Review: Contagion (12A ) / Directed by: Steven Soderbergh / Screenplay by: Scott Z Burns / Starring: Marion Cottilard, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Bryan Cranston

Time for Hollywood to address once again one of our greatest current primal fears – the ever-present grumbling threat of a devastating global pandemic – in Steve Soderbergh’s latest terrific, pulsating ensemble thriller, a movie which is neither science-fiction nor horror but rather a bold and bald “this is how it would really be” almost documentary style drama presented without frills and fuss and, refreshingly, no huge explosive apocalyptic set pieces. For this, we can suspect, really is how it would really be, Mankind wiped out, or at best brought to its knees, by the implacable and unpredictable power of Nature herself. 

When one of your starriest stars – Mrs Coldplay Gwyneth Paltrow herself – pegs it after five minutes (it’s literally a cough-and-spit appearance) and we’re treated to the sight of her skull being opened up during a Centre for Disease Control (CDC) autopsy shortly afterwards, we can safely assume that no-one’s likely to be safe for the next 110 or so minutes (and sure enough she’s not the only A-lister to bite the bullet) and this isn’t going to be your routine ‘brain at home’ Hollywood blockbuster. Soderbergh brings his grounded sense of realism to what in the past has been depicted as an eyebrow-raisingly silly scenario (think ‘Outbreak’ – ‘have you seen this monkey?’) as his globe-trotting camera takes us to Hong Kong, London, San Francisco and various points in between as we see early sniffling, sweating victims of this new virus touching things, staggering about busy city streets, carelessly and unthinkingly transmitting something deadly and invisible to everyone they meet. ’Contagion’ tells us that we really ought to keep our hands in our pockets as not only do coughs and sneezes spread diseases but also touching doorknobs, cocktail glasses, credit cards and even our faces. Eeek.

With Gwyneth out of the picture our everyman figure is her husband (Matt Damon, easily the most interesting actor working in Hollywood at the moment) who seems to have a natural immunity and who, whilst not the ‘star’ of the film as such, is threaded throughout the movie as he tries to protect his daughter from infection as society starts to crumble and the rule of law collapses. Elsewhere our attentions are focussed on the medical brains desperately trying to find the source of the disease as well as everybody who may have come into contact with a carrier – a task which becomes increasingly difficult as the virus spreads alarmingly and the body-bags start to pile up. Laurence Fishburne exudes a sort of charismatic calm as Dr Cheevers, the CDC chief who’ll stop at nothing to find a cure for the virus but who is equally capable of hiding the truth from the public (for undoubtedly all the best reasons). His frontline medical gal is Kate “I was in ‘Titanic’” Winslet who is terribly earnest in her rather faceless and underwritten – and ultimately thankless – role. Jude Law rocks up as a pesky “we demand to know the truth!”  blogger with a dodgy Australian accent and seriously bad teeth and whilst he’s not exactly a bad guy he doesn’t half get on your nerves after a bit, especially in his video link TV debate with Dr Fishburne where you really wish someone would give him a slap and tell him to stop being so smug.

But ‘Contagion’ isn’t about its cast, it’s about the effective sense of mounting dread it develops as the virus spirals out of control, eventually mutating into something potentially far worse and the utter helplessness of all our scientific minds with all the resources at hand to fashion a vaccine which will halt the spread of the disease. Scenes of San Francisco streets piled high with rubbish, public panic at food distribution points, looters setting fire to stores and raiding houses are unsettling enough in themselves and for British audiences may even bring back uncomfortable memories of those three or four strange days in August this year. But just when ‘Contagion’ reaches what seems to be a point of no return and it really looks as if things aren’t going to turn out too well for us human types, the film loses its momentum and its bottle and throws in a lazy and convenient resolution which, whilst not totally undermining the rest of the film, does tend to deflate its impact a little as it seems to have been lifted form a box marked “with one bound they were cured” and there are a couple of signing-off scenes with Damon and Fishburne which may well set off your “too schmaltzy!” alarms.

A few narrative grumbles aside then, ‘Contagion’ is a tense and sometimes troubling movie which really does make you stop and think and appreciate just how easy it would be for Mankind to take a fall on the back of a mere quirk of Nature. Just to lighten the mood then (ahem), catch this if you can, it’ll bug you if you don’t, the time flu by when I was watching it, I…  (Stop it now – Starburst Ed). Bah. Spoilsport.

Expected rating: 8 out of 10

‘Contagion’ is spreading across UK cinemas now (sorry).

