Curse of Chucky - Review

Director: Don Mancini Writer: Don Mancini Studio: Universal Home Entertainment Cast: Brad Dourif, Fiona Dourif, Danielle Bisutti, A Martinez, Brennan Elliott, Chantal Quesnelle Release Date (UK): 21 October 2013 Certificate: 18 Runtime: 97 min

After the dark spoof comedy of “Bride..” and “Seed of Chucky,” the sixth instalment in the “Child’s Play” series returns its flame-haired killer doll to his more straight-faced roots. “Curse of Chucky,” directed by franchise creator Don Mancini, harks back to the scarier, stripped-down thrills of the original 1988 cult classic to good effect, as the titular pint-sized slasher offs a dysfunctional family one by one in his unending quest to transfer his evil soul into a human body.

Fiona Dourif, daughter of Brad, capably leads the cast as wheelchair-bound paraplegic heroine Nica, whose beloved mother apparently jumps to her death at their remote country house the night after they receive a mysterious package in the mail — inside sits a beaming, bright-eyed Good Guy doll called Chucky, sent anonymously and without any given reason. The next day, Nica’s family — among them her domineering sister Barb (Danielle Bisutti) and adorable niece Alice (Summer H. Howell) — come to town to pay their last respects and soon find themselves fighting for their lives, hunted by an unknown (and rather petite-looking) assailant on a dark and stormy night. But who’s the killer? Why, it couldn’t possibly be little Alice's new best friend, that lifeless plastic plaything sitting quietly in the corner... could it?

Voiced again by Brad Dourif, Chucky is much quieter here than in recent instalments, staying silent for the first half outside of the doll’s cutesy, built-in recorded phrases (“Hi, I'm Chucky and I’m your friend 'til the end. Hi-de-ho, ha-ha-ha”). It’s in these earlier moments that the film is at its most suspenseful, with brief glimpses of Chucky’s tiny feet scuttling across the kitchen floor, his head slowly turning in the background and his stubby plastic digits reaching for the rat poison. Later, when Dourif finally gets to speak (and Chucky gets to hack and slash to his heart’s content), we get the Chucky we’ve recently become familiar with: the cackling, foul-mouthed, wise-cracking cabbage patch killer whose tongue is as sharp as the blade he swings and whose twisted ways we just can’t help but love.

The cheaper budget is clear — considering it’s a straight to DVD release, the dodgy CGI is understandable — but Mancini keeps the camerawork lively, makes good use of the mostly single-location setting and has a few neat visual tricks up his sleeve (overhead shots of a short actor moving around while sporting Chucky’s costume are quite clever). I could have done without some of the timeline-skewing fan service towards the end — don’t ask me when “Curse of Chucky" takes place in the franchise, I have no idea — but as a fan of the series and its devilish antihero/antagonist, it’s great to see Chucky back on-screen and back to his old-fashioned ways.

Rating: 6/10

Rush - Review

Director: Ron Howard Writer: Peter Morgan Studios: StudioCanal, Exclusive Media, Revolution Films, Working Title Films, Imagine Entertainment, Relativity Media, Cross Creek Pictures Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Daniel Brühl, Olivia Wilde, Alexandra Maria Lara Release Date (UK): 13 September 2013 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 122 min

One of the best films of the year is “Rush,” director Ron Howard’s mesmerising chronicle of the heated rivalry between legendary Formula 1 race car drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda. And two of the best performances of the year come from Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl as Hunt and Lauda, respectively, who are so perfectly cast in their roles that in the film’s closing moments, when stock footage of the actual Hunt and Laudu are presented to us, we can barely tell them apart from their real-life counterparts.

For a film about cars going around in circles, “Rush” is oddly, stupendously riveting. It opens on the fateful date of 1 August 1976, when the heavens opened up to pour down onto the Nürburgring track at the German Grand Prix, before jumping back to 1970 when a risky manoeuvre by Hunt on a Formula Three track results in Lauda's defeat and sparks their six-year tug of war. Their differences are immediately noticeable: Hunt, a prep schooled Brit, is an arrogant, blonde-locked hunk (not a world away from Hemsworth’s role in Marvel’s “Thor”) always surrounded by fawning admirers; Lauda, an Austrian engineering wiz, is a loner, coldly calculating and generally unlikeable, and is described by Hunt, not inaccurately, as having rat-like features.

