Now to be fair, the source material that is Spawn in comic form is fiery, thrilling, dark stuff. Plenty of good anti-heroes, villains, stories and images appear in the comic and indeed the vastly superior animated HBO series.
But the film, to be fair, is a mess. A few nice ideas, shots and touches can't help a film where you are constantly reminded of its shortcomings. Lucky, the two main actors are not the worst part of the film at all and so the best they can with the script they have. Both Michael Jai White (who never really gets to show off his martial arts prowess) as Al Simmons/Spawn and John Leguizamo as Clown/The Violator are passable. It is the rest of the cast that suffers, mainly through lucklustre scripting and poor characterisation. Martin Sheen is almost comically bad, cliched and wooden. The rest of the cast suffers too. They make a decent stab at it but the script is the source of the real problem. One of the actors, Nicol Williamson I am not familiar with but was described by playwright John Osborne as 'the greatest actor since Marlon Brando', has almost nothing to do in the film apart from occasionally look on impassively and glow slightly.
It is odd that the film was marketed as 'the Special Effects Movie Event of the Year' because it is really not. Whilst some of the effects are pretty impressive for a not-huge, mid-90s film, some of the effect, specifically those set in Hell and the character of Malebolgia is Minecraft in its appearance.
All in all, the film does have its occasional moment but they are far outweighted by the shortcomings of the film. Even among other dubious superhero/comic adaptions of the 1990s, Spawn isn't near the top of the pack. Not as adventurous as The Crow and without the character, style and plot pacing. I really want to watch The Crow now.
In contrast to Spawn we have Disney's $170 million Daft Punk music video, complete with Jeff Bridges as a tech-hippie and Martin Sheen as David Bowie.
To be fair this film is a technical marvel of CGI, sound, concepts and production design. It is a beauty to watch and listen to but it is obvious that the least amount of effort went into the story. Whilst not bad per se, it slowly goes from being extremely interesting to WTF in a remarkably short amount of time. As a result the first 45 minutes of the film are tight, interesting, well paced, beautiful and exciting to look at. Then it starts to lose momentum, and it doesn't really stop until the end where there's just enough things that happen for no reason for the ending to make no sense.
It's a masterful example of how a film's style can be utterly inspired and yet it cannot hide the soullessness of the substance, the characters and story. It's great to watch but you'd better switch the brain off beforehand.
Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen, this is today's entertainment.
Yes, I am suspending my recently re-started Spiderman franchi.....I mean FFFD series because I've seen a film starring an angry Welshman who dresses up as a bat. Try to control yourselves.
It is safe to boldly claim that TDKR (as it shall be known) is one of the most anticipated films of 2012. The final part of the Nolan/Batman trilogy has been aggressively marketed as the final film ("Every legend has its end" etc) and as such, has had an INSANE amount of hype and scrutiny regarding the film itself. Its release, the trailers, promo images and Bane's voice, every drip-fed piece of viral marketing has been pored over in compulsive detail by pricks like me for the better part of the last 12 months.
Now the film has been released and the reviews are rolling in. Sure Peter Bradshaw, Roger Ebert and Total Film can review and rate as they please but you are HERE, and this is my world, my review.....and my rules! (insert evil laugh here...)
Welcome to my TDKR review. (without spoilers!)
Well, the first thing to report is that it is good. No doubt about that.
It is overall a very satisfying end to the trilogy (apart from a few points aside which I'll mention later) and it feels a lot more epic and important socially than The Dark Knight. However, it is far from perfect and somehow manages at the same time to be thrilling, powerful and yet clunky and pretentious. I'll go into more detail later as far as the lack of spoilers will allow.
Well, let's start off with the huge successes of the film (which there are a lot of). Firstly, it looks and sounds incredible, from the use of light and shadow. Wally Pfister outdoes himself, the use of colour leaps out after so much of the film being in darkness. The sound work too is inspired, Hans Zimmer may not have the Pavlovian, dread-building piece to herald Bane as he did the Joker but the music is soaring and impressive (if a little OTT in places). It works extremely well. Bane's voice is FANTASTIC, (you still need to pay attention in some parts) the off-mechanical tint lets enough emotion come through but it really works.