Review: The Three Musketeers (12A) / Directed by: Paul W.S. Anderson / Screenplay by: Alex Litvak, Andrew Davies / Starring: Logan Lerman, Ray Stevenson, Mads Mikkelsen, Luke Evans, Matthew Macfadyen, Christoph Waltz, Milla Jovovich, Orlando Bloom

If you’ve not already deleted it from your recent memory, recall for just a moment ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides’ which appalled most right-thinking cinema-goers earlier this year and yet, frustratingly, hoovered up tumps and tumps of money all over the world, dammit. Remember just how bad it was, how sluggish, lumbering, lazy, self-indulgent and frankly unspectacular. And how bloody long. Here, astonishingly, is the antidote to that ghastly, cynical abhorrence. Here’s the film that’s everything ‘On Stranger Tides’ could have been and really should have been. Here’s the film that swashes all the buckles ‘On Stranger Tides’ mislaid so carelessly. Here’s ‘The Three Musketeers’, directed by, of all people, the much-derided Paul W.S. Anderson (best known for the apparently endless ‘Resident Evil’ movie series – one of my guilty pleasures, I’m only slightly ashamed to admit) who has somehow, against every imaginable odd, turned out a big, mad romping comic strip adventure guaranteed to boil the blood of Alexander Dumas purists even as its heady mixture of swordfights, ludicrous (and wilfully anachronistic) spectacle wins the rest of us over by sheer force of numbers.

Make no mistake about it, ‘The Three Musketeers’ is nonsense, popcorn filmmaking of the trashiest order, and yet it’s done with such zest and fun that it’s hard to be offended by a film which has its tongue so far in its cheek it’s virtually drawing blood. And if it’s spectacle you want, it’s here in spades in some of the most breath-taking effects sequences I‘ve seen in years – some of which, charmingly, were actually achieved by the use of miniatures instead of relentless CGI. We’re on fairly familiar solid ground here at first as the film follows the traditions of previous film versions of the book by uniting the fresh-faced D’Artagnan (played here by bland newcomer Logan Lerman, the film’s only real weak link) travels to Paris and meets up with disillusioned Musketeers Athos (Matthew McFadyen), Aramis (Luke Evans) and Porthos (Ray Stevenson). Before long the four are involved in some admittedly-woolly plot about stolen jewellery (the safety of which appears to vital in determining the future security of France and its foppish lovestruck King (Freddie Fox) and the double dealings of the duplicitous Cardinal Richlieu (Christoph Waltz) and his one-eyed henchman Rochefort (Mads Mikkelson) and not forgetting Anderson’s missus Milla Jovovich who gets to practice her best ‘Resident Evil’ moves , somersaulting through tripwire designed to protect the precious jewellery and whizzing down escape ropes like some 18th century Tom Cruise. Comic relief of the ‘useless fat bloke’ variety is provided by James Corden as Planchet (played by the late and legendary Roy Kinnear in the classic 1970s Richard Lester ‘Musketeer’  movies ) who is either endearing/irritating (delete according to taste).

After much japery and swordplay, the Musketeers take the only course of action open to them to retrieve the craftily-pilfered jewels. They somehow get hold of a sailing ship packed with… er… machine guns and flamethrowers and tether it to a massive dirigible air balloon. Unfortunately boo-hiss baddy Rochefort, in a classic ‘mine’s bigger that yours’ gambit, has somehow managed to get an even bigger one (oo-er) and before long, the two ships are blasting seven bells out of each other in the air above Paris. Here’s where you really need to finally give up on any expectation of ‘The Three Musketeers’ paying anything other than the vaguest lip service to the source material, just as the film seems to be saying ‘To Hell with this, look what we can do…’ and fills the screen with relentless action, from the aerial battle itself to a thrilling final rooftop sword fight between D’Artagnan and Rochefort before the inevitable slightly cutesy resolution which, you’ve guessed it, can’t avoid the  ‘One for all, all for one’ calling cry of the Musketeers that the audience has been waiting for. If ‘The Three Musketeers’ has any resonance in the 21st century, it’s a scene which can’t help but send a shiver up the spine. As, indeed, does the coda, which sets up nicely a sequel which I’m  hoping comes along sooner rather than later.

At a lean 110 minutes Anderson’s film (yes, it’s in 3D and yes, it’s neither better or worse than any other 3D experience I’ve endured this year) doesn’t hang about and it doesn’t outstay its welcome, lessons that a certain ’Pirates’ franchise need to learn for any future Jack Sparrow outings. ‘The Three Musketeers’, meanwhile, is ultimately just great fun. It’s a movie that’ll either really annoy you if you expect some historical verisimilitude or even some resemblance to a book you might have read twenty years or more ago or will, much more likely, just entertain you with its swordplay and its bangs and flashes, its inherent stupidity and its relentless sense of fun. Oh, for God’s sake, just go and have a good time and stop worrying about art.

Expected rating: 5 out of 10

Actual rating:

‘The Three Musketeers’ is swashing its buckle all over the UK now.

Review: Real Steel (12A) / Directed by: Shawn Levy / Screenplay by: John Gatins, Dan Gilroy, Jeremy Leven / Starring: Hugh Jackman, Dan Gilroy, John Gatins, Dakota Goyo, Evangeline Lilly, Anthony Mackie, Hope Davis, James Rebhorn, Olga Fonda

It’s great when as a film fan you can find yourself still able to be surprised. There have been a lot of surprises in 2011, things that were supposed to be sub par but turned out to be genuinely great. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a good example as is Joe Wright’s Hanna. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the year though is that director Shawn Levy (Cheaper by the Dozen, Night at the Museum) has made a pretty damn good movie. Even the story for Real Steel screams something that shouldn’t work and I know a lot of people who have rolled their eyes at the trailer. Real Steel is perhaps just as much of a family crowd pleaser as Super 8 was and is bafflingly saddled with a 12A certificate.

