Daybreakers

It’s always a pleasant surprise when a movie you have little prior expectation for turns out better than anticipated. Invariably this doesn’t happen often but Daybreakers managed this feat. The set-up: in the near-future the world has become populated by vampires (explained briefly as a disease that spread) and what humans are left are farmed for their blood – only the humans are dwindling and blood is scarce and this spells desperate times for the plight of vampire kind.



Ethan Hawke, as vampire hematologist Edward Dalton, is bent on trying to find a substitute for blood so that his kind no longer need to feed on humans. Idealistically he believes that such a substitute would mean the end of human suffering, but the man he works for (Charles Bromley – Sam Neill in megalomaniac mode) may have other ideas – believing that vampires are a progressive step forward in evolution and also aware that no substitute can compare to the real thing and, for the right price, vampires will pay for as much.



The realization of a vampire world is one of Daybreakers’ strongest elements. The opening credits display daytime views of an apparently abandoned world that, by night, comes to bustling neon life. Vampires commuting, buying blood coffees from their underground train stations alongside advertisements for whiter fangs. There are neat details and riffs on the world we know turned askew that keep your eyes busy when the acting and action front and centre of the screen isn’t altogether captivating.

It’s curious how Daybreakers is a movie crammed with invention, grand ideas and lavish atmosphere and can still feel a little stilted. Even the action beats and jump-scares (of which there are a few moments certain to jolt your popcorn out of your lap) don’t give proceedings enough of a pulse to sustain vitality. Potentially Ethan Hawke’s rather dreary do-gooder protagonist is at fault; in the movie he takes a stance, appalled by human suffering and unwilling to drink blood – but clearly being a vampire for quite some time means he has to have been glugging down the red stuff at some point, so what changed?

Dalton’s humanitarian streak finds him hooking up with a small band of humans determined to put into effect the apparent cure that may be housed in one of them. Amongst the group Willem Dafoe’s Lionel ‘Elvis’ Cormac, who is perhaps too large a character for this movie but he at least injects some much-needed humour, are fighting the fight, hoping some human-sympathisers like Dalton will turn the tide in their favour.



As stated, Daybreakers is a movie loaded with ideas. From the intricacies of a functioning vampire society (cars designed to filter out sunshine, homes with artificial light sources), to the development and threat of ‘subsiders’ (vampires that have been denied blood, or have drank their own). . .



. . . as well as the larger ideas of evolution and what it means for a race of beings that live forever, locked at the same age, permanently. There’s probably enough in it to create a rich TV series, but here proceedings are condensed (though not too formulaically) into a structured plot with few sidetracks, save for a subplot between Sam Neill’s Bromley and his daughter that refuses to accept vampirism. That whole diversion should have hit the cutting room floor.

Daybreakers certainly packs its gory moments, also. Directors The Spierig Brothers not afraid to let the blood gush, flesh tear and body parts fly. Between the gore and the jump-shocks we are rooted in a horror staple, but it’s never scary and, with the stylized environment and Hawke’s naval-gazing, it’s not typical of the genre, which is what keeps the film interesting and yet also tempers the effect. Under the hot glare of daylight, Daybreakers is a film that bites off more than it can chew but somehow manages to swallow it all down. I’ll B positive rather than A negative, but more could have been sucked out of this rich vein for sure.

Up In The Air

In the light of the current economic downtown, with redundancies and downsizing on the increase, Up In The Air could not have landed at a more pertinent time. Originally conceived as a brighter and breezier movie, the recent change and social mood saw the matter of people losing their jobs taken more seriously, treated quite rightly as the devastating blow to esteem and livelihood that it is. Enter George Clooney as Ryan Bingham.



Ryan’s job is to fly across America on behalf of employers to sit down with employees and break the news to them that they are being let go. Armed with a packet of helpful material and a ready stock of phrases and affectations to ease the recently-redundant’s ‘transition period’ - he is a happy man doing soul-destroying work, chiefly because it allows him to travel. As is revealed early, by voice-over and snappily-edited montages, Ryan loves to fly – he has all the perks and advantages of frequent-flyer loyalty and, with every trip, he inches closer to his dream of clocking up enough air miles to join an elite group to have ever flown as much.

