Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit - Review

Director: Kenneth Branagh Writers: Adam Cozad, David Koepp Studios: Paramount Pictures, Skydance Productions, di Bonaventura Pictures, Mace Neufeld Productions, Buckaroo Entertainment, Etalon Film, Translux Cast: Chris Pine, Kenneth Branagh, Keira Knightley, Kevin Costner Release Date (UK): 24 January 2014 Certificate: 12A Runtime: 105 min

Though touted as the big reboot of the “Jack Ryan” franchise, “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” is technically the third rejig for Tom Clancy’s all-American Cold War super-spy. Originally played by Alec Baldwin in 1990’s “The Hunt for Red October,” he was given a face-lift in 1992, reborn as the grizzled and commanding Harrison Ford for “Patriot Games” and “Clear and Present Danger” and then again in the younger form of Ben Affleck for 2002’s “The Sum of All Fears” (the film everyone remembers for the scene in which a football stadium is nuked to smithereens and not much else). Now Chris Pine steps into Ryan’s boots for what could be considered the “Casino Royale” of the “Jack Ryan” series, a modern-day origin story taking us back to our hero’s first day on the job.

Directed by Kenneth Branagh, “Shadow Recruit” takes us on Ryan’s first mission as a covert CIA analyst: while working undercover at Wall Street he notices some fishy goings-on at the Russian stock market, where trillions of dollars have mysteriously vanished. Travelling to Moscow, he uncovers a terrorist plot headed by crazed Russian oligarch Viktor Cheverin (Branagh), who plans to bomb Manhattan and cripple the US economy. Guided by Kevin Costner's CIA honcho, Ryan works to stop Cheverin before his plan is fulfilled. And as if dodging hitmen and sneaking into badguy headquarters wasn’t enough, Ryan’s girlfriend Cathy (Keira Knightley) turns up out of the blue, suspecting her bf is having an affair, and learns of his secret CIA career.

Branagh brings little to the table that hasn’t been brought before by countless other spy thrillers — like its title, “Shadow Recruit” is awfully generic. Disappointing, given the bang-up job Branagh did in bringing Marvel's “Thor” to the big screen, though on-screen as the aggressively Russian Cheverin he does make for a chillingly intimidating villain. Pine brings to Ryan the same kind of smarts and agility he brought to his Captain Kirk, if less personality — a clearly established character, Jack Ryan’s only weakness! In fact, the whole film seems to be in need of its own identity: there's a bathroom punch-up that seems ripped straight from Bourne, the plot appears to be swiped from an Ian Fleming novel and the film has a general air of blandness that it never quite overcomes. “Shadow Recruit” isn't terrible: it diverts for its runtime and runs smoothly enough. But in the wake of the “Bourne” trilogy and “Skyfall” this is hardly remarkable, too safe and too familiar — maybe another reboot is in order for Jack?

Rating: 5/10

The Wolf of Wall Street - Review

Director: Martin Scorsese Writer: Terence Winter Studios: Universal Pictures, Red Granite Pictures, Appian Way Productions, Sikelia Productions, Emjag Productions Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie, Matthew McConaughey, Kyle Chandler Release Date (UK): 17 January 2014 Certificate: 18 Runtime: 179 min

Jordan Belfort is an asshole: a straight up, full-on, coke-snorting, money-swindling, wife-cheating asshole. As played by Leonardo DiCaprio, he is the anti-hero of Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street” and he is also a real person: a Bronx-born ex-stockbroker and fraudster, Belfort swindled his way into millions of dollars on the Wall Street market in the 1990s, all the while cheating on his wife with a seemingly unlimited supply of prostitutes and snorting anything and everything he could fit inside his nasal cavities. The film is based on his self-aggrandising memoir, and Scorsese has come under fire for depicting Belfort’s deplorable assholery with nary a judgemental eye; apparently showing Belfort being an asshole isn’t enough, Belfort must be punished as well, as narrative formula dictates. In reality, Belfort never truly was punished — though he was nabbed by the FBI, his 22 month sentence was spent in a minimum security prison where he was made very comfortable — and this I believe was Scorsese’s point: this asshole and his associates got away practically scot free, and ain’t that just infuriating.

