Review: When Darkness Falls

When Darkness Falls: A Ghost Story
Oxford Playhouse / Wednesday, 19 April 2023
100 mins / Dir. Paul Morrissey / Trailer

The usual enormous caveat applies here: I'm not a theatre reviewer. I am, however, a paying consumer of presented narrative entertainment where there's no pre-required benchmark of stagecraft knowledge or audience entrance exam*¹, so make of all this what you will.

Written by James Milton and Paul Morrissey, When Darkness Falls is, ostensibly, an intimate two-hander in which John Blondel (Tony Timberlake), a middle-aged academic with a love for folklore and social synchronicity, waits in his Guernsey office one stormy night for the arrival of a guest for his new history podcast. When 'The Speaker' (Thomas Dennis) turns up, his agitated demeanour challenges the sceptical John to listen to four tales of local hauntings, with a promise that he will believe in ghosts by the end...

LEVEL

Before the first word has even been spoken on stage, an intuitive level of immersion has already taken place for the audience. In the theatre foyer - and in addition to the programmes which are on sale - a staff member hands out copies of The Guernsey Historical Society's 'Now & Then', a one-sheet fictional in-universe newsletter that introduces John and what he's hoping to achieve with his podcast (as well as cannily explaining what a podcast is for members of the audience who are out of that loop).

In the auditorium itself, extracts from John's first/pilot podcast play over the PA as the viewers await the start*², and the stage bears no curtain. Justin Williams' expertly cluttered, ramshackle set stands open for all to see - the lone room in which everyone present is now trapped, ghosts themselves. As the audience members wander in to find their seats*³, John potters around the kitchenette area of his messy office, and with this the audience are surreptitiously drawn into the world of the story without fanfare.

The play's opening-proper is low key and naturalistic, as John continues to fuss around and gives us a hint of the domestic tumult he prefers to avoid by using his office as a cocoon and sanctuary. Plot markers are dropped into the script to be gathered together in the final act, and when The Speaker arrives in a state of slight disarray this continues in good pace. But by this point, the niggles have started.

THE KUMARS AT No

That Timberlake and Dennis' performances feel a little stagey is not necessarily a criticism (they are literally on a stage, after all), but it is notable. What's more of a problem is that the entire evening is delivered without microphones, relying instead on the actors' theatrical projection. And they can both project. But when an actor is bellowing to a 660-seat theatre so that they can be heard at the back of the stalls, this completely derails the atmosphere of confidentiality and dread that's been so carefully built in such a short time. It also means that lines delivered when a character faces the back of the stage in moments of anguish are destined never to make it back to the viewer.

It's not that there's no PA system, obviously. In addition to the pre-show audio, we get storm sound effects, tape recordings of parapsychology sessions and audio-ambience for the ghost stories which lapse into external flashback tales also portrayed by the two actors. There's just no produced sound for the 95% of the show which is their dialogue. Which means there are no 'quiet' lines. Which means that the psychological impact of the final stretch when all is devolving into chaos is lessened, because they've basically been shouting throughout the evening anyway.

There are critical nuances of the interwoven stories which get lost when they're presented with this relentless energy, and I confess that my journey home with Mrs Blackout was essentially me trying to unpick the details from the noise, and piece together an ending which is nowhere as neat as the production seems to think it is. Ultimately, I think I'd like to have seen the play in a smaller room and at something of a slower pace.

When Darkness Falls gets so many things right and has the potential to be brilliant, but hand on heart I don't believe I saw the best version of it. I went in with an open mind and came out with a sceptical one*⁴. And I'm pretty certain that's not what this play is really for...

*¹ For what it's worth, I did do Theatre Studies at A-Level. I mean, I failed it monumentally but that's not the point. Just don't assume I've never smelled the greasepaint... ^{[ BACK ]}

*² I loved the idea of this as a feature of the show's setting, however: having the voice of one man speaking non-dramatically at conversational levels while 660 people fidget, mutter and rustle their way to the opening is, frankly, a fucking waste of time. You can't hear what's being said, and the recordings don't appear to be online on the show's website. ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ No easy task in the dim half-light of this show's ambient state, and Oxford Playhouse's apparent aversion to clear row-lettering... ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁴ Without wading into spoilers (and this footnote will only make sense to people who've watched the play), the end result seems to be the story of someone who was determined to do A Thing even though he was told by everybody that doing The Thing would be unwise, stupid and dangerous to himself and the people around him. The man went ahead and did The Thing, it went really fucking badly, and then the man spends the rest of his time blaming anyone who'll listen for him doing The Thing rather than accepting responsibility for his own actions and impetuous nature. What I'm asking is, is this a metaphor for Br*xit?
^{[ BACK ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• 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 organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Star Wars - Return Of The Jedi