With his life spent on ‘the road’ Ryan takes pleasure in how much he doesn't spend time at home (home being a sparse, small place that feels little different to a hotel room). No wife. No family. No intentions to ever change. He has found purpose in his lonely existence, but the introduction of two women into his life is set to potentially change his perspective entirely.



Anna Kendrick as Natalie is a young high-flyer, new to the company with plans to introduce online elements to Ryan’s role. No more flying across the country – all terminations are to be handled from a computer terminal call centre operation. The soullessness horrifies Ryan and he takes Natalie on the road with him, to show her the value in what he does (and, naturally, try to stave off the very real threat of himself becoming redundant).

Travelling he also meets with Alex – an apparently like-minded woman played by Vera Farmiga, enthralled by membership cards and status upgrades, she is like Ryan’s female counterpart and, where their schedules allow, they meet up for sex and companionship and, potentially, burgeoning love.



All three central performances are strong and, as the film inherently relies upon them, this was necessary. Anna Kendrick toes a fine line between naïvete and calculated ambition to invest Natalie with a likable personality underneath a conditioned inhumanity. She isn’t a bad person, she has, like Ryan, inured herself to real life in pursuit of a sky blue dream of the future at the expense of the present. And Vera Farmiga retains a wily vulnerability – apparently able to beat Ryan at his level but retaining the impression that there’s more about her than she’s initially willing to divulge - she packs at least one good surprise waiting to be sprung.

But really this is George Clooney’s movie and it’s a fine performance. Naturally dripping with charisma and crocodile suave, it’s a tone Clooney can telephone in. It’s the soul beneath, the person Ryan has buried and ignored whilst looking at the clouds, that really resonates. The interplay between Natalie and Ryan, as she questions and attacks his lifestyle, are very well-done and, slowly, steadily, his composure is eroded. Ryan’s expression when his sister has elected her father-in-law rather than him to walk her up the aisle is a gulp of sadness suppressed and is nicely observed.



There are cameo roles by well-known actors playing those hearing the news of their termination nestled amongst performances from genuine people that had been recently made redundant. It’s their voices and the look in their eyes that haunt proceedings. Ryan and Natalie turning up to an office already decimated with vacant tables to make further cuts is a startling indictment to the daunting effect they have. It’s difficult to imagine, even in the most prosperous of times, how Up In The Air could have been light and ticklish, but in the here and now it garners genuine impact and dramatic weight amongst the smirks and smart lines.

The movie’s message actually feels more profound than it really is. It’s no revelation that a life spent facing away from human contact and intimacy will foster a hollow existence. Yet Clooney’s Ryan Bingham manages, by the end, to dodge the well-worn path you figure his character is destined to tread and instead transcend to a more symbolic level. Forever to become the twinkling blink of an aeroplane light in the night sky, Ryan up in the air may be someone you have to look up to see, but he isn’t someone to look up to.

The Road

In the end, not much happens. There is a man (Viggo Mortenson) and his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee), journeying together several years after the world has come to an end. The film never explains the apocalypse – we only see the result; wasteland, empty husks of buildings, trees cracking and splintering as the last vestiges of vigour depart. Food is scarce. The human race has turned cannibal or treacherous. And through this The Man and Boy walk onward, heading to the coast.



It’s grim. It’s depressing. It’s harrowing. This is a long way away from a special-effect laden blockbuster version of the end of the world. There are no happy endings. Indeed, ironically, alongside the whole world ending there is no real ending at all. It is this factor that will dictate whether you take to The Road or otherwise.

Viggo Mortensen gives an amazing performance as The Man (never formally named). In brief flashbacks we are given insight into his dwindling last years with his wife (Charlize Theron – does much with scant screentime) for what drove him on ‘the road’ and what drives him on. His protective resourceful qualities (at the first instance of imminent catastrophe he runs a bath, conserving water he knows he’ll need) nestle nicely alongside an all too human fragility (he pleads with his wife for one more night or, more powerfully, steals away from his son to double-over and break down in despairing tears).