Their attitudes towards racing differ greatly. Hunt believes that all that is required is simple speed, while Lauda, criticising Hunt for being too aggressive, believes there's so much more to it than that: “To be a champion, it takes more than just being quick,” he says. "It's the whole picture." But they have their similarities: both are rebels, racing against the wishes of their wealthy families, and both are brilliant racers who wish to become the F1 World Champion, no matter the cost. Screenwriter Peter Morgan, Oscar-nominated for “The Queen” and “Frost/Nixon,” charts their rivalry as they compete against each other across the globe, both usually finishing first or second, as well as detailing their shaky love lives — ever the womaniser, Hunt has a fling with a nurse played by Natalie Dormer and later weds supermodel Suzy Miller, played by Olivia Wilde, while Lauda falls for socialite Marlene Knaus, played by Alexandra Maria Lara.

Howard, who propels the story with roaring horsepower, recreates each race, and indeed each crash, with breathtaking intensity. We are given front-row seats, watching the action through both racers’ helmets, listening to their calm, controlled breathing over the almighty roar of the engine and watching them swiftly calculate their every last-second move — we the audience feel like we are racing in their cars with them, and boy, what a rush it is. Perhaps my lack of prior knowledge concerning the true events aided in my immersion: knowing that every corner of every lap is a potential death trap and that any minor miscalculation could mean a driver's fiery end, I feared for their lives at every turn, waiting for that fatal error — if there was to be one — to finally be made.

It’s of note that the film doesn’t pick a side. The posters, flaunting Hemsworth’s golden good looks, would have you believe that it is Hunt who is the hero and Lauda who is the villain. On the contrary, there is no clear hero or villain in this fact-based sports tale, the film instead leaving us to choose who to root for as these two petrol heads go head to head. I found myself rooting for Lauda: of the two, he suffers the most throughout the story, of which his side is the most tragic. It's to his credit that in playing such a humourless, uptight character, Brühl earns our sympathy. I'll be surprised if he's not up for an Oscar this coming February.

Here we have a powerful study on the nature of obsession. Hunt and Lauda are men obsessed: obsessed with beating each other and obsessed with winning the top prize, risking their lives for the sake of a trophy and their name on the top of a scoreboard. Towards the film’s end, a breaking point is reached, and here the film breaks from Hollywood formula: is the quest for gold really worth risking your life, the film questions, and the answer, surprisingly, is rather ambiguous.

I walked into “Rush" knowing next to nothing about the true story of James Hunt and Niki Lauda and without the slightest interest in motor racing. I walked out feeling exhilarated and eager to find out more about this remarkable piece of sporting history. This is studio entertainment at its finest, and like the extraordinary 2010 documentary “Senna,” also about a Formula 1 legend, it had my heart pounding and made me shed a tear at the races. Who knew watching cars going around in circles could be so emotional?

Rating: 10/10

Insidious: Chapter 2 - Review

Director: James Wan Writer: Leigh Whannell Studios: IM Global, Entertainment One, Blumhouse Productions, FilmDistrict, Stage 6 Films Cast: Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Lin Shaye, Ty Simpkins, Barbara Hershey Release Date (UK): 13 September 2013 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 106 min

Horror duo James Wan and Leigh Whannell go further into The Further in the sequel to their 2011 success story “Insidious,” the shoestring-budgeted haunted house indie that went on to bag almost $100 million worldwide. Continuing the story of the Lamberts, “Chapter 2” picks up right where Chapter 1 left off, as Patrick Wilson’s Josh returns from spirit realm The Further with the captured soul of son Dalton (Ty Simpkins), soon after which kindly medium Elise (Lin Shaye) is mysteriously killed. Seeking a fresh start at grandma's house, Josh and his wife Renai (Rose Byrne) instead find themselves terrorised by bumps in the night once again — it seems Josh brought something back from The Further with him, and it’s corrupted a member of the living to do its demonic deeds.

Wan, fresh off the financial success and critical acclaim of chiller hit “The Conjuring," continues to serve up spine-chilling frights with scary efficiency: a gifted technical director, he establishes a consistently creepy atmosphere right from the mood-setting prologue, a flashback to Josh’s youth when he was visited by a younger Elise (still voiced by Shaye, physically played by Lindsay Seim). In later scenes, Wan ratchets up the suspense with half-glanced ghostly apparitions and the increasingly strange behaviour of Josh (who’s... not quite himself) before paying it all off with perfectly timed jolts capable of making the most fearless of viewers leap out of their skin.

