IR: True Grit

I wasn't really thrilled to be seeing True Grit, since I have the preconception that all Westerns are just about a load of mean ugly men being stand-offish in the dust. However, it was actually really good, and though it did include ugly men and dust, the film made up for it in other ways.


The main character is a girl (!!) of fourteen, who has taken it upon herself to avenge her fathers death since she figures no-one else is up to the task. She reminds me of Tiffany Aching from the Terry Pratchett books, being very brave and resolute and taking on responsibilities that grown men shy away from.

Jim told me she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, which is absurd, since she is plainly in the leading role.

The acting is solid, and the locations, costumes and houses look faithful enough. It also reminded me of Carnivale, with the faith and the dirt and the cruelty and the strange people. I think I recognise one of the actors from it even - the clerk at the beginning could be the man in Carnivale who makes the white masks. They managed to source people with actual interesting faces, flobbly chops and skinny noses and the like, which added to the authenticity.

Pictured: Realism
(SOURCE)

The storyline had a few poignant moments that I thought would never happen, for instance...

SPOILER ALERT
the girl ends up spending non-fighty time with her fathers killer.
SPOILER OVER.

Only one bit bothered me, which was that Matt Damon at one point has his mouth smashed up being dragged along by a lasso, but a few scenes later his teeth have regrown and it is perfect again. Overall though, brilliant film, and I am looking forward to seeing it again when it comes out on DVD.

4 stars


I can't remember when I last left a cinema feeling so satisfied.
True Grit delivers on every level, striking a great balance between morality and lawlessness, gore and heroics, the real old west and the old west of fantasy.

The central trio of two lawmen and an unbelievably badass 14-year old girl are all very well drawn and well acted. Rooster Cogburn is morally questionable, undeniably filthy but also downright indomitable which makes him worthy of our admiration. Jeff Bridges plays him with a voice like a sack full of gravel being dragged around in a deep well, which I love. Matt Damon(as LeBeouf or 'LaBeef') is wonderfully dandyish and full of high-falutin Texan verbosity. And finally Hailee (eeeee) Steinfeld is amazing as Mattie Ross, who is smarter than a horse-seller, brave as a ranger and considerably tougher than old boots.

Not as tough as Mattie Ross.
(SOURCE)

She does more, and more believably, than an actress twice her age generally gets to do in a dozen mainstream films. She rides a horse, shoots a gun, gives everyone a thorough dressing down and of course seeks revenge for her murdered Daddy. The fact that she was not nominated for a best actress Oscar (only best supporting actress) is quite atrocious, especially since she is not only the main actress but the main character.

The settings are impeccable and long term Coen-colloborator DOP Roger Deakins deserves merit for shooting such an authentically western Western.

I could go on for ages deconstructing the costumes, lighting, dialogue, baddies, moral issues, comparisons with other great westerns (not to mention the original John Wayne version which I haven't seen) and so forth, but it would simply end up restating my first point: this film delivers on every level.

You will come out feeling like you want to go and watch it again, and I certainly plan on doing so.

5/5

IR: Tangled

Rapunzel has lived nearly 18 years in a tall tower, her 'mother' seems overly concerned about her chances out there in the big world. But Rapunzel wants to leave to see one thing: the beautiful lanterns that appear every year for some reason...on her birthday. Enter the tricksy Flynn Rider, on the run from the law and with something very valuable in his satchel...

Tangled was very sweet and entertaining. It follows the basic storyline of Princess and lovable criminal get together (Maid Marion/Robin Hood, Jasmine/Aladdin etc.) However it is fresh and bright and fun and a bit more grown-up and insightful into troubled mother/daughter relationships. Rapunzel herself is creative and self-motivated and sweet which I liked, because yay art and boo swanning about putting on make-up all day. It continues the current trend of self-satirising cartoons which try to twist the classic story-telling to show that it identifies what it is and humorously references this within the story. For example, the 'Mother' at one point spells out for us, “Fine, I'm the bad guy now” and male lead Flynn self-consciously tries on the smouldering handsome man look that in earlier Disney films would cue a smooching scene. The rest of the film includes lots more grood (great/good) parts, like when Rapunzel talks to a horse like he's a dog (who's a good horsie?! Yes you are!) and going to a pub called The Snuggly Duckling (I love ducklings! Awwww! Me too!).

