Fantastic Four
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Cast
Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic: Ioan Gruffudd
Ben Grimm/Thing: Michael Chiklis
Sue Storm/Invisible Woman:Jessica Alba
Johnny Storm/Human Torch:Chris Evans
Victor Von Doom/Dr. Doom:Julian McMahon
Alicia Masters: Kerry Washington
Directed by Tim Story
Written by Michael France, Mark Frost and Simon Kimberg
Based on the comic book and characters by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee. Running time: 105 minutes
Reading Fantastic Four comics as a youngster, there were a lot of areas that never occurred to me - such as - The Thing is
supposed to be made of rocks but he looks all rubbery! This did occur to me while watching Tim Story's effort to create a
film out of this venerable Marvel Comics institution. Fantastic Four was always great fun as a superhero comic, but you can
see the strain it took to bring this to the big screen - it comes off as ridiculous, and worst of all, totally dull.
Directory Story and his screenwriters Mark Frost and Michael France do their best to expedite all the predictable introductory
business about cosmic rays and the feud between Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) and Victor Von (check those painted eyebrows!)
Doom (Julian McMahon), but then it all gets bogged down in the lab at the Baxter Building "What happened to us?"
and "How can we reverse these superpowers?". Stan Lee and Jack Kirby would have had them fighting off a ginormous
atomic mole creature by this point. What we get instead is an effort to build some relationships and motivations into a comic
franchise that has never really held much interest for adults.
Michael Chiklis is convincing enough as tough guy Bruce Willis-wannabe Ben Grimm, who gets transformed into the less-than-convincing
rock creature ("The Thing"); He suffers poignantly and puts in some good clobbering time; but it's still one of
those visuals that doesn't quite translate on to the big screen. Oddly enough, it's Johnny Storm (Chris Evans - no not that
one) as the Human Torch, who provides the high points of the action (there's a decent enough flying scene through Times Square
as a heat-seeking missile chases him down). Reed Richards is suitably humourless and obsessive, and the Invisible Girl (Jessica
Alba) has all the expected attributes: plucky, wilful, and constantly camera-aware throughout.
I think the key question in adapting any comic book to the screen is, 'do the filmmakers get it?' Tim Story and the writers
have completely missed the bonkers, absurd charm of the comic and what they've come up with is a fairly generic superhero
story with a bargain basement look to it. As a director, Story has no idea how to charge an image, and the production designers
were all on autopilot. Gone are the dimension-hopping, time-travelling sci-fi head games of the comic. It's only in the last
ten minutes, with a well choreographed battle on the streets of Manhattan, that this movie finally unleashes some decent visual
super-team entertainment.
War Of The Worlds
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Cast: Tom Cruise, Miranda Otto, Dakota Fanning, Tim Robbins, Justin Chatwin, Rick Gonzalez, Daniel Franzese
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
In the beginning there was H.G. Wells' 1898 book entertaining the prospect of alien invasion as a symbol of an approaching
world war. Then Orson Welles brought Martians to our doorsteps with his almost-too-realistic, 1939 radio broadcast. Now, Steven
Spielberg may have to change his name as he joins this elite group of contributors to the War of the Worlds legacy.
Just as he did with E.T., Close Encounters, Jaws and Jurassic Park, Spielberg has made the right movie at the right time.
In War of the Worlds he takes our fears, our strengths, our compassion, and especially our resiliency, and brilliantly feeds
it back to us in an electrifying, anxiety-laden tale complete with a heavy dose of digital dynamite.
When his ex-wife (Miranda Otto) drops their two children off for a rare weekend visit, it's fairly clear that ex-husband
Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) will not be winning the father-of-the-year award. His fridge is almost empty, his teenage son Robbie
(Justin Chatwin) calls him Ray, and he eventually learns that his daughter Rachel (Dakota Fanning) has been allergic to peanut
butter her entire life. But their already fragile relationship is severely tested when a brief but strange, and terrifying,
lightning storm hits the area and sucks the electricity and power from everything - even cars. While the children wait at
home, Ray walks to the site of the lightning strikes and witnesses the beginning of an E.T. close encounter of the worst kind
when a metallic, alien robot-thing emerges from underground and uses its death rays to vapourise everyone in sight.
