The Martian (2015) Starring Matt Damon

What an enjoyable and engaging movie.  It manages to achieve that most difficult of knacks: to make you care about the characters.

Something happens on Mars, and an American scientific expedition have to hurriedly blast-off from the planet, leaving behind one their number, presumed dead.  But he (Damon) isn't dead, and he is faced with the dilemma of how to stay alive alone on Mars with the barest of hopes that those back on Earth will realise the truth and mount a rescue mission.  But time is against him: it will be at least four years before a spacecraft can get from Earth to Mars.

The action divides itself between Damon on Mars, the administrative and scientific folk back on Earth, and the homeward bound team on the spaceship.  Problems are defined, solutions are proposed, developments aid or thwart resolution.  A gripping tension is maintained throughout the film, but it nicely counterpointed with warm and welcome doses of humour.

All the actors contribute stalwart performances, aided by an intelligent script (Drew Goddard) and skillful directing (Ridley Scott).  Matt Damon is solid as the Martian Robinson Crusoe, and he delivers a believable portrayal of a complex and resourceful man dealing with an intolerable situation.  Also of note is Michael Peña, who delivers another likeable performance (we have seen him before in Ant-Man), this time as Damon's verbal sparring partner.

Well worth the time and money.

Ant-Man (2015)

Take one action hero movie, make it family-friendly, stir in a good ensemble cast with a liberal splash of humour, watch for two hours.  Result: a satisfying and enjoyable experience.

I was wondering how Marvel was going to pull this one off, with Ant-man being one of their more, um, tangential superheroes - you know, a guy who can make himself really small.  Doesn't sound great compared to a god of thunder or a man in a flying suit of armor, but I think Marvel did a great job in making this movie one where the suspension of disbelief was a pleasure rather than a duty.

Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) has just served three years in prison for a white collar crime.  His estranged wife tells him: no access to their daughter until he gets a job and an apartment.  This is no easy task for an ex-jailbird.  And then fate dangles an illicit job in front of his nose.  It could be the solution to all his problems.  Instead, it back-fires and Scott winds up on the run from the law.  His only assets: a super costume that allows him to become really small, and a dubious new relationship with Dr Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), the suit's creator.  And then the fun begins.

The movie starts by showcasing the best special effect to date: they made Michael Douglas look thirty years old again.  We're not talking about some Photoshopped snaps in a family album.  No, we're talking about the man walking about and acting.  Uncanny.  You would swear the guy had just come from the set of The Streets of San Francisco.  This is not to say that this movie is a special effects one-trick pony.  No, the fight sequences involve some pretty impressive work, too.  And then there are the ants.  Lots of them.  Great work all round.

The movie casting was spot-on.  Paul Rudd is suited perfectly [pun-intended] to his dad-down-on-his-luck-cum-accidental-superhero role.  Corey Stoll is impressive and imposing as the deranged bad-guy.  Evangeline Lilly is a thwarted but still kick-ass female lead.  Michael Douglas plays a pivotal but nicely understated role throughout the proceedings.  But keep your eye on Michael Peña in the role of best-friend Luis: his is a wonderful comic performance.

There really is a lot in this movie to be pleased about: visual and verbal gags abound, the action is pacy and never weighed down by the mandatory passages of exposition, the performances are fine and the special effects are WOW!

Go see it.  Worth the price of admission.

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

It's no secret that I loved Marvel Comics when I was a kid.  I spent a lot of  the 60s and 70s reading them.  Apart from a brief dalliance with the Walt Simonson reboot of Thor in the mid-80s, I have been a comic-free zone for the past thirty years.

Keeping up with the goings-on in the Marvel universe used to be an expensive business - there were so many titles to buy and so little money to spare.  The lovely thing nowadays is that one can dip back into the Marvel universe via their movies.  For the cost of a couple cinema tickets every year, we can catch up with our old favourites and see where the scriptwriters' imaginations are going to take us.

Not all Marvel Studio movies are equal, and we all have our druthers.  I enjoyed the first Avengers movie.  The latest installment, Avengers: Age of Ultron, was not so much to my taste, being disappointing rather than unenjoyable.

