Cinema Review - The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn

Director: Steven Spielberg

Starring: Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Daniel Craig

It has been much publicised that Tintin creator Herge insisted only Spielberg could direct a film about his much loved character. Through motion capture technology Spielberg has to an impressive extent recreated the feel and look of the comics. The film combines three of these comics to meld them in to a tale of treasure hunting and revenge that centres around the legacy of the captain of the sunken ship the Unicorn and his descendant, the drunkard Captain Haddock played by Serkis.

Tintin, as played by Bell, comes across as a vacuous character. This may well be intentional allowing any child to superimpose themselves on the blank canvas of Tintin to facilitate a sense of “that could me be, this could be my adventure.” This technique proved effective with the Bella character in the Twilight franchise. On the other hand it could be down to the technology. Serkis is a proven master of the motion capture acting and as always steals the show with the only performance that carries resonance. The other actors, including Nick Frost and Simon Pegg, seem to be unable to convey emotion with anything like the same intensity. The result is flat and leaves the audience not relating nor caring.

Where the film does well is Spielberg’s legendary handling of action set pieces. With this technology he is free from inhibitions of camera and actors allowing him to create an intricate motorbike chase in one shot. The sea battle also impresses as Spielberg defies logic and physics to have two ships spinning the other in a mighty tangle as sailors fight and canons  and sails blaze. 

This however is not enough to engage the audience. The adventure and mystery never draws you in. The macguffin is there in the form of the model ships that contains the next clues. The purpose of the mucguffin is meant to be so you care as much about finding the object as as you do for the heroes. The trouble is that Spielberg never conveys Tintin’s motivation beyond “here is another mystery to solve.” As such by the time they find the prize there is no sense of achievement in either Tintin or the audience. Indeed throughout the film Tintin does not undergo any change in his character arch. He is exactly the same inquisitive and perky young quiffed man as we found him. Even his Dog Snowy showed more of a dynamic character development and more innate skills at sniffing out a crime. 

A friend described the film as comparable to the rollercoaster ride that was Indianna Jones and the Temple of Doom. I see his point in that Tintin goes from set piece to set piece. However you cared for Indianna, you cared for the macguffin as the stones  represented saving the lives of enslaved children. The film had depth beyond the fun. Tintin has none.  To add to this there is never any real sense of jeaprody or risk to the heroes. You felt every punch Indianna took, not so with Tintin. Despite being in harms way he comes out unscathed, unchanged by the process and ready to do the next bit of adventuring. Tintin's adventure come across as a hazardous hobby, not a quest to save us from a dangerous enemy's diabolical plot. If he failed, who would care. I imagine not even Tintin. He would just stumble into another mystery.  

This is without doubt a Spielberg film. I wonder to what extent Jackson was involved as I did not sense his input as much as had wanted. The technology is definitely opening new doors to portray adventure, but if the audience has not been given enough emotion or insight into the characters, then it is all for nought. 

Rating: 6/10

Official Trailer:

 

Cinema Review - Real Steel

Director - Shawn Levy
Starring - Hugh Jackman, Evangeline Lilly, Dakota Goyo

Real Steel is a film in the robotic mould of a Rocky movie, but outside this metallic framework is that of a tale of father and son reconciliation. Levy uses the robots to symbolically and figuratively represent Jackman’s character, a failed boxer who would sooner sell his son for cash than face his responsibilities. Life has left him on the garbage heap. It is that same garbage heap that his son, played with likable enthusiasm by Goyo, revives an abandoned robot and in turn his relationship with his father.

The robot, Atom, is in every way the underdog, but despite his size he can take a beating. Jackman is the robot in every sense. As the father and son connect over the success of their fighting robot so too does Jackman’s confidence grow. His skills become the robots skills as their robot possesses a unique ability to shadow and learn from Jackman’s boxing expertise. As the film progresses, Jackman and his son reveal their robot’s innate value and in parallel Jackman’s own value as a fighter and a father is uncovered . He fights back against the odds and at the crunch point realises the real fight is to fight for his son.

As is expected the father son tale is played against the typical boxing scenario as seen in Rocky. The underdog rises to fight the colossal champion. The fights, which are choreographed by Sugar Ray Leonard, have a genuine sense of the sport behind the robots. The part CGI / part animatronics robots have the right sense of realism to make it credible to watch.

Real Steel is an enjoyable watch and as expected from Spielberg as Exec Producer the film as the production value and emotional resonance to make you want to invest in Jackman. Jackman is, as always, immensely watchable and turns a character, who under another actor’s control could be obnoxious to the point of audience disconnection, into a likeable rogue. Lilly is a pleasure to see acting again in the supporting role and gives a genuine barometer for the type of man Jackman is portraying. She aids in the sense that here is a man on the garbage heap and only a person who can see beyond would attempt to salvage him, just as she and his son do.

