Sunday 30 May 2010

71: Review - Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.


Okay, let's get the first thing out of the way.
In a cinema, if you laugh out loud at the Orange promo before the film, you're a dick. There are clauses, of course. When they started out with a celebrity pitching an idea to the studio-board, they were hit and miss. But with a good one, a wry grin is acceptable. I even managed a low chuckle at the Dennis Hopper "Driver... no-one gets off this bus" one.
But a hearty guffaw? At the current A-Team one? You can fuck right off, mate.

It wasn't even just one bloke, there were three or four who found the whole promo deeply amusing. They also bellowed throughout the oft-weak humour of the following film:

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
2010, 120 mins, Dir. Mike Newell



Quick plot synopsis: Magic knife lets you turn back time. Evil man wants this so he can be king. It's up the the righteous-innocent to stop this happening. Beards, swords, snakes, fire and jumping over rooftops are involved... that's about it.

What I'm not a fan of: rather than a studio take a chance with a movie by giving it a title and seeing how it does at the box-office and domestic markets before chruning out more, a studio also giving said movie a sub-title, as if it's already part of the huge multi-movie franchise they want it to be. Case in point: Pirates of the Carribean: Curse of the Black Pearl. I know that these days, everyone signs on for three movies. I know that more movies will be made irrespective of box-office figures, as it's all down to marketing. Just fucking have the decency to pretend, will you Disney?

I think what's happened, at some point, at some Disney/Bruckheimer board-meeting, is that someone took Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Lord of the Rings, and Back to the Future and put them into a blender. They made a really good movie from that. Then, they put that movie to one side and used whatever was left in the blender to make Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. As is so often the case these days, it's not actually that bad, it's just two hours of "nothing much".

You see, there's a line between classic mythology and hackneyed cliché. It's not even a thin line. And since this movie is essentially based on a computer game from 1989, I think you can guess which side of the chasm it's riding on.

There are a lot of accomplished actors in this. Even the ones who aren't great have still been good elsewhere. And to be honest, they're good in this, they're just not given much to work with. It's the script. Too flabby. Oh, and premise of an army invading a middle-eastern city on the falsly-engineered assumption that they're manufacturing weapons? It wasn't very subtle the first time it was spelled out on screen. But by the fifth time it was trotted out I was seriously considering writing to Disney and reminding them that their target demographic for this film doesn't give a fuck about their take on the Iraq War.


"Listen you two, you can turn back time as many times as you want, but if you could improve the script while you're on..?"

Oh, and another (albeit light-hearted) distraction was having Richard Coyle as Prince/King Tus. While he played the part well enough, I kept wanting him to reprise his role in Coupling by gazing off into the middle-distance and saying "...gusset". Alas, 'twas not to be.

I also spent a large part of the film thinking that the producer's tribute to Han Solo was the squabbling between Jake Gyllenhaal's Dastan and Gemma Arterton's Tamina. But then we're introduced to Alfred Molina's Amar, a loveable rogue who's sidekick is a towering warrior, Seso (played with much needed understatement by Steve Toussaint) who's life he saved therefore is owed a life-debt. They originally accompany Dastan on his quest on the promise of riches at the end, but when they're about to bail-out, Seso convinces him to do the right thing. It's not so much ringing bells as smashing a wrecking ball into the bell-tower.

As I said, all in all, it's not that bad. But it's too damned long. All the hood-wearing and rooftop leaping seems more reminiscent of Assassin's Creed than the game it's meant to be based on. And the final act is essentially Donnie Darko / Next, which is a good thing. But I mentioned at the start that it borrows heavily from whatever the writing team seemed to have been watching the weekend-previous.

The one thing I'm truly thankful for is that it wasn't in 3D. Word's going round that a bolt-on upgrade was offered to the studio, adding in the 3D afterwards. Apparently director Mike Newell said 'no', regarding that as a tacky afterthought, as with Clash of the Titans. While I applaud his sentiment, I can't help but think that making the movie 3D would have made it not only similar to CotT, but also to Avatar. Which is to say that the best 3D in the world won't change a formulaic movie with a dull (or in this case over-wordy) script.

I reckon: 5/10 ~ you may as well wait for the DVD to be honest. Go see Iron Man 2 again, instead.

And no, the irony isn't lost on me that for a movie about time-travel, it's a bit too long.




DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.

• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Friday 21 May 2010

Happy Birthday, Empire Strikes Back!

CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.


Today, 21st May 2010, marks the 30th Anniversary, nay Birthday of Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.

Happy birthday, Empire, I made you this:



Oh, and while I was on, I made you this as well:


30 years since we learned the coolest response to "I love you" is "...I know". 30 years since we learned who Luke Skywalker's dad is! 30 whole years since we were introduced to the wisest being in the galaxy (Yoda), and also to the smoothest: Mr. Lando Calrissian.