Star Wars - Episode VI
Return Of The Jedi
Cert: PG / 135 mins / Dir. Richard Marquand / Trailer

The third film of the Original Trilogy has been a part of my life for four decades now, so in the absence of a local screening*¹ I happily made the pilgrimage to London's Empire Leicester Square to be in likeminded celebratory company. This was the first time I'd seen Return Of The Jedi in a cinema since its 1997 Special Edition release (although this 40th anniversary screening was of the 2011 Blu-ray edit), and the first time I'd ever seen it projected digitally.

Star Wars is - as ever - the gift that keeps on giving, and so it's taken me forty years to actually notice C-3PO's behavior here. Our hero - indeed our very gateway to the Galaxy Far, Far Away - is fluent in over six million forms of communication and as a professional diplomat is programmed for etiquette and protocol. Not only will Threepio be able to effortlessly converse in your particular language wherever you're from, but he knows your habits and customs too. No gaffes, no embarrassments, nothing lost in translation. This droid is literally built to be polite and accommodating in difficult situations.

So what does Goldenrod do when he arrives at the palace of Jabba The Hutt, a den of iniquity populated by the edgy, the paranoid, the insalubrious and the morally bankrupt, on a backwater hideout on a lawless world? What does See-Threepio bring to the table to diffuse tension, smooth feathers and put the Rebellion's grand plan into effect without the upsetting of these potential spanners in the Alliance's works, all of whom converse in Huttese as befits the infamously selfish and mercurial crime lord who holds their lives and livelihoods on a grubby thread?

He speaks English*². To all of them. Relentlessly. What an absolute fucking Brit.

That's it. No other notes.

*¹ Seriously though, it's the fortieth anniversary of a Star Wars film, and to celebrate Cineworld showed it for one day at 10 (ten) of their 103 UK cinemas. Odeon screened it at 9 venues nationally and Vue ran the film in 8. If this was a new flick you'd swear the studio wanted it to be eligible for the Oscars to had to play it in a cinema, but also didn't want to drive viewers away from the proprietary streaming platform they've invested all their money in. And that's before we ask why an anniversary screening is running on April the 28th then the film was originally released on the 25th of May. Unless there's going to be a wider re-release next month. In which case I shall go and see it again. I mean, obviously. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² Okay technically it's 'Galactic Basic', but the point still stands. He's even speaking in Basic when he's supposed to be translating between Ubese and Huttese. A very imperial attitude... ^{[ BACK ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• 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 organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Aliens

Aliens
Cert: 15 / 154 mins / Dir. James Cameron / Trailer

Ah 4/26 again, and a very healthy turnout in suburban Oxfordshire for what is, after all, a mercenary annual marketing exercise as opposed to any kind of anniversary screening. Healthy to the point where your correspondent looked around the growing crowd comprising couples of all ages, groups of men and groups of women and thought '...right, have I walked into the wrong screen?'. The downside of an eager audience of this size is of course an uptick in the general rustling, fidgeting and coughing throughout the deeply atmospheric first act of a film which defined Tension™ for a generation. But a communal experience is the heart of cinema (so they tell me), and you take the breaks where you can find them.

And so to planet LV-426, again, where bad luck charm Ellen Ripley is coerced to go on another works outing*¹ despite narrowly escaping being permanently barred from the Engineer's Arms only 57 years earlier...

PLEASANT

I am, it should be reiterated, merely a civilian lover of the Alien franchise. Definitely a fan, but it's not ingrained in the same way as Star Wars. This means that there are certain things that always seem to slip my mind between viewings, which therefore always return as a pleasant surprise. Y'know, to cheer me up amidst all the shrieking claustrophobic death...

For example, I seem to forget the literally ground-breaking futuristic tech colony on LV-426 is filed to the brim with CRT monitors, and that some of the costumes here are a bit 'V' in places, and that the worst proponent of this is Paul Reiser's Burke, and what an absolutely transparent pantomime villain he is; chewing his way through the scenery as an $18.5m film sneers against the corporate profiteering which had, by that point, come to define the decade which spawned it.

