Send In The Clowns. 'Poltergeist'

The new version of 'Poltergeist' scrapes the bottom of a very large barrel labeled 'Beloved Horror Films From Our Youth' and drags it to the multiplex for a new generation to make faces at whilst they wait for the summer blockbusters. The good news is that whilst it is undeniably an inferior, unnecessary and unwanted remake (the original still stands up) I did find it a lot of fun. I saw it with a good friend, low expectations, 3D glasses and a belly full of beer. I had a blast. 'Poltergeist' is a ghost train ride, nothing more and nothing less.

It helps that Sam Raimi was on board as a producer as he knows a thing or two about horror ('Evil Dead, 'Drag Me To Hell'). It helps that the original was a fun movie, targeted at a family audience and was a thrill-a-minute ride of jump scares and special effects. With those ingredients it was always ahead of its time but is now bang on the money with current tastes in horror. It even has its very own scary doll a la 'Annabelle' ready to use. It's no wonder then that this was prime material for a remake.

The template is the same: all American family moves onto a new-build estate, daughter talks to the television, son is scared of everything, there's a whomping willow outside the bedroom window and the closet is full of scary clown dolls....because....scary clown dolls. Oh, and some poltergeist activity happens at some point too.

At a stretch you could say the original was trying to say something about not abandoning your kids to the dangers of television. This version throws lots of social concern stuff at the screen but nothing really sticks. If anything, the grand theme this time would be - your kids will ruin you - financially (eldest daughter demands a new phone after ghostly interference wrecks it), sexually (mom and dad can't get it on because junior is scared of noises in the attic) and spiritually (there is no philosophical meaning to any of this - just inconvenience). These kids are so demanding all the time it is a wonder the parents put any effort into protecting them at all. Plus, the real horror of this film for them, is that they are judged all the time...at dinner parties for moving into the wrong neighbourhood,  at the local store when their credit cards are refused and by me when they feed their kids Pizza all the time.

Sam Rockwell is always interesting to watch, Rosemarie DeWitt one of the most convincing screen moms we've seen in a while and the kids are great too. The story focuses more on the son this time out, this is very much his 'journey' and the part is very well played by Kyle Catlett. Kennedi Clements ain't no Heather O'Rourke but she is less annoying than the average moppet they usually put in these things. I didn't take to Jared Harris as the ghost-busting television exorcist guy called in to help the paranormal researchers. He plays it very "Oirish", to-be-sure, where it needs other-worldly weirdness. He's a poor substitute for the eccentric medium of the original.

Is it scary? No, not particularly - but I'm not sure the original was ever that scary either. It's a different approach. It never sets out to be full on scary - it just wants to shout "boo!!" at you, so that you jump and then laugh. On that score it succeeds admirably. It's cattle-prod cinema, you can't argue with that, but it's a fine example of it. At least it's not lazy like 'Annabelle'. I recommend you see it in 3-D for the full 'eyeball-might-be-piereced-by-drill-part' effect

Where this film really does improve on the 1982 model is in its depiction of exactly what's on the other side. It's truly the stuff of nightmares. I won't spoil it for you but it is really well rendered and goes waaayyyyy beyond being just a spectral lightshow on the staircase.

'Poltergeist' (2015) then, much better than I expected and much better than it has any right to be. A good, unpretentious, enjoyable horror film fun ride. Who you gonna call?

p.s.

Seeing this film, I couldn't help but recall the time when working in a DVD store a customer told me:

"You know that girl in 'Poltergeist'? She died when a real one got her."

 *Sigh*

The bullshit people choose to believe....

Scarier than anything in the movies

Maximum Overdrive. 'Mad Max: Fury Road'.

I know what you're thinking: You're thinking that I'm a deliberately contrary bastard and that I'm not going to like 'Mad Max:Fury Road' based on some sort of twisted matter of principle... just because everyone does .

Nope, not this time. I ab-so-fucking-lute-ly loved it.

Put it this way, my wife went to the toilet during one of the most intense chase sequences ever committed to celluloid. Me, I would rather have soiled myself than miss a single frame of this movie. Stick that on the poster.

It's almost wrong to even talk about it as a movie. It's an experience; a non-stop rush,  It's a two hour thrill ride. Scream if you want to go faster.

