"OH NO! A BAD MOVIE!"

If you were expecting a great film, you’ll be disappointed. It’s far from great. If you’re a fan of the Pegg-Frost combo, you’ll probably be expecting an exceptional comedy, along the lines of Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz. You’ll also leave disappointed. This is a great shame; Paul had the potential to be an excellent film.

So what went wrong? The premise is OK – two geeks from England tour Sci-Fi/Alien landing sites in the US in an RV but encounter a lovable alien (the eponymous lead) and embark on a cat and mouse adventure to get Paul to safety. The film stumbles over its poor plot, hit & miss jokes and a terrible love-interest side plot. Oh, and a lot of the jokes that miss the most seem to be easy homophobic rubbish: “Oh two men travelling in a camper, what are you guys? Some kind of gay?.” Ho. Ho. Ho. Throw on the fire some really bad and facile creationism humour – “let’s deconstruct the design argument for the existence of God in 5 seconds guys” – and you’re left with a Beavis and Butthead Do America and Dude, Where’s My Car? combo, lacking the humour of the former and resembling the latter far too much.

Rating: ★★★★★★½☆☆☆ 

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Suprisingly not about S&M Fetishism

As you can probably tell from the poster (left), this film is a little confused. An “homage” to Kato? Perhaps. A little too much leather? Definitely. The poster is emblematic of the problems in the film; it’s a confused mess, lurching from historical drama to comedic superhero fantasy. The film suffers as a result.

If you’re a fan of good old Chinese and Hong Kong martial arts movies, you’ll have encountered the fictional character of Chen Zhen. Bruce Lee was Chen Zhen in Fist of Fury, Jet Li in Fist of Legend (and his real master in Huo YuanJia/Fearless). Donnie Yen takes up the reins to go beyond the traditional semi-historical narrative to explore what might have happened if Chen Zhen survived.

We see Chen Zhen go from First World War hero – and this is something we’ll explore in a moment – to Shanghai dandy-by-day leather-clad chauffeurtastic superhero-by-night who fights against the one-dimensional Japanese with the aim of Chinese unity in mind. The attempt to replicate the martial arts narrative of the traditional story – Japanese sensei does something horrible while the Japanese are oppressing the Chinese and Chinese martial arts superstar overcomes adversity to defeat the Sensei and his students – falls somewhat flat. Sideplot elements like the band-of-brothers camaraderie between Chen and his war friends, the nods to current Chinese political trends and the love-interest side plot that rather clumsily try to paint a sympathetic picture of a double agent do not meet their full potential but are at least attempts to present a sophisticated multiple-threaded narrative. It is promising for future martial arts films.

It then ruins the promise it does have with its clumsy attempts at comedy and turning Chen Zhen into a Scarlet Pimpernel figure decked out in what is quite obviously a reference to the Green Hornet’s Kato. It’s really not necessary. A nod to The Iron Monkey would have been somewhat less embarrassing for all involved.

The film’s most interesting facet is its dig at Western nations for the lack of recognition of the role of the Chinese in the First World War. This is certainly something that needs much more than a footnote in school curricula and I was glad to see the first 15 or 20 minutes dedicated to a First World War scenario.

If you’re interested in the genre, it’s worth a watch. If, however, you’re not interested in martial arts or Chinese films, this film is probably something you’ll want to pass by.

Rating: ★★★★★½☆☆☆☆ 

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About four months ago I was invited to watch a long preview of James Cameron‘s hugely expensive ‘Avatar’. I predicted it would be ‘Pocahontas in Space’. I continued:

Civilised-but-crippled (just physically?) white man gets out of his depth in an alien world, has his life saved by a native woman (with a strange accent!), slowly assimilates into their culture and way of living managing inexplicably to better the natives at their own way of life before, for some reason, the white civilised culture (with token ethnic characters) tries to ‘save’ or attempts to eradicate the native population.  

It turns out I was exactly right. If you’re looking for a highly-original plot, Avatar’s not the film for you. But then Cameron’s speciality isn’t really originality; it’s the ability to take a cliche and make it fun, exciting and interesting. And I have to admit that I was misguided in my expectations. I thought the film would be terrible. I was wrong. It’s an awesome cliched monster of a film that is best enjoyed in a cinema with a big screen.