In Bane, Tom Hardy shows off his ability to project himself through physical movement and his eyes alone. Having the mask over his face stop him from being able to act in a traditional method but at times Bane is fierce, aggressive, imposing and whilst some part of that is due to the fact he is hench as anything, it mostly comes from his physical movements and actions. Added to this is the fact that he is very smart, his overall plot is a masterfully nasty affair.
Anne Hathaway as Selena Kyle is another victory for the film. My initial hesitation about the casting gave way almost immediately. She is fantastic, a sultry, seductive, clever morally ambiguous character. Everything the character could and should have been she was. I was hugely impressed.
On top of this you find the emotional core of the core being carried in three supporting characters. Gary Oldman's James Gordon, the Police Commissioner who has a much larger and more important role this time around. Joseph Gordon Levitt's earnest, hotheaded police officer John Blake, personifying the ideals that Bruce Wayne and James Gordon had before the Joker. Finally, you have the powerhouse that is Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne's heartbreakingly faithful butler, to be honest, it is Caine that steals the show. Just awe inspiring.
Even Christian Bale's Batman/Bruce Wayne, who, to be honest I usually find less interesting than other characters is at his peak here. His character is put through his paces in this film in ways that the first two films never even dreamt of and the overall character progression and evolution means that as the third act of the film kicks in, there is so much more to Bruce Wayne/Batman than was touched upon in either Batman Begins or The Dark Knight.
The film is long but unlike The Dark Knight, where I felt it started to lose pacing towards the end of the film with the introduction of Two-Face disrupting the breakneck narrative speed of the Joker, in this film the first hour or so is pretty slow to start. There are loads of new characters and developments since The Dark Knight and the first part of the film deals mostly with them and it is actually quite a while before Batman himself appears. The prologue of the film (like The Dark Knight) deals with the villain, an introductory piece and I must say that Bane's opening scene is utterly brilliant in every way.
Once the film starts to gain momentum, it does not stop. Building on itself towards a huge and impressive final act. The size, scope and direction of the film as more starts to happen is a masterful display of direction. The second act in particular is when the film really starts to draw you in with expert skill.
Now for the not-so-good.
It is not a subtle film. At all. The parallels between events in this film and real life are so obvious and it ends up being (whether intentional or not) quite political and as such will end up dividing the audience between sympathisers and those unimpressed.
You end up feeling that the film nails individual characters and their motives but the larger social movements are painted with the broader brush with nowhere near the same level of intelligent detail.
There are also occasional irritating pieces of scripting, often where characters would state the obvious for the benefit of reminding the audience of what's going on but since the rest of the film treats the audience as intelligent, these occasional (and it is only two or three) lines do stand out as being clunky compared with the overall streamlined script.
There's also a bit near the end which is COMPLETELY unnecessary. Really, you'll know it when you watch it and you'll agree it's utterly not needed.
However, gripes aside. This film completely succeeds as a powerful and satisfying end to the trilogy, bringing in plots, themes and images from the previous two films to give this a grand sense of scale whilst never forgetting that despite all of the emotion, it is the spectacle that matters. Every character is developed perfectly and acted to the same standard. It should not disappoint you at all. A worthy end to the trilogy and a high standard for superhero films afterwards.
Trailer:
Also. I saw the film in an Arts Picturehouse (full house too!) so we missed the Man of Steel trailer that is showing before TDKR screenings. So here it is, because it looks like a Superman film I actually want to see, which is a rarity with me. (There are actually 2 trailers, one with Kevin Costner's voiceover, one with Russell Crowe's. I went for the Costner one because it's (more) awesome.)
Maybe it was the result of watching Tenebrae last week (47), but I had a sudden and bizarre urge to watch a few more 'video nasties' (films banned by the BBFC). I mean I have already seen a few, probably some of the more famous examples of a video nasty are The Evil Dead (1981) and Cannibal Holocaust (1980), both of which I have seen at some point or another.
However, another infamous film on the video nasty list is Driller Killer, a low-budget independant film about a artist (played by director Abel Ferrara under the pseudonym Jimmy Laine) living in New York who eventually gets fed up of the people and the derelicts around him so he goes on a murdering spree with a weapon. Can you guess which weapon? That's right, a drill!