I can recommend The Road very much on the basis of seeing Mortensen’s performance. If there’s any justice he’ll be awards-nominated at least. Kodi Smit-McPhee as The Boy is less impressive. There’s a cloying neediness about him that didn’t sit right with me. Being born after the apocalypse and knowing nothing else would surely have hardened him, no? Maybe that was the point. That The Man was so protective to maintain The Boy’s innocence and goodness. It works, on that level, but doesn’t detract from the character being somewhat of a whiny nuisance.

I can recommend The Road for director John Hillcoat’s unsparing vision made real. He captures desolation brilliantly; the sense of hopeless cold is overwhelming to the point of exhausting. The Road is all atmosphere and bleak depiction, with the occasional thrilling interlude that Hillcoat handles adroitly. Take the scene with The Man and Boy cautiously scouting out a mansion and the unfussy, clutching terror generated from a horrifying discovery in the basement – other movies may have eked it out; here the sequence lasts a minute and then moves on, hanging around only in your head as you realise just how much was packed in.



The Road definitely feels like a film of sterling quality, but there’s no escaping the confines of a plot that goes nowhere, since there isn’t one, and is thus replaced by episodes of events that are all of the same world but not interconnected. A cameo actor will turn up, then never be met or mentioned again. Maybe this makes it more ‘realistic’, but as a film-audience conditioned on narrative it’s a hard adjustment to go along with. Like a brittle leaf in a bitter wind waiting to come to rest to crumble.

The set-up lends itself to some form of allegorical interpretation (as do most apocalyptic movies – consider Romero’s living dead films and their satirical standpoints, for example). The Man and The Boy, travelling across a dangerous dying land, carrying ‘the flame’ of humanity in their beliefs of being “the good guys” despite the atrocities and adversity before them – all manner of analogy, from religious persecution to Western civilisation, can be applied. Perhaps it’s just an extreme observation of the trials of being a good father and role model for a son. Equally, of course, no analogy can be applied. Like I said at the start: in the end, not much happens.



What you feel about The Road is best answered by the question of what’s most important to you: the journey, or the destination? It is a hell of a trip, that’s for sure. A hell of a trip.

Sherlock Holmes

For many the abiding image of Sherlock Holmes is of the deerstalker hat and pipe; an old man with a fiendish streak of logic solving Victorian murder mysteries. Whilst Guy Ritchie’s take on this iconic character retains some of these qualities there is much more freshness, youth and exuberance around this Sherlock Holmes.



Robert Downey Jnr takes on the mantle of Sherlock Holmes with a successful panache. Talking lightning-quick, with darting eyes, physical prowess and a contemptible smugness, his Holmes is a hero with super-smarts, and played as such. Likewise, Dr. Watson, previously brought to life as a fusty, flabby sidekick is here personified by Jude Law – dutiful but capable and with a longing for independence from Holmes.

Indeed, the interplay between Holmes and Watson is very much the fulcrum of the movie. They bicker and squabble pettily – Watson declaring he has investigated his last case with Holmes and plans to move out to live with his fiancée. . . Holmes, subtly displaying absolute dependence on his partner, tries every trick he knows to maintain Watson’s interest and keep him around.



Luckily, then, there is a massive case for them to both sink their intellectual teeth into, as well as find themselves in numerous punch-ups and close scrapes amongst all the leftfield sleuthing. Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong – impressively foreboding, though somewhat one-note) has the age-old desire to rule the world by manipulating the controlling echelons of society into doing his bidding by fear. Having somehow apparently risen from the dead, murders are occurring and black magic is gripping the minds of Londoners into a state of panic.

And somewhere, amidst all this, is the enigmatic future-nemesis of Holmes, Professor Moriarty; his cloaked figure pulling strings to his own ends, utilising Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams, pretty much wasted here), Holmes’ ex-flame and criminal entity all onto her own to further confuse things.



There’s a lot going on in Sherlock Holmes, and that’s not necessarily a good thing. The film’s first half works well in keeping things brisk and entertaining, but the second half is saddled with the business of exposition and intrigue. Secret societies and clues around dissected frogs and strange plants all build up pieces and parts of the larger puzzle – but it’s not the kind an audience can be expected to ever fathom for themselves such is the obscurity of the finished picture. As such the film becomes an exercise in waiting to see it all unfurl and that breeds impatience.