While in the past Ray may have been a miserable father, he quickly takes the job seriously as he and the kids stay one
step ahead of the aliens while trying to leave the city - along with millions of their fellow citizens. But the danger comes
from all directions, and not just from the aliens. Cruise's portrayal of Ray is convincing, but the inherent personality of
the character doesn't lend itself to an actor's studio kind of performance. Ray is like the guy who saves a hundred soldiers
in battle but we wouldn't think twice about as we pass him on the street. He's full of bad decisions and selfish intentions.
But when life is in the balance, he makes the life-saving choices.
Fanning is wonderful as Ray's young, terrified daughter, screaming her way through scene after scene as only an eleven
year old can do. And Tim Robbins' brief performance as a gun-toting nutter is creatively used as the shakey voice of both
doubt and reason.
Spielberg has begrudgingly been brought into the world of digital filming, preferring the smell and feel of real film.
But his friend George Lucas helped him see the light, and like a fish to water, Spielberg has embraced the technology by using
it to its fullest advantage. Some of the images are masterful. Real disasters both natural and man-made are incorporated
into the film as aliens blow apart the upper section of a motorway, tossing 18-wheelers like matchbox cars. Also the memories
of 9/11 and London this July are stirred in many of the film's dramatic moments. The obvious references aren't so much exploitive
as they are just sincere responses to the immense grief people have shared since these atrocities. Spielberg not only reminds
us of how vulnerable we are, but also how people can evince courage and tenacious optimism even in the darkest of times.
Just like Wells' original novel, the symbolism of Spielberg's War of the Worlds is there for contemplation. But in the
end all we really want is a good story to entertain us and in that Spielberg succeeds magnificently.
Festival
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Director: Annie Griffin
Cast: Amelie Bullmore, Billy Carter, Raquel Cassidy, Megan Dodds, Duncan Duff, Jonah Lotan, Lucy Punch, Mereditch MacNeill,
Stephen Mangan, Lyndsey Marshall
It's August in Edinburgh and the historic Scottish capital finds itself filling up through the main streets, roads and venues
with actors, directors, street performers, comedians, media high flyers and audiences.
Annie Griffin (writer-director of TV's 'The Book Group') makes her big-screen debut with this darkish feature. It's crammed
with busy eccentric characters fluttering through the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which would seem to be a natural setting
for an ensemble comedy. "Festival", sad to say though is overly ambitious with its cast size of 18 characters. Central
to several of the overlapping tales is Sean Sullivan (Mangan), an apparently famous comedian (off the telly) on a non-peforming
stint in the capital as a judge on the Comedy Awards. Clashing with fellow panellist and BBC radio hack Joan Gerard (the excellent
Daniela Nardini), he exposes his vanity whilst Joan's own story includes an unlikely flirtation with drunken flabby hirsute
Irish comedian Tommy O'Dwyer (O'Dowd) - which isn't sufficiently developed to achieve credibility.
Connected characters include Sullivan's exasperated recovering alcoholic p,a, Petra (Cassidy) and his new flame Nicky
(a sparky performance from Punch) as a novice comedienne.
A series of 'fringe' characters include a one-woman-show actress attracted to a bearded thespian portraying a paedophile
priest (who moves dangerously close to method-acting realism) and a group of surreal Canadians all of whom are too lightly
sketched. The British stand-up stereotypes are all here, multiple effs, cees and shits splatter the booze fuelled dialogue,
but ultimately Griffin's attempts to cram too much into her debut ruin the effect, albeit resolutely reflecting the tiresome
drivel that pervades 99% of Festival Fringe performances.
Overnight
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Featuring: Troy Duffy, Willem Dafoe, Billy Connolly, Jeff Skunk Baxter
A documentary Directed by: Tony Montana and Mark Brian Smith
A savage documentary gleefully charting the rise and fall of obnoxious Troy Duffy, the writer-director of The Boondock Saints.