You know those tales from the birth of cinema, where people ran from the cinema because they thought the train was going to jump out of the screen? 'Fury Road' is like that.

Can you imagine what it was like to see the first colour film? Your eyeballs will experience that. You'll feel like you've been scorched by the desert glare. You'll feel like you've got gasoline in your mouth, sand in your throat, blood in your veins. You'll feel alive. A fuel-injected suicide machine.

I've seen it once and can barely process it. It's not perfect but I don't care about that at the moment; all that matters is that after thirty years there's another Mad Max film out there that was worth the wait and more than atones for 'Beyond Thunderdome'.

When idiots like me talk about pure cinema this is what we mean.

Didn't I spend most of last year moaning about the death of cinema? Bollocks to that. It's only just been born.

Harry Pearce And The Chamber Of Secrets. 'Spooks: The Greater Good'.

True story: I used to work in retail. The moment I knew that I know longer wanted to work in retail was during a manager's meeting where we were asked to name "a good leader". The names that ended up on the board were - Hitler, Thatcher, our regional manager (of course) and Harry Pearce. Harry Pearce being the only one of that quartet who I would want to be associated with; the only one who might approach things in a calm, tolerant, analytical way without shitting on others. Despite being a fictional character.

Such is the memory of Harry Pearce, that the character is deemed capable of anchoring a big screen version of a now defunct TV series.

You do have to wonder why this was given the green light. 'Spooks' was a well regarded and prescient show but I bet nobody has given it a second thought in the past couple of years. The ace up it's sleeve (and this is before 'Game Of Thrones' remember) was that it wasn't shy about killing off its main characters. It gave the show a genuine tension as the outcome wasn't always a given. The trouble now is that those characters that everyone remembers are no longer available for the big screen version. You're pretty much left with Harry Pearce and that tech guy.

Enter Kit Harrington to fill in those general purpose agent-we-should-care-about shoes. He's alright, I suppose, but because the character doesn't have a back story we feel connected with, it's all a bit easy not to care whether he lives or dies. We know he's just a pawn in a bigger game anyway.

It doesn't make the transition to the big screen that well. The opening sequence which involves a terrorist being liberated from Her Majesty's custody in rush hour traffic plays out exactly like the opening to your average episode of 'The Professionals' but without the excitement. There's a lot of running around car parks, and airports and looking at computer screens and that sort of thing but it never feels cinematic. It always feels like you're just watching an extended-length episode.

It's a good job then, that the plot is actually quite interesting. MI5 is humiliated and Harry disgraced by association; a  deliberate act of sabotage so that Britain's secret service can be tendered out to the Americans in order to  be re-organised. It's basically like what's happening to the National Health Service....but with spies.

I was bored at first but as soon as I realised that it wasn't going to be a Bond film I just rolled with it. Knowing that it wasn't going to throw exploding helicopters, burning buildings or car chases at me every five minutes made it easier to relax into and actually started to work in its favour. The tension starts to ratchet up because of decisions made and the third act is very good indeed.

Peter Firth was never a brilliant actor even n his heyday ('Joseph Andrews', 'Equus', 'Tess') and the jury is still out on Kit Harrington. Don't expect powerhouse acting from anyone except the ever wonderful Tim McInnery who just scowls everyone else off the screen.  To be fair, the dialogue is pretty awful, all stuff like people saying "What happened in Berlin?" while staring intently at the camera.

It's an old school British spy thriller and a neat little time capsule capture of what Britain looks and feels like right now. It gets better as it goes along without having to huff and puff all the time and there's a good bittersweet ending in keeping with the original show.

Worth your time, but you might as well wait for it to turn up on tv.

Aca-cceptable Sequel. 'Pitch Perfect 2'

You may remember that I quite liked 'Pitch Perfect' so I'm quite pleased that it has a follow-up but as with most comedy sequels it just doesn't quite work second time around.

It's a watchable, fairly amusing rehash of the first one with vagina jokes instead of puke jokes, a World stage instead of campus competition, and broad smiles instead of belly laughs. All the major characters are retained and a bland, rather pointless new one thrown in. The film doesn't quite know what direction to take Fat Amy in (big laughs? pathos? coarse humour?) and her spark feels strangely reigned in this time. Beca is still a selfish brat but somehow likeable. The sing-offs feature more songs that I don't recognise and are mostly about big butts. It's casually racist and vaguely homophobic whilst teasing some lesbian elements. It has a few too many jokes that must only make sense to American audiences and it is rather obvious at times but it is witty enough, it is sassy enough and it is better than you might expect.