There is no caption, only cute.

We cried a few times at the emotional bits, and laughed at the yay bits. Picked it apart a bit on the way home but nothing damning, it is a very fun film and I would happily see it again!

4 Stars

Since I missed out on the Princess and the Frog, this is the first Disney film I have seen in a while. And I gotta tell ya, they still got it.
This was a genuine solid piece all the way through. It had all the requisite stuff; action, cool animals, romance and a bona fide happy ending...plus one of the best female lead roles I have seen in a while. Rapunzel (Mandy Moore) is definitely up there with the best of the Disney Princesses with the added bonus that she kicks ass with her hair and a frying pan.
The supporting cast are all well done, but more on that in a mo.
We saw it in 3D which was pretty pointless. Hardly anything jumped out at you, literally...the most beautiful scene in the film (about half way through) was mostly not in 3D and the bit that was was the rubbish bit. Still, the whole thing is impossibly gorgeous in digimation, especially the aforementioned heroine and her teasy-squeeze Flynn Rider (Zach Levi off of Chuck- who knew? IMDB, thats who!). Speaking of which there is some serious fetish fuel in this movie- forget the hair, Rapunzel spends the whole film barefoot. Quentin Tarantino probably wants some of that action.

These little piggies had a massage.

The reason I say this piece is 'solid' and 'good' and not 'great' were the following: the songs, though up to a fair standard, felt more like filler than anything. They weren't bad by any means, but I every time the singing started I wished (and bear in mind I LOVE musicals) that they'd just get on with the plot. I remember studying musicals, and how the key to a good one is that a song number is an integral part of the plot rather than a decoration. Maybe I'm being unfair.
Next, Zach 'Flynn Rider and Chuck' Levi is an alright voice actor but...meh. There seems something a little lacking in his dialogue. In Disney heritage terms his character is closest to Aladdin, a lovable thief with a heart of gold. But there just wasn't the snap to his lines there was with Scott Wienger in Aladdin. Maybe its the direction. He brightens up in the third act but by then he's become more responsible. He doesn't quite make the loveable rouge thing work.
Finally, the plot.

Not as 'tangled' as you might think, schnah schnah!

Tangled is probably the most grown up of the Disney films I have seen because it HINTS that things are not always as easy, simple and carefree as they might seem. But crucially NOT ENOUGH. I want subversion and post-modernism, damn it! With Shrek now 10 years old and Disney getting the crap deconstructed out of it, we need the original to get smarter. Particularly in the relationship between Rapunzel and her 'mother', which seems like it might be interesting and ambiguous, but ultimately falls back on the wicked step-mother mythology the Bros Grimm immortalised back in 1812.
Like I said, I haven't seen Princess and the Frog, but going from Tangled it seems Disney are still a little behind the curve...but not by much.
See it, laugh, shed a happy tear and dream your dream.

3/5

IR: Black Swan

Black Swan is a damn good film, marred though it was by an audience who giggled and chatted though it like the scum I suspect all general public to be. A disturbing scene in which Natalie Portman's character, Nina, braves some experimental masturbation to further her career, is apparently lost on all the mindless f*cks whose brains just went “Ooooh sex! That's naaauuuuuggghty!” The fact that this is done tastefully and points to a dark change in her character apparently counts for nothing.

NOT AMUSED.

We watched Black Swan from digital and right up against the screen (it was packed), so unfortunately the image quality was grainy. However, the shots were still beautiful (as far as I can tell) and the subject matter being what it was helped too I'm sure. The dancing is amazingly professional, being done as it is by an actress, not a ballerina who has trained since birth like real ones have to. Either they are very swish with the body doubles or Natalie P and girl from That 70s Show actually managed to get on point (on their tippy toes) which is a pretty advanced thing and usually takes years to achieve. Unless you're a basilik.

Pictured: A digitally enhanced Natalie Portman.

The story itself is pretty cool and things get very trippy and confused (and, unfortunately, gruesome) as the plot progresses, and we become increasingly unsure of what is real. Nina is opened to a new world in her task to learn to dance the Black Swan, a role she has hitherto been too innocent for. This is a chilling coming-of-age tale, and I highly recommend seeing it!

5 stars.