Y'see for most people, tESB instantly evokes images of the battle of Hoth. For me, it's all about Bespin. I love Cloud City. That's largely down to the 2002 Lucasarts game, Jedi Outcast, which featured a multi-player map of Bespin (amongst others, obviously), which I'm still not tired of playing.



Anyhow, there we go. The artwork was hand drawn in CorelX5. The GTA-style one has been an ongoing project for a few weeks (w.i.p. snapshots in my facebook gallery), and has taken more time than I'd like to think about. The Art Deco-style piece was a spinoff of the Lando portrait, and took about an hour, from start to finish.

If you've read this blog before, you know how much I love Star Wars, and I'm pretty sure you don't need me to explain why Empire's a modern masterpiece.

Happy birthday, Empire. It's been a great ride, and it's not over yet!



DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.

• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Wednesday 19 May 2010

69: Review - A Nightmare on Elm Street

CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.


A Nightmare On Elm Street

(2010, 102mins, Dir. Samuel Bayer)



An odd one this. I heard a while back that it was being re-made and put that info straight to the back of my mind. I saw the poster in the cinema a couple of weeks ago and the info re-surfaced, but didn't really excite me. I watched the movies when I was younger, and even then the law of diminishing returns was obvious as they quickly descended into pantomime territory.

For a while, I had the feeling (like many people do), that the first Nightmare on Elm Street movie was actually pretty good and was let down by too many sequels and spin-offs. About 10 years ago I saw a VHS of the original in a second-hand video store, bought it with a sense of curious nostalgia and watched it that night with a couple of mates and some beer. I haven't watched it since. The tape was soon re-donated to the second-hand market. The original A Nightmare On Elm Street was pretty shit. Sorry, guys.

It was with the same sense of curious nostalgia that I went to see the new A Nightmare On Elm Street. Let's cut straight to the chase: It's no better or worse than the original: and that's not a compliment.

Quick synopsis: Freddy Krueger was a mild-mannered paedo who was burned to death by a bunch of vigilante parents about 15 years earlier. For some (unexplained in the first movie*) reason, he haunts teenager’s dreams with a big knife-glove, and when he kills them in dream-land, they die for real. A bunch of kids work this out and get shit-scared as they’re picked off one by one.

On the bright side, Freddy Krueger's being played by Jackie Earl Hayley, who put on excellent turns as 'un-hinged' in Watchmen and Shutter Island. If anything, I expected him to positively shine in this, and be the only redeeming feature of the movie. Unfortunately, he's completely wasted here. His performance is restrained by the character we already know he is, and the writing team didn't put in any new elements for him to play with. Actually, that's not strictly true. Freddy 2.0 is a paedophile rather than a flat-out child-murderer, which puts an interesting moral slant on Springwood’s parent-collective burning him alive in a boiler room**. But that aside, Krueger is just... Krueger. The new make-up job might look slightly more realistic of his deformities, but unfortunately it means that Jackie Earl Hayley can't pull any facial expressions. The result of this is that the 'horror' aspect is essentially that he's a burns-victim who can only express himself through the poorly written dialogue you'd expect. In the first half of the film, his lines are kept to a minimum, making him a more threatening presence. But by the climax of the movie, when he chases Nancy through a quagmire of blood, and he utters the line "Now that's what I call a wet dream!"... the only shock you'll get is your palm automatically slapping into your face. Thankfully, these moments aren't as prevalent as in the other movies, but hey - this is only the first of the reboot, right?



The visual effects are up to scratch. Precisely what you'd expect, but well enough done. This might prove to be the movie's only saving grace. Rather than subject today's kids to a movie which clearly looks dated, horror afficionados can introduce a new generation to a good-looking movie, where only the concept, subject-matter and execution have been done-to-death more than Freddy's victims. Speaking of which, the supporting cast are generally pretty good. But again, you know exactly what they’re there to do, so if they run/scream/look-shocked-at-their-own-innards in the right places, everybody’s happy.

Ultimately, this re-boot brings absolutely nothing new to the mythos. It's a movie for the sake of having a movie (although not the first one that's been made for that reason, I know). It's not even like the original is old enough to be forgotten about or considered 'tame'. I even remembered who was going to survive, so that particular avenue of suspense was closed off as well. If you remember A Nightmare On Elm Street, you don't have to bother seeing this. Seriously.

There'll be sequels of course (it's what the franchise was built on), but I can still remember how shit they were, so I won't be there for them.

I reckon: 4/10
Summary: Pointless.
Should I have known better? Yes.



DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.

• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.


* to be honest, by the time the concept was explained in the original sequels, it was so bollocks that no-one really questioned it.

** because it somehow seemed more justified when he was a killer? I dunno. To me, it conjours up images of News Of The World readers, beating down someone’s door, flaming-torches in hand. It might have been more of a plot twist had Freddy been an innocent loner, but no, he really was a bastard.