Instead the film’s strength lies in the central pairing of Holmes and Watson. Jude Law, especially, does a fine job managing to shrug off that generally irritating quality he usually possesses to portray a Watson of dignity and repose with a giddy childish humour bubbling under the surface.

Guy Ritchie brings about action licks that will be familiar to anyone who has seen some of his other films. Holmes in a bareknuckle fight brings about memories of Brad Pitt slugging it out in Snatch, for example. And there are numerous moments of Ritche’s trademark slow-motion; Holmes’ own mental foresight of how he plans to stage a physical attack, unleashed in real time as he performs it. Nice touches, yes, but somehow this didn’t sit too well against the brilliantly-realised Victorian London. In its scenery and hustle and bustle, the London of Sherlock Holmes is one I would have happily allowed the camera to roam around and explore without the undue burden of plot and mystery.

Sherlock Holmes, particularly in the use of the shadow Moriarty, is a movie that is geared towards further instalments. Personally I would have liked a more standalone approach. Give us a self-contained set-up mystery and conclusion that shows off the legendary wit and logic of Holmes. On this the movie falls short, but there’s promise that future films might be able to develop both character and mythology further. Elementary, then, that the franchise is afoot.

Avatar 3D

So this was the big one. The movie that was going to usher in a new precedent in three-dimensional cinema. I figured it was only right and proper that I treated myself to the full experience, and so went to see Avatar in IMAX, in 3D. I’ll say upfront that I wasn’t disappointed.

Avatar tells a story of a wheelchair-bound marine, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), who finds himself recruited for a mission on the distant moon of Pandora. This moon holds a precious material that Earth, described as a depleted and dying world, requires. The only hitch is that Pandora is inhabited by the Na’vi – a race of ten-foot tall, blue people in tune with nature and harmony. Jake, in his ‘avatar’ that replicates the Na’vi species so he can live amongst them, is sent to try and get them to relocate so this resource can be mined. If they are unwilling, the military will force them out.

Whilst not a bad story, it’s not an original one. Fusing Pocahontas with Dances With Wolves, Jake Sully’s conversion from outsider to member of the tribe is a familiar narrative. His mentor is Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), a warrior princess who is charged with coaching the ‘idiot’ Sully the ways of the Na’vi. Through their blossoming love, Jake comes to understand Pandora and so, when the military come to claim their prize with brute force, he stands against his people.



It’s unfair to claim Avatar has a weak story. Unoriginal, yes, but still highly-engaging. The romance and relationship between Jake and Neytiri manages to dodge clichés well enough. Worthington’s cocksure but good-hearted Sully is a lively and worthy foil to Saldana’s assuredly passionate Neytiri. Perhaps the big surprise about her is not that you’ll struggle to find a ten-foot tall blue woman believable, it’s that you’ll struggle to rationalise why she’s so likable (and, for the guys, so fanciable!).



The other Na’vi characters are less well-served by depth, generally conforming to stereotypes and one-dimensional attributes despite their well-realised form on-screen. The humans have a ragtag band of supporting characters. Sigourney Weaver’s Grace is a Na’vi enthusiast and her initial bickering with Sully turning to caring respect is a nice supplement. Better is Stephen Lang as the villainous Quaritch. One hundred per cent a military man, he is utterly detestable as he delights in death and destruction, irreconcilable to peace to the last. You will hate him, passionately, and I mean that as a compliment.

The plot could have been practically serviceable to the effects which are, make no mistake, astounding. Sully’s, and our, first foray into Pandora is an enveloping journey. We land in the lush, dense jungle – the 3D foliage dripping with bioluminescence, the surround sound of chirruping life everywhere. James Cameron has spent a lot of time and energy in making Pandora look and feel like a real ecosystem, and the result is one of genuinely visiting an alien world. It’s really hard to describe the immersion. It’s best to state that any concerns that it might appear like a cartoon, or a nauseous CGI overload, are put to rest. The computer generated characters are so compelling you’ll quickly forget to even question it and instead gawp and gasp at every new exploration rolled out before your eyes.