If you like the first one you'll get along with this. If not you'll wonder what all the fuss is about. Aca-cceptable. 

Action Jackson. 'Big Game'.

'Big Game' is what happens when you feed all of your action movie templates into a super computer. It is exactly what you'd expect it to be; no better and no worse. It's ninety minutes of fluff that manages to entertain without quite delivering the laughs or thrills to a high enough standard but it is still better than anything in the last two 'Die Hard' movies. Samuel L. Jackson gets to say "mutha" in the final reel, things explode, terrorists get their asses kicked, order is restored. Job done.

It's a narrative of comfort for your thirteen year old Californian mindset audience. A young boy can prove himself a man by saving the president, the 'leader of the free world' gets the job done right by shooting backstabbers/doubters/Middle Eastern types himself and there are no pesky women to get in the way.

If you've seen the trailer, you've pretty much seen the film. As my multiplex cinema seems to have been running the trailer for the past year this was a bit of a problem. It lacks surprise. It feels a bit like a microwaved ready-meal and there is no disguising the fact that we've been here many times before. It's a disappointment that the film doesn't make more of its unique setting - a remote Finnish location. I'd have like to have seen our young hero using more bushcraft skills to save the day. It could have played like a more savage 'Home Alone', with Oskari setting deadly traps and utilising makeshift weapons and brutal survival skills. What we have is all pretty tame. The bad guys needed to be more threatening and have some convincing motivation. The terrorist leader is a psychopath and the President is his "big game prize". That's about as much depth as you get but it's fine for what it is: a B-movie digital watch compared to Die Hard's Rolex. It's not as flashy but it still tells the time okay.

Far From The Middle England Crowd.

So, on the day after the general election, I couldn't bear to watch the news and headed to escape from it all in the dark of the cinema for a few hours. What better way to take your mind off things than spending a couple of hours with a Thomas Hardy bleakfest? That's Thomas 'laugh-a-minute' Hardy, Oliver Hardy's funnier brother. That's Thomas Hardy, Dorset's very own the grandmaster of misery. Actually, to be fair, 'Far From The Madding Crowd' has a positively upbeat ending compared to most of his oeuvre but it's still an overwrought melodrama featuring everyone's family favourites: financial ruin, lost social status, unrequited love, heartbreak, unhappy marriage, regrets, suicide, execution and dead animals. I loved it.

Hardy usually translates well to the big screen. I'm a big fan of the epic sweep and romance of the 1967 John Schlesinger version but it does look horribly dated now despite Nic Roeg's ravishing cinematography. This adaptation goes for a more realistic muddy boots approach but still has plenty of sumptuous scenery to wallow in. Carey Mulligan may not have Julie Christie's looks but she is a better actress. Her portrayal of Bathsheba Everdine is just perfect really; convincingly independent and vulnerable. It's a subtle but powerful performance. Michael Sheen is as reliably brilliant as you might expect but he does stray a little bit into Anthony Hopkins territory here. Tom Sturridge is no Terence Stamp but whilst he may not have the same screen magnetism he makes up for it with a more layered performance as the dashing Sgt Frank Troy. The weak spot for me was Matthias Schoenaerts who looks more like a Premiership football player than a rugged Wessex farmer. He's so distinctly European looking (he's Belgian) that it's distracting. He's also about as interesting to watch as a new potato. He's washed and clean and boring where it calls for pained and troubled and earthy. Juno Temple is in it too as Fanny Robbin (Hardy always has the best names) but leaves virtually no impression. 

I liked it a lot but I have to say that it was confusing at times. I don't necessarily mean shot to shot editing - individual scenes are very good - the sabre waving in the woods scene is a standout (as it is in the 1967 film) but the grand sweep of the tale is terribly fudged. You think years have passed but it turns out to be just a few months. Entire connect-the-dots scenes just seem to be missing. Obviously, you understand that plot points have to be sacrificed in order to keep the running time down but there seems to be a real lack of overview of the story. Why does Troy still hold a flame for Fanny? We need the scene where she explains herself. When George the sheepdog turns up later in the film it's a surprise because it's never really made clear that Gabriel owns two dogs. Maybe I just missed this stuff because I'm stupid, but I know the source material and was still a bit lost.