An epic, darkly comic character profile which runs for three hours without ever stopping for breath, “The Wolf of Wall Street” is very much in the tradition of Scorsese’s “Goodfellas” and “Casino” and it is his best work since the latter. At 179 minutes, it’s Scorsese’s longest film and also his sweariest; wikipedia has it at a staggering 569 uses of the word “fuck,” topping “Casino”’s very admirable 422. It’s remarkable how Scorsese and his long-time editor Thelma Schoonmaker can make three hours whoosh by in what feels like half that time — though it must be said, time flies when you’re watching a man blow cocaine up a hooker’s rectum.

That, coming roughly three minutes in, is one of the countless unforgettable sights on display as Belfort, and indeed DiCaprio, dives nose-first into a cesspool teeming with drugs, money, pussy and tons upon tons of money. Did I mention the money? Belfort has so much money he has sex in a bed of banknotes. And did I mention the drugs? It’s a wonder Belfort is still alive, considering the amount of dangerous illegal substances that have made their way through his system. Crack, cocaine and something called a Quaalude: a little white pill which sends its user into a practically comatose state if they are immobile and hyper-mania if they are active. Belfort informs us that it has since been made unavailable. I can’t for the life of me imagine why.

Scorsese charts Belfort’s rise to infamous, crooked multi-millionaire from his brief stint as a junior stockbroker at a doomed Wall Street firm, where he quickly learns that the Wall Street stockbrokers don’t just say, “Pass me the phone,” they say, “Pass me the cock-sucking phone.” While there, he finds himself seduced by his chest-thumping boss (Matthew McConaughey), who advises him to live a life of debauchery if he is to be successful in the financial industry. And so he does: when the company collapses on Black Monday, Belfort starts up his own company, the respectable sounding Stratton Oakmont, with a team of ambitious, money-hungry brokers — among them Jonah Hill’s delightfully goofy crack addict Donnie Azoff — whom he teaches to manipulate stocks and cheat customers out of thousands of dollars over the phone. Those that succeed are rewarded with crazy parties, the finest of strippers and in-office midget-tossing shows. Those that don’t get their goldfish eaten by Donnie.

Soon enough, Stratton Oakmont begins to resemble a modern-day Roman empire, with Belfort a shrieking, mic-swinging Caligula and the sea of stockbrokers that stand before him his worshipping crowd. You oughta see the orgies — a mile high they are. Here, Scorsese must walk a fine line between glorifying and condoning, showing Belfort’s lifestyle of excess for the unending fun it undoubtedly was yet tut-tutting its morals (or lack thereof). In fact, there’s not much tut-tutting going on, and for good reason: we’re in Belfort’s head, listening to Belfort’s smug narration and among Belfort’s friends, thus Belfort’s wild partying is nothing but exhilarating and hilarious in its madness. The tut-tutting must come from us; Scorsese steps back and allows us to be the judge. No judge ever got to properly punish him in court — maybe our judgement is his comeuppance.

As Belfort, DiCaprio is absolutely in command, deliciously manic and equal counts loathsome and roguishly lovable. It’s his best performance to date. It also turns out he’s an unprecedented master of physical comedy — a moment in which he, having a delayed reaction to an overdose of Quaaludes and sent into what he calls the “cerebral palsy phase,” drags himself across a country club car park to his car is positively Chaplin-esque in its slapstick delivery. This scene, along with the scene that follows in Belfort’s swanky home where a drugged-up Donnie chokes on some ham, is like Scorsese doing “Dumb and Dumber” and it had me in hysterics.

Eventually, “The Wolf of Wall Street” achieves a sort of fever-dream madness where we can no longer tell if what we’re watching is real, a Quaalude-induced hallucination or a figment of Belfort’s self-aggrandising imagination — did he really watch a rescue plane burst into a fireball when a seagull flew into the engine? Whatever the case, this is magnificently entertaining: a gloriously fucked up ride through the mind and experiences of a lowlife living the high life that’s riveting in the most intoxicating of ways. Jordan Belfort is an asshole, unpunished and proud, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have a blast watching him be one.