You must know the story by now but for those who haven’t been following the marketing campaign; Real Steel takes place in a world where robots have replaced the traditional human in the boxing ring. This has occurred for a few reasons as we are explained to in a key scene, but what it mainly boils down to is money. In this world we find former boxer and now hopeless gambling addict Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) who is eking out a life as a small time boxing manager to a series of increasingly knackered looking robots. Charlie is on a bit of a downward spiral, taking money for his robot to fight a bull at a fairground and is in deep for some money with some shifty redneck types. All seems lost and just as things can’t get any worse Charlie learns that his 11 year old son Max (Dakota Goyo) is now orphaned as his former girlfriend and the kid’s mother has died. Seeing an opportunity to make some quick cash out of Max’s prospective adopted parents, Charlie agrees to take Max for the summer whilst the rich new parents go on holiday. The two of them don’t get on, Charlie sees him as an inconvenience and Max resents his father for being absent most of his life, but gradually Max becomes more and more interested in the robot boxing world. When Charlie’s latest robot who was once a sure thing gets pulled apart and with even his long term friend Bailey (Evangeline Lilly) getting sick of him, Charlie finds himself in a scrapyard with Max looking for parts to build a new robot with. Through an accident where Max nearly gets himself killed, they find a ‘sparring bot’ called Atom buried under the earth. Feeling that it saved his life, Max insists on taking Atom with them much to Charlie’s disapproval. The child bonds with the robot who can mimic his actions and they find that this robot that nobody wants is more resilient than most. Finding that they are bonding over their love of the sport and their affection for Atom, Charlie and Max start to tour the underground boxing circuit with the robot and find they are having much success. This leads them to the corporate dominated big leagues and a confrontation with the undefeated champion where Charlie finds he has to rely on his old boxing skills to survive.

Real Steel is reminiscent of the great boxing dramas of old where you would have an underdog come back to face adversity and prove everyone wrong until the point where you cried happy tears when it all goes right. It also manages to do this without ever feeling syrupy or maudlin. Hugh Jackman is essentially playing a complete bastard who would do anything for money and he does many questionable things but manages to still make Charlie likeable. Dakota Goyo is also solid as the kid of the film who never becomes annoying although you can see how easy it would have been to cross the line. The way the two characters bond is great stuff and the actors are backed up by some really great scenes of back and forth and some comedy that doesn’t rely on slapstick or the easy fart gag. The script by John Gatins adapted from a short story by Richard Matheson is actually a pretty good lesson in packing a lot of information into a short running time. The film never feels sluggish or has long scenes of exposition, yet through a great structure it manages to build a totally believable world. You get the history of the robot boxing league and get exposed to both the seedy underbelly as well as the glossy big money side of things. Never does a scene feel superfluous though and it keeps ticking on, coming in at about two hours.

The robot special effects are also very impressive. Since the success of Transformers, I find it surprising that there haven’t been a lot more films’ featuring giant robots, but Real Steel is the first one coming out four years after the first Transformers film. Here they use a mix of CGI and practical effects and combined with the sound effects you get a real sense of the weight and carnage that two robots fighting can cause in the ring. The design of the robots is relatively simple, they look like humanoid beings as that’s what they were created to replace and they do not have the many moving parts and gears that the Transformers have. Our main robot Atom is simple but also designed to elicit feelings in the viewer with his big blue eyes. Although Atom is a well thought out creation, he also happens to be one of the major flaws of the film. They hint that the robot may actually be sentient and something more than just a drone, you get this impression in two major scenes but they don’t develop it more than that. It leaves you hanging a bit but on the other hand had it gone into that territory it may well have crossed that delicate line.

Real Steel is fantastic family entertainment that will have you leaving the cinema with a big grin and very happy children if you are lucky enough to have kids to take along. Why it’s a 12A is baffling as I can only remember one possible scene of violence that may have caused the BBFC to pause for thought. Don’t be put off though, this is a film the whole family can enjoy (Mum and Dad too) and it’s not often in these days of increasingly bland product that I can say that. Suddenly Shawn Levy’s long mooted version of DC Comics The Flash doesn’t seem like such a bad thing.

Expected rating: 6 out of 10

Actual rating:

Real Steel hits UK cinemas October 14th

He’s back! And it’s about time! Or is it? Created for a series of Barclaycard TV ads back in the late 1990s, Rowan Atkinson’s bumbling, fumbling MI7 secret agent Johnny English made his feature film debut in 2002 and, whilst the film was a significant Box office hit in the UK and across Europe, it’s hard to imagine that too many people were clamouring for a return engagement with this least super of super-spies. Eyebrows were raised when it was announced that Atkinson, not the most prolific of comedy actors, was resurrecting the character for a much-belated sequel and it’s probably fair to say that not only weren’t expectations particularly high, they were probably never really got far off the ground.