Never heard of The Boondock Saints or Troy Duffy? It's hardly surprising, considering that the film had the smallest of theatrical
releases in America before heading to a marginally less low-profile afterlife on video/DVD (although Duffy actually managed
to put a cast together that included high-wattage talent like Willem Dafoe and Billy Connolly). Duffy himself made more of
a splash back in 1997 when Miramax's Harvey Weinstein offered him a million-dollar deal to make the movie. In addition, Weinstein
offered to buy Boston native Duffy the Los Angeles pub J Sloan's where he was then working as a barman.
It all seemed far too good to be true - and of course it was. The story of how Duffy's deal fell apart is chronicled by
his former pals Smith and Montana, members of his close inner-circle until everything started to go pear-shaped. Eventually
Duffy and Overnight's directing duo parted company after a messy argument over money. By this stage, however, Smith and Montana
had more than enough footage to perform a real stitch-up on their one-time friend. Duffy is so unsympathetic, however, that
many viewers will reckon he fully deserves to be done up "like a kipper". Also, for this to be done in a film which
apparently gained more acclaim than his little-seen film is a pleasing combination of poetic justice and cold-served revenge.
Utterly convinced of his own genius in the fields of writing, directing and filmmaking, Duffy takes the Weinstein deal
as an utter vindication of his sledgehammer arrogance. Revelling in his status as "Hollywood's new hard-on" he proceeds
to humiliate almost everyone he has any dealings with - including his long-suffering brother Taylor. Even those he doesn't
have any dealings with receive the full-on Duffy treatment - "Ethan Hawke is a talentless fool," he blusters at
one point, careering into Spinal Tap territory as he brags about his "logpile of creativity... a deep cesspool of creativity."
Duffy's egocentric rantings are undeniably amusing up to a point - Smith and Montana basically allow this loudmouth more
than enough celluloid to hang himself. After the on-screen 'sacking' of Smith and Montana by Duffy - one of his innumerable
unwise moves - Overnight effectively becomes a tool for the settling of personal scores. We never actually find out what went
wrong with the Miramax deal, and Duffy himself is made to look so terrible so often you may find yourself, against all better
judgement, feeling a little sorry for the smug arrogant git.
Although his energy was misguided, it was his supreme self-confidence that led to Smith and Montana getting their big
Hollywood break. They've clearly ended up in a much better position than their subject/victim, who's briefly glimpsed in longshot
at the end standing outside a Sloan's-type Hollywood bar - though we aren't told whether he's there as a customer, barman
or bouncer, one of the film's numerous frustrating information gaps.
Duffy doesn't deserve our sympathy by any means - but Overnight, for all its entertaining moments, is essentially just
the so-what-ish downfall of a creep: the kicking of a man when he's down followed by the gratuitous twisting of the knife.
It leaves a slightly nasty taste in the mouth - the end-credit sequence is accompanied by footage showing the ultimate fate
of Sloan's (which looked a decent enough little boozer), rounding things off on a thoroughly downbeat and depressing note.
Batman Begins
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Starring: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Gary Oldman, Cillian Murphy, Tom Wilkinson, Rutger Hauer,
Ken Watanabe, Morgan Freeman, Sara Sterwart, Richard Brake, Gus Lewis, Linus Roache, Colin McFarlane, Larry Holden
Director: Christopher Nolan
Running Time: 140 minutes
Since his first appearance in 1939, 'The Bat-Man', masked vigilante over the streets of Gotham City, has proved to be an enduring
favourite of the comic book superheroes, due to his darkness, his mortality and, most importantly of all, the adaptability
of his myth to changing times.