Rating: 10/10

12 Years a Slave - Review

Director: Steve McQueen Writer: John Ridley Studios: Summit Entertainment, Regency Enterprises, Film4, RiverRoad Entertainment, Plan B Entertainment Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong’o, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti, Sarah Paulson, Brad Pitt Release Date (UK): 10 January 2014 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 133 min

The brutality of Steve McQueen’s “12 Years a Slave” is merciless, as it should be. The slave masters showed no mercy in the treatment of their slaves — why should McQueen? For we the audience’s comfort? For the sake of our squeamishness? Or perhaps because such depictions are, say certain individuals, inherently cruel and sadistic? Some have complained that the film’s depiction of this ugly time in American history is “too much,” that it should be toned down. To hell with that — this is the hard and painful truth, and McQueen portrays the terror and the pain in all its grim detail.

This is a tough watch, partly because the violence is so uncompromisingly graphic and visceral, partly because we know that these atrocities truly did occur and on such an enormous scale and for such a long period of time. It’s based on an extraordinary true story, that of Solomon Northup, a free-born African American carpenter, violinist and family man who in 1841 was drugged, kidnapped and sold into slavery in New Orleans. Stripped of his identity and forced to pick away at cotton fields, he faced horrors and inhumanities no man should ever have to face: lynchings, whippings, beatings, for twelve whole years. In 1853, Solomon wrote an account of his horrifying ordeals in his memoir “Twelve Years a Slave,” and now Steve McQueen brings his story to the big screen.

Solomon Northup is an unsung hero of history, for what he suffered through, for how he endured and for how he shared his story — how he’s not remembered alongside Anne Frank is a mystery to me. Here, he’s played by the great British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, who fully inhabits Solomon’s strength, hope and dignity, and how they are slowly but surely beaten out of him throughout his time working on the plantations of the South. Ejiofor is an immensely versatile actor — he’s always terrific, be it in rom-coms or sci-fi flicks — and here he gives his best and most nuanced performance to date; it’s astonishing how much emotion he can project with just a glance, a quiver of his lips or a determined stare down the camera lens.

On a ship on the way to New Orleans, a fellow chained slave advises Solomon to keep his head down, to feign illiteracy and avoid attention if he wishes to survive. “I don’t want to survive, I want to live,” is his stern response. Initially, Solomon is sold to the slaver William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch), who, compared to other slavers, seems relatively nice; he recognises that the slaves are human and appears to sympathise with them, even if he does have them slaving away on his field. But after a confrontation with Paul Dano’s cruel and racist farmhand — whose taunting, hand-clapping rendition of Run, Nigger, Run haunts the mind long after viewing — Solomon is sold to the maniacal Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender), a proud “nigger breaker” whose beating and lashing of his slaves is, according to him at least, God’s will. Surviving, it seems, may be Solomon’s only option.

I’d call Epps terrifying, but he seems the sort who’d revel in such a description, so instead I’ll call him psychotic; he’s prone to fits of uncontrollable rage and is the epitome of the evil, the sliminess and the hate we associate with slave owners; Fassbender, as you would expect, is brilliantly diabolical. Each night, Epps sneaks into the bed of the young slave girl Patsey and forces himself upon her; later, he strips her, ties her to a post and savagely whips her. Patsey is played by Lupita Nyong’o, a Kenyan actress in her first film role, and she is a revelation. We all know of the skills of Ejiofor and Fassbender, but not of this newcomer, who is sensational in portraying her character's initial sturdiness and increasing fragility. The scene in which she is whipped is one of the most heartbreaking scenes I have ever witnessed — it is one of many in the film.

Epps is sadistic, and in depicting his and his ilk’s sadism, McQueen himself has been accused of being sadistic. This is wrong; while it is true that McQueen dwells on his characters’ pain — as he does in an unflinching and unblinking take in which Solomon, barely standing on the tips of his toes, hangs by the neck, choking on his breath while the daily life of the plantation continues on behind him — he does not revel in it. He is merely depicting what must be depicted. Take, for example, the scene in which Patsey is whipped; McQueen makes a clear point of turning the camera away from Epps and Solomon to instead watch Patsey, specifically the skin of her back as it is torn apart by the force of the whip. McQueen is not gaining sick pleasure from this; rather, his camera looks upon it with horror. But it does not look elsewhere; McQueen knows that it is his duty as a storyteller to show what happened as it happened, no shying away. It’s tough to face (I for one could barely stand to witness it), but this, McQueen says, is real history in all its inhuman horror.