But it's nice to be reminded of the shared cast between the Alien, Predator and Terminator movies, like an intermarriage of 1980s royal cinematic dynasties, and of the influence Alien(s) had on the production design of Red Dwarf.

And I didn't want to be the one to say it, but the kid is annoying.

EVEREST

Snark aside, it's an absolute masterpiece, of course.

For something which - on paper - is only supposed to be an action/sci-fi sequel (and very much like Cameron's other game-raising sequel, Terminator 2), Aliens is so much more than the sum of its parts. The miniatures and matte paintings and puppets look like miniatures and matte paintings and puppets, but that doesn't matter because they (still) look gorgeous.

The picture has cleaned up well but the grain is still very much there, giving the whole film a very tangible texture that's hard to capture in the 21st century. And then the stylistic and structural parallels between this and T2 are intriguing. Utterly glaring in places, but still intriguing for all that*². Most of all, Sigourney Weaver's commitment to the intensity of her character (even if it is just an extension/development of the original 1979 role) is jaw-dropping, and the fact that she made this two years after Ghostbusters is kind of amazing*³.

PEGGY

In horror movie parlance, Aliens is another masterclass of not showing off your monsters too early; and even when you do go all-in, keep it ambiguously detailed. And there aren't as many actual xenomorphs in this as you think you remember, a triumph of budget and deft production design leading to lasting appeal. Although to be blunt - directorial vision or otherwise - 154 minutes is too damned long for a film where the vast majority of it takes place in the dark.

Adrian Biddle's cinematography is superb throughout, but Ray Lovejoy's editing means that the action scenes for two thirds of the movie are a meaningless montage of grimacing and muzzle-flare. And as the human characters are rapidly picked-off, there are by definition fewer of them to explain exactly what's going on (other than "we need to get from here to there, but everything between is covered in acidic goo and death, good luck"

Not to put down the further films in this series (or non-series, depending on your views regarding continuity), but it's been impossible to recapture the absolute breath-holding dread of the first two Alien installments. I'm not complaining about this, it just makes them look better. Either way, you know fine well the powers that be are not going to stop trying any time soon...

*¹ SPOILERS: Remind me again why everyone at Weyland Yutani repeatedly says that Ripley won't have to go 'in with the troops' on LV-426, only to then have her immediately go right in with the troops? I know they're lying to her, obviously, but so does she. So why is Ripley seemingly just going along with this? ^{[ BACK ]}

*² SPOILERS: How does the Sulaco have an airlock that can be operated from inside the airlock at a single panel, and which allows the doors at either end to be open at the same time? With that approach to Occupational Health, it's no wonder Weyland Yutani's got the safety record it has... ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ By which I mean Sigourney Weaver is kind of amazing. Obviously. ^{[ BACK ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• 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 organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Polite Society

Polite Society
Cert: 12A / 104 mins / Dir. Nida Manzoor / Trailer

Polite Society then, Nida Manzoor's tale of struggling sixth-former and aspiring stuntwoman Ria (Priya Kansara), determined to 'rescue' her art-school-dropout older sister Lena (Ritu Arya) from a seemingly perfect fiancé and wedded bliss on the other side of the world that's too good to be true. In this endeavour Ria enlists her best friends Clara (Seraphina Beh) and Alba (Ella Bruccoleri) to derail the engagement, only to discover that prospective mother-in-law Raheela (Nimra Bucha) will brook no opposition to her plans...

Presented in full, glorious 2.35:1 aspect ratio, Manzoor effortlessly blends coming-of-age Britcom with family drama, using notes of Bollywood, martial arts and horror cinema. The chemistry between the whole cast is electric, and the obvious good time they had on set does nothing to mar the focus and precision each has brought to their role.

Despite what is essentially an emotionally-weighted plot, the film's innate silliness is its key strength, with the outlandish elements actually accelerating as loss, responsibility and acceptance come to a head. It might also be the most (joyously) foul-mouthed 12A you've ever seen. The enthusiasm and commitment of all involved manage to ride out the farcical elements to the point where they're merely fantastical. The second act dips slightly as Clara and Alba are absent from proceedings, but as this is structurally necessary all is restored for a gloriously chaotic and triumphant finale.

Funny, smart and charming as fuck, Polite Society is an absolutely perfect feelgood movie, without the smug mawkishness that label usually entails.
Serious Film-Of-The-Year potential.

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• 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 organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Evil Dead Rise

Evil Dead Rise
Cert: 18 / