Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters "Whatever you do, don't eat the fucking candy."
Ever since Tim Burton's 2010 colossal billion dollar hit "Alice In Wonderland" studios have been seizing the rights to famous fairy tales and adapting them for the big screen. None of which have been anywhere near as financially successful. Snow White & The Huntsmen was a moderate success with $400,000,000 off a bloated $170,000,000 budget, Jack The Giant Slayer is set to bomb at the box office according to tracking, Hansel & Gretel is a very moderate success making $160,000,000 off a medium budget of $50,000,000. Red Riding Hood & Beastly were both huge financial failures. When will Hollywood take the hint and see that Alice In Wonderland was a rarity?
Hansel & Gretel is poorly cast, it was delayed 10 months to see if Jeremy Renner would become an A-List star from The Avengers & The Bourne Legacy & his on screen sister Gemma Arterton has a strong English accent for the entire film whilst Jeremy sported his Californian accent, figure that? Famke Janssen as the head evil witch didn't really bring the venom and sadistic tone as she did when she was the villain in "James Bond Goldeneye" she is still absolutely gorgeous but she looked bored and even admitted that she took the role to pay her mortgage off. The action sequences are dull, everyone constantly does the action roll to dodge flying objects or the "Neo Dodging Bullets Matrix Move" nothing is original. The weapons look like plastic, the music doesn't elevate the intensity it's just repetitive monotonous action.
However the make-up is extraordinary, when the witches are in full swing they are rotting, ugly creatures. And I silently applauded the production team for using physical prosthetic's for the troll "Edward" he wasn't a CGI character he was a man in a suit & he looked fantastically genuine, in fact the trolls action sequence was the most exciting sequence in the film. The time and effort that went into his suit must be appreciated. It's a shame our human leads just didn't have the chemistry to keep this film glued together. It's not a horrible film, but it's far from good, you could do a lot worse. From a technical standpoint it does stand out with physical sets, very little green screen, a lot of gorgeous makeup and prosthetic's, real explosions and trees splintering and buildings actually on fire. The script and casting is where it truly lacks. Some of the line delivery is cringe worthy and the script itself employ's the use of of swearing for the sake of swearing. "Let's say fuck and show some tits to make this an R rated film". I'm not against censorship at all, and I would never encourage censorship but don't use porny shots of women to try and get young boys into the cinema because then you're just selling sex instead of your adapted fairy tale. If you can see it with friends by all means you may enjoy it, just keep expectations really really low. I would pay to see a sequel just to watch the troll in action. 2/5
Thursday, 28 February 2013
Monday, 18 February 2013
Beautiful Creatures Film Review
Beautiful Creatures - "Keep your distance, if anything happens to my boy I won't hesitate to send you back to the very hell that spat you out"
Beautiful Creatures based on the novel of the same name is set in the religious extremist town of Gatlin South Carolina where classic works of literature like "To Kill A Mocking Bird" & "Slaughterhouse Five" are banned to preserve the innocence of the children, these very naive & religious children, a never ending cycle of prejudice and sheep worship plagues this town. It's a POV story told from the perspective of 16 year old Ethan Carter Wate played by the very charismatic and charming Alden Ehrenreich, a newcomer but showing early potential. One day the niece of the town shut in Lena Duchannes played by Alice Englert moves to town and enrolls in the local high school and with that comes very stereotypical high school consequences for the new kid. Pushed around and bullied until one day Lena Duchanes snaps and accidentally unleashes her powers on the students.
Turns out Lena is a caster and her powers are growing stronger every day leading up to her 16th birthday where she will be claimed for either the light or the dark. Whilst the deadline places a sense of urgency on our protagonists they never make the Twilightian mistake of taking themselves too seriously or hiring terrible actors for that matter. The jokes are flowing and they actually act like teenagers without irritating you, not an abundance of tears or brooding personalities or a depressing colour gradient filtered into every shot LIKE TWILIGHT. Ethan is a very relatable character who falls for Lena, sticks up for her and is willingly pulled into her dangerous extended family half of which are dark and half of which are light. Emmy Rossum plays Ridley Duchannes, Lena's evil cousin who is a vixen & a siren, can get men to do anything she wants and she exploits it which was good to see, she's not a half-assed villain.