‘Johnny English’, which I revisited prior to tackling the sequel, never seemed to find the right tone, its Bond parodies too broad, its plot farcical and its protagonist (John Malkovich horribly overplaying his role as Pascal Sauvage, French fashion guru turned would-be monarch) just too silly. Atkinson’s English was  too consistently incompetent and a descent (literally) into lavatory humour made the last half-hour or so a bit of a chore. But everyone deserves a second chance and what a pleasure (and a surprise) to report that ‘Johnny English Reborn’ is a leaner, slicker, altogether more spectacular affair, trotting the globe in the best traditions of the classic Bonds and borrowing clichés and even situations from 007 without ever attempting to poke fun at them. This is very much an affectionate homage, reminding us of the days when Bond films were both thrilling and fun and a far cry from the two most recent dour and heavy-going entries in the 007 franchise. ‘Johnny English Reborn’ is an action-packed adventure thriller and it’s also very, very funny. Who knew?

Johnny English is on a Tibetan retreat after another royally cocked-up assignment. Drafted back into MI7 by its new boss Pegasus (Gillian Anderson looking mighty fine) English finds himself tasked with tracking down the cabal of assassins determined to kill the Chinese president as he embarks on a series of peace-keeping talks with the British Prime Minister (Stephen Campbell Moore). Against all odds English finds two of the conspirators (more by luck than judgment) and eventually discovers that the third is rather closer to home than anyone expected.

It’d be asking too much of even the most wide-eyed audience to expect it to believe that an agent as relentlessly incompetent as English was in the first movie could ever conceivably be kept in active service so the script goes to some pains to depict English as a bit more worldly-wise this time around, a bit cooler in crisis and a lot more confident around the ladies. But he still gets it wrong in spectacular style (his ongoing mistaken identity struggles with Pik Sen Lim’s gun-toting assassin are a hoot and a half) and the movie is packed with clever verbal and physical sequences which remind us what a huge comic talent Atkinson is and what a shame it is we don’t get to see more of him these days. Surely it’s only Atkinson who can still raise a smile with a line like “Let’s kick some bottom.” Amidst all the spectacle and the elaborate set pieces, Atkinson gets his best laughs with a simple sequence where he’s in a meeting with the PM and his MI7 bosses and he can’t control the height of his chair and later when he physically reacts to a mind control drug he’s inadvertently consumed.

‘Johnny English Reborn’ is a bigger, faster film than its predecessor in every way. A chase scene around Hong Kong (where English cooly outwits his free-running adversary before indulging in a bit of clumsy dockside kung fu) is followed by an ingenious fast-speed wheelchair race around London (don’t ask, just don’t) and the film’s climax has its tongue right through ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’s cheek with its confrontation in a mountaintop fortress and a final struggle aboard a cable-car. The film’s also struck gold with its supporting cast. Dominic West is clearly having fun as the urbane ‘Agent One’ Simon Ambrose, Rosamund Pike is a far more convincing potential love interest for English than Natalie Imbruglia in the first film and even ‘Torchwood’s Burn Gorman is along for the ride as a sinister bad guy. Early disappointment at the non-appearance of English’s former assistant Bough (Ben Miller) is quickly assuaged by Daniel Kaluuya (currently appearing in ‘The Fades’ on BBC3) who is hugely impressive as his new young sidekick Tucker.

Maybe ‘Johnny English Reborn’ caught me with my guard down or, far more likely, it’s actually a much better film that I might have expected – and it’s certainly a far better film than some of the sniffier critics have suggested. This year’s comedy movies have travelled further than ever down the gross-out route, from ‘Horrible Bosses’, ‘Bad Teacher’ and the UK’s massively successful ‘Inbetweeners.’ But ‘Johnny English Reborn’ is simple, relatively-unsophisticated old school British slapstick; there’s no swearing, no nudity, nothing at all to frighten the horses. It’s a refreshing knockabout comedy and a family film in just about its purest modern form. It may have taken Johnny English the better part of a decade to make his way back to the big screen but, on this form, I’d be happy to see him back up there for a third romping adventure. Just don’t leave it so long next time, Rowan.

Expected rating: 5 out of 10

Actual rating:

‘Johnny English Reborn’ is in UK cinemas now

It looks as if Hollywood’s love/hate relationship with sharks might have just turned to boredom/indifference judging by the waterlogged US Box Office of this latest fiersome fish flick, a tired and at times hilariously-desperate attempt to resuscitate a sub-genre which has been chugging along since ‘Jaws’ and its least-said sequels, the ‘Shark Attack’ straight-to-DVD titles, ‘Deep Blue Sea’ and more recent efforts like ‘The Reef‘. It’s not difficult to imagine the Hollywood bean-counters at work here. “Hey, ‘Piranha 3D’ did boffo business, get some more kids into bikinis… and do sharks again!! In 3D!!! Let’s do lunch!” High-fives all round. In fact, maybe it’s just the 3D that’s turned people away – I’m as happy as I hope you are to read that the latest research indicates people are fed up of jamming those stupid plastic glasses over their noses and struggling to watch sticks and debris looming out of the murk at them. Or maybe it’s just that ‘Shark Night 3D’ isn’t an especially good movie. I reckon it’s a little bit of both…