Cameron doesn’t skimp on action sequences, but the film is not an action film. This is perhaps what makes the bursts of excitement more enthralling, and it’s the slight touches that separate Cameron from a mundane hack director. Check out Sully, in slow-motion, gripped in the jaws of a beast by his backpack, unclip himself free and escape as an example of the deft attention to detail.

The grandstanding final battle brings the shock and awe. I did feel like the scale could have felt bigger. We are told of thousands of Na’vi readied for war, yet those numbers don’t seem to translate on-screen. It’s arguable that the sequences were simply kept to the main characters we know, of course, so it’s a trifling criticism (and one that seems particularly mealy-mouthed in the face of an extended action sequence so outstanding).

So it lived up to the hype. The 3D effects lived up to the hype. The surprise about Avatar is there turned out to be a good film buried beneath the CGI. Less sentimental and mawkish than I feared, it makes indiscrete parallels with the war on Iraq without resorting to soapbox moralising which work far better. Avatar is a film you’ll see and discuss in terms of something you experienced, and Pandora will feel like a place you went to. I went. I saw. I thought it was something special.

The Box

I’ve got a soft spot for an intriguing premise. Movies that take a crazy notion, or a high-concept, or a grand idea tend to get my attention. Trouble is that many of these movies fail to back-up the intrigue with sufficient payoff. For every Moon that gets it right there’s a The Forgotten to make a mess of things. Enter The Box, with its intriguing premise: a couple are given a box, within which is a button. They are given 24 hours and told if they push the button someone they don’t know will die, but they will receive a million dollars. Question is: would you push the button?



The question for the movie, of course, is not whether they will push the button (you know before going in they will, otherwise there’s no movie). It’s what happens when they do, and where the narrative goes from there. The ‘they’ in question are young couple Arthur (James Marsden) and Norma (Cameron Diaz). Hardly an ideal couple (Arthur fails to land his dream job due to psychological problems with his test scores, and Norma has a disfigured foot and a teaching tenure set to expire) they aren’t particularly the type that badly need some money, which in some ways makes their decision to push the button harder to ratify. Considering where the plot goes, however, that was probably the point.



I’d be spoiling things to elaborate on where the plot does go, mind, and yet it hardly feels like a dis-service because, in all honesty, having seen it all there’s still a great deal of it that doesn’t make any sense, and therein lies my big problem with The Box. Writer and director Richard Kelly is most famous for Donnie Darko; that movie fused mystery and obliqueness into a poetic piece from which you could draw your own conclusions. (Perhaps significantly, the ‘director’s cut’ reduced this beauty – a telling sign that Kelly’s directorial judgement isn’t quite as on the nose as it could be.)

There’s a lot The Box, and Richard Kelly, get right. Setting the film in the 70s opens the door to some garish wallpaper that bring to mind the nauseous décor of The Shining. Frank Langella, as the initially creepy introducer of ‘the box’ Arlington Steward, with ‘can’t take your eyes off it’ facial burning, carries an eerie measure he totally commands. And this eeriness extends to various zombie-like people, watching and smiling and provoking reactions, that all add up to the sense of mystery and deeper layers to be uncovered.



The trouble is The Box has grand ideas tucked away, but I’m not altogether sure they stack up and are as clever as Kelly may think. Furthermore, as if to try and make the movie profound, scenes and sequences merge and cut in such way as to confuse and confound. A lead character is in a truck crash one moment only to emerge walking out of a hangar the next, apparently neither confused and with no explanation as to how it happened. There’s a fine line between oblique poetry and frustrating irritation in movieland, and The Box crashes right over the boundary.

Ultimately The Box is a slightly patronising morality-tale about materialism. If we’re supposed to be horrified by, or sympathise with, Arthur and Norma the end effect is actually one of disengagement. Not through fault of Diaz or Marsden, who work well with difficult tones, rather the film itself proving maddeningly unenjoyable. An audience asking questions is engaged, but an audience rolling their eyes in bewilderment at the answers is simply annoyed. The Box, like the box in the film, ultimately appears to be an empty vessel – only one that’s utterly full of itself.