I’ve said several times in this review that “12 Years a Slave” is often difficult to watch, and it is. But this is not a torture porn movie, as the buffoon Armond White has ignorantly asserted; Ejiofor’s performance is far too moving, the story is far too powerful and the brutality cuts too deep for the film to sink to such murky depths. This is a film that must be seen, for its truth, for its passion, for its beauty, but most of all for its raw power. If there’s one flaw, it’s that at the film’s end there appears text outlining the events in the aftermath of Solomon’s imprisonment; how, pray tell, does McQueen expect me to read this when I have tears in my eyes?

Rating: 10/10

Here Are 10 Films I'm Looking Forward to Seeing in 2014...

...which I *might* get angry about if it turns out I’ve hyped them up too much and they are in fact “just okay.” Here are a few honourable mentions, because I’m weird and I feel sort of guilty for not putting them in the top 10: “How to Train Your Dragon 2,” “Jupiter Ascending,” “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For,” “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” “Noah,” “The Hobbit: There and Back Again” and “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1.” Now the top 10:

10. "Captain America: The Winter Soldier"

I quite liked the first “Captain America” — it had heart, it had spirit, it had Chris Evans' steaming, bountiful pecs — and if the trailer is to be believed, follow-up “The Winter Soldier” has every chance of being just as good or possibly — gasp — even better. While Joe Johnston’s 2011 flick was a pulpy, Indiana Jones-style WWII actioner, this looks to be a darker and (dare I utter it) grittier, modern-day political thriller, with Robby Redford playing a shadowy government official and Cap himself sporting a notably darker costume (he’s been Dark Knight-ified!). Marvel have a track record of providing reliably entertaining superhero pics (let’s ignore “Iron Man 2” for a second), so Cap’s second solo outing oughta be a bunch of fun.

9. "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes"

Andy Serkis’ monkeying around caused quite the stir among the awards circuit in 2011: was his motion-captured performance as Caesar the CG chimp in “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” really eligible for awards love? The correct answer: of course it was, and he deserved every gong he could get his hairy mitts on. In Matt Reeves’ “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,” Serkis returns as the apes’ revolution against mankind continues in a world ravaged by a deadly disease. Even if the film doesn’t live up to expectations (with Reeves at the helm, I doubt it won’t), it’ll surely be worth the price of admission for Serkis’ performance alone — there’s real human emotion behind those simian, computer-generated eyes.

8. "Transcendence"

Christopher Nolan’s frequent, gifted cinematographer Wally Pfister directs his debut feature film, so one thing’s for certain: this is gonna be one hell of a competently lit movie. A high-concept techno thriller, “Transcendence” is said to finally introduce the singularity — that’s the predicted point in time when artificial intelligence officially tops human intelligence — to the mainstream, as Johnny Depp’s terminally ill scientist Dr. Will Caster has his consciousness uploaded onto a computer system, where he turns world-endingly sinister. There’s a lot of potential here, so let’s hope Pfister doesn’t cock it up and make himself look like a massive wally. Ahem.

7. "Godzilla"

In 2010, Brit filmmaker Gareth Edwards made a staggeringly impressive directorial debut with his zero-budget creature feature “Monsters,” about ferocious alien beasties walking the earth. In 2014, he gets the big guy: Japanese mega-lizard Gojira (or Godzilla to western audiences), who hasn’t wreaked havoc across the silver screen since that god-awful Roland Emmerich film from the late 1990s. An apocalyptically ominous trailer hit the net a few weeks back, promising a true monster scale and tons upon tons of disastrous destruction. Here’s hoping it’s not another Emmerichian let-down, lest I breathe hellfire.

6. "Gone Girl"

David Fincher has directed four mystery thrillers in his movie career, two of which are undeniable masterpieces (“Se7en” and “Zodiac”) and two of which are very good indeed (that’s his underrated ’90s gem “The Game” and his bone-chilling “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” remake, which I and I alone thought was even better than its Swedish counterpart). Those are four reasons to get excited about “Gone Girl,” Fincher’s new mystery thriller in which a woman disappears on her wedding anniversary; another is that its literary inspiration, written by Gillian Flynn, has literally (not literally) been flying off book shelves and from what I’ve heard — i.e. from one friend who's more literate than I — is apparently quite good. Can Fincher pull another great thriller out of his brainbox? ‘Course he can.