So what do you get if you chose to cough up and spec up for this little gem? Well, the same old same old to be honest. Bunch of teens rush off for some reason I can’t recall to splash’n’ski at isolated Lake Crosby (where they can’t get signals on their cells, would you believe their luck?) but harmless fun in the water turns into ‘armless’ (geddit?) terror as one of them gets shorn of one of his pesky limbs. The gang soon realise there’s something nasty and finny and hungry out there in the water and before long, inevitably, the death list starts getting longer as the shark gets hungrier. But wait! There’s a twist in the tail (sorry) because, in an eye-bogglingly inane plot development, it turns out that the sharks (and there’s more than one of ‘em) haven’t found their way into the lake by accident. Oh no, sir, they’ve been put there by devilish redneck bad guys who are after making a quick killing by filming quick killings and flogging the footage to cable TV subscribers. Honestly, you couldn’t make this stuff up…  Just to make sure the audience understands that these guys are like, really bad, one of them has spiky shark’s teeth…he’s as bad as the sharks!!

‘Shark Night 3D’s main problem – apart from the fact it’s a bit dumb – is that it doesn’t even deliver on the blood and gore you might expect from sensationalist stuff like this. ’Jaws’ was way more graphic than ‘Shark Night 3D‘, and that was made over 35 years ago. Here shark victims just thrash about in the water a bit and disappear in pools of (not much) blood or else they get scooped up by sharks which hurl themselves out of the water. Where are the slow dismemberments, the agonised half-chewed bodies trying to heave themselves out of the water? Bah. ‘Shark Night 3D’ wants its cake (and its PG13 rating in the USA) but can’t be bothered to eat it; the film ends up toothless when it should be terrifying.

On the plus side – and yes, there are some pluses – director David R Ellis (’Snakes on a Plane’) keeps the action moving well enough, the unknown cast are enthusiastic if little else and some of the 3D sequences (especially the underwater scenes and the odd bit where a shark Comes Right Out At You!) are fairly effective if you like that sort of thing. But ‘Shark Night 3D’ is just too tame and derivative and its script too creaky and predictable for it to linger long in the memory. Without the Unique Selling Point of the buckets of gore which at least made ‘Piranha 3D’ worth a look, this one, like the remains of the shark’s unfortunate victims, is likely to sink without trace.

Expected rating: 5 out of 10

Actual rating:

‘Shark Knight 3D’ is in UK cinemas now

In the immortal word balloons of an EC comic book, ‘Good Lord! Choke!’ sum up the film Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence).

Beginning where the first film left off, we pull back to view a creepy, greasy, spectacled, mole-like human named Martin (portrayed by newcomer Laurence R. Harvey) who is watching Tom Six’s movie on a DVD player as he lives out his miserable life as an underground parking attendant.

A devout fan of the first Human Centipede, he keeps a scrapbook of newspaper clippings and photos from the movie underneath his bed that he relishes with delight each time he studies it. After all, if it’s written that the movie was 100% medically accurate, it must be true!

Believing that he can accomplish in real life what was fantasy on film, he finds his victims in the garage and takes them to an abandoned warehouse, amassing a group of people in order to create a 12 person human centipede.

He then lures the film’s star from the first movie, Ashlynn Yennie who plays herself – under the auspice of appearing in a Quentin Tarantino vehicle – with the intention of using her as the first centipede in his dark creation.

Lacking any kind of medical training, he makes use of what household items he can find in his run-down flat, a home he lives in with his abusive mother (paging Norman Bates!) and uses the only anesthesia on hand – a crowbar to the head of his victims.

Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) is disturbing torture porn with psychosexual gratification thrown in, masquerading as a borderline pseudo snuff film.

Running a scant 88 minutes, it was like pulling teeth (and yes, there is a scene like that in the film) watching it. The gorehounds will salivate over the film as there is no shortage of shock value that’s gone beyond pushing the envelope, including a world-class feces scene that Paul Verhoeven and the late Pier Passolini would be jealous not having thought of. Lots of close-ups of cutting, slicing and maiming are pretty grim, but the quick shot of a newborn baby being crushed underneath a car gas pedal seemed like Cannibal Holocaust meets Monty Python.

Dialogue is minimal (Martin doesn’t say a word throughout the movie, but that’s his character) and mediocre at that, with only a few good lines throughout. Overall, it’s a weak script full of plot holes and unappealing characters.

With the exception of Miss Yennie, the cast was mostly composed of first time actors looking for their big break (sure, performing at the Old Vic and getting into RADA is tough, but I’d have recommended pursuing any other avenue over appearing in this thing). The standouts are Viven Bridson as Martin’s mother Mrs. Lomax, Maddi Black in a brief appearance as the prostitute and Bill Hutchins as the perverted, Lomax family physician Dr. Sebring.

I can see how the UK has banned this film. I don’t blame them. Yet I’m sure if British readers really want to view it, they’ll have few problems finding it in some form or another.

I don’t know what they’re smoking in the Netherlands nowadays, but I suggest Tom Six should stay away from the Bulldog Cafe.

This movie is 3D rated – Disgusting, Degenerate and Dumb.