Black Swan is a film into which a lot of thought has been poured.
I could analyse it for pages and not plumb the depths.
Naturally I was aware of it since it was talked about for months, tipped at the Oscars and directed by Darren Aronofsky, whose film The Fountain holds to this day the singular honour of having a sex scene I actually find sexy.

Despite not being able to move without seeing some kind of behind the scenes press about Black Swan, it did surprise me. I was expecting a straight forward arthouse melodrama. And indeed Black Swan is an arthouse melodrama, but it is in no way straight forward.

The kindest way to put it is that it is a film with a rich heritage. The cruelest would be that it is unoriginal. However the reality is somewhere in between. The closest I could get to give you a real impression of what its like is Jacob's Ladder with ballet instead of Vietnam. Or a feature long episode of the Twilight Zone produced by Merchant Ivory. If that sounds crazy, its just crazy enough to work.

Miss Kenton...it can never be. Please pass me another muffin.

It borrows from a dozen other works as well...I noticed a strong resemblance to Perfect Blue (the Satoshi Kon animation), Cat People, Roman Polanski's Repulsion, a whole bunch of body horrors and the raft of identity crisis films of the 90s of which Fight Club is the most well known.
I am not bashing this. I think it great to have so many reference, and I even noticed a few nods to Pi, Aronofsky's first feature, but anyone who calls this film original doesn't know an awful lot about cinema.


However maybe I should stop being a snob and remember that for some people cinema is entertainment, not life. It was certainly entertainment for the sack-headed goons we were forced to share a packed cinema with, who giggled along merrily at parts which would have made a more sensitive audience draw in breath. Seriously if you are reading this and you laughed, I would happily punch you in the throat.
Anyway...

To set the record straight about the hype, its mostly true...the performances are really great from every corner...the actors ham it up a bit but that is right for the piece and the setting. And if nothing else it proves once and for all how terribly, criminally badly Ms Natalie of the Portman Clan was misused in the Star Wars prequals. The lighting is great and creepy, the camera gives a real sense, perhaps one of the best I've seen, of being on stage. The dancing is completely real and not for a second did I doubt how much effort every one of the cast had put into it.
There are problems...some of the metaphors are a bit heavy handed (oh look, Natalie Portman's house is filled with soft toys. And one of them is...A BLACK SWAN!

Pictured: A digitially enhanced Natalie Portman.

And look, the tempestuous bullet-eyed Director (Vincent Cassel) loves BLACK and WHITE to the extent that he actually has a Rorschach blot test on his wall...perhaps a reference to the bleak philosophy of nihilistic vigilante Rorschach from Alan Moores seminal graphic novel Watchmen?), there are body horror/identity cliches everywhere you look and you can pretty much see some of the twists coming as if they were steam trains...but I'm nitpicking.

One final point. In all the reviews I have heard not once do people site the fact that the film highlights the problems with the culture of ballet itself; that masochistic obsession with beauty and perfection, the whispering lies, the back stabbing, the paranoia and cruelty. There may be some reviewers who have (give me links if you know of any) and I wish I could spread myself on the subject, but I should wrap up.
Its beautiful, its scary, its mad and dark. Go see it.

4/5

The King's Speech

The shy and stammering Prince Albert finds it impossible to speak publically; after seeing dozens of speech therapists, he is referred to the genial Australian Lionel Logue. However the progress he is making may be all too slow- his father in failing health and his older brother infatuated with a totally unsuitable American divorcee, it seems that the reluctant Prince may have to take the throne he dreads.

The Kings Speech was jolly good and comes confidently recommended. The film centres on the man who would become King George the 6th, at the beginning of the 2nd World War. The plot, however, deals little with the struggles of the country in this trying time, but focuses on the personal problem that ‘Bertie’ (as his family call him) faces with public speaking, suffering as he does from a stammer. His wife, played commendably by Helena Bonham-Carter, fixes him up with a last-resort speech therapist who has unconventional methods. (I say commendably, not because she was particularly good, which I suppose she was, but because she wasn’t terrible, as I feared she would be, having never seen her play anyone but her shrieking gothic self).

Jim has taken to calling her 'Helena Boned-Corset'.

The trust and friendship that is built, despite reservations from Bertie, between him and the therapist, is where the charm of this film lies. The best scenes are those in the therapist’s studio, where he has Bertie engaging in all manner of exercises, from dignified waltzing to swearing at the top of his lungs. All very amusing. Sombre at times, it has a solid story and a happy ending, and faithful lack of airbrushing.