5. "The Grand Budapest Hotel"

Just look at that fucking cast: Ralph Fiennes, Edward Norton, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Jude Law, Saoirse Ronan, Owen Wilson, Tilda Swinton, Adrien Brody, Lea Seydoux, Bill Murray... but I could copy and paste from IMDb all day. And it’s directed by ever-so-quirky super-auteur Wes Anderson, whose last film, “Moonrise Kingdom,” was an eccentric delight from beginning to end. Shot in three different aspect ratios (and, as always, Anderson’s own symmetry-vision), “The Grand Budapest Hotel” follows the adventures of a famed hotel concierge and his trusted lobby boy in 1920s Europe, as sparked by an inherited Renaissance painting and a dead widow. Some are put off by Anderson’s deadpan, deliberately framed style, finding it irritating or simply tired of it; me, I think it’s gorgeous, side-splitting and oddly, irresistibly enchanting — judging by the trailer, which already has me in stitches, this looks to be no different.

4. "Inherent Vice"

Six movies in, and Paul Thomas Anderson is yet to take a single misstep — his “Boogie Nights,” “Magnolia” and “There Will be Blood” are all epic, breathtaking masterworks, and the rest aren’t trailing very far behind (much as people may try to convince you that “The Master” is rubbish, it really isn’t). “Inherent Vice” is Anderson’s seventh film and considering his career so far this is absolutely one to look forward to: based on the novel by Thomas Pynchon, it’s a 1970s-set LA crime thriller and stars Joaquin Phoenix as a drug-addicted detective investigating the disappearance of a former girlfriend. Could it be Anderson’s next masterwork? We’ll just have to wait and see.

3. "Guardians of the Galaxy"

A talking, sentient space tree voiced by Vin Diesel? A gun-toting, wise-cracking raccoon voiced by Bradley Cooper? Marvel have gone mad. Call it off: this’ll never work. They couldn’t possibly pull it off... or could they? “Guardians of the Galaxy” is the last film in the three-year build-up to “The Avengers: Age of Ultron” and I’m quaking in my official Marvel superhero slippers just thinking about what spectacular, spacey madness director James Gunn has in store for us. Judging by the teasing glimpse we got in the post-credits sting of “Thor: The Dark World,” as well as the crazy cast of characters, this is gonna be weird, and brilliantly so.

2. "Interstellar"

Having completed his triumphant “Dark Knight” trilogy on a suitably bombastic note, Christopher Nolan returns to the (hopefully) mind-melting sci-fi territory he so masterfully swaggered through in “The Prestige” and “Inception,” only this time he's in space! A right delicious appetiser of a teaser released last month showed little in the way of actual footage from “Interstellar” (it comprised mostly of stock footage of rocket launches from the '60s space race), but it did have a rather inspiring voice-over from Matthew McConaughey lamenting our lost desire to “break barriers” and “reach for the stars.” Oh, and four written words: “One year from now.” I’m counting down the days.

1. "The Raid 2: Berandal"

Let’s face it: Gareth Evans’ 2011 thriller “The Raid” was the best action movie of the last 10 years and sequel “Berandal” is going to be all kinds of rip-your-shirt-off-and-scream-to-the-heavens awesome — I can feel it in my veins, man. I can feel it in my veins! Again directed by Evans, “The Raid 2” follows Iko Uwais’ super-cop/pro ass-hander Rama as he goes undercover in an Indonesian prison, where the fistfights and general butt-kickery kicks off all over again. The first film ran at a fairly brisk 101 minutes; word is that the runtime for “Berandal” is 148 minutes. Just think about that: that’s over 2 hours and 20 minutes of no-nonsense, bone-snapping, bollock-dropping, action-crammed mayhem, as directed by the man they’re calling “the next John Woo.” Fuck yes, you should be screaming, clenched fist raised to the sky. Fuck yes...

American Hustle - Review

Director: David O. Russell Writers: Eric Warren Singer, David O. Russell Studios: Columbia Pictures, Annapurna Pictures Cast: Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Jennifer Lawrence Release Date (UK): 1 January 2014 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 138 min

David O. Russell gets his Scorsese on in a fiercely enjoyable, fact-based crime caper about con artists working with the feds in 1970s New Jersey. Mimicking Marty’s sweeping camera, sprawling storytelling techniques and jet-black humour to gloriously entertaining effect, Russell makes the best film Scorsese never made, and would’ve got a Scorsesian full house if he’d thrown a few Rolling Stones tracks in there — maybe we’ll get those from the big man himself in the upcoming “The Wolf of Wall Street.” Like “Goodfellas” and “Casino” before it, “American Hustle” is loosely inspired by a true crime story, that of the “Abscam” sting, and is nostalgically narrated by one of its key figures: Irving Rosenfeld, a lowlife conman played by Christian Bale. Bale has had some startling physiques in his career — most memorably his nightmarish skeletal frame in “The Machinist” — but this one’s a little different; here, he’s sporting a beer belly the size of a wrecking ball and a hideous comb-over rightly described by his mistress as “elaborate" (its process involves square patches of fuzz and a prit-stick).