Paranormal Activity

The larger spectre hanging around this film is not the demonic presence that terrorises couple Katie Featherstone and Micah Sloat (actors playing characters with the same names) but The Blair Witch Project to which it will invariably be compared and contrasted against. Both use 'found footage', amateur, proposing to be real. Both are mired in horror, low-key and low-fi. And both were made on a tiny budget and have proved major box office successes.



Paranormal Activity doesn't go out in the woods, however (in fact only twice does the camera ever venture outside) to find its chills. This supernatural scarer is taking place indoors, in the home of Katie and Micah, a mostly-likable young couple who are finding a spirit that Katie feels has plagued her since she was 8 years old is starting to become more pronounced.

The execution is the key here. With the scary stuff tending to only happen at nights, the film kicks in a rhythm of daytime discussion about what's happening (a psychic comes round, Micah reviews sounds and video from the previous night, Katie freaks out more and more) and then goes to a mounted, still camera shot of the bedroom for the increasingly-dramatic night time encounters.



It's an effective style, genuinely instilling a sense of foreboding the moment the titles announce the date of the night the next scene is about to show. During the long, one-shot takes the audience scan every corner of the screen (particularly keeping an eye on that always-open (why!?) door on the left and the dark hallway) to see what, if anything, may emerge as Katie and Micah sleep, prone and helpless.

Being made on a shoestring budget it's no surprose that Paranormal Activity takes the less-is-more approach. Sound works hard here to deliver the thumping shocks, and the presence of the demon is provided by its own unique humming dread. For it is a demon we are dealing with here - a point the psychic makes that causes him to wash his hands of the couple in fear and try to pass them on to another expert that, potentially, might be able to aid Micah and Katie, if only they could get hold of him. . .

The performances of Micah and Katie are very natural. Much of their dialogue was encouraged to be improvised and, whilst they do seem to be an unlikely fit, they work well together. Micah is the cynical, and almost excitable, foil to Katie's constant fearful fretting. She also displays a fine pair of lungs - in the sense of some despairful screaming (particularly towards the climax) and in her physical display. Crude, I know, but those vest tops she tends to always wear make her very easy on the male eye during the non-paranormal activity scenes that make up the bulk of the film.



Unfortunately I didn't quite get on board with Paranormal Activity. Perhaps the 'amateur footage' angle doesn't hit audiences the way it did like when The Blair Witch Project jerkily landed in multiplexes. I found myself objectively watching, like Micah's clinical camera dispassionately watched events; I never got sucked in to the real happenings. And whilst the gradual rising escalation worked well, the actual finish seemed to come to soon. I felt like there was more to go, more terrors to be truly eked out, and more mythology and backstory to be explained (or at least poured out to be picked over afterwards). The ending was a surprise package in that it delivers an effective conclusion (not as good as Blair Witch's face to the wall final image, mind) but it's the sudden execution that most astounds. Steven Spielberg came up with it, so the story goes. That might explain the slightly too-neat hokey feel it betrays against all that went before.

It's a shame, really. I admire this novel method of film-making, and I really wanted to believe the hype and watch a movie that would genuinely haunt my thoughts in the middle of the night. There were good ideas, and a great premise - it just wasn't as super with it's natural style to deliver the horror that buries deep in the psyche. Not so harsh as to consider it paranormal inactivity, but maybe just a bit too normal to make its mark as something special.

Harry Brown

Michael Caine is Harry Brown. It states it on the opening credits. I don’t know why, but the two names together feel like a film that’s already been made. As though ‘Harry Brown’ is already an existing Michael Caine character from another film, being revisited here. That’s not the case, mind! This Harry Brown sees Caine as a retired marine, widowed and lonely, living on a gloomy block of flats becoming increasingly terrorised by the yob youths peddling drugs, sex and violence constantly. When Harry Brown’s one and only friend becomes a dead victim from these gangs it’s the final push over the edge – violent retribution follows.