It's very, very good in most other departments. The costume design and the score are wonderful, the locations evocative and it's always luscious to look at. It does lack something though and I'm not sure what it is. It lacks bite somehow. There's just not quite enough of the emotional wax and wane that it needs. Maybe I'm just over familiar with the story. Maybe I'm just miserable. Whatever, I still recommend it. It's the perfect film for a rainy afternoon and I'm glad that it exists. 

'Child 44', Where Are You?

'Child 44' is an old-school thriller that is as bleak as a night in a Gulag with a good helping of cold war sauce on top. It has a top-drawer cast and an interesting premise that turns genre conventions on their head. It utilises unusual locations, has a distinctive look and has plenty of discussion points. I thought it was very good indeed. It has, of course, pretty much died at the box office and garnered only lukewarm reviews from most critics. I urge you to see it if you can cope with drama that isn't a reboot, remake or sequel. I urge you to see it if you care about adult cinema that isn't a Brad Pratt, Tom Cruise, Angelina Jolie vehicle. I urge you to see it if your tastes run to something more than superheroes, kids films and broad comedy.

During Stalin's rule of the Soviet Union in the early 1950s, security agent Leo Demidov (Tom Hardy) uncovers evidence of a child's murder in Moscow. This is problematic because under this regime "there is no murder in paradise"; murder is a capitalist disease. Demidov knows but cannot act and when his superiors decide to test his obedience by making him denounce his wife Raisa (Noomi Rapace) events escalate as he fights to survive in this ruthless world of jealousy, ideology, infighting, paranoia and secrecy. The stakes become ever higher as more child murders come to light.

This is so much more than a "rogue cop breaks every rule in the book in order to catch a serial killer" story given period dress and an historical setting. This turns the conventions of standard investigation/mystery/race-against-time thrillers on their head because of the milieu in which it is set. Every action has dire and possibly fatal consequences. This is a world in which accusations, questions and probing for information may cost you your life, or the life of your loved ones. Just associating with the wrong people and saying the wrong thing could put your life at risk. The film really conveys that dread of daily life in a police state and the weight that hangs on every action. The knock at the door could come at any time. Even for those normally doing the knocking.

Let's look at that cast: Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, Vincent Cassel, Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, Paddy Considine, Charles Dance. I mean, that's a casting agent's wet dream of a list right there. All of them are capable of performances of extremes, all of them are top talents when they want to be. There's been some critical sneering at the Russian accents but that's not a reason to turn against the film. Yes, it's a bit like those bloody Meerkat adverts at times but it's no more silly than the countless 'German Officer' accents we're used to from classic war films. It's not distracting and here's nothing here as cringe-worthy as Sean Connery or Michael Caine doing the accent thing. Vincent Cassel still has a French tang to his lines but I kind of like that. Even when Tom Hardy goes full throttle it still never gets anywhere near the embarrassment levels of his Bane voice. He's really good in this with just the right mix of meathead muscle and emotional sensitivity to be convincing. Joel Kinnaman, who ruined 'Robocop', is a revelation in this. If anything, the only (very surprising) weak spot is Paddy Considine, who doesn't seem to be on top form here - but I suspect that a LOT of his role ended up on the cutting room floor and I would hope that it was a more interesting performance overall than what we get to see here.

I've seen talk of it being too confusing, too boring, too long. I didn't find any of those things to be true. It's complex, but it's not 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' - it is easy to follow. The denouement is a little bit rushed and some things could have perhaps done with more explanation but that's a case for making the film a bit longer, not shorter. I could easily have sat through another twenty minutes (and regular readers will know that I generally find anything over 90 mins a stretch) and would, if anything,  possibly have removed the actual final scene, which seemed a trifle unnecessary and probably existed only to keep the main actors happy by providing a neat resolution for their character arcs.

