android Invasion’ includes a documentary in which Nicholas Briggs revisits the serial’s locations and speaks to locals who were present at the time of the filming and an absorbing feature where producer Philip Hinchcliffe is interviewed by his daughter about his extensive career post-’Doctor Who’ – and it’s a documentary which is worth the price of purchase alone, frankly.

Review: Kill List (18) / Directed by: Ben Wheatley / Screenplay by: Ben Wheatley, Amy Jump / Starring: Neil Maskell, MyAnna Buring, Michael Smiley, Emma Fryer / Release Date: Dec 26th

It’s a source of constant frustration that our movie theatres remain jam-packed with “is that still on?” eye-candy blockbusters week after week leaving cleverer, darker, more challenging fare like ‘Kill List’ to enjoy a one-week run on one screen before being shunted off into the shadows to await its inevitable DVD release. But there are some compensations; the masses can thrill to the never-ending antics of pirate Cap’n Jack  and the kid with the wand and those of us who fancy something a bit more inventive can feel a little smug and superior because we’ve dared to wander off the cinematic beaten track and found ourselves a genuine piece of movie treasure.

And ‘Kill List’ is a bit of a treasure, albeit a perverse, slightly warped and wilfully genre-hopping one. Directed and co-written by Ben (‘Down Terrace’) Wheatley, ‘Kill List’ initially presents like some worthy Ken Loach-style real world drama, a story of misery and poverty on some kitchen sink estate where desperate, grubby people have to resort to desperate, grubby acts just to stay alive. But Wheatley and his superb cast have created something rather extraordinary which is part-gangster movie, part-romance and, in its last reel, very definitely part-horror in scenes which are surely meant as an homage to ‘The Wicker Man’ amongst others. Neil Maskell plays Dan, a bitter and tough ex-soldier struggling to come to terms with lift post-service and battling to keep his relationship with Shell (MyAnna Buring) on an even keel despite his violent temper outbursts. Neil is enlisted by his friend Gal (Smiley) into some quick, lucrative ‘hit man’ work, bumping off selected targets on a ‘kill list’ for a cheap local gangster. Gal likes to get in, get the job done and then get out without leaving a trace. Neil likes to exercise his inner psychopath by taking his time, brutally mutilating and slaughtering their victims. ‘Kill List’ is coy about the morality of the two men’s ‘work’; their targets appear to be upstanding members of the public but the suggestion is that these are vile, corrupt men, pornographers or pedophiles who, some might say,deserve everything they get. But Gal and even Neil are becoming uncomfortable with their lifestyle and one last ‘hit’ – an MP in his luxurious country mansion – turns into something bizarre and surreal when the forest in which they’re hiding lights up with the flaming torches of an occult procession, dozens of worshippers of some unnamed cult, many of them naked, others wearing woven face masks. Appalled by one act of self-sacrifice, Neil and Gal open fire on the occultists… with consequences which are both disastrous and, in some ways, horrifically disturbing.

‘Kill List’ is unusual because it demands a lot of its audience. It doesn’t offer up easy answers to the questions it’s asked because sometimes that’s what life’s like. Sometimes things don’t make sense, sometimes there aren’t any explanations because things just happen and we never find out why. So it is here with Neil and Gal and Shell whose lives are never quite what we think they are and certainly don’t end up the way we might be expecting. Wheatley handles the domestic stuff with a fine eye for detail and naturalism; Neil and Shell’s relationship creaks with tension and the laboured ‘dinner party’ with Gal and his odd new girlfriend Sonia (Fryer) never seems more than a moment away from the rage which eventually ruins it and is as tense a sequence as anything more obscure towards the end of the movie. When it comes the violence is graphic and bloody enough to make even the most hardened wince as Neil tortures and batters and pulverises his victims before going home to the bosom of his long-suffering, loving wife and their innocent son Sam.

So just when you think you’ve got a handle on ‘Kill List’ the film veers off in another direction entirely at about the seventy-minute mark (although there are one or two hints of something odd building up early on, specifically when Sonia daubs a mystical symbol on the back of Neil and Shell’s bathroom mirror) as the story spirals towards its devastating conclusion – and it’s a conclusion which will leave you alternately breathless, appalled and very probably finally puzzled and annoyed because you really didn’t see it coming.