Harry Brown is very much almost an archetypal avenging angel story seen countless times before, but here it’s given a gritty bite with a firm injection of current British fear culture. In an age where ‘hoodies’ dominate headlines for the latest act of senseless violence, the modern era is a climate of helpless cowed people locked indoors and hoping the baying, braying youths on the streets leave them alone. Harry Brown takes these notions and heightens them; the graffiti-strewn walls of the estate viewed only in autumnal bitter grey daylight or streetlight-orange illumination engulfed by dark shadows. It’s cold and it rains. Life is harsh and dangerous out there.



This heightened feel is perhaps best emphasised in an extended sequence where Harry goes to buy a gun from a local scumbag drug dealer. Stepping in through the door it’s as though Harry has crossed over into a hellish underworld; pounding music, sexual abuse and a constant menace overseen by the pale, subterranean-like evil dealer.

As is usually the case in these types of films, law enforcement are largely ineffectual. Their well-meaning face is encapsulated in Emily Mortimer’s detective Frampton. Curiously suggestive of a backstory we are not privileged to learn of (we are told she requested a transfer to this squalid department though never hear why), Mortimer’s performance is suitably earnest yet weak. She is not the police you can depend on to save you in an emergency, which is where Harry Brown steps in.



Michael Caine as Harry Brown is a great role. For most other actors it could have been a signature performance, but Caine has crafted too many indelible characters into movie-goers' psyche for that to bear out. Harry Brown just has to be added to the long list of fine work. His character almost dodges the accusation of being slightly too efficient when he turns his hand to meting out death and justice to those who he perceives as deserving punishment, though a subway scene with a garrotted-victim used as bait to lure out his targets feels a little too farfetched in this generally brutally realistic piece.



Director Daniel Barber does a fine effort in making the world feel real. Beginning with two jarring sequences captured on mobile phones by the leering youths themselves – the second of which, featuring a motorbike and a gun are absolutely shocking – there is belief that this is all uncomfortably close to home. The foul-mouthed young men are unstoppable and unable to be bargained or reasoned with. As one detective remarks, upon hearing Harry Brown may be on a crusade of death against them, killing them off is actually doing a favour for society – and as an audience we are complicit in feeling that same sense of righteousness.

Only an out-of-place optimism at the close does the film feel slightly false, though it’s an understandable leniency after the sheer force and grim violence of the two hours that had proceeded it. If you lived in this world and hoped for something better, you’d hope Harry Brown was there with you. It’s certainly a better place for cinemas that Harry Brown is there to be seen.

2012

2012. That’s when the word will end. “The Mayans knew about it,” apparently. They knew that the sun would send out an extra burst of neutrinos that would serve as a giant microwave that would heat up our planet from the inside and dislodge continents. Luckily a few scientists have seen what’s coming as well, and so the world’s governments have to unite and somehow provision for how they save themselves.



Good scientific sense takes a backseat here. Director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow) only needs a good enough reason that plays on the screen to serve as an excuse for the end of the world. With his scientist (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and politician (Oliver Platt) and president (Danny Glover) all in place to depict the high-ranking, official response to the crisis all that’s left is to focus on a group of smaller characters that we can live through the disaster at eye-level with. Enter John Cusack as low-selling author and chauffeur Jackson Curtis.



A divorced father of two, Curtis unwittingly finds himself ahead of the curve of the majority of humanity in understanding the imminent danger and so sets about saving his children, his estranged wife and her new man on a race against time across crumbling cities, volcanic parks and mountainous tundra seeking out mythical ships that may or may not exist as the last refuge of humanity.

John Cusack’s charming capacity for zany and dry characters is rather wasted here in a role that really only calls for moving from point A to point B, looking wide-eyed at whatever is occurring around him whilst not coming across as too big of an idiot so audiences can respect him. In that sense he manages it, but you get the feeling plenty of others may have been more suited. Likewise Chiwetel Ejiorfor’s scientist is called upon to be humane, Oliver Platt’s politician ruthless, Danny Glover’s President stoic and his daughter, Thandie Newton, to be gorgeous and, well, also humane. She’s Chiwetel Ejifor’s love interest so it’s reasonable that they be cut from the same cloth!