We learn that as Lena's claiming day approaches conflicts arise as her thought to be dead mother "Sarafine" played by the devilishly fantastic Emma Thompson is on the warpath set to corrupt Lena and turn her dark so she can have her daughter back. However Lena has a guardian Macon Ravenwood played by the always excellent Jeremy Irons the town shut in who is reminiscent of Boo Radley from To Kill A Mockingbird. His intentions are clear and his determination is unwavering a really good character for him to sink his teeth into. As Ethan starts taking more and more risks to be with Lena we learn that he also has a guardian, his housekeeper Amma played by the gorgeous Viola Davis. She's completely strange and superstitious & also a seer. She can speak to dead relatives and has frequent visions. It shows that Viola Davis took the character seriously but also had a lot of fun with her. All in all the casting is literally perfect they all hit their marks, true to the characters and the accents are fantastic.
There are a few bumps in the road which stops me from really loving this film even though I liked it a lot. Whilst there is some really clever dialogue, sometimes it's not delivered perfectly. Also the special effects are not a strong point of this film, sometimes coming across a little distracting particularly the spinning dinner table scene. The costumes are terrific but it seems only the adult cast got to don the truly wonderful and campy extravagant costumes, whilst Lena went a little too Gothic and it didn't seem to fit. The music I hate to say is more often than not distractingly bad, the cues were awfully timed and the actual score was bland. It didn't enhance any of the intense moments but the intensity never fell flat due to the consistent acting. Overall it's a great adaptation of the book and it throws away the stupidly ridiculous ending of the novel and replaces it with something a little more realistic. It's not perfect but it's a fun time and one of the better adaptations of young adult fiction, makes you think what went wrong with Twilight and The Hunger Games. 3.5/5
Beautiful Creatures based on the novel of the same name is set in the religious extremist town of Gatlin South Carolina where classic works of literature like "To Kill A Mocking Bird" & "Slaughterhouse Five" are banned to preserve the innocence of the children, these very naive & religious children, a never ending cycle of prejudice and sheep worship plagues this town. It's a POV story told from the perspective of 16 year old Ethan Carter Wate played by the very charismatic and charming Alden Ehrenreich, a newcomer but showing early potential. One day the niece of the town shut in Lena Duchannes played by Alice Englert moves to town and enrolls in the local high school and with that comes very stereotypical high school consequences for the new kid. Pushed around and bullied until one day Lena Duchanes snaps and accidentally unleashes her powers on the students.
Turns out Lena is a caster and her powers are growing stronger every day leading up to her 16th birthday where she will be claimed for either the light or the dark. Whilst the deadline places a sense of urgency on our protagonists they never make the Twilightian mistake of taking themselves too seriously or hiring terrible actors for that matter. The jokes are flowing and they actually act like teenagers without irritating you, not an abundance of tears or brooding personalities or a depressing colour gradient filtered into every shot LIKE TWILIGHT. Ethan is a very relatable character who falls for Lena, sticks up for her and is willingly pulled into her dangerous extended family half of which are dark and half of which are light. Emmy Rossum plays Ridley Duchannes, Lena's evil cousin who is a vixen & a siren, can get men to do anything she wants and she exploits it which was good to see, she's not a half-assed villain.
We learn that as Lena's claiming day approaches conflicts arise as her thought to be dead mother "Sarafine" played by the devilishly fantastic Emma Thompson is on the warpath set to corrupt Lena and turn her dark so she can have her daughter back. However Lena has a guardian Macon Ravenwood played by the always excellent Jeremy Irons the town shut in who is reminiscent of Boo Radley from To Kill A Mockingbird. His intentions are clear and his determination is unwavering a really good character for him to sink his teeth into. As Ethan starts taking more and more risks to be with Lena we learn that he also has a guardian, his housekeeper Amma played by the gorgeous Viola Davis. She's completely strange and superstitious & also a seer. She can speak to dead relatives and has frequent visions. It shows that Viola Davis took the character seriously but also had a lot of fun with her. All in all the casting is literally perfect they all hit their marks, true to the characters and the accents are fantastic.
There are a few bumps in the road which stops me from really loving this film even though I liked it a lot. Whilst there is some really clever dialogue, sometimes it's not delivered perfectly. Also the special effects are not a strong point of this film, sometimes coming across a little distracting particularly the spinning dinner table scene. The costumes are terrific but it seems only the adult cast got to don the truly wonderful and campy extravagant costumes, whilst Lena went a little too Gothic and it didn't seem to fit. The music I hate to say is more often than not distractingly bad, the cues were awfully timed and the actual score was bland. It didn't enhance any of the intense moments but the intensity never fell flat due to the consistent acting. Overall it's a great adaptation of the book and it throws away the stupidly ridiculous ending of the novel and replaces it with something a little more realistic. It's not perfect but it's a fun time and one of the better adaptations of young adult fiction, makes you think what went wrong with Twilight and The Hunger Games. 3.5/5
Monday, 4 February 2013
The Impossible Film Review
The Impossible - "Lucas, do what you do best....help people"
The Impossible tells the true story of a tourist family visiting Khao Lak, Thailand a day before the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami decimated the pacific basin, killing thousands. Maria & Harry Bennett (Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor) are traveling from Japan to Thailand with their three young boys Lucas, Simon & Thomas (Tom Holland, Samuel Joslin, Oaklee Pendergast) and arrive Christmas Eve the night before, something is most certainly off, a fundamental shift in the atmosphere starts ringing alarm bells for the audience. Suddenly people are engulfed in a mammoth wave sweeping the hotel and everyone in it into a damning situation.