With his mistress Sydney (Amy Adams), a smart and seductive ex-stripper who masquerades as a British countess, Irving runs a loan scam business in which down-on-their-luck clients naively hand over $5,000 and receive nothing in return. When they’re nabbed by the FBI they’re offered a deal: if they help the bureau entrap some corrupt politicians in an elaborate sting operation they’ll get off scott free. They accept and along with Bradley Cooper’s ambitious, curly-locked Agent Richie they scheme to catch the crooked public figures red-handed, among them the super-quiffed Jersey Mayor Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner). You might notice I’m mentioning the hairstyles a lot; it's nigh impossible to discuss “American Hustle" without talking about all the outrageous ’dos on display, along with the stunningly garish ‘70s fashion and Amy Adams' ever-visible cleavage — it’s her character’s alluring method of misdirection and seduction and, well, I’ll be damned if it doesn’t work (watching the film, it’s hard to remember her as Princess Giselle in Disney’s “Enchanted;” Adams is great that way).

Things get tricky when Irving’s unstable young wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) enters the equation to play a part in the sting; described by Irving as “the Picasso of passive-aggressive karate,” she’s a born trouble-maker and regularly sets fire to her kitchen with various household appliances. Things get even trickier when a love triangle starts to blossom, with Sydney straddling the top and Irving and Richie both clamouring for her from the bottom. Always a delight in Scorsese’s gangster movies was the interaction between the wild and colourful characters, and here Russell wrings belly laughs from his central quartet’s merciless banter and ferocious screaming matches. I damn near laughed my head off when, during an argument, Richie ruffles Irving’s comb-over out of place, to which a frozen Irving reacts with an intense, mortified stare — and that was only 5 minutes in.

Part of the joy of watching “American Hustle” is predicting how exactly they’re going to derail the operation: Lawrence’s unpredictable Rosalyn is the obvious loose cannon but really, they’re all loose cannons ready to blow at any second; there’s Sydney with her identity crisis and ever-changing accent; there’s Richie with his increasingly manic behaviour and the poor fiancée he’s cheating on (or at least striving to cheat on); and then there’s Irving with his mounting doubts about the operation and his growing friendship with one of the operation’s key targets (who might not be such a bad’un after all). You wonder when the whole thing’s gonna collapse in on itself; and then they bring out the Mexican to play the part of the Arab sheikh, and you can’t help but cackle.

The central story of dodgy deals and crooked politicians is less interesting than the characters that surround it, but Russell keeps the hustle always moving forward, and the characters are performed with such energy and ferocity that it’s impossible not to be reeled in by their undeniable, scene-thieving presence. Lawrence, in particular, is a force to be reckoned with, and her frantic, hoover-wielding rock-out to Wings’ Live and Let Die stands tall as one of the most memorable movie moments of 2013 — just you wait for the gifs!

Rating: 8/10

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - Review

Director: Peter Jackson Writers: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, Guillermo del Toro Studios: Warner Bros. Pictures, New Line Cinema, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, WingNut Films Cast: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Benedict Cumberbatch, Orlando Bloom, Evangeline Lily, Luke Evans Release Date (UK): 13 December 2013 Certificate: 12A Runtime: 161 min

“I do believe the worst is behind us” were the last words spoken in last year’s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” uttered by Bilbo Baggins as he, Gandalf and their band of thirteen hairy dwarves looked at their near future in the shape of The Lonely Mountain. And indeed Bilbo may be right: though sufficiently spectacular and delivered with gusto, the first chapter in Peter Jackson’s epic new fantasy trilogy, the prequels to his earth-shattering “Lord of the Rings” films, was a slight disappointment, lacking a little oomph in its narrative; it took forever to get going and once it did the story lacked focus and took on an all too episodic structure, with lengthy, inconsequential brawls with trolls and goblins and a pointless Rivendell pit-stop that wasn’t even in Tolkein’s book.