4/5

Lauded everywhere already, and Oscar fodder it most definitely is, there is very little to say about the King's Speech you won't have heard a dozen times already. Its great, nuff said.
So I will instead lay a few random points down.

It is so refreshing to see Geoffery Rush cast off his pirate gear (though he was obviously having a good time) and do some proper acting. He is charming as Logue the speech therapist, although his accent does become more antipodean in the presence of his Aussie family...it could be the same accent-inhibiting allergy to tables that affected him in Pirates 3.

"Arrr, and ye know thys to be troo, oi...noo, sorrie, oi jost caant hold it, arrrrrr, where be me trailer? Oi'm off fer a coffee"

Look closely at a scene where King George 'Bertie' the Sixth and Lionel Logue walk through a fog bound park. Its almost all in one take, and it is gorgeous.

There are some surprisingly moving and profound insights into the King's upbringing. Although it never descends into Poor Little Rich Boy cliches it does tackle the paradox of power (the higher up you are, the more people will tell you what to do) and the harrowing real reasons behind speech impediments; bullying, persecution and abuse.

As a man who loves the sound of his own voice and positively welcomes public speaking, it took some very good tricks to put me in the shoes of the nervous, speech-hating King. But it was very well done, and not just by visuals; the subtle off-hand comments in the script about how many thousands will be listening, and how great he will probably be build up a real sense of apprehension and nerves that we know, as an audience, will only serve to worsen the King's worries.

I love the place they found to be Logue's 'office'. A big as a bunker, with a curved roof, all copper-oxide and bare stone. It was a truly unique and original set.

It pains me to say that among a cast of great actors, Timothy Spall, national treasure that he is, appeared to be slightly hamming it up. His portrayal of Churchill is rather too caricatured and he seems to be shoehorned in just because any World War 2 drama simply must have a Churchill.
Still, one could argue that Churchill himself was such a larger-than-life character it would be impossible to play him subtly. We shall never know.

Finally: Colin Firth. A speech impediment is a hard thing to act without making it ridiculous or comedic. And its hard to deliver lines when in fact, there is not line, just a terrible, confused pause from a character who just CANNOT get the words out. But Colin Firth proves once again just how awesome he is. He never slips into parody once, and it is hard to believe that it is in any way unnatural for him to stammer. Good on you, sir.

In conclusion, see the King's Speech. I recommend it every bit as much as I would recommend a hot bath, a cup of tea, a Joseph Wright painting or a favourite piece of music. It is just the tonic.

5/5

Tron: Legacy

20 years ago, ENCOM founder and computing wizard Kevin Flynn disappeared. His son Sam, heir apparent to ENCOM, is more interested in playing pranks on the board than managing the company. One day, he gets a tip off that his father may not be gone forever, and discovered something strange in the old arcade...

Tron Legacy was well received. We watched it in 3D, which I can’t say I noticed too much but on the other hand it wasn’t a bad thing. The glasses this time round were less cumbersome and didn’t want to reshape my nose so much. The best thing, as anyone who has seen the trailers will guess, is the visual element, which is sleek and shiny and glowy and sexy. This, as far as I’m concerned, is box ticked and movie on the ‘good’ pile. The plot, characters and other supporting film elements are all perfectly acceptable. The story, if you are so bothersome as to ask, is ‘blah blah blah GOES INTO AN AWESOME WORLD OMG (something about saving his dad and winning the girl and an evil-twin dad blah).

Seriously, you do not need to know anything except that this is awesome.

My favourite scene I think is when they go to a club owned by a man who is the lovechild of Alex from A Clockwork Orange and David Bowie, because his character is just so cheesy and charismatic (think Austin Powers but good-looking). I know I’m not doing this review much justice but Jim is the one who actually knows anything about the original Tron story so I am confidently leaving him to the serious analysis.

4/5

For a man whose favourite phrase when describing films with heavy special effects (like Hellboy II) is 'all icing and no cake', one might expect me to lean back and scoff snobbishly at Tron: Legacy.