Expected rating: 4 out of 10

Actual rating:

The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) is out now in the USA.

I was quite upset with Kevin Smith last July 4th. There I was, on my way to a preview screening of Red State, when I got an email telling me that the screening had been cancelled. Fair enough I thought, these things happen. But later that evening I read some stuff about why Smith had decided to cancel the press preview and instead offer places at a future screening to his fans via Twitter, mentioning something about them being more deserving than the ‘shit scribblers’.

Now that hurt. So when the opportunity came to attend a subsequent preview I was cautious to say the least, making sure that the Mrs was on standby with a 50 Hilarious Sporting Injuries DVD and a pot noodle, should I return home early as the result of another cancellation.

However, the film went ahead and after seeing it I can happily say that Kevin Smith (whether he likes it or not) is forgiven. Because as far as I’m concerned, if he keeps making films like this then he can call me and my ilk whatever he likes (within reason). Red State does have its flaws but it’s been a long time since I’ve sat in a cinema and watched something so compelling without having the foggiest about what will happen next or how things are ultimately going to turn out.

As the story gets underway we meet Travis (Michael Angarano) who, on his drive to school, observes members of the Five Points Church picketing the funeral of a gay teenager. After some admittedly awkward exposition whereby a school teacher explains just how bat shit crazy this group is, we then head into horror film territory with a scenario that seems familiar enough: horny teens and the price they’ll have to pay for not being able to keep their hormones in check. Travis and his two friends, Jared (Kyle Gallner) and Billy Ray (Nicholas Braun), have arranged to have group sex with a woman in their neighbourhood. However, shortly after arriving at her trailer they are drugged and subsequently wake up to find themselves in the hands of the Five Points Church and their leader Abin Cooper (Michael Parks). It soon becomes apparent that Pastor Cooper and his congregation aren’t the types to leave the punishment of sinners to the Almighty.

One of the most impressive achievements in this first half hour or so is the way Smith ratchets up the intensity and tension as though he’s been directing thrillers all his creative life. In one extraordinary sequence in particular, Abin Cooper delivers a chilling yet mesmerising sermon to his congregation while a figure that is concealed by a white blanket occasionally stirs on a crucifix behind him. That this sermon lasts for about 10 minutes, the camera seldom straying from Parks, is a testament to the confidence Smith has in both his script and the actor delivering the lines. Parks, who many people will recognise as Texas Ranger Earl McGraw from Kill Bill, Death Proof etc, has rarely been better than he is here, his laid back tone of ‘lets be reasonable about this’ sincerity providing a chilling contrast with the religious insanity that falls so easily from his character’s lips. He also has this way of blinking slowly that in some awful way reveals the immutability of the Pastor’s religious mania, a characteristic he last utilized this well when conveying the ruthless misogyny of Esteban Vihaio, the Mexican pimp he played in Kill Bill Volume 2.

Cruel, taut and unsettling, this first act is dominated by the character of Cooper and it is only when the film moves into its second act and introduces Joe Keenan (John Goodman), an Agent with the ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Bureau), that you feel like you can take a deep breath and clear your lungs of some of the malignancy and oppression built up while inside the Five Points abode. Again we have some overdone exposition as Keenan receives a phone call from his superior and is told that he must investigate Cooper’s compound following reports of the possession of illegal firearms. How this investigation will play out given the horror film set-up established so far isn’t easy to predict but it is only when Jared attempts to escape that the film becomes something completely different. It does this, not in a slowly evolving transition from one thing into another but as suddenly and unexpectedly as, well, as a rifle shot ringing out across a still and silent morning landscape as a terrified teenager makes a run for it.

One of the objectives of film is to put us into a place or situation and make us experience those events as though we were there, not merely to observe but to empathize, take part and respond to what we’re seeing. As members of the church pursue Jared through the compound and then the sound of that single rifle shot is heard, there is one glorious moment when the characters on screen seem to share their bewilderment with the watching audience, a moment where none of us, the watchers and the watched, know any more or less than the other for just that single instant. It’s a rare thing to experience in cinema and isn’t something that can be sustained but this instance provides a brilliant undermining of the audience’s omnipotence as events veer off down a path that was completely unexpected.

Once Keenan and his men make it to the compound events conspire to create a scenario in which few characters emerge with any credit, as Smith presents a conflict that shows how easily men (and women) can become inured to the consequences of their own actions most readily when they perceive an offer of absolution from either God or the State. Memories of the Waco siege are evoked as Keenan’s superiors order him to take action that goes against every moral instinct the man has. Personal morality, the desire to do what is right for its own sake, is rendered impotent as Keenan, the one good man in the midst of this insanity, is left bewildered and floundering. He feels powerless and there’s a good chance you will too as you scour the screen for the character on whose shoulders the hopes for some sort of redemptive resolution to the story will rest.