So what is it really all about? A former marine, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), gets roped into working with the ‘Avatar Program’ on an alien world (‘Pandora’ – what will happen when we open up this box I wonder!). The program’s a corporate-bought scientific exploration into the planet’s native flora, fauna and ‘indigenous’. Sully’s role? To replace his brother (and save the company money regrowing an ‘Avatar’) and to use his marine expertise to safeguard the science crews. He also has another mission: to spy on the indigenes to find a way to remove them from their central home-place; a giant tree called ‘the Mother Tree’. In this he’s enlisted by a hard-ass Patton-type character, Colonol Quaritch (Stephen Lang) and Mr Big Corporate Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi).

Nothing original here. Cold-hearted Sully, uncaring cog in the colonial machine lives with the indigenes for a while and ‘goes native’. He realises how awesome their way of life is and does all he can to protect it. He bests the natives at their own game and becomes a demi-God/chieftain in the process. We’ve seen it all before: Pocahontas, Dances With Wolves, The Last Samurai etc.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The CG, however, is top-notch – monumental even. But then again what did we expect from a Cameron film? He’s gone beyond the CG and created an entire eco-system. Although the Biological Internet and hair connections aren’t very convincing, he’s at least consistent. Most of the animals have six legs, suggesting a common ancestry. The flora is lush and varied.

This is not really a film – it’s a spectacle. I doubt it would be as interesting on the small screen (yes, even in HD on our large HD Televisions). It needs a large, clear screen, a set of 3D glasses and a throbbing sound from high-quality speakers. You don’t want to over-analyse it; just enjoy the ride. Go watch it while it’s still available!

Rating:

Rating: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 

NB – I would have rated this film more highly had it had something resembling decent dialogue. As it stands it’s really good fun but not much more. It should make an excellent game but, apparently, the tie-in they’ve licensed is predictably terrible (tie-in curse). Perhaps an MMORPG will some day be in the works?

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Avatar AKA Pocahontas in Space

So, like some others no doubt, I was ‘invited’ to an advanced screening of 15 minutes of Avatar footage. I have deliberately avoided reading about or watching trailers for the film, hoping to keep a bit of the plot tucked away. How could I reconcile that with my innate love of IMAX and modern 3D movies? I couldn’t, so I snapped up the tickets and made my way to Waterloo.

I turned up late. Whoops. Yet how fortuitous! The 10.00am screener had been backed; our 10.20 am showing had about 50 seats filled, which meant my pick. Warning: if you do go watch this in Waterloo make sure to sit fairly far back (probably beyond row J).

The preview started with a little introductory message from James Cameron, who looked dead tired. He gave a one line plot summary then told us to enjoy the preview. And then it began.

There were five or six scenes in the movie which revealed enough to give an idea about the plot and showcase some action. True to form, the CG is excellent, potentially groundbreaking. The plot? Not so much.

From what I could make out: a crippled soldier called ‘Sully’ (played by Sam Worthington) volunteers for some sort of military scientific experiement which either implants your mind in the body of a type of alien, or allows you to telepathically control it. We see him get to like walking again and then bam, we’re back in action, with a CG-athon of alien animals. We haven’t seen enough of those in recent Sci-Fi memory *cough*Star Wars Episodes I + II *cough* Star Trek.

Now, stop me if you’ve heard this before, but the plot looks roughly like it might be:

Civilised-but-crippled (just physically?) white man gets out of his depth in an alien world, has his life saved by a native woman (with a strange accent!), slowly assimilates into their culture and way of living managing inexplicably to better the natives at their own way of life before, for some reason, the white civilised culture (with token ethnic characters) tries to ‘save’ or attempts to eradicate the native population.  

It feels like James Cameron has feasted down on everything in modern Sci-fi canon, snacked on some Disney movies and crapped out Avatar. You’ll see elements from (Disney’s) Pocahontas, Apocalypto,  Dances With Wolves and take your pick of any of the Star Wars Movies. This does not bode well. The racist undertones are disconcerting and the plot looks like it’s going to be cliched to hell. I don’t think Sam Worthington’s a good enough (or interesting enough) an actor to carry a big-budget movie.

