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  • The Fly II (1989)

    The Fly IIHaving recently reviewed The Fly, I feel duty-bound to take a look at its much maligned sequel. I am something of a completist when it comes to genre films, and I hadn’t seen the follow-up to Cronenberg’s brilliant re-imagining (as it would doubtless be described in Hollywood today) in quite some time. Invariably it receives pretty withering reviews, but who knows? Perhaps time had been kind to it. Optimism is my middle name! (Not really.)

    Sadly, I can confirm that this is not the case. The Fly II remains an ineffectual horror that skirts around a handful of potentially interesting ideas but commits to nothing except upping the goo factor. The emotional core of its predecessor was the relationship between Jeff Goldblum’s scientific genius and Geena Davis’ journalist; a witty, touching and ultimately heartbreaking love story. The attempt to replicate that here between Goldblum and Davis’ son Martin, played by Eric Stoltz, and a research scientist (Daphne Zuniga) also employed by Bartok emphatically fails to match it.

    Chris Walas, who won an Oscar for his creature make-up in the first film, steps in to the director’s chair and is clearly out of his depth. Where Cronenberg utterly rejected the 1950s monster movie formula of  cardboard characters, simplistic plots and nonsensical science, The Fly II quickly settles down into this well trodden path. Whether it’s the dumb scientists who divide their time between torturing test subjects and sleeping when they should be observing, the obnoxiously evil security guard who so thoroughly deserves his inevitable sticky demise, or the ruthless industrialist only out to make a buck, it’s all so terribly predictable.

    There’s also a detectable movement away from the adult tone of The Fly towards a more adolescent audience.  The big conclusion forgoes the moving operatic tragedy of part one in favour of a big monster stalking corridors, bumping people off one by one – and even this is not particularly exciting or suspenseful. The final shot is certainly grim, but feels needlessly nasty and unpleasant.

    Neither does it have any of the subtlety seen in the original. Cronenberg injected a touch of dark humour with Brundle’s transformation (such as memorably vomiting over a box of doughnuts before eating them). Part two slavishly following the equation “More = Better” and rams any and all fly imagery down your throat,  just in case you’ve forgotten it’s a Fly movie. The best it can come up with is Martin being enthralled by one of those blue insect-killing lights. Which is just a bit silly really.

    ‘Like Father, Like Son’ was the tagline for The Fly II. Nothing could be further from the truth: in every conceivable way this offspring is inferior to its masterful parent.

    [xrr rating=1/5]

  • War Horse (2011)

    War Horse posterNot to be outdone by pal Martin Scorsese’s foray in to the family film market with the sparkling Hugo, Steven Spielberg returns with his adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s tale of a boy and his horse, and the National Theatre stage play it inspired. It’s a beautiful piece of filmmaking from the veteran director, perfectly judged in tone; it doesn’t forget who the story is aimed at, but neither does it shy away from the horrors of the conflict.

    Beginning in an extremely tranquil pre-war Devon (complete with John Williams’ pastoral score), we spend a long-ish first act watching Joey being raised on a farm run by Peter Mullan’s alcoholic war veteran, who bought him in a fit of drunken pride. His son Albert (Jeremy Irvine), who immediately bonds with the feisty animal (Joey, not Peter Mullan), manages against all the odds to train the thoroughbred for farm work, only for WW1 to intervene – Joey is recruited in to the cavalry. His trials and tribulations on the continent effectively illustrate the tragedy that war leaves in its wake, whether man or beast.

    Initially it all seems a bit too quaint and picturesque, but I suspect this is entirely deliberate; it certainly makes the contrast with the later war-set chapters all the more effective. The sets and photography also feel deliberately artificial at times – a tip of the hat perhaps to the importance the play had in rescuing the book from obscurity, but also a neat way of smoothing the rough edges from the violence and splashing the screen with vivid colours and atmosphere. No terrifying Saving Private Ryan-style battles here (though the recreation of the Somme is suitably tense); just a calm and carefully crafted story that can be enjoyed and appreciated by almost any age group. Once you’ve adjusted to the film’s earnestness and simplicity of storytelling, there’s a genuinely moving and timeless tale to be discovered.

    A longer version of this review can be found at The Digital Fix.

  • The Artist (2011)

    The ArtistThe Artist came out of nowhere last year to take the Cannes Film Festival by storm. Critics fell over themselves singing its praises. It’s easy to see why: a black and white silent movie about the last days of the black and white silent movie era, and a genuinely charming comedy to boot. It’s a story that’s been told before of course, most famously in Singin’ in the Rain. Oddly though, for a film about Hollywood that has been smothered in Oscar buzz, it comes from France.