But then just as the film is careening to an ending that threatens to deliver the bleakest finale since The Wild Bunch, we’re taken in another direction with a turn of events that finally enables us to recognise Red State as a Kevin Smith movie. It comes with a punchline that may well split audiences, reminiscent as it is of the rather abrupt conclusion to proceedings in the Coen brothers’ Burn After Reading. I was so utterly thrown by what was going on that I half expected two characters from Smith’s Dogma to show up in the final act (you’ll understand who I mean if you see it), as I really couldn’t imagine what the alternative resolution would be. In deciding to implement such a huge shift in tone Smith takes a risk but somehow it’s one that pays off and for my money he succeeds where the Coens failed, conjuring up a finish that is satisfying and wryly amusing.

Up to that point you’d be hard pressed to recognise this as a Kevin Smith film at all, displaying as it does few of the familiar tropes of slacker culture and an obsession with the minutiae of the everyday that is evident in much of his other work. First it’s a horror, then it’s a war film, then it’s a drama. However, it moves through the gears with such consummate ease that you never feel as though the whole thing is going to spiral out of control at any point, a confidence that is repaid when Smith takes the chequered flag with some style before whipping off his crash helmet and revealing it was him behind the wheel all along.

With Red State, Smith isn’t saying anything particularly original or profound about religion, tolerance or belief, but he does say it all with such hellfire and brimstone intensity that I was happy to watch and listen anyway. I’ll admit that much of my enjoyment was derived from how utterly this film confounded my expectations, so I’m not sure how well its narrative would stand up on a second viewing once its surprises and inventive twists have been revealed. But for now I’m just delighted that Smith has proven himself to be a filmmaker whose movies are more worthy of attention than his pronouncements on social networking sites and, with Red State, he has made his finest picture in years.

Expected rating: 6 out of 10

Actual rating:

Red State is in UK cinemas now

Now I’ll freely admit that ‘A Lonely Place To Die’ is at best borderline ‘Starburst’ material – I suppose part of the movie’s climax, shot amidst a ‘Wicker Man’-esque local pagaent edges the film towards our remit – but some familiar horror movie tropes are utilised here and there to give what is essentially a familiar ‘vacation-goes-wrong’ thriller a bit more edge than many of its type.

As a buttocks-on-couch kinda guy, I really don’t see the appeal of mountain-climbing or really anything else much associated with being up very high dangling on a bit of rope. But Alison (Melissa George) and her friend Ed (Ed Speleers) seems to be having a fine old time with their friends clambering about in the Highlands and spinning around on ropes and even an accident which almost kills Ed doesn’t dampen their enthusiasm. Pressing on into the cold, wild countryside, they discover a breathing tube sticking out of the ground and they quickly rescue from a makeshift coffin a terrified young Serbian girl who can’t speak a word of English. As they set off to return the girl to the nearest town, through harsh and unwelcoming Scottish terrain, they’re under attack by the kidnappers (one of whom is played by the brilliant, underrated Sean Harris). But the kidnappers are being tracked too, by the girl’s desperate, ruthless father who will stop at nothing to get her back.

 

‘A Lonely Place To Die’ is derivative stuff but director (and co-writer) Julien Gilbey tells his tale with some style and scale, the remote forbidding Highland setting giving our reluctant heroes  a third antagonist to struggle against and Melissa George, fast becoming the go-to girl for low-key thrillers and horror movies (‘30 Days of Night’, ‘Triangle’) really throws herself into her role as the tough, no-nonsense action hero battling to stay one step ahead of her pursuers even if her determination to save a foreign girl she can’t even communicate with seems a bit overwhelming considering the personal sacrifices she has to make to protect someone she’s only just met.

 

For the first couple of acts, ‘A Lonely Place To Die’ is a brisk and bloody thriller, its bleak locations, often stunningly-photographed by Gilbey, giving the movie a real sense of desolation and hopelessness. Things start to go a bit wrong in the last third, however, as the survivors of the group make their way to a nearby Scottish village in the middle of some seasonal pagan festival and the film loses its bite and a bit of its focus as the ‘real world’ impinges on the storyline and Alison takes refuge at the local Police station, even though she’s not really safe there for very long.

 

Sadly the tension seems to dribble away for the rest of the film as the kidnappers rampage about the village, Harris’s character meets up with – and tries to bluff – the girl’s father who has her own bunch of assassins on hand. By the time the film rushes to its fiery conclusion the plot’s lost much of its appeal, any sense of mounting dread and horror has evaporated, sacrificed for the sake of a few shoot-outs but there’s at least some shred of satisfaction in seeing the merciless Harris getting his come-uppance.

 

Enjoyable without being  especially memorable ‘A Lonely Place To Die’ is efficiently-made and has its moments and least marks Gilbey out as a director who, with a stronger story and perhaps a greater faith in his original concept – the Highland chase scenario would have been enough if he could have just maintained it – could be capable of something very special indeed in the future.

 

Expected rating: 6 out of 10

 

Actual rating:

A Lonely Place To Die is in UK cinemas now

Apollo 18 is a major missed opportunity. What could have been a creepy, X-Files inspired science fiction story is nothing but a tedious, crash landing of a film.

Starting off with a quick intro to NASA and some home footage of the three astronauts at a BBQ that show us these guys are normal and fun-loving family men – it’s reminiscent of the BBQ scene in the Right Stuff, (though it reminded me more of Al Adamson’s opening footage of his kids on carnival rides in the Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher, its inclusion serving to merely pad out the movie).