Why is this so?  We can rule out performance.  All the actors involved bring their characters to life in a credible manner.  The various sub-plots that run through the movie allow some of them - Bruce Banner/Hulk, Natasha Romanov/Black Widow and Clint Barton/Hawkeye - to reveal more of their inner-civilians (although I will leave it to feminists to go to town on the sub-text of Nat's back-story).  We can also rule out the devilish magnitude of the bad guy's schemes: this one is about as devilish as it gets.

No, in the end (and I am sorry to say) it all boils down to the quality of the baddie.  The first episode of the franchise had the beguiling Loki, wonderfully portrayed by Tom Hiddleston.  This episode has Ultron - a self-aware robot who plays the Monster to Tony Stark/Iron Man's Dr Frankenstein.  Nice idea, but the realisation of Ultron as a potent character falls short of the mark (no fault of James Spader, who provided the voice).  I'll leave that as an assertion rather than give out spoilers to support it.  Let's just say that Ultron's female collaborator had the makings of a far more intriguing and terrifying baddie.

The special effects and design are top notch, marred only by repetitious and prolonged action sequences.  The dialogue sparkles from time to time, marred only by repetitious and prolonged action sequences.  Those who like action sequences will get their money's worth, but those of us who prefer to be thrilled by plot developments may feel a little short-changed.  Swings and roundabouts, I guess.

Avengers: Age of Ultron - go see it if you like the Marvel thang.  Not nearly the best from their stable of movies, not nearly the worst either.

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (Starring Steve Coogan)

Hostage situation.  Comedy.  That is about as oxymoronic as you can get, and yet it is what we get in Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa. Steve Coogan's alter-ego gets another outing in this full-length movie.  And let's face it: Alan Partridge is all ego and no alter.  

Alan, now well into middle-age and with a broken marriage and the better part of his career behind him, is working as a DJ for a regional radio station in England.  When the station is taken over by new management and about to have its image overhauled, staff are worried about redundancies.  Alan, fearing for his future employment, betrays one of his fellow workers (Pat Farrell) to management, who is then summarily dismissed.  Arriving at work the following day,  Alan blithely walks into a hostage situation - Pat, armed with a shotgun, has taken over the station and imprisoned his ex-colleagues.  Alan soon becomes both a police negotiator and a confidant to the sleep-deprived Pat.  As the crisis progresses, Alan finds a renewed celebrity as the public face of the siege and his ego duly takes over. Things can only get worse.

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa is an entertaining and amusing movie.  Coogan is surrounded by a wonderful supporting cast, notably Colm Meaney as the tragic Pat  and Felicity Montagu as Alan's long-suffering P.A Lynn.  The action alternates skillfully from farce to pathos and back to farce again as each scene is played out.  Sufficient space is allowed for the development of the key characters in their interaction with each other so that their humanity is allowed to shine out over the comedic elements of the story.

All up, this is a fine comedy movie with many modern sensitivities included in its story telling.  Do the good end happily and the bad unhappily?  Watch it and see.

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) Marvel Studios

Guardians of the Galaxy is a very enjoyable movie - not deep, but enjoyable. 

Peter Quill, a free-lance adventurer and thief, acquires an artifact he intends to sell on the black market. He doesn't know what it is, and he is blissfully unaware that a lot of creatures in the galaxy, including some very powerful and evil individuals, want to take possession of it. Quill's bliss is short-lived, and he is soon beset on all sides by numerous foes who all want what he has got and are prepared to take it by any means, including murder. Quill quickly finds himself entering into very uneasy alliances with four other creatures, including a walking tree and a talking, tech-savvy raccoon, and they go off together to regain the artifact. Little do they realise what kind of powers they are up against or the vast schemes in which they will become entangled. 

Chris Pratt puts in a very creditable performance as the swaggering womaniser Quill. Zoe Saldana and Dave Bautista provide equally creditable performances as the aliens Gamora and Drax. The show, however, is stolen by the CGI characters Rocket and Groot (the raccoon and tree I mentioned earlier). It could be argued that the CGI rendering of both theses characters and of the various backdrops of the film far outstrip the quality of the plot and the script. Alas, as happens too often in Marvel films, the action frequently descends into chases and shoot-outs that add nothing to plot or character development. 