Thankfully, follow-up “The Desolation of Smaug” eradicates these problems, Jackson reducing the episodic structure and giving its narrative a smoother flow. Continuing the dwarves’ quest to reclaim their lost homeland, this second chapter is a superior creature, romping along at a brisker pace and journeying towards a clearly defined destination: The Lonely Mountain, where lowly hobbit Bilbo, again played wonderfully by Martin Freeman, must thieve the precious Arkenstone from under the snout of the dreaded dragon Smaug; the dragon whose eye, you may remember, burst open in the final moments of the last movie as he slumbered peacefully in a tomb of stolen gold worthy of Scrooge McDuck.

But it’s a good while until we get to him — a solid two hours, in fact. In the meantime, our vertically challenged heroes get into all sorts of perilous scrapes in their trek across Middle-earth, from a terrifying encounter with a hungry family of giant tarantulas to imprisonment in the dungeons of the Elvenking Thranduil (Lee Pace). All the while they’re pursued by a party of Orcs working under orders from a mysterious, whispery Necromancer who rises from the darkness.

Along the way we’re treated with a series of high-energy action set-pieces, the sheer bravura of which, combined with Jackson’s twisting, turning camera and dollops of gorgeously rendered special effects, is exhilarating and dazzling. Particularly spirited is our heroes’ intrepid escape from the dungeons of the Elvenking: chased by battling Orcs and elves, they ride wine barrels down a thrashing river. Pudgy dwarf Bombur (Stephen Hunter) really gets his chance to shine here, given a spectacular moment in which he, trapped inside a rolling barrel, pummels through Orc warriors left, right and centre like a bowling ball knocking down pins (which is then followed by Orlando Bloom’s Legolas jumping on the dwarves’ heads while firing arrows at Orcs). It is, if you’ll excuse the pun, a barrel of fun, and one of the most unashamedly joyous sequences in the history of Jackson’s Middle-earth.

In amongst the grand spectacle there’s nothing quite as compelling as the central relationship between Frodo and Sam in the “Lord of the Rings” films, but there is Bilbo, whose transformation from a cosy Shire-dweller to a brave and bold adventurer is these films’ real journey. And Freeman is utterly brilliant, nailing Bilbo’s timidness, his growing courage and his creeping corruption from the One Ring. I had my doubts about Freeman, but after his performance here I can’t for the life of me remember why; he’s fantastic and absolutely vital to our connection to the story (the mostly interchangeable dwarves don’t quite cut it, though I do like Ken Stott’s Scottish dwarf Balin and Richard Armitage’s brooding leader Thorin).

They’re all joined by a couple of newcomers: there’s Luke Evans as the handsome smuggler Bard who sneaks our heroes into Lake-town in barrels of stinky fish, and Evangeline Lily as the elf warrior Tauriel. Both are very welcome additions, in particular the pointy-eared Lily, who makes for a kick-ass heroine with an impressive gift for taking down Orcs with a bow and arrow (side note: there’s a ton of nifty, wildly imaginative Orc decapitations in this. You can tell this is directed by the guy who made “Braindead”).

But undeniably, the best newcomer is Benedict Cumberbatch as the voice — and, if those rather embarrassing photos are to be believed, movement — of the gargantuan fire-breather Smaug the Magnificent. And magnificent he is: another miracle creation of WETA, he’s a fearsome beast of startling size, sporting a booming voice, dripping with arrogance and grinning with sadistic glee as he taunts and teases his tiny prey. His face-off with Bilbo inside The Lonely Mountain is gripping stuff as Bilbo’s newfound courage is really put to the test. Their interaction is seamless and the bombastic set-piece that follows is a ton of fun. It’s a finale worth the trek that preceded it, and considering what a lengthy trek it was, that’s saying something.

Indeed, Jackson’s undoubtedly self-indulgent desire to turn Tolkein’s slim story into another epic, 9-hour blockbuster trilogy still shows strain — there’s some definite padding here, some pointless filler here — but as long as the results are as consistently thrilling and immersive as this, you won’t hear me complaining (well, not too much, anyway). I’m kind of excited for “There and Back Again;” after all, “Return of the King” was my favourite of the “Lord of the Rings” films, and given that this will be the third and final entry in the “Hobbit” series it has every chance of being the best of them. Let’s hope Jackson can pull it off — I mean, if anyone can, it’s most certainly him.