However I think in this film its a case of 'all icing, just enough cake'. The cake consists of the goody characters; Flynn Junior, Quorra Kick-Ass and Terry Gilliam (actually Jeff Bridges although the two look so similar now I swear one day they will coalesce into a single entity) who are all thoroughly likeable and good to look at, in different ways of course and the story, which is enjoyable nonsense, and the sweet father-son sub-plot.

The icing is simply some of the most gorgeous costume, set and effects design in all of cinema history, nostalgic yet still futuristic, every skin-tight costume, glowing machine and ultra-cool cyberpunk background character guaranteed to make techo-fetishests like me drool. Plus we saw it in 3D and it was...well, it was fine. The only down side was watching trailers for awful upcoming 3D digimations, and I won't blame Tron for that.

Most of the old stuff was there, although I was deeply sad that 'The Bit', the flying eletro-puppy which spoke in binary ('Yes' and 'No'), only appeared as an ornament in Jeff Bridge's Ikea-decorated Zen apartment.

So, Bit, are you in the film?

Oh...well, that's a bit rubbish...

There were really only two gripes I had about the film...number one: the ISOs. In case you haven't seen the film (shame on you) these were artificial life forms which spontaneously sprung out of Flynn's virtual grid world. Apparently they held the key to absolutely everything, but were then made nearly extinct by Jeff Bridge's fascist alter ego Clu. They were also one of those sci-fi MacGuffins that is built up/explained just enough to make you ask questions but is too vague to actually answer them. HOW exactly were they the key? And what was Flynn planning to do with them? Harvest their organs and sell them? Nobody knows, and it is this central problem that leads most of Tron Legacy to not make an awful lot of sense. Just like the Matrix, I was niggled by the question of whether average workaday programs are sentient and if so, how this works and how they are different from the messianic ISOs.

Okay, so that was one. Two: I'm pretty goddamn sure Kevin Flynn was NOT a big hippy in the original Tron, and I am definitely going to watch it again so as to be sure. Jeff Bridges, as a friend of mine pointed out, gets a LOT of mileage from acting the big damn hippy, and he is charming in that mode, but it just doesn't fit. As far as I recalled Kevin Flynn was a cynical, sharp witted, jerk-with-a-heart-of-gold whose brilliance had given him a demeanour of swaggering arrogance. Sure, he has given up his fighting ways, but character continuity is important.

Anyway, my advice is this: watch Tron: Legacy, try not to think too much and bring a handkerchief for all that techno-drool.

4/5

IR: Monsters

Monsters left us feeling lifted and dumped at the same time. Lifted, because of the beautiful ending, but dumped because it could have been so much better. The plot is basically that a news photographer is given the task of escorting the newspaper bosses daughter home to America from Mexico, where she has been for some unexplained reason. Perhaps working, perhaps a holiday, we are not told.

The situation is that dangerous aliens have landed on Earth in Mexico, in what are now ‘contaminated zones’, not because of the aliens themselves but because of the gas that the military release there to kill them. Parts of Mexico are still safe (ish) and this is where most Mexicans live. Just as this photographer is given this assignment, the aliens are encroaching on land that has previously been safe and so this has to be sealed off. This land just happens to be the route home. Narrowly missing the last ferry, the pair decide to travel by land through the dangerous zones rather than wait six months for the route to be cleared.

Many of us would rather face aliens than this.

The best element of this film is the character journeys; both begin as unsympathetic characters but become, or reveal themselves as, better people. The man starts off having a drunken one-night-stand with a local girl and getting the lady’s passport stolen, and seems to be very mercenary in his views on getting paid to photograph dead children for the paper. By the end, he has put his camera to one side to engage in the world around him, and is revealed to have a son for whom he cares deeply. The lady starts off with her perfect privileged life all planned out ahead of her, but ends up valuing her experiences more than the cosy certainty that America can promise her.

The reason I say it could have been done much better is because the camera shots are often unimaginative and cheesy, showing us shots we’ve seen over and over before, and also the aliens are literally just giant octopuses with stompy spiders legs and light-up tentacles. How unimaginative. They weren’t completely awful, they did exhibit a few interesting features, but seriously, they had complete carte blanche to make them anything, and they fall back on giant sea creatures on land.

RUN! It's coming right for us!

To sum up; disappointing in areas but a beautiful ending, would recommend if you relish the prospect of criticising it for a long time afterwards with your friends as we did.