So, if you enjoy a rollicking adventure in the spirit of Indiana Jones, and if you like a good space opera, then Guardians of the Galaxy is the film for you. If that isn't your cup of tea, you can always enjoy the scenery and admire how far the art of CGI has come. Most definitely keep an eye on the tree and the raccoon.

Frozen (2013)

This animated movie musical from Disney was lots of fun to watch.

Once upon a time in the realm of Arendelle there were two princesses.  Elsa, the elder  of the two, has a secret she needs to hide not only from her sister Anna but from the entire kingdom too.  Alas! when Elsa is crowned queen after the untimely death of her parents, her secret is exposed and she goes on the run.  Anna now sets out to find her sister and bring her home.  Can she do it?

In the course of the movie, we meet bad guys, henchmen, good guys and sidekicks. The good guys are particularly memorable, especially Olaf the snowman who steals every scene in which he appears - he is quite unforgettable.  There are dark and threatening moments in the film, providing a good contrast to the lighter and more endearing scenes; and the tension in the movie rises and falls in a pleasing rhythm.

The film features an interesting assortment of songs, one of which won the Oscar for best song.  I particularly liked the duet between the backwoodsman and his pet reindeer.

I think it is no coincidence that Frozen has become the biggest grossing animated movie of all time.  There is lots in it for children and inner children of all ages.  And remember to keep an eye out for the snowman.

Thor: The Dark World (2013)

When I misspent my youth I read a lot of The Mighty Thor comics.  It was my favourite of all the Marvel comics then available, and I liked the mixture of faux mythology, magic and swashbuckling. I saw the first movie in the Thor franchise in the cinema and enjoyed it very much.

Thor: The Dark World is not so nearly a successful vehicle as its predecessor.  There is a bad guy, Malekith the Dark Elf, who has the motive and opportunity to destroy the universe.  What a pity the character is given neither the charisma nor the intrinsic power to match his grand scheme.  In short: the baddie is boring and oddly impotent, unlike Loki (the arch-villain of the previous movie) portrayed with great likability and subtlety by Tom Hiddleston.

Here's the thing:  whenever Loki appears, the film becomes interesting; in his absence, things quickly become dull and plodding.  Kat Denning and Jonathan Howard provide some welcome light comic relief at times in their roles of Darcy and Ian, while Stellan Skarsgard's character Eric Selvig is put through an unbecoming vaudeville escapade by the scriptwriters.

Also jarring was the predominance of high technology and the lack of light in the action scenes.  The thing about Asgardians is that they are the possessors of elemental god-powers, but they rarely use them in the film; and Malekith has a suite of magical powers which don't get used either.  No, what we get is spaceships and ray-guns on one side and swords and flying boats on the other.  And it all happens in a murk so deep it is very difficult to discern what action is actually happening

If you haven't seen the first Thor movie, I recommend it as a solid action movie with one of the great baddies - Tom Hiddleston's Loki.  Thor: The Dark World is perhaps mandatory viewing in that it will be the prelude to matters to be raised in subsequent Marvel movies.  I understand that there will be a third movie in the Thor franchise.  All I can say is: guys, more magic and more light next time.

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) Starring Alec Guinness

Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere,
From yon blue heavens above us bent
The grand old gardener and his wife 

Smile at the claims of long descent.
Howe'er it be, it seems to me,
'Tis only noble to be good.
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

'Tis only noble to be good.  Tell that to Louis Mazzini, whose mother suffered an ignoble life and death at the hands of her own family, the D'Ascoynes, headed by the Duke of Chalfont.  Swearing to avenge his mother, Louis decides to murder the eight D'Ascoynes who stand between him and the ducal throne.  We know Louis succeeds because the film begins with him in prison, charged with murder, and being identified as the tenth Duke of Chalfont.  How, then, did he pull off his plan?