I didn't find it boring at all. I thought it was an interesting world to explore, had interesting characters and there was pace to the story. Would a car chase or a firefight in a factory have improved things? Of course not. The violence when it occurs is brutal and realistic and I jumped in my seat quite a few times

This is one film where I felt it I understood everyone's motivations in any given scene and more importantly always understood why we were at a particular location and how we got there in terms of plotting.....and I'll freely admit that I'm usually the first to get lost in films like this.

The strangest thing about 'Child 44' is that you get the feeling that the project would be lauded more if it had been one of those box set HBO mini series things that they have now.  Perhaps it would have suited that tv series format better but I think in that case they would have had to shoehorn in some cliffhangers and raise the action, gore and sex levels, thus losing something in the process. But that's the strange world that we seem to be in now - where television has become the adult drama that films used to be and films have become juvenile cartoons. Something like 'Child 44' just doesn't seem to fit anywhere any more, even as a thriller. I guess people just prefer to see glossy "Did-she-or-didn't-she?", "Did- he-or-didn't he?" murder mysteries over and over again.

'Child 44' then, a very good film, worthy of your time if you want to catch it before it disappears. A film so good and a story so prescient that Putin hates it and the 'Ministry of Culture' has banned it. A film about child abuse and murder covered up by corrupt government officials who would prefer to think that such things don't exist.

Thank God that couldn't happen here!

Ultronic Irrigation. Marvel's Avengers: Age Of Ultron

"Everyone creates the thing they dread."

Thus speaks Ultron in the Avengers sequel and it doesn't take a great leap of imagination to think of this as writer/director Joss Whedon's personal aside to the gallery. Has he created a bloated, turgid, mess of a movie? Is it a Frankenstein's monster that has turned on its creator?

Well, whilst there's plenty of evidence to suggest this might be the case, I for one enjoyed it a whole lot more than the first one. I thought it was a rollicking two and a half hours of entertainment and could happily have sat through another half hour of it. If the Avengers movies were a band this would be "the difficult second album". To be honest it's just a joyous relief to just get through it and find out that it's not shit.

After the first one, Joss Whedon was saying in interviews that he was going to scale things down for the sequel, make it more of a character study piece. There was obviously no way Marvel was going to let that happen. In addition to delivering a crowd pleasing movie, Whedon has to set up various strands for the Marvel universe, tie up loose ends from other films in the universe, introduce new characters, develop secondary characters, be true to the main characters, find a thread through an already complex narrative and deliver spectacular and original set pieces and keep it cohesive. That's one hell of a mountain to climb! Personally, I think he nailed it.

The first Avengers film had a frantic but unimpressive opening, a wonderful middle section full of character and wit and surprises and a tedious seen it all before CGI ending.

What you have in 'Ultron' is a frantic, impressive opening, a wonderful middle section full of character and wit and surprises and a full on spectacular comic book ending.

So structurally, it's not very different at all, but it helps that the plot is much stronger. The first one, as I remember it. was mostly about Loki and his pokey stick and things falling out of the sky to attack the Earth. It was bollocks. This one at least has echoes of 9/11, The War On Terror and an exploration of Hollywood's recent go-to big theme: the threat of artificial intelligence. It's not as grown up and intriguing as last year's 'Winter Soldier' but it is a lot better than just running around and fighting over one of those Marvel glowing gems of power that they love so much.

We don't waste any time getting to the action and start with The Avengers demolishing a Hydra stronghold in some made up East European country (Sokovia). It's a gritty beginning, with the team coming across more like a military task force than a superhero outfit. There's dizzying action, plenty of trademark Whedon quips and it's a good rousing start to the show.

We don't hear about Hydra again. It looks as if Marvel has dropped this particular ball and left it for the Agents of S.H.I.T.E. tv series to deal with, which is probably a wise move, but also feels a little odd after being so well set up in 'Winter Soldier'.

What we do have is Ultron: a cynical, snide, artificial intelligence encased in a robotic humanoid shell. Developed in secret (The Ultron Project) as a protector of the Earth, Ultron immediately goes all Colonel Kurtz on us and becomes a homicidal force unto himself. It's Skynet all over again.

The always excellent James Spader manages to deliver the perfect voice for Ultron and gives us a villain worthy of filling the void vacated by Tom Hiddleston's excellent turn as Loki.