    Jean Dujardin is winning as George Valentin, a 1920s movie star in the mould of Errol Flynn, with a smile wider than the San Andreas Fault and a wife who is rapidly losing interest in him. At his latest premiere he bumps in to Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo), a fan of Valentin’s and wannabe actress, and pretty quickly star and fan fall in love. But the film industry is about to be turned upside down with the arrival of sound, and Valentin’s star wanes fast. For Peppy however, it’s the fast track to stardom.

    Quite apart from anything else, The Artist is the most enjoyable romantic comedy to come along in ages. Dujardin and Bejo make for a terrific couple; they spark off each other repeatedly. The scene where Valentin and Miller begin to fall in love, as the star fluffs take after take on set, is brilliant. The final scene is just a pure delight. Valentin’s dog has also garnered a good deal of praise in certain quarters, and not without reason.

    The simple setup might well have been lifted from the silent era itself, but that’s the point:  by making a silent comedy in this historical style (complete with 4:3 image), the film demonstrates the timelessness of great cinema – whether with sound or without, colour or black and white, widescreen or square box. It’s also the second film in as many months to openly celebrate the history of film (after Martin Scorsese’s very different Hugo), and to emphatically extol its many pleasures regardless of age. Hurrah for that. If it leads others to discover an era of film all too easily neglected, then its importance will surely grow in the coming years.

    If you’ve read all the gushing praise in the press, it’s difficult not to feel a certain level of “Is that it?” during the end credits. It’s a film of simple pleasures, but pleasures they most assuredly are.

  • Digital Fix Review – Hugo (2011)

    Hugo

    Hugo | Cinema Review | Cinema at The Digital Fix.

  • Digital Fix Review – The Thing (2011)

    The ThingThe Thing | Cinema Review | Cinema at The Digital Fix

  • The Fly (1986)

    The Fly (1986) posterOf all the Hollywood studio logos that appear before a film begins, my favourite is Twentieth Century Fox. Not because they deliver a higher or more consistent level of quality than anyone else (certainly not), but because they have given the world some of the all time greatest science fiction films and franchises. The Day The Earth Stood Still, Planet of the Apes, Star Wars, Alien… all are perfect in their own way, and nestle near the top of my favourites list.

    In the mid-1980s Fox hit the jackpot. Over the course of 12 months, between the summers of ’86 and ’87, three superior works of sci-fi/horror were unleashed: Aliens, Predator and The Fly. The first of these, Aliens, was of course a sequel to possibly the greatest sci-fi horror of all time, Ridley Scott’s Alien, and somehow emerged as the equal of its predecessor. Released a year later, Predator was an attempt to capitalise on the success of Aliens by melding the same soldiers vs. ETs plot with Schwarzenegger’s particular brand of unshackled violence. Whilst not quite scaling the heights achieved by Aliens, it was nonetheless a gory and highly enjoyable action suspenser, and gave cinema a memorable new monster (as well as a whole host of new Arnie quotes).

    Sandwiched between these two was David Cronenberg’s remake of The Fly. It too can be labelled as a sci-fi horror, yet it is a vastly different beast from its stablemates; instead of expertly choreographed shoot-em-up splatter, Cronenberg makes his monster movie a full-on romantic tragedy. One should perhaps have expected this from a director as unconventional as Cronenberg. He throws out everything but the core idea of the original 1958 film: that of a scientist who develops a teleportation machine, which he tests on himself and, inadvertently, a common house-fly at the same time, with pretty disastrous consequences. Gone is the over-ripe melodrama and nonsensical science (just how did that fly’s head manage to grow so many times larger? And why did it still seem to house the scientist’s brain inside it?). Gone too is the lush widescreen photography.

    In their place is a beautifully tender relationship between scientist  Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum, never better) and journalist Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis, equally good) who he persuades to document his experiments; science that is at least far more credible, if no less fictional; and a production design that is immeasurably more atmospheric and appropriately downbeat.

    What I love most is the way it starts off in such a romantic and funny vein. You are instantly won over by the nerdy Goldblum and his hapless attempts to woo the sophisticated Davis (“…cheeseburger!”). It’s totally unexpected, and beautifully sets up the relationship that slowly and painfully implodes during the course of the film. The joy of new-found love has never felt so tangible in a genre film of this kind. Goldblum and Davis were dating at the time of the film’s production, and the wonderfully erotic moment when Veronica removes one of her stockings so that Seth can prove his invention works underlines their very real chemistry.

    Gradually however this joy gives way to jealousy and resentment, before changing to pity, fear and finally outright terror. It’s an emotional transformation that mirrors the physical one undertaken by Brundle himself after he tests his own teleporter in a drunken fit of jealousy. Initially he seems fine; better than fine in fact, as he bubbles over with more energy and life than he has ever known. Then his body slowly begins to change, deteriorating as his hideous evolution begins. If it’s body horror you wanted, then you’ve  come to the right film. Who can forget the infamous ‘Brundle Museum of Natural History’? And then there’s the maggot dream sequence, which gives the Alien‘s birth scene a run for its money in the squirming stakes.