I’ll leave it to anyone that sees it to puzzle over Woody Harrelson’s demented appearance.

An actor’s actor piece this is not, then, as the special effects take centre stage and thrills and spills hog the glory. For the first third, especially, this is undoubtedly true. A limo racing over crumbling streets, through collapsing buildings, swerving around all manner of flying debris is astounding. Same goes for a similar chase only airborne, in a small plane. That genuine excitement is generated through these storms of CGI is to the film’s credit.



The overlong running time undoes much of the momentum. An implausible hookup with a Russian billionaire and his family drags the film’s second-third down, and there’s unnecessary sidetracks aboard a luxury liner with certain character’s peripheral family. There’s only so much disaster, only so many looming tidal waves or fissured cracks you can take before it starts becoming tiresome.



And yet there’s something lovable about 2012. Stupid and lumbering as it is, overly-sentimental and jarringly naïve (although the script does find time to poke fun at itself on this point, with Curtis muttering about his book being stung by the same criticism), it’s still mostly good, and worth seeing to the finish. It manages to avoid the regular problem disaster movies have (the first half build-up and release of devastation isn’t able to be followed by a compelling climax) and it functions as a bloated but crowd-pleasing special-effects extravaganza. Plenty of armageddon, just could have done with a little more armageddonwithit!

A Christmas Carol 3D

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is a story that requires little introduction. It’s a story that’s been interpreted on screen through traditional live action, to cartoons to muppets. And so up steps Robert Zemeckis, following on from his 3D CGI forays of The Polar Express and Beowulf, to take a run at this classic festive tale in his preferred medium.

Robert Zemeckis doesn’t use straight CGI (such as Pixar), rather he uses motion capture that requires his actors to deliver performances that are then stored in computer, overlaid with new cosmetics and delivered all-singing and dancing to the big screen. Jim Carrey here takes on the main role of Scrooge, but is also on duty as the ghosts of Christmas Past and Present, as well as other roles.



It’s a curious style. Jim Carrey is mostly recognisable as Scrooge and delivers a clipped, sneering performance of this most famous of characters. Personally I thought the part was a little under-nourished. His transformation from miserly to generosity is the crux of the story, yet Scrooge here seems to turn around and be open to change from as early as the first ghostly visitation. Frankly, you get the feeling that Scrooge would have been amenable for changing his ways after he had been shown Christmas pasts and they needn’t have bothered going the whole hog with Christmas present and future.

Whilst Carrey certainly takes his lion’s share of the parts he is not alone; Gary Oldman does good work in multiple roles as Bob Cratchett and Jacob Marley, but this is counterbalanced by the likes of Colin Firth and Bob Hoskins who, through know fault of their own, appear on screen as malformed versions of the person you recognise that is more jarring than entertaining.

The real issue with this version of A Christmas Carol is that the 3D CGI thrills and spills of it all are both its biggest draw and biggest drawback. It is, in effect, a display of style over substance. Narrative and character are pencilled in, joining the dots, between the next swooping rush over chimney rooftops, through trees in fields of white snow, even down drainpipes serving as bizarre waterslides.



Zemeckis can take credit for producing a genuinely amazing-looking effect. An early opening sweep over Victorian London, with snow falling in layered depth whilst a boundless ‘camera’ peeks through windows and skirts up close to various people is giddily fantastic. At one point I turned to Mrs. Comet as she turned to me and, with our big 3D glasses on, we grinned at the experience of it.

As a film, in terms of character, script and narrative momentum this version of A Christmas Carol, whilst striving to remain true to the book, doesn’t pack the magic other versions have mustered. The plight of Tiny Tim didn’t strike a chord with me, nor the lost love of Scrooge’s past. It was almost like the film took for granted its audience’s no-doubt familiarity with the tale and so didn’t bother trying to explain every nuance of the story.

But, as a big-screen 3D experience, with its state-of-the-art visuals and menacing scares that will give many a child a scary (but not too scary) time, I can certainly recommend it. Making it a Christmas treat for yourself and your loved ones, making an event of it, that I can endorse. But for any other kind of viewing I say. . . predictably. . . bah humbug!