‘Kill List’ isn’t some slick, witty, tongue-in-cheek, knowing thriller; it’s tough, uncompromising, raw and urban. It could only be a British film and it allows Wheatley to set out his stall as an exciting, visionary UK storyteller who, given the breaks, could become a real force to be reckoned with in what’s left of the British film industry. Vicious and uncomfortable it may be, but ‘Kill List’ is a dazzling and demanding piece of work and is pretty much guaranteed to jolt you out of your post-Christmas torpor when it arrives on DVD later this month. Don’t miss it again.

Extras: Bizarre B-roll ‘making of’ footage, slightly luvvy interviews, trailer.

Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II (12) / Directed by: David Yates / Written by: Steve Kloves / Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Ralph Fiennes, Michael Gambon, Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter  / Released: Out Now

So this is it, after ten years and eight films we finally come to the last Harry Potter film we will ever (probably) see. Any minute now some Hollywood exec is likely to cry ‘reboot’ so for now we can enjoy all eight films (seven really) for the handsomely mounted productions that they are. Whilst they have not always brought the thrills and at times have been saddled with some awfully wooden performances, especially in the early films, I think we can all agree that this has been a pretty consistent series overall. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part two suffers largely to being what is essentially the last act in a four hour film, as a result it feels a little lacking in some areas compared to your traditional self contained blockbuster. By and large though, it delivers a suitably thrilling and magical finale.

If you didn’t see the first part, first of all don’t bother until you do. Also if you have seen the first part, but only once when it was released, then you may want to give it a watch through before proceeding with the second part because this offers no recap before launching straight into the action. Our story picks up with the trio of Harry, Hermione and Ron on the run after being declared a menace by the new Voldemort regime. They are looking for the remaining horcruxes which make up Voldemort’s soul and will enable our heroes to vanquish him once and for all. Along the way, allegiances shift, secrets long buried come to the surface and unlikely heroes emerge. The action culminates in a massive battle at Hogwarts as Voldemort’s horde of evil wizards descends on the school with the express purpose of killing Harry Potter.

Director David Yates has maintained a high level of quality for the finale and the film is probably the best acted of the whole saga (Radcliffe I’m looking at you). The secret weapon in the films arsenal turns out to be Alan Rickman as Professor Snape who has some really wonderful moments in the film where Rickman steps up his game considerably after being a bit of a background character for so long. Snape’s tragic back story is revealed and his relationship to Harry deepens as we find out their fates are entwined far more than we thought. Ciaran Hinds is a new addition to the cast as Aberforth Dumbledore and does a lot with his brief scenes as Dumbledore’s slightly less friendly brother. Each ongoing cast member is given their moment to shine in the final battle with Matthew Lewis as Neville Longbottom emerging as the true hero of the whole saga, in my opinion anyway.

The film also goes to some surprisingly trippy places in the finale. There is a whole afterlife/limbo scene which is really well conceived and doesn’t pander to the younger audience members and could have reeked of sentiment but doesn’t. It even contains the single most disturbing image in the whole saga. The scene occurs as a nice respite amongst all of the special effects and carnage. Scenes like this make me anxious to see what David Yates does next as he has some serious skill as a storyteller as well as a visual artist. He probably needs to have another post-Potter original screenplay film thrust upon him so that he goes into the Christopher Nolan big leagues and can write his own ticket. Speaking of the visuals I will say this, it could be that it was filmed with an eye on going to 3D but some of the effects were a little shoddy around the edges. A scene in an underground vault reeks of theme park ride, even going so far as to include POV shots. It could just be that the film was rushed for release and some of the effects were unfinished but in a production of this high a profile you would think that they could at least get the effects as good as they could be. Also amongst the battles some of the CG creatures come across a little awkwardly. The climatic battle involves trolls, lycanthropes and giant spiders and they don’t always work alongside their organic comrades.

The problem is with this film is that it’s hard to review on its own merits because it’s the second part of a more complete story. As a film on its own the structure sucks, there isn’t really a journey as such for the characters as this has already been told in the previous instalment and indeed in the previous six films. I wish that they had combined parts one and two into a four hour whole although I understand why they chose not to. I’m convinced that Potter has enough fans that they would have turned up for a four hour finale and it would have still made money. As it stands Deathly Hallows part two is merely a damn good finale when the two together could have been a ten out of ten classic.

Extras: Aberforth Dumbledore, Deathly Hallows costume changes, Harry returns to Hogwarts, The Hogwarts Shield, Room of Requirement set, The Fiery Escape, Final farewells from cast and crew, When Harry left Hogwarts, The Goblins of Gringotts, The Women of Harry Potter, Deleted Scenes, Neville’s Stand, Molly takes down Bellatrix, Pottermore Preview, Warner Bros London Studios Tour.