A palpable sense of dread, amplified by composer Joseph Bishara’s shrieking strings, pervades throughout, even when events threaten to get a little more rib-tickling than blood-curdling (an obviously possessed Josh standing oh-so-creepily in a doorway, the voice of young brother Foster cheesily whispering through a can-and-string phone, “I’m nooottt Fosterrrrr”). And there’s a cleverness to Whannell’s script, particularly when a seemingly random scare from the first “Insidious” is revisited and takes on a whole new meaning — though it takes away from the horrifying impact of the original scare, it’s an inspired callback, and it's pretty neat seeing a horror follow-up build on its predecessor with such organic ease.

This isn't the home run Wan scored with “The Conjuring” — the plot, jumping back and forth between the Lamberts and a bunch of ghost hunters, is a jumble, lacking the streamlined simplicity of the first film, and though most of them work like a charm, there’s an irritating overuse of “boo!” jump scares — but for a popcorn-friendly scare-em-up, “Insidious: Chapter 2” is a solid hit. It’s an effective Friday-night fright flick and one of the better sequels the genre has offered, smartly expanding on the world and backstory of its predecessor while maintaining its ability to spook an audience.

Rating: 6/10

The Call - Review

Director: Brad Anderson Writer: Richard D'Ovidio Studios: TriStar Pictures, Troika Pictures, WWE Studios, Stage 6 Films Cast: Halle Berry, Abigail Breslin, Morris Chestnut, Michael Eklund Release Date (UK): 20 September 2013 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 94 min

Kidnap thriller “The Call,” from “The Machinist” director Brad Anderson, gets off to a good, suspenseful start thanks to a clever concept and efficient thrills before its moronic finale shoots itself in the foot and then, in its final few moments, blows its brains out for good measure. Set in the hectic, unpredictable world of 911 operators, it stars Halle Berry as veteran L.A. operator Jordan, who has a particularly eventful day when she takes an emergency call from teenager Casey (“Little Miss Sunshine”’s Abigail Breslin, all grown up). Casey has been abducted by a stranger in a shopping mall parking lot and is calling on a mobile phone from the trunk of a car. The car is moving, the trunk is locked and she is trapped with only her untraceable phone, and Jordan on the other end of the line, to save her.

So begins a race against the clock to track down Casey’s ever-changing location and rescue her before her abductor, sick-minded Norman Bates wannabe Michael (Michael Eklund), reaches his destination. This part of the movie is tense, Anderson ratcheting up the suspense with futile escape attempts and increasingly violent threats from madman Michael, while cutting back and forth between Jordan and Casey as they frantically scheme to get the latter back to safety. Berry, eyes wide and ear pressed against her headset, adds sufficient dramatic weight to the proceedings as the determined but fragile 911 operator whose voice is Casey’s guide throughout her traumatic ordeal, while 17-year-old Breslin, either crammed in a trunk or strapped to a chair for much of the film, is sympathetic but strong as the helpless teen victim.

It’s nail-biting stuff, or at least it is for the first two thirds of the runtime — unfortunately, in its final third, when the film stupidly ditches the simple but fresh premise of 911 operator and caller having to work together over the phone, and Berry puts down the phone to go do some hands-on detective work of her own, the whole thing nose-dives into a hopelessly generic “Silence of the Lambs” copycat — the climax is laughably implausible and stuffed full of hackneyed genre clichés, e.g. creeping in the dark of a basement and peeping out from behind closet doors. Worse still, the film ends on a disastrously misjudged note of vengeful sadism that wouldn’t feel out of place in a “Saw” movie. Not just out of character for our heroine, the final 60 seconds are also out of character for the film, and, along with the rest of the climax, manage to spoil an otherwise neat little thriller that should’ve stuck to its killer concept — you shouldn’t have hung up the phone, movie.