    But the real horror is etched on Veronica’s face, as she witnesses the slow and wretched death of the man she loves. Parallels have frequently been drawn between Brundle’s condition and the outbreak of AIDS that was taking off around the time of the film’s release, but I don’t think it was deliberate; it could be any disease, any condition. The pain of witnessing a loved one physically waste away is an all too frequent occurrence in this world, and all the more painful when it happens to someone in their youth. Cronenberg’s fascination with the body and mind has never been as moving as it is here.

    The classical story structure – a doomed romantic triangle created by the intrusion of Veronica’s boss and unwanted ex-boyfriend Stathis Borans (John Getz), with hardly any other characters to speak of – lends the film a timeless quality, and over 25 years later it doesn’t feel dated at all, bar the occasional special effects shot. Indeed the film feels quite operatic, especially when Howard Shore’s magnificently dramatic score kicks in (no wonder then that Cronenberg and Shore reworked the film in to an actual opera in 2008). The gore and goo still horrifies and repulses, and the devastating ending still packs a hell of a punch. Not bad for a remake of a 50s B-movie, itself adapted from a short story first published in the pages of Playboy magazine. It’s easy to overlook this masterpiece – don’t.

    [xrr rating=5/5]

  • Digital Fix Review – Johnny English Reborn

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    via cinema.thedigitalfix.com

    My review of Johnny English Reborn…

  • Digital Fix Review – In Time

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    via cinema.thedigitalfix.com

    …and my review of Andrew ‘Gattaca’ Niccol’s latest film, In Time:

  • Digital Fix Review – Contagion

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    via cinema.thedigitalfix.com

    My review of the new virus thriller, Contagion:

  • From the Cambridge Film Festival

    Cambridge Film Festival

    I’ve spent the last seven days at the 31st Cambridge Film Festival, the one time in the year when it feels like film really matters close to home. Thanks to festival director Tony Jones and his dedicated and seemingly tireless team, we in the Cambridge area get to (briefly) feel like the centre of the cinema world; all sorts of anticipated releases and undiscovered nuggets get shown to crowds both large and small. There’s also a steady stream of guests (usually directors or cast) who take part in post-film Q&As and interviews, and screenings of films in unusual venues, like university colleges or outdoor locations around the region.

    This year I volunteered my services as a general helper-outer to see how a festival operates from the inside. So far it’s been an utter pleasure. For the first time in my life I’ve been an actual usher in an actual cinema, actually taking people’s tickets and directing them to the correct screen (hopefully). I imagine the novelty wears off pretty quickly but it’s still one thing ticked off my bucket list. I’ve helped to tidy up screens (the Cambridge crowd aren’t a particularly messy lot), do some washing up and hand out leaflets on the street. Yet it never feels like a chore; everyone really is there because they want to be. For us volunteers the only tangible reward is the occasional free coffee (as well as taking in the odd film or two, of course).

    Being among a group of fellow enthusiasts in the lively bubble of a festival where schedules sometimes change at the last minute makes for an expectedly buzzing atmosphere, perceptible throughout the festival’s main venue, the Arts Picturehouse. Yet if panic ever does take hold, it never reveals itself. It was almost a disappointment to discover that the festival operation was as smoothly-running on the inside as it appeared from the out (some core staff may wish to dispute that statement, but I maintain that I have yet to witness anything that even remotely approaches the wild-eyed terror one might expect upon hearing news of eleventh hour ‘problems’).

    As for the films themselves, you certainly get to see a nice old mixture. The opening night gala screening of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), with guests Gary Oldman, John Hurt, Peter Straughan and Tomas Alfredson, was a packed affair and enthusiastically received. The following day I caught the French film Tomboy (2011), a low-key drama that expertly captures the anguish of growing up, and a screening of Sweet Smell of Success (1957), which I had not seen before and absolutely loved.

    Since then I’ve also seen the first half of Red State (2011), which I would like to finish at some point; Drive (2011), a pleasingly mean and moody neo-noir; and Gibraltar (2011), a fascinating documentary about the rock’s recent history about which I knew precisely nothing.

    Now there’s only four days left until I have to go back to the day job. There’s still the UK premiere of Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris (2011) to come, as well as the traditional Surprise Movie on Sunday (only Jones knows what it is and it really could be anything). I will certainly miss the atmosphere, meeting other film addicts like myself and rubbing shoulders with the well-known and the dogged unknowns. But then perhaps it’s best to leave before the novelty of clearing up after customers really does wear off.