As you can tell from the image up there, the image quality isn't great and the sound quality suffers also from the low budget of the film. However, it ends up working in the film's favour. The camera ends up right in the action and you end up being a voyeur right behind Reno Miller's shoulders (Abel Ferrara's character). Similar to the claustrophobic van scenes in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the nature of the camera and soundwork give the events an intimacy which makes it feel more shocking and graphic than it actually is.
The cast is made up of primarily unknown actors and it shows, coupled with a minimal script, very few of the cast are impressive, Abel himself actually does alright. His character towards the later half of the film is little to do other than grimace and be angry but the quieter, earlier scenes setting up the character actually allow Ferrara to come across relatively well for a man who'll kill homeless people with a drill in 20 minutes.
One of the film's strengths is the overall approach to New York punk music and whilst the film highlights a pretty grim life in NYC, it remains similar in style (although differs in approach) from similarly toned film Death Wish. There it's almost always night and almost every street has suspicious, dangerous looking people on it. However, instead of Charles Bronson's vigilante style attacks against muggers, you get Reno Miller's aggressive attacks against people he dislikes, those around who make his life miserable and the homeless. This means that whilst a lot of the violence looks dated and the blood looks unreal, the overall tone of the film is pretty aggressive and towards the end, unrelenting. Whilst not as exploitative as The Last House on the Left or I Spit on Your Grave in terms of 'enjoying' showing the violence, the film is pretty grim in its attitude and overall tone but certainly I have seen much worse and would even argue that many films from the same era are a lot tougher to sit through than Driller Killer.
Maybe one reason it was so infamous was it's advertising, a series of full page adverts in many notable film magazines showing a man being drilled in the forehead. I would argue that much of the hype of this film was pre-emptive of watching the film. Certainly the effects are not as impressive as the frequently revolting Cannibal Holocaust (in talking about the fake violence in that film, as opposed to the real violence against many animals in that film).
She was sat on a stool and held the balsa wood stake in her mouth.
All in all, the film's lo-fi style actually helps add intensity to the events going on the screen, the script and acting often leave something to be desired but the story and pacing surprised me. The actual killings don't happen for a long time, most of the film is fleshing out the characters before the eventual rampage. I ended up being impressed with the direction and Abel Ferrara's acting and the final scene of the film is very well done indeed.
Not for everyone but I'm sure it could satisfy a niche for some people.
We're getting back into the swing of things with the first FFFD for.....a while.
It begins!
Tenebrae (1982)
Dario Argento's family un-friendly film Tenebrae (or Tenebre) was a return to the giallo style of film he was famous for after the more unconventional supernatural horror films of Suspiria (1977) and Inferno (1980). This stunningly visual, European murder mystery/horror film was released in 1982 and I was actually pretty impressed by it, the only things I felt let it down were that some of the acting and the script were pretty blunt and unsubtle.
The visual style of the film is outstanding, a rich palette of colours and intriguing camera angles give the film a striking feel. A standout shot is a three-odd minute single tension building panning shot of the exterior of a house, it's slow and steady and ends with the killer breaking into the building. Gripping stuff. The film also has a stunning soundtrack, courtesy of Italian prog-rock band Goblin (who were credited as their individual members for the film), the Tenebrae theme is frankly awesome.
Although it was very confusing because I swear I had heard the opening noises from the piece before. Turns out I had. Electro wonders Justice had sampled the Tenebrae theme for their song 'Phantom'. I'm going to link that too because it's a fine song:
Oddly enough however, the soundtrack throughout the film completely helps keep the illusion that the film hasn't dated that badly. Several times the soundtrack will come in and it still feels quite modern, despite the obvious style of the Tenebrae theme linked above.
Now, the film is quite violent in it's approach and pretty graphic in places, the tone of the violence as well is quite aggressive towards women. That is probably why Tenebrae was a 'video nasty', released finally in the UK in 1999 and even then still with some cuts (it was finally released uncut in 2003). They were actually prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act!