The boxer and his mechanical shadow overcome the odds and his own failings and its fun to go along on the ride.

Rating: 7/10

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Cinema Review - Warrior

Director - Gavin O'Connor

Starring - Joel Edgerton, Tom Hardy, Nick Nolte

To make a sporting movie that would hold up without the sports might seem an unlikely feat, but O’Connor has managed just this. The writing and the solid performances deliver a tale of a struggling blue collar family. Wonderfully crafted so it is intrinsically relatable we have two brothers, the older a science teacher, Edgerton, who is threatened with losing his home. The younger brother, Hardy, returns home from Iraq, angry and full of emotions barely contained. O’Connor sets them at odds with their recovering alcoholic father who had torn the family apart.

The brothers take their own journey towards the ultimate goal of a winner takes all Mixed Martial Arts contest. In Edgerton you have the controlled, resilient underdog. In Hardy there is the raw emotional and brutality of the dark horse. O’Connor amazingly makes you route for both brother’s equally so by the finale you are genuinely invested in the outcome. O’Connor uses the support cast to give Edgerton’s story arc backbone, while using snippets of information to divulge insight into Hardy’s past as a soldier and his reasons for fighting. But it is to the credit of the actors that fully realised and three dimensional characters are delivered. With few words Hardy conveys everything you need to fill in the blanks of this tormented man, his war trauma, his guilt. For both leads the characters personalities come through in the styles of fighting and the unison works wonders. The men appear to fight their personal demons in the cage, adding a greater depth to their drive to fight on and overcome. Nolte too gives a solid and memorable performance as the father seeking forgiveness. O’Connor’s use of an audio-book of Moby Dick gives resonance to a much darker past that haunts Nolte and drives his history of violence and alcoholism.

The fighting is visceral and believable. The action is caught in motion, feeling like you are at once in with the fighters, watching from the crowd and seeing the crowd’s reactions. Cutaways on moments of impact to show the stunned expression prove equally hard hitting.  

O’Connor controls what could be cliché or over sentimentalised to deliver a solid film where the audience is invested in the outcome. Most refreshing of all it that for a sport movie it is not about the winning, but is more concerned with the deeper theme of family reconciliation.

Rating: 9/10

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Cinema Review - Friends with Benefits

Director - Will Gluck

Starring - Justin Timberlake, Mila Kunis

The romcom genre is by nature a formulaic affair. Girl meets boy, chemistry, do they don’t they, yes they do. Friends with Benefits tries to play on the formula in a self aware style. The film and its characters both know the disappointments of chasing the fairytale of true love. The couple initiate a friendship that the co-stars Timberlake and Kunis do with humour and a good turn of chemistry. To avoid the hardships of chasing love the story has them turn against love, thus creating the premise of the anti-romcom. This is of course a red herring. The couple fall in love despite themselves and it is an enjoyable journey to follow them. 

The story exposes the characters flaws that inherently cause one person to connect deeper to another. The emotion that the couple attempt to remove from the relationship in favour of just sex, wins the day. Where the film does well is turning the conventions just a notch to show something reasonably fresh in a very clichéd genre. The film even mockingly plays on these clichés through a film within a film which Kunis as the diehard romcom fan finds herself aspiring to in her own lovelife.

Friends with Benefits paints an amusing yarn of finding love where the characters actively chose to deny it. Gluck keeps it raunchy (see poster for example of possibly most suggestive gesture to find itself on a London bus), self aware and when needed shows the baggage the characters carry without it being over sentimental. The message seems to be that love, if you can find it with the right person, is the ultimate friends with benefits. 

Rated: 8/10

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Cinema Review - Apollo 18

Director - Gonzalo López-Gallego
Starring - Warren Christie, Lloyd Owen, Ryan Robbins

Framed as leaked “found footage” from the era of space exploration in the 1970s, Apollo 18 is an attempt to out conspiracy the already rife conspiracy theories concerning the lunar landings. The trouble with framing something as being documentary style footage is you have to get the science right and be free from any loopholes that might break the audience out of the illusion. Apollo 18 falls short on this count. López-Gallego manages to recreate to a certain extent the lunar missions. Portrayed through the various cameras feeding live footage back to Earth we have a Big Brother style look into the doomed from the start space mission. The two man crew of the lunar lander also film themselves on 16mm cameras. Herein lies some of the flaws in the director’s logic. We need to get into the character’s perspective to relate. This is solely done through these 16mm cameras. They film themselves on the moon’s surface as well as personal records in the module. The rest is all caught on remote cameras, the audience being allowed to see the threat before the crew do, privy to the danger the Department of Defence has exposed them to. The live footage makes sense to have been documented; however the 16mm film rolls do not make it out, they share the crews dire fate. How then are we seeing the actions of the crew amidst this found footage? It makes no sense pulling any reasonably astute watcher beyond the line of suspension of disbelief.