Rating: 5/10

Riddick - Review

Director: David Twohy Writer: David Twohy Studios: Universal Pictures, Entertainment One Cast: Vin Diesel, Jordi Molla, Matt Nable, Katee Sackhoff Release Date (UK): 6 September 2013 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 118 min

Growling, muscle-bound slaphead Vin Diesel takes a well-deserved break from battling tanks with supercars in the “Fast and Furious” movies to instead battle hordes of CGI space monsters in the belated third instalment in the sci-fi action/horror series that first launched him to fame. Stripped down from the sprawling space opera pretensions of bizarre previous entry “The Chronicles of Riddick,” the simpler titled “Riddick” returns to the basic survival-horror premise of franchise kick-starter “Pitch Black,” as Diesel’s nocturnally sighted Furyan anti-hero is once again stranded on a desolate planet crawling with ferocious alien beasties.

Fanged jackal-dogs, venomous swamp scorpions and winged, pterodactyl-like creatures lurk in the dark, but the most dangerous predator prowling about this space rock is Riddick himself — as a team of intergalactic mercs are sorry to discover when they come to hunt down the wanted ex-con and he viciously hunts back. Harking back to the lean, mean, no-nonsense spirit of the gripping first instalment was a smart move — this is certainly more of a sequel to “Pitch Black” than “Chronicles” was — but loyal franchise helmer David Twohy takes it too far: in staying true not just to the simplicity but also the plot and setting of that 2000 cult hit, “Riddick” holds precious few surprises, with nothing on display we didn’t already see done better 13 years ago.

Diesel’s got the title character down pat, his guttural growls and unflinching demeanour making him both a formidable foe and an intriguing protagonist, and Twohy does good with a relatively modest $38 million budget — the film looks great, some dodgy creature effects aside. But for a follow-up to “Pitch Black,” this is too much of the same with little added or improved upon, and whatever goodwill the film builds up is soured by a far too flippant and repellently comical threat of corrective rape against Katee Sackhoff’s lesbian character Dahl.

Rating: 5/10

White House Down - Review

Director: Roland Emmerich Writer: James Vanderbilt Studios: Columbia Pictures, Centropolis Entertainment, Mythology Entertainment Cast: Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jason Clarke, Richard Jenkins, James Woods Release Date (UK): 13 September 2013 Certificate: 12A Runtime: 131 min

The last time gun-toting terrorists tried to take over the White House on the cinema screen, they had ex-Secret Service agent and John McClane wannabe Gerard Butler to tussle with in April actioner “Olympus Has Fallen” — the film everyone rightly dubbed “Die Hard in the White House.” Now, in cinematic doppelgänger “White House Down,” they’re pitted against Channing Tatum, who dares comparison with Bruce Willis’ wise-cracking Jersey cowboy even further by sporting McClane’s iconic manky wife-beater as he guns down the terrorist scumbags one by one.

Directed by disaster movie maestro Roland Emmerich, whose previous trip to 1600 Penn in the cheese-tastic “Independence Day” proved memorably explosive, it stars Tatum as John Cale, bodyguard to Speaker of the House Eli Raphelson (Richard Jenkins) and aspiring Secret Service man. While John takes a tour of the White House with his brainbox daughter Emily (Joey King, adorable), the building is stormed by a team of mercenaries led by former Special Forces operative Emil Stenz (Jason Clarke) as they act out a plan masterminded by treacherous Head of the Presidential Detail Martin Walker (James Woods). With the White House under siege and his daughter among the hostages, it’s up to John to single-handedly stop the bastards before they gain access to nuclear launch codes — albeit with a little help from Jamie Foxx’s bazooka-blasting President of the United States.

Like “Olympus Has Fallen,” “White House Down” can pride itself as a better “Die Hard” movie than the actual “Die Hard” movie released this year: while ol’ Brucie wreaks noisy, head-thumping havoc in the streets of Moscow, Butler and Tatum have much more fun battling badguys in the tight confines of the Presidential Palace. Of the two, “White House Down” is for me the better film: Tatum, to whom I’ve very much warmed after “Magic Mike” and “21 Jump Street,” continues to grow in star charisma, and the film has a likeable, goofy sense of humour as opposed to “Olympus Has Fallen”’s grim self-seriousness.

The plot is, of course, utterly ludicrous, reaching the pinnacle of lunacy when Foxx’s supposedly noble Leader of the Free World hangs out the side of a speeding Presidential limo while firing a rocket launcher on the White House front lawn. But the film works on the level of a dumb but breezily entertaining big-budget B-movie which shamelessly mimics “Die Hard”’s rock-solid premise — wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time — and carries it out better than bored Willis himself can these days. It’s nice to have a John McClane in 2013 who looks like he actually gives a damn.

Rating: 6/10