"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.

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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.

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What is the future of 3DTV?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last year, you’ll have heard of the coming of 3D TV. We’ve had it at cinemas long enough for it to become mainstream and the adoption of 3D by Sky for its higher-level subscriptions threatens to bring it right into households much quicker than I expected. Samsung’s offering a decent 50″ 3DTV with three sets of 3D glasses for under £1000, within a year we’ll be seeing excellent televisions in the 40″ range for a few hundred pounds less than that.

But do we really want it? With HDTV there’s a clear difference between the quality of a given medium and the difference in quality and resulting enjoyment is probably greater than that between DVD and VHS. Is this the case with 3DTV? No, not yet. The greatest uses of 3D in cinema are shock moments (weapon/car flying out from the screen), popping vistas (eg sweeps of buildings) and the like. Adding general depth is not something valued by the general public. Or is it?

The answer will come this time next year as more households adopt 3DTVs. With games consoles, TVs and PCs now embracing 3D – Call of Duty: Black Ops will allow 3D playing – it looks like the media-makers have made up their minds.

If you’re interested in the work of ‘nouvelle vague’ director Jean-Luc Godard, you mustn’t miss the chance to catch his classic film ‘2 or 3 Things I Know About Her‘ (’2 ou 3 choses que je sais d’elle’) free on The Auteurs today. You can find it here: http://www.theauteurs.com/stellaartois (18+, UK Only).

It’s a fantastic film and the last free French classic on the Auteurs. You can now watch the previous films featured in the festival (for a fee) to watch on demand on the Auteurs now.

Chris Marker's La Jetee

If you’re interested in the work of ‘nouvelle vague’ director Chris Marker, you mustn’t miss the chance to catch his classic film ‘La Jetée‘ free on The Auteurs today. You can find it here: http://bit.ly/tasrd(18+, UK Only). It was the inspiration behind Gilliam‘s great ’12 Monkeys’ and is an excellent example of a ‘photo-roman’. Fans of French cinema or sci-fi classic shouldn’t miss this opportunity!