It seems clear López-Gallego wants us to care about the cast. We need to care for the consipiracy theory to resonate. The story very directly harks into the era of Watergate where the powers that be cannot be trusted. But his illusion of found footage does not stand up at all well. Does the story really fail on this account? No. It’s actually fairly entertaining as it goes. The tension builds; the threat is revealed and played out. However the conspiracy theme and the documentary framing lend the film no real benefit and do not pay off. While there is reems of data on the films website to build the conspiracy it is not present enough on screen to sideline the notion we are victim to a none to subtle slight of hand.

What the film did do with the early footage was remind me why, as a child, I was so fascinated with space. It shows with sufficient realism what the actual Apollo astronauts did and how we as a planet reached for the stars. This is not history as it tries to suggest, but it is a reminder, to me at least, of how sad it is that we no longer pursue such epic destinations as the moon or beyond.

Rated: 6/10

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Video Games Review - Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Deus Ex: HR is a stylish, sophisticated and intelligent game that encourages the player to refrain from the linear style of gameplay that typically dictates on rails mentality of most current FPS. Here the player can opt to charge in guns blazing or sneak around  while discovering alternative ways in. You can be lethal or not, hack or not. There is no right or wrong way to go about it and no punishment for choosing your way. In this sense Deus Ex: HR embraces its RPG roots. You are in control, the story unravelling around you.

XP is rewarded for being curious, success at hacking and of course taking out the enemy. XP buys you Augs that grant some very useful, some very cosmetic improvements to your arsenal. These include punching through walls to being able to fall without harm. Other improvements allow better analytical skills during social engagements. You cannot unlock all the Augs so choices become crucial as you advance. Unlock hacking early for example, and you can open every door, read the emails of every computer and delve into the the rich backstory. Alternatively you can augment your exploratory skills with strong arms to move heavy objects, or jumping to get over other obstacles. If that's not enough, smash through a wall to get to where you want to go.

Exploration is a joy as is the hacking mini game. Sneaking is rewarding and systematically taking down all the mobs in a room takes time, observation and a lot of reloads in order to get the ghost and silent operative XP rewards. The only real flaw is the boss battles. They feel tideous and removes you from the excelently realised near future sci-fi world that has been created and remains you with a thud you are playing a video game.

For fans of the original, this will be a most rewarding experience. This is a game that is lived as much as it is played. Wonderful story telling, great characters and a joy to play.

Rating: 10/10

Cinema Review - Conan the Barbarian (2011)

Director: Marcus Nispel

Starring: Jason Momoa, Ron Perlman, Rose McGowan

Conan the Barbarian is born in war, a product of blood and steel. Thus the film should be a visceral, violent portrayal of a warrior set against the fantasy backdrop of Robert E. Howard’s Hyboria. What emerges on screen is a set of one dimensional characters placed in a world that feels half heatedly brought to life.

The film has been accused of being like viewing a video game. I would disagree. The nature of video games, particularly those of the fantasy and RPG genres, is immersion. There is no immersion here. We flit from place to place in a lame attempt to show the vastness of the world through a mediocre CGI backdrop of a castle or slave camp or pirate city. None are ever fully realised before Conan jaunts off somewhere else. The violence itself is the most disappointing. Nispel manages to create fight scenes that lack the kinetic quality of a dance. The camera is misplaced, the editing focusing on the wrong points. You never feel the hits, the power of the blows or Conan’s qualities as a warrior. It feels clumsy.

 There are more grunts and warcrys than lines of dialogue and those spoken feel like the actors are running them in rehearsal for the first time. There is no commitment to the lines so again the audience fails to immerse in their characters. McGowen in contrast overly plays the sorcerer.

Given this is a reboot, the film does not feel fresh, but instead feels dated. It’s almost as though Nispel wanted it to feel like the 1982 version, but taking only the worst qualities and none of the charm.  Conan reinforces the assertion of refraining from producing reboots where there is nothing original the writers or director bring to the table. Conan is a stale rehash that will offer no reward to its audience. 

Rating 4/10

Official Trailer