3/5


Monsters came highly recommended by a fellow film buff who had seen it in Edinburgh. Sad then that it turned out to be a film I admire much more than like...and most of my admiration comes from what I know about how it was made (on a shoestring, minimal crew, the director personally making all the impressive special effects) rather than the film itself.
Before I start my criticism, the good things: the footage itself is gorgeous, demonstrating the power and potential of high definition video. The central ideas are clever and carried with much more consistency of tone than those of its spiritual cousin District 9. The acting is fairly solid and the special effects really are amazing, blending reality and fantasy with truly remarkable skill. The story structure feels like a real sequence of events, even if the actual elements are rather staid (see below) and its presented well.
However, there are flaws, rather big ones, which I will now outline for you.


First: The Cliches.
Although Monsters had a fair few unique and original bits, there are far too many hackneyed plot points. Reluctant underling escorting the bosses daughter? Check. An unlikely love-or-hate chalk-and-cheese romance? Check. Friendly, partying locals? Check. Friendly, hard-working locals who haven't got much but are willing to let whitey into their homes to patronise them and their kids? Check. Shot where someone is dragged off by a monster into the darkness and then a pause followed by their mangled corpse and/or vehicle spat back accompanied by a loud and scary noise? You'd best believe it. None of these things on their own are bad devices, but I've seen every one of them so often its just predictable and boring. We KNOW from the get go that the main characters will turn out more than friends. We KNOW that the jungle guides are doomed to be eaten, and that man is the real monster. These are not surprises, and it is a shame a film with such an interesting set up gets so boring so quickly. The first few scenes, before our heroes actually begin their journey, are by far the most original.

Second: Treating the audience a bit like they a too dumb to notice a point.
Many films are guilty of this crime, but Monsters contains at least one instance that beggars belief, which I will share with you in brief: Andrew, our photographer hero, actually says 'There's a change in the vibe' at the VERY MOMENT when the music, pacing and feel of the film changes. THANKS ANDREW, WE NOTICED. And don't use the word vibe, this is not the 1970s or the early 1990s when it was ironically cool.

Unlike the Hammer-Man who was ACTUALLY cool.

This is only the worst of many such offences, which you can spot yourself. Gareth Edwards hasn't quite got his head round the fact that working with film means you can SHOW things, you don't have to spell them out, especially with the kind of crowd who want to watch this film.

Third: The central characters and their personal lives.
I feel harsh knocking the acting, or even the writing, since as far as I know the whole thing was improvised on a sort of road trip. But you can't forgive a piece of art or grant it special mercy because of its birth. I has to speak for itself. And so I shall say this: I did not like the main characters, I didn't believe their love story sub plot and I could only care slightly less about their boring problems. Fine, I know that at the first introduction Poor Little Rich Girl and Mercenary Photo-McKodak are supposed to be interestingly flawed, especially Andrew and his awkward drunken come-ons, but for my money they do not redeem themselves nearly enough throughout their road trip. I don't think they are evil, or that they deserve the mass of bad luck and difficulty poured on them by fate, but ultimately they are just rather unlikable. Sorry guys.

Fourth: The zero dirt factor. This is something that ALWAYS irritates me in films; that characters will go through seven kinds of hell, endure masses of physical hardship and still look like they stepped out of a hair advert. Now this was to a much lesser extent than its mainstream counterparts, but seriously, these guys sleep rough for what feels like a fortnight and yet they look fine. Would it kill you to do use a sweat spray or muss some hair? Or was their something in the actors contracts stipulating that they had to look good at all times?

50 bottles of this to be delivered every morning.

Fifth: The Monsters themselves and the final scene (SPOILER ALERT!)
I said the effects were brilliant, and they are. But as for the design...not so much. We have seen the titular monsters a dozen times before; they are wavey-tentacled vaguely aquatic octopus things. Everything from Halo to Cloverfield to certain niche anime series have things exactly like them, not to mention the obvious similarities to Great Cthulhu.
Anyhoo, we see them in all their glowy glory in the final sequence, towering and beautiful, apparently engaged in the act of mating which is far more refined in them than in humans. This truly heart-stopping encounter could provide a valuable insight into the creatures' true nature, making them a thing of beauty to be studied and not feared, maybe saving the lives of those who are in the way of the bombing and chemical poisoning being carried out by the military throughout the contaminated zones. And then Snappy McPictures DOESN'T. GET. HIS. CAMERA. Instead he decides to hold hands and sigh with Pixieboots Lotsacash, who LETS HIM.
Just one photograph could cause a cultural, political and scientific revolution, not to mention setting them up for life. Inexcusable. And seconds later I had to stifle a laugh as they went in for a kiss (gasp! Never saw that coming) and Samantha decides to chew Andrew's incredibly stubbly bottom lip. Maybe she was fantasising she was eating a baby hedgehog.