With the cover story that NASA has lack of funding to send another mission to the moon, Apollo 18’s actual covert objective is funded by a government black budget in order to establish monitoring equipment on the moon to spy on the Russians.

My first thought was, okay there are enough spy satellites that could do this during 1973 (it worked in Ice Station Zebra released in 1968), plus we had the SR-71 Blackbird that could easily run a few photo recon missions a day over Russia. Cheap and effective.

Regardless, they travel to the moon (which for thirty minutes you’d have more fun watching paint dry), with one astronaut in the Command Module and the two main protagonists in the Lunar Module to land on the dark side of the moon. Why they’d set up monitoring equipment on the moon facing away from the Earth that’s supposed to be spying on Russia just didn’t make any sense.

Here, they discover a crashed Soviet lunar lander with blood everywhere and a dead cosmonaut out on the moonscape with a rock protruding from his leg. A great idea and moment that was used effectively in the end in Countdown starring James Cann, but both the director and writer drop the ball here.

Communications to Earth and the Command Module are lost and the astronauts are on their own as they discover these moon rocks are actually alien life forms out to inhabit their bodies. The third act reminded me of an amalgamation of the Outer Limits episode with Robert Culp, Corpus Earthling and Roger Corman’s, Night of the Blood Beast.

There are a few surprises and scares on the moon and the art direction is excellent, but we’ve seen those scares before. You’d have more fun testing your mortality on a ride that sounds past its prime in one of those urine soaked, traveling carnival fun houses.

Another thing is, how did these guys have 27 cameras or so to document the mission from every angle? Payload weight is a major factor with space craft and at the most they would have had only two.

What could have been a great film just doesn’t come close. On the dark side of the moon they could have found the remnants of an alien civilization as Robert Hoagland describes in his books, a Sargasso Sea of alien space craft (Corman’s Galaxy of Terror comes to mind) or even a base that the Germans established during world War II with their rocket program as in Heinlien’s, Rocketship Gallieo or Clive Cussler’s book Cyclops that had a group of American scientists living on the moon in secret conducting experiments. It’s not even in the same ballpark as these greats.

Overall, I’d save my money on this one and wait for a free rental at the local library.

Expected rating: 6 out of 10

Actual rating:

Apollo 18 is in US and UK cinemas now

Apollo 18 is a major missed opportunity. What could have been a creepy, X-Files inspired science fiction story is nothing but a tedious, crash landing of a film.

Starting off with a quick intro to NASA and some home footage of the three astronauts at a BBQ that show us these guys are normal and fun-loving family men – it’s reminiscent of the BBQ scene in the Right Stuff, (though it reminded me more of Al Adamson’s opening footage of his kids on carnival rides in the Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher, its inclusion serving to merely pad out the movie).

With the cover story that NASA has lack of funding to send another mission to the moon, Apollo 18’s actual covert objective is funded by a government black budget in order to establish monitoring equipment on the moon to spy on the Russians.

My first thought was, okay there are enough spy satellites that could do this during 1973 (it worked in Ice Station Zebra released in 1968), plus we had the SR-71 Blackbird that could easily run a few photo recon missions a day over Russia. Cheap and effective.

Regardless, they travel to the moon (which for thirty minutes you’d have more fun watching paint dry), with one astronaut in the Command Module and the two main protagonists in the Lunar Module to land on the dark side of the moon. Why they’d set up monitoring equipment on the moon facing away from the Earth that’s supposed to be spying on Russia just didn’t make any sense.

Here, they discover a crashed Soviet lunar lander with blood everywhere and a dead cosmonaut out on the moonscape with a rock protruding from his leg. A great idea and moment that was used effectively in the end in Countdown starring James Cann, but both the director and writer drop the ball here.

Communications to Earth and the Command Module are lost and the astronauts are on their own as they discover these moon rocks are actually alien life forms out to inhabit their bodies. The third act reminded me of an amalgamation of the Outer Limits episode with Robert Culp, Corpus Earthling and Roger Corman’s, Night of the Blood Beast.

There are a few surprises and scares on the moon and the art direction is excellent, but we’ve seen those scares before. You’d have more fun testing your mortality on a ride that sounds past its prime in one of those urine soaked, traveling carnival fun houses.

Another thing is, how did these guys have 27 cameras or so to document the mission from every angle? Payload weight is a major factor with space craft and at the most they would have had only two.

What could have been a great film just doesn’t come close. On the dark side of the moon they could have found the remnants of an alien civilization as Robert Hoagland describes in his books, a Sargasso Sea of alien space craft (Corman’s Galaxy of Terror comes to mind) or even a base that the Germans established during world War II with their rocket program as in Heinlien’s, Rocketship Gallieo or Clive Cussler’s book Cyclops that had a group of American scientists living on the moon in secret conducting experiments. It’s not even in the same ballpark as these greats.

Overall, I’d save my money on this one and wait for a free rental at the local library.

Expected rating: 6 out of 10

Actual rating:

Apollo 18 is in US and UK cinemas now