I've heard criticism that the film throws too many new characters at us but I don't think that's fair. There's only three new major characters to get to grips with. Two of them start off as villains but are so obviously destined to become team members that there's not really much mystery to them. Their powers are pretty easy to grasp too. One can move at phenomenal speed and the other is basically Carrie, in one of her pissed off moods. I took a while to warm to both characters (and actors) but came around to them in the end.

The other major character to introduce is the Vision, who is one of the more intriguing characters in the Marvel universe and a personal favourite of mine. He doesn't get much screen time but makes a real impression with the scenes he is in. Paul Bettany is a great choice for the role and I look forward to seeing what they do with this character in future instalments.

I guess it's the elongated middle part of the film that is going to let people down the most. It's heavy on character, heavy on dialogue and fleshes out back stories, motivations and fears for all the principle characters. Actually, I really liked this bit a lot, but it doesn't all work by any means. Whedon can't quite seem to get a handle on The Black Widow (a surprise considering that his reputation rests largely on writing strong female characters for tv) and uses her instead for some not wholly convincing soap operatics with Bruce Banner and gives her some really clunky lines ("I'm always picking up after you boys.") There's a moment where she reveals a bit of her backstory that completely jars with the tone of the film and is never really alluded to again. Very strange. But the little nuggets we get about Black Widow and Hawkeye do sort of fill in the gaps from them not having their own movies and makes you believe that actually - if those movies did exist - they would be really interesting to watch. It makes you realise that they are not superfluous members by any means.

It's a shame that Marvel couldn't coax Gwyneth Paltrow and Natalie Portman into the mix to reprise their roles as love interest for Iron Man and Thor respectively. Their absence, though explained, is a big elephant in the room. Thor, becomes a problem too and seems to leave the movie way too often and reappear at will for reasons barely explained. Whilst there is a sense that a greater narrative is going on elsewhere which will only be explained in subsequent movies, it leaves you scratching your head a little bit in the here and now. All the main actors are comfortable in their roles and it is still a joy to watch them interact with each other.

In truth, I'm not the biggest fan of Whedon's writing. I think it's all too often a series of one liners and quips rather than proper dialogue but I think he really does write in different voices this time around. I can even excuse Ultron being a sarcastic, witty, arrogant bastard because he is essentially the dark side of Tony Stark. It makes sense for him to talk like that.

The end of the film, whether by accident or design, plays out as a sort of riposte to Zack Snyder's truly awful 'Man Of Steel' by having the Avengers making it their priority to get civilians out of harms way before the final epic showdown. It's good to see that they've done a risk assessment first and acted accordingly.

The final battle when it comes is both a triumph and a let down. It's a let down because it is ultimately just another weary CGI battle with our heroes making a last stand against wave after wave of bloodless, inconsequential, robot men. It's a triumph because it acknowledges how ridiculous it all is - "The city is flying! We're fighting an army of robots! And I have a bow and arrow! None of this makes sense!"....and because they make it FUN to watch

Overall it's probably the most comic book-y of superhero movies since Sam Raimi's 'Spider-Man 2' and I loved it for that reason. It's ambitious and silly. It's dark and frivolous. It's mindless and intelligent. It's juvenile and grown-up. It has everything we go to these sort of movies for. It's a blast!

And I haven't even mentioned The Hulk vs Iron Man. This actually happened.

The film itself ends as a battle of wills between two A.I. creations. It's easy to imagine a similar conflict behind the scenes over Joss Whedon's ideas and Marvel's overall vision for the universe. The two don't seem to quite match up and there's some tension as a result of that. You do get a sense that the film has lost something in the edit. Whedon's preferred cut was three hours long and there are already rumours of an extended blu-ray release with an alternate ending. This sounds like interference and compromise somewhere along the way. Whedon in particular seems exhausted by the project and may be bailing out at this point. It's a shame because these films need his quirks to make them work.

Even so, despite its flaws, this is an ambitious, almost unwieldy project that mostly succeeds. It comes close to being great. It should be applauded for that. Joss Whedon and Marvel have tried to push the boundaries of what the superhero movie can be. Marvel's ambitions seem to be pushed further with every film, they're always changing their approach and are always moving forwards. They want to make money and they want to make art. They mostly get to have their cake and eat it.

Go get yourself a big slice of Avengers cake and gorge on it.