Maria breaks the surface of the water to see her son Lucas floating down stream barely conscious and alone. The two struggle to swim to each other as they are constantly tossed around underwater by strong currents, flinging them off cars, trees & all sorts of dangerous debris. Maria sustains incredible injuries but she and her son manage to cling to each other and begin their long and suffering journey to the nearest hospital, not knowing whats happened to Henry, Simon & Thomas. It's clear why Naomi Watts was nominated for an Oscar, her performance is stunning, she is somehow gorgeous even though she's covered in blood and dirt, the way she evokes such emotional torment trying to get her son to safety is heartbreaking.
Lucas becomes Maria's lifeguard escorting her to the nearest hospital and helping anyone he can as he is still able bodied. The filmmakers use actual Tsunami survivors as the extras, almost everyone you see that isn't part of the core story was effected by the 2004 Tsunami. It's a film about the people showing human spirit conquering the impossible. Ewan McGregor snubbed by the Oscars gives one of his best performances to date. He has to make one the hardest decisions a parent could make, leave his two sons in a safe zone to continue looking for his wife and son in hospitals and shelters. His lonely performance is endearing and treacherous, hope fades fast as each hospital turns up empty.
The direction is spot on, the use of special effects for the tsunami scenes are flawless, it seemed so real, the wave was so visually impacting. The score by Fernando Velazquez is very powerful, this film wouldn't be half as successful if it wasn't for the subdued & resonating music. There has been some criticism over the change of nationality of the family who are originally Spanish, changed to British, possibly to reach a wider audience and to market it to the west, but even the real life Maria said it didn't matter because the story is essentially about people. A haunting watch but worth it if you can handle some squeamish moments. One of 2012's best films, highly recommended. 5/5
The Impossible tells the true story of a tourist family visiting Khao Lak, Thailand a day before the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami decimated the pacific basin, killing thousands. Maria & Harry Bennett (Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor) are traveling from Japan to Thailand with their three young boys Lucas, Simon & Thomas (Tom Holland, Samuel Joslin, Oaklee Pendergast) and arrive Christmas Eve the night before, something is most certainly off, a fundamental shift in the atmosphere starts ringing alarm bells for the audience. Suddenly people are engulfed in a mammoth wave sweeping the hotel and everyone in it into a damning situation.
Maria breaks the surface of the water to see her son Lucas floating down stream barely conscious and alone. The two struggle to swim to each other as they are constantly tossed around underwater by strong currents, flinging them off cars, trees & all sorts of dangerous debris. Maria sustains incredible injuries but she and her son manage to cling to each other and begin their long and suffering journey to the nearest hospital, not knowing whats happened to Henry, Simon & Thomas. It's clear why Naomi Watts was nominated for an Oscar, her performance is stunning, she is somehow gorgeous even though she's covered in blood and dirt, the way she evokes such emotional torment trying to get her son to safety is heartbreaking.
Lucas becomes Maria's lifeguard escorting her to the nearest hospital and helping anyone he can as he is still able bodied. The filmmakers use actual Tsunami survivors as the extras, almost everyone you see that isn't part of the core story was effected by the 2004 Tsunami. It's a film about the people showing human spirit conquering the impossible. Ewan McGregor snubbed by the Oscars gives one of his best performances to date. He has to make one the hardest decisions a parent could make, leave his two sons in a safe zone to continue looking for his wife and son in hospitals and shelters. His lonely performance is endearing and treacherous, hope fades fast as each hospital turns up empty.
The direction is spot on, the use of special effects for the tsunami scenes are flawless, it seemed so real, the wave was so visually impacting. The score by Fernando Velazquez is very powerful, this film wouldn't be half as successful if it wasn't for the subdued & resonating music. There has been some criticism over the change of nationality of the family who are originally Spanish, changed to British, possibly to reach a wider audience and to market it to the west, but even the real life Maria said it didn't matter because the story is essentially about people. A haunting watch but worth it if you can handle some squeamish moments. One of 2012's best films, highly recommended. 5/5
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