Kind Hearts and Coronets was one of the black comedies to come out of Ealing Studios in Britain just after the Second World War.  Other notable examples are The Lady Killers and The Lavender Hill Mob.  The difficulty faced by the producers of these movies was to make the audience care for characters who are disreputable or even downright amoral.  How then did they make us care for Louis Mazzini?

To start off with, Louis is played with infinite smoothness by Dennis Price.  The cold, calculating, killing machine is suave and charming; and he manages to gain the affections of not one, but two young ladies.  Louis has a way with words and a dry, roguish wit that he employs in both the dialogue of the movie and in the monologues he delivers in his role as narrator.  And these little gems of wit seem pardon Louis in an undefinable manner as he drowns and bombs and poisons his way closer to his inheritance.

Opposite Price, we have Alec Guinness, who plays all eight members of the D'Ascoyne family on Louis' hit list.  With a few exceptions, Louis makes the acquaintances of his relatives (usually without them being aware of their blood ties to him).  Guinness is able to portray them with same degree of likeability that Price brings to his character, albeit in quite diverse ways.  But we are not allowed to forget the shabby treatment these same charming characters doled out to Louis' mother.

In the end, we are in the morally dubious position of both liking and disliking a serial murderer and his victims, with the balance sheet tipped slightly in Louis' favour.  I think that it the success of the comedic elements of the movie, as black as they may be, that sees us arrive at this position; and it is a credit to the writers, actors and director that we do so.  How much easier it would have been to condemn Louis out of hand, and to forgive his family.

So, was there a last minute reprieve for Louis?  Or, like his family, did he get his comeuppance? You will have to see the movie to find out.  No cheating, now.

Life of Pi (2012) Directed by Ang Lee

What I thought was an unfilmable book has been brought to life - brilliant, beautiful life - by director Ang Lee and his team.

Yann Martel's 2001 novel tells the story of Pi, a teenage boy from India.  For one reason or another, Pi is the only human survivor of a  mid-Pacific shipwreck.  Fortunately, he has a lifeboat.  Unfortunately, for one reason or another, there is also a Bengal tiger on board.  The two survive each other, the weather, thirst and hunger for an incredible seven and a half months.  Film that!

That is just what Ang Lee did.  Well, that is what he partly did.  What couldn't be filmed was created by visionary digital artists using powerful computers and ultra-sophisticated software.  Marry the visuals to an intelligent screenplay (written by David Magee), mix it with some adroit directing and editing, and the film Life of Pi has to be one of the most aesthetically pleasing films ever made.

Yes, there are ocean-loads of beauty in this film, and I won't even begin to describe any of it.  But how much of it was real and how much was CGI?  This question parallels the one asked in the book - which of Pi's two accounts of his voyage is true?  Unreliable narration.  It's not always a bad thing.  Life of Pi - the book and the film - bears this out. 

10 out of 10 for the film.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012) Steve Carell, Keira Knightley

Have you ever wondered what you would do if your doctor said you had three weeks left to live?  Imagine what it would be like if every single person on earth was given similar news on the same day: y'all have three weeks before a giant asteroid strikes the earth.  That is the scenario facing the characters in Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.

When the last space shuttle sent to the asteroid explodes en route, humanity knows its days are numbered.  People react in different ways.  Dodge (Steve Carell), abruptly abandoned by his wife, wanders through his daily routine in a benumbed daze; those around him are drinking, bonking, looting and/or committing suicide.  He then meets Penny, who inspires Dodge to look for his childhood sweetheart.  In return, Dodge tries to help Penny get back to her folks in England.  So starts their road-trip and the exploration of their characters.

Carell gives us a nice, quiet and understated portrait of a nice, quiet and understated Dodge.  Knightley's Penny is a more complex, deep and energetic character than Dodge.  Despite their differences, the two forge an amicable and functional alliance.  Luckily for them, Dodge and Penny confront no real trials (apart from their 21 day deadline).  

It may have been better for us if they had, just to spice things up a bit; however, there were enough quirks of various kinds in this movie to make it both enjoyable and confronting.  It's just a pity that the story was not of the same calibre as the question it poses.  You can't win them all.  