Rating: 8/10

Frozen - Review

Directors: Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee Writer: Jennifer Lee Studios: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Animation Studios Cast: Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad Release Date (UK): 6 December 2013 Certificate: PG Runtime: 108 min

Disney’s “Frozen” is, for my money, the best animated film of the year — you’ve probably heard that already, from the countless rave reviews the film has rightly received across the US and now in the UK, all punnily proclaiming (for good reason) that it will “melt your heart.” You’ve also undoubtedly heard that it’s Disney’s best since their Shakespearian mega-hit “The Lion King” in 1994, and as an admirer of their subsequent “Mulan,” as well as their more recent “The Princess and the Frog,” “Tangled” and “Wreck-It Ralph” I’m going to have to agree with that bold claim (incidentally, yesterday I happily rewatched “The Lion King” for the first time in years and fell right back in love with it, and straight afterwards I rewatched “Beauty and the Beast” cos, you know, it’s “Beauty and the Beast” and it’s awesome).

Watching “Frozen,” I got the definite sense that I was watching a proper Disney classic, like something from their great Renaissance period — and that, I have to say, is a great feeling indeed. Its story, which involves magic and princesses and a fantasy kingdom, feels like it’s been ripped directly from the pages of an old Grimm folk story or a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale (perhaps that’s because it’s loosely based on the latter’s 1845 work “The Snow Queen”). The story is that of a princess born with the uncontrollable power to turn all that she touches into solid ice, and it’s as enchanting a tale as the studio has ever told — it’s also quite possibly their most mature and human one yet.

The princess, voiced by Idina Menzel (“Wicked”), is named Elsa, and she’s kept locked away in her family’s Nordic castle after her powers very nearly result in the death of her little sister Anna, voiced by Kristen Bell — her frosty touch, she’s told, is far too dangerous and must stay hidden before someone else is put in harm’s way. But her true nature can’t be kept under lock and key forever, and indeed during her coronation ceremony her powers are publicly exposed in spectacular fashion: during a fight with Anna she accidentally freezes the grand hall and turns the water of a fountain to ice. Labelled a monster, she flees the kingdom and in a fit of rage, inadvertently plunges the land into a seemingly eternal winter.

It’s up to the excitable and naive Anna to find her beloved but distant big sis and convince her to reverse the curse under which she has placed the land. On her journey she meets three sprightly characters who tag along: Kristoff (Jonathan Groff), a hunky mountain man whose business of selling ice has significantly depleted since the sudden ice age (apparently he’s not so good he can sell snow to eskimos), Kristoff’s lovable reindeer Sven and a goofy, living snowman called Olaf, whose biggest wish is to finally see what summer looks like. As voiced by Josh Gad, Olaf is one of the most delightful supporting characters in Disney canon, full of life and innocence, and with body parts that move of their own free will. He even gets his own (hilarious) musical number, in which he fantasises about sunbathing on a beach (“I’m gonna tell him,” whispers Kristoff. “Don’t you dare!” barks Anna).

Yes, “Frozen” is a musical, and what a splendid one it is: the early “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" is an absolute, spirit-soaring joy, and there’s a marvellous midway number (“Let It Go”) in which Elsa constructs her own grand ice palace while belting out a show-stopping tune about embracing her powers rather than holding them back. Here, “Frozen” reveals itself to be a firmly feminist film, as Elsa passionately refuses to hide her real self from society and let her true nature reign free. It’s powerful, heart-soaring stuff, and along with “Tangled” shows Disney handling their female characters in a way that’s respectful, intelligent and fiercely liberating.

And of course we also get some truly splendid computer animation, as gorgeously assembled by Disney’s crack team of artists: the snow-dappled land of Arendelle is beautifully rendered. Is “Frozen” Disney’s first truly great computer animation? I think it is: “Tangled” was terrific fun, but it didn’t quite have the nuance or the poignancy on display here. What I’m certain of is this: “Frozen” is spellbinding, and not only is it absolutely worthy of the timeless Disney classics it has been compared to, it’s a timeless Disney classic all on its own.

Rating: 9/10