Now as I said, the film is violent and most of the murders are commited against women however in terms of violent actions seen on the screen, I have seen much worse even from films of a similar era. The story of the film follows a murderer recreating scenes from an author's new novel in Italy and the novel itself is accused of being sexist and derogatory against women. It's an interesting story and one that rises above the usual 'slasher' catagory to become vaguely intelligent and self-aware.
However, despite all of the intricate details of the story, the impressive visual style and rich level of imagery, the film finds it hard to escape the slasher mentality of beautiful, often naked women getting killed. Whilst almost every other aspect of the film seems to try to rise above such ordinary goals, it cannot deny what it is and that is a very capably made, well acted, well plotted horror film. However, all the psychoanalysis and freudian imagery the film throws at you gives you the idea that the film will be extremely insightful and clever, the film in the end lets you down. The final plot twist makes sense but it isn't quite the 'Oh My God' moment I was hoping for, but it fits very well.
All in all. A rather enjoyable film, more for the senses than the mind though. Those expecting a regular slasher film though will be surprised.
I hope my entry on Monday (45) was a reasonable entry in the series after my extended hiatus. In it I mentioned a few trailers which had been released whilst I was away and I said I would mention them later on in the week.
It is now later on in the week and this here blog entry relates to many of these trailers that titillate me. Add to this my frankly irksome habit of adding 'Flare' suffixoid to words that don't need it and you have Trailer Flare.
The trailer looks insane, it makes the film look insane too! I really want to see this film, I hope it completely embraces the style it is going in and goes hugely OTT. Although the trailer mentions Tarantino, he actually has remarkably little to do with the film apart from a bit of producing. Eli Roth at least has helped produce and script it but it is up to Wu-Tang rapper/actor/musician RZA to direct, write and star in the film. The film has also attracted a reasonable cast, Russell Crowe and Lucy Lui being the 'big names'.
Wow! Credit where credit is due but they really know how to lift scenes directly from a film and put them into another film. Anyone who has seen the original Total Recall (it's worth a watch) will see a lot in common, I'd consider that a good thing. Bryan Cranston plays the role Michael Ironside was in the original, Kate Beckinsale is Sharon Stone's character and Colin Farrell is Schwarzeneggar's character.
It makes the film look better than the 1st trailer did. I actually half want to see it now.
Dredd
OH MY GOD YES! My eyes and ears are so happy right now! There is an interesting visual style at work in the trailer and the choice of music is fine. Karl Urban is suitably gravel-voiced and physical to be a good Judge Dredd. Having Lean Headey as the villainous Ma-Ma is quite nifty
I will file this film under 'guilty pleasure'.
Looper
Now this could an interesting one. The idea has potential but the trailer is all action. I hope it tries to be a little smarter than the trailer makes out. The acting talent on display is a reassuring sign, both Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon Levitt are capable actors and Emily Blunt is perfectly good also. Rian Johnson's previous films include the pretty good Brick.
Potential here for a good 'un.
Monster University
Comedy! Monster's Inc. is still one of my favourite Pixar film and this looks (so far) to be genius too!
The Jack Reacher novels are perfectly capable books. Jack Reacher himself is described as 196cm tall with a 50 inch chest, which means that Tom Cruise is completely the wrong choice for Jack Reacher. Also, the fixation on the car concerns me. This isn't Fast and Furious. The trailer is weak and there is enough reasonable core material to make a good series of film so I HOPE they don't mess this up, but it looks like they're going to mess it up.
Finally. Here are some purchases after a loooooong day at work.
I'm back to my stretched, tired and uncaring self and I was going to write a slightly longer FFFD entry with a sub-focus on all the funky trailers that have popped up over the past few weeks. I will still do this later on this week (I promise some gourmet trailers including new Total Recall trailer and a crazy slice of pie called The Man With The Iron Fists), however, an image caught my eye earlier on which has ended up completely dominating this entry.
"What is this?"
I swear I can hear you asking this already but steady your horses there folks.
So beyond the image of 4 woman sat on some sand (one of them being a frankly gorgeous Rosie Huntington Whiteley), this is the first image of some of the cast on location filming the new Mad Max film, Mad Max 4: Fury Road.