What did Shakespeare say? "Gently to hear, kindly to judge our play."  I did enjoy this movie and I am glad that I saw it; it deserves more than a passing grade.  6.5 out of 10

Ruby Sparks (2012) starring Zoe Kazan

What do you get when you combine RomCom with Magic Realism and mix in some human failings?  You get a film like Ruby Sparks.

Calvin was a child genius of the literary world, having written and published a best-selling book by the time he was nineteen.  Now in his twenties, things are not going so well for Calvin:  he has writer's block, and he is love-lorn.  His psychiatrist innocuously asks Calvin to write one page about the kind of person he would like to meet.  Calvin does as he is asked, and to his astonishment his dream girl becomes a 3-D living young woman who calls herself Ruby Sparks.  Can an ideal fantasy become the ideal reality?

Haven't we seen this kind of thing before in the myth of Pygmalion and in Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo?  Well, yes. Does Ruby Sparks give a fresh spin on this sub-genre?  Yes and no.  What we do see is how Calvin, having had his dream come true, botches this chance for happiness. That is nothing new; however, we are shown a vision of what an insecure, self-centred person may be capable of should they gain a god-like control over another individual, especially when that individual is a young woman who is showing signs of having a mind of her own.  Interest lies in how this 'problem' will play itself out.  Will there be a resolution beyond the usual trope of boy meets girl/loses girl/gets girl again?

Zoe Kazan, who wrote the screenplay, does a sterling job as the likeable and wracked Ruby Sparks.  Paul Dano is quite unlikeable as the unlikeable Calvin, while Chris Messina ably plays Calvin's brother Harry (perhaps the linchpin character of the movie).   Steve Coogan and Elliott Gould make understated cameos, while Annette Bening and Antonio Banderas play two hippies (who may as well be straight from central casting).  A lot of the action takes place indoors; as a result, the photography tends to be dark, and the atmosphere claustrophobic.  The choices of music and songs for the soundtrack are very good.

Overall, this is a film that has capacity to provoke thought as well as feelings.  What we think and feel is not always pleasant, but sometimes it is challenging to go there.  In this case, perhaps we are not too challenged.  If you liked Being John Malkovich, you may like this film.  6/10

Albert Nobbs, starring Glenn Close and Janet McTeer

There are some movies where everything goes right, when all the elements that make for good storytelling are right there, at the right place and at the right time.  Albert Nobbs is not one of those movies.  Far from it.  The problem is that the script and the direction made it hard to believe in the main character or to care for the supporting cast.

Albert Nobbs is set in Ireland in Victorian times.  It tells the story of the eponymous protagonist who works as a waiter in a hotel that is struggling to keep its elite clients.  It turns out that Albert is really a woman who is trying to make something of herself in a man's world; but her secret is discovered by a stranger, and the unhappy Albert soon realises that happiness could be hers if only she could find ...

So much for the story.  As for the production, Glenn Close plays Albert; unfortunately, she does so by wearing a painful expression on her face for most of the movie.  Perhaps Albert suffered from wind but had no one to burp her?  Whatever it was, it made viewing the movie an uncomfortable experience.  In addition, there didn't seem to be adequate explanation or motivation for Albert's actions after her secret was revealed. 

In comparison, the character played by Janet McTeer is engaging, likeable and very believable, and this only serves to highlight the shortcomings of Glenn Close's portrayal of Albert and the direction that surrounded it.  I would go so far as to say that Janet McTeer's performance is the only note of distinction in the production.  Mia Wasikovska and Aaron Johnson give creditable performances as two ill-fated lovers, as does Pauline Collins in the role of the owner of the hotel.  

But none of this was enough to redeem the movie for me.  I got more fun and satisfaction from mocking-up a fake movie poster for this blog entry.  3/10

Hugo (2011) Directed by Martin Scorsese

Hugo is an orphaned child living in Paris in the 1930s.  After the death of his father he lives with his alcoholic uncle in a forgotten apartment in the Gare Montparnasse railway station where he learns to maintain the railway station's numerous public clocks.  After his uncle's mysterious disappearance, Hugo continues maintaining the clocks.  In his spare time, he tries unsuccessfully to repair a silver automaton his father had salvaged from a museum.  Hugo becomes involved in the lives of an old toymaker and his granddaughter.  They seem to have some connection with the automaton.  Can Hugo get their help to complete the repairs before he is caught by the officious Station Inspector and sent to an orphanage?