On the big screen he has fared less well - 'Batman 1966', the feature-length outing for Adam West and Burt Ward's corny
television series, is actually one of the funniest films ever made, but its high camp high-jinks hardly do justice to DC Comics'
brooding original. Tim Burton's Batman (1989) certainly nailed the legend's noirish, gothic look, but was less assured in
its handling of tone - and a rash of sequels brought the predictable diminishing returns. Now, however, Christopher ('Memento')
Nolan's 'Batman Begins' wipes the slate clean, taking viewers right back (again) to the caped crusader's origins - and in
this far more earnest adventure, the bat has well and truly abandoned camp and headed into more epic territories.
Haunted by anger and guilt after witnessing his parents gunned down in cold blood, and frustrated in his desire to kill
the man who did it, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has turned his back on Gotham City and his father's legacy. Travelling incognito
amidst the world's thieves and murderers in an attempt to understand the criminal mind, Wayne ends up in Bhutan, where he
is recruited and trained in fighting and stealth techniques by Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson) on behalf of Ra's al Ghul, leader
of the secretive 'League of Shadows'. Rejecting the group's merciless brand of vigilantism, Wayne returns to Gotham, where
the judiciary and constabulary are corrupt, and crime boss Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson) now operates with impunity. Determined
to put his new skills to good use, Wayne becomes the masked crimefighter Batman. Aided directly by his trusted family butler
Alfred (Michael Caine), and less directly by the head of Wayne Enterprises' Applied Sciences division, Lucius Fox (Morgan
Freeman), by old childhood friend turned Assistant DA Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes), and by honest cop Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman),
Wayne soon uncovers a far more catastrophic threat to the city than Falcone and his thugs. In a plot involving Arkham Asylum's
chief psychiatrist Dr Jonathan Crane (Cillian Murphy), his mysterious backers and a panic-inducing hallucinogenic drug, Gotham
is about to be visited by some very rough justice.
Fans of the Dark Knight's on-screen iconography will not be disappointed by this new film, which traces Batman's customised
suit, car, utility belt, weapons and secret cave right back to their very beginnings, while giving them a more functional
and rationalised feel. While still at heart a dark fantasy, this adventure is more grittily realistic than Batman's previous
outings, with stunts and effects that are mostly physical rather than computer generated. The fights are close and hard, although
in perhaps the most visually striking sequence Batman is reduced to a black blur in the midst of a crowd of toppling criminals.
The ever excellent Christian Bale manages to make Wayne seem a real, complex individual, while giving Batman a formidable
physical presence - the very opposite of Bale's previous, skeletal performance in The Machinist. He is well supported by an
excellent (and stellar) cast - most notably Michael Caine seemingly born to be Alfred, Gary Oldman for once getting to play
the nice guy, Cillian Murphy creepily nerdy, and Liam Neeson bringing a clever twist to his previous 'guru knight' roles in
The Phantom Menace and Kingdom of Heaven.
'Batman Begins' is emphatically concerned with retributive justice and the politics of fear - themes which have an inescapable
geopolitical resonance in a post-9/11 context. It is gratifying to see that Nolan's film depicts the morality of justice in
a manner that is anything but cartoonish. As Wayne struggles to do what is right, he is informed as much by the values of
the judicial system, of law enforcement and of patriarchal philanthropy (values embodied respectively by Rachel, Gordon and,
through Alfred, Wayne's own father) as he is by anger, fear and a desire for vengeance (an ideology represented by the fascistic
'League') - and so the film's dialogue, scripted by David S. Goyer, weaves an ongoing, highly nuanced argument about crime,
punishment, and the uses and and abuses of terror. It is inevitable that Wayne becomes an extra-judicial vigilante - for that
is the very core of his legend - but the film ends not on a celebratory note, but rather with dark mutterings about 'escalation',
and a suggestion (fulfilled by the films to which this stands as a chronological precursor, if not quite a prequel) that the
beginnings of Batman also mark the beginnings of a new, more dangerous sort of criminal, modelled on Batman's own underground
methods.
From this it is not difficult to unmask a multi-faceted commentary on America's current flouting of international law
in its War on Terror, and a subtle warning about what the consequences may be. Such serious and intelligent engagement with
the issues that darken our own times make 'Batman Begins' more than merely an entertaining blockbuster about a man in a cape.
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