SPOILERZ OVER!

Despite the problems, what is most important about this film is that it shows real potential. Gareth Edwards and his crew will most certainly have an interesting future career, which I will watch carefully.

2/5

IR: Megamind

When deciding what to watch tonight, Megamind was the obvious choice. The trailers promised a funny, clever hero vs villain story (or should that be villain vs hero?), and we weren’t disappointed! Trumping majestically in the faces of all the crap out there nowadays, Megamind was a well-thought out, twisty, heart-warming, fresh tale of an alien who lands on earth as a baby (like Superman), and decides to play to his strength of evil mastermindedness since the other baby who lands at the same time as him, Metroman, is hogging all the glory as the good-guy. Though he plays the part of the villain, Megamind is really just a huge softie who lives with his all-time best friend Minion and his puppy-like flying brains-in-jars. A spanner is thrown into his comfy routine, however, when he actually manages to kill Metroman and gains all the power he’s been longing for. He soon realises that power isn’t what makes him happy…
I loved this film and laughed out loud at a few bits, which Jim will tell you is rare. Megamind himself is a very cool and ingenious person who is very entertaining to watch, as well as fish-in-mech-suit Minion of course. The role swapping of good guys and bad guys is well thought out and I hope that some kids who watch it get a less 2-D* view of the world because of it. As love-interest lady says, you should be judged by your actions, not by your ‘book cover’.
There’s not much to criticise about it that I can see, I just really enjoyed it and would encourage all adults and children to watch it too.

4/5

*Ironically, we watched it in 2-D...as all good people should! - Jim

Britta and I traipsed over a mile of slippery ice and sat through some truly appalling trailers to see this (Yogi Bear, anyone?); thankfully, our journey was not wasted. Megamind is, like its predecessor, How To Train Your Dragon, much better, wittier and cleverer than you might expect.
Throughout the years we have seen many deconstructions of the superhero, particularly in the medium that spawned it: Watchmen, Empowered, Animal Man, Astro City and atop all of them, in my opinion, Alan Moore and Gene Ha's mighty “Top Ten”, which you can find out about here. A few films, like Kick-Ass (itself a comic book adaptation) and My Super Ex Girlfriend, have covered it too.
However, we have been rather less inundated with deconstructions of the comic book villain (Unless you count Wanted. Which I don't.) This makes a noble attempt, and manages to be accurate to the golden and silver age villains whilst being complete accessible and not really geeky. Megamind is played with charm by Will Ferrell, a bit of a hit and miss actor, and in fact all the voice acting is spot on, especially David Cross (Tobias off of Arrested Development) as Minion, Megamind's servant/best friend/surrogate wife.
With Roxanne (Tiny Fey) the film also does a good partial deconstruction of the hero's girlfriend/damsel in distress character.
The production design is incredible; I am actually terrified at the speed with which digital animation has progressed. The textures in this film are particularly mouth watering, from string to hair to metal to latex (especially the latex. It even had talcum power stains on. That, my friends, is research.). Megamind has the coolest gear since Batman...in fact cooler because Batman didn't have THE BLACK MAMBA (see the film), and Metro City feels like a real place, even though the population spend quite a lot of time keeping out of the way. On second thought, maybe that's because they know the procedure when a hero and villain like to play games in your town- keep away from the shock and awe, and live several stories under ground.
Also Metro City must have a very efficient council, because all the roads seem in a remarkably good state despite taking a continual pounding. Cars, also, the butt-monkeys of the action adventure, are smashed without thought.
In fact this was the one area I really could have done with deconstruction of...while Iron Man is going round smashing cars to bits acting the big hero, no super-hero film either straight or parody has addressed the issue of property damage and civilian casualties.
Enough of that. Megamind has a great script, a fun plot and interesting subtext (some that children...won't get) and spiffy animation. Go see it.

4/5