And unless your maths is not quite up to scratch, the new film's title 'Mad Max 4' implies that there were 3 previous Mad Max films which I will now write about because they are goddam AMAZING (apart from the 3rd one)
Just look at that poster. A cartoon masterclass of justice and violence.
It is honestly my belief that Mad Max 1 is on of the most underrated and underviewed films of all time. It is a stripped back, nasty, fast look a cheap filmmaking to create a plausible post-apocalyptic future (something the 2nd film does better) and to create some of the finest car chases, filming and stunt work in cinema.
Starring a freakishly good looking and un-insane Mel Gibson, Mad Max tells the story of lovable family man and tough future law enforcer Max Rockatansky as he becomes a target of a crazed biker gang. Their actions against his friends and family turn him into Mad Max and he starts his own one man mission to hunt down the bikers and kill them.
What follows is (in my eyes) a kinetic thrill ride. The fact the film was made for the small amount of 380,000 Australian dollars lends the film an immediate, visceral style to disguise the lack of budget. The cars, the stunt work, the stripped back script and visual style really help to make Mad Max one of my favourite films and when I become Prime Minister, it will become COMPULSORY viewing for everyone.
Most people who have seen both Mad Max and Mad Max 2 say that the latter is better. Being honest, they are wrong but it's so close I usually just leave it well alone.
What Max Max 2: Road Warrior does better than the first is to really help create the post-apocalyptic world with the tone and colour palette of the film. The story revolves around the frantic desire for gasoline to power their cars and buggies. The action is extremely tightly done, the first scene sets the scavenger and desperate tone of the film with another excellent use of vehicular stuntwork.
The final chase scene is actually one of the best action scenes ever filmed, a long chase through the desert with Max and a ragged crew defended a big rig truck from a group of bandits. It is the single longest action scene I've seen yet that remains tight, gripping and thrilling every single second. There is no flaws to be had in this scene, at all. Again, the small-ish budget (although larger than Mad Max 1) means the film is shot quite close to the action on the ground and gives the events a kinetic edge that really works. On the wider shots, the composition of the vehicles and the ability to direct thirty odd machines at once is actually impressive.
Beyond that, the characterisation of Max is weaker because there is no shifting of the character, he remains short on words and long on action throughout the film but the character seems a believable evolution from the first film.
However, the supporting cast have much more to do in this film, in particular the people Max befriends who are under seige are a lot more varied in this film than characters in the first film. The enemy, The Humungous is no match for the Toeutter though, Hugh Keays-Byrne was a damn good actor!
In the end though, the bandits in Mad Max 2, with all the leather and bondage gear seem a lot more cartoonish to look at (although their actions are horrific), it has a style that may take some time to warm to but literally everything else about this film is 100% pure gold to match its 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating!
Trailer:
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
This is where the series was left until work started on the new Mad Max film, and it is so far the weakest of the films and it is pretty bad. The good points are very good but the film goes so far off the rails that it lowers the whole film quite a lot.
The things that the film does well is that is further enriches the whole story and the post-apocalyptic feel is even stronger here than in The Road Warrior. Mel Gibson is still amazing as Max and even Tina Turner is pretty good as Auntie Entity. The actual Thunderdome fight itself is thrilling stuff, an imaginative and pulp-comic fight to the death which has been tried in so many films but one of the best examples is in this film.
However, about halfway through the film Max finds a tribe of children and you can see the film nosedive in quality from that point.
Goddam children!
The final chase of the film is similar is style to the second film but on a train instead of a lorry and it is just inferior. But by this point Max has become some kind of messiah, leading some children to 'Tomorrow-morrow land'. It's a shame because until Max's exile, the film was a tightly scripted borderline pulp sci-fi film with a lot of interesting ideas but it ends up wasting a lot of them.
Trailer:
So where from now?
Well Mel Gibson is not (as yet) appearing in the new Mad Max film, hopefully set for release 2013 or maybe early 2014 but instead the title role is being filled by Tom Hardy, you know? That guy who is everywhere and is very good?
No news on story yet other than the fact that the four women in the picture up top are a group of wives.....watch this space..