On the other hand the CG’s pretty good. Is it really worth the reported $240,000,000 budget? I don’t think so.

Like a chump, I’ll still go see it in the cinema. I wonder if it will exceed my expectations?

Until then – here’s the trailer:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Quentin Tarentino may be dyslexic

I’ve been a fan of Tarentino since I can remember. Most of his movies are great. I didn’t really enjoy Grindhouse etc. but I did like Jackie Brown and Kill Bill (go figure). When I first read that he was making a movie about a group of Jews being assembled to kill as many Nazis as they could, I didn’t know whether it would be a massive cheese-fest or a great movie.

Turns out that it’s great – at times brilliant – movie, with some seriously disturbing parts. I don’t mean gory; this is one of Tarentino’s least gory movies. It is disturbing because of the treatment of some of the Jewish and some of the German characters.

The Plot in ‘Brief’

A group of narratives weave themselves together to the finale. The first major narrative involves Brad Pitt and his crack squad of Jewish soldiers looking to land in Germany and ‘kill us some Nazis’. The second major narrative concerns a Jewish girl called Shoshanah, whose parents are brutally murdered at the beginning of the movie by a wicked SS officer nicknamed the ‘Jew Hunter’.

The second narrative on its own (maybe with some minor tweaks) would have made a great WWII movie. Jewish girl whose family are murdered by the SS. She manages to run away and hide and then plot revenge on the regime that caused her pain. Bam, that’s a movie right there.

The first narrative is the one that contains the most disturbing elements. Eli Roth is a terrible actor and should probably stick to directing. He spends the movie as an unlikable Jewish soldier who specialises in beating Germans to death with baseball bats. There’s a scene in the movie where a German squad has been captured. They threaten to kill the leader of the group if he doesn’t reveal German positions. He refuses and Eli Roth comes out and beats him to death with a baseball bat. The German soldier comes across as exceedingly brave and polite. The “Fuck you Jews” sentiment feels almost tacked on as if to justify his brutal killing in what is clearly a war crime.

Later on in the film we have literal Jewish Suicide bombers indiscriminately gunning down people in a crowd inside a movie theatre, then setting themselves off. Disturbing much? Some of those killed are parts of the Nazi high command, but others are clearly civilian. Women, maybe children as well are killed with equal sadistic thrill.

Shoshanah on the other hand, is instantly likeable. She is strong and independent and clearly has a knack for survival. She’s beautiful, but doesn’t fall for heroic charms, instead having a relationship with a selfless black man. She spends most of the movie being ardently pursued by a German war hero named ‘Koller’. He is dashing, pleasant, fluent in French and German and an arrogant-but-likeable fellow. This makes it more the shame that Tarentino decided to blow character to the wind and have him threaten to all but rape Shoshanah. In another unebelievable twist, he holds on to his life long enough to kill our heroine who never lives to see her revenge fulfilled. The one character in the story who has the most personal need for revenge and who has apparently lost the most, never gets to see it.

The plot aside – the cinematography is excellent, although the soundtrack is at times artificial. The pacing is perfect, bouncing between action, horror and moments of sheer comedy. The narratives intertwine well and the performances are generally excellent. Brad Pitt is on form (probably his best role since Fight Club) and Christoph Waltz pulls off the best performance in the film (and probably in any of Tarentino’s films) as the evil, slimy and self-serving Hans Landa. He effortlessly flits between English, German, French and Italian and performs what should be an oscar-winning performance. Throughout the movie you’ll find yourself increasingly self-loathing for coming to like the vicious sadist. This is not your standard cookie-cutter evil SS man.

Final Verdict

Probably the best movie Tarantino has made since Pulp Fiction. I am impressed with the way he has handled the plethora of languages and culturally-diverse actors in the film and that alone should shape cinema for the next generation. At times truly disturbing and maybe over the top; what do you expect? It’s Tarentino.

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