I wanted to like this movie, I really did; despite the almost universal praise the movie has received in the press, I find I am in the minority.  

Hugo is a long and slow movie, and its tale is not well told.  We are given no real reasons to care for the main characters initially, and the information that really counts in this respect comes far too late in the movie.  The incidental characters are the most sympathetic, but too little time is devoted to them for them to matter.  There is a lot of repetition of scenes that neither advance the plot nor develop the main characters.  The actors' efforts are competent but not outstanding, and there is little to remember in either the characters or their portrayal.

On the other hand, the sets and the cinematography are excellent, and clockwork is always nice to look at (but even that becomes boring after a while).  Technique is vital to any artistic enterprise, but no amount of good technique will rescue an underdone plot or underdone acting and directing.  If only Scorsese had got to the heart of his characters right from the start and also had cut 30 minutes from the movie, perhaps then Hugo would have truly merited its nomination for the Best Picture Academy Award.

The Trip (Film, 2010)

The actors Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon portray two characters called Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, two actors who share equal talents and similar lives, yet the former is vain and unhappy while the latter is happy with his lot in life.  Steve has the opportunity to visit the lakes District of England with the companion of his choice and is getting paid to review the restaurants he finds there.  To his great disappointment, Steve is turned down by his girlfriend and several people at the top of his list and finally asks Rob to go with him.  Rob is genial company but the two compete with each other and Steve almost invariably comes off second-best, to the wounding of his vanity.

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon both put in admirable performances in this film, and their powers of mimicry are uncanny as they take off Michael Caine, Anthony Hopkins, Billy Connolly and Hugh Grant, to name a few.  Steve Coogan displays an wonderful ability for noticing filmic cliches and Rob Brydon improvises on these themes with great relish.  Two particularly funny improvs arise around "Come, come, Mr Bond" and "To bed, gentlemen, for tomorrow we ride at dawn."

The Lakes District provides stunning visual interludes that break up the necessarily close-up filming of the characters' interaction.  What little storyline there is meanders like the journey Steve and Rob make through the English countryside.  And for all the hilarity and giggles provided along the way, the film is tastefully tinged with pathos provided by the character of Steve.  This is an all-round better-than-good movie and I look forward to seeing it again.  And now, to bed, gentlemen ...

Directed by Micheal Winterbottom.  Starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon

Beowulf and Grendel (2005)

Beowulf and Grendel, starring Gerard Butler and Stellan Skarsgard

I previously reviewed Beowulf, the 8th century Old English epic poem. The Beowulf poem is famously remembered for the accounts of the three great fights of its eponymous hero. Beowulf battles the monster Grendel, then Grendel's Mother - a primordial spirit - and then, when Beowulf has reached old age, a ravening dragon. Beowulf and Grendel is mainly about the first of these fights.

The makers of the movie have used the basic Grendel-Beowulf scenario from the original poem but with some major alterations. The movie explores the motivations of the monster Grendel (psychology being almost absent in the poem), and it adds a young witch as a central character. Perhaps these deviations are necessary to bring the story to life for the modern imagination?

Hrothgar is the king of the Danes. His men hunt and wantonly kill Grendel's father, but Hrothgar spares the life of the infant Grendel. Many years later Hrothgar builds a new hall, Heorot. Grendel, now fully grown, comes to the Heorot on the night of the inaugural feast. He avenges is father by killing Hrothgar's men. He spares Hrothgar.

Hearing of the king's plight, Beowulf and his band of a dozen men come to Heorot and offer to kill Grendel. Beowulf soon discovers that Grendel will not fight him, for Grendel only fights when he is wronged. So they pursue Grendel and wrong him, and the scene for conflict is set.

As interesting as the unfolding story may be, the real attraction of Beowulf and Grendel is the landscape photography. The landscape is stark (I think the movie was shot in Iceland) but beautiful (and beautifully captured), and there is lots of it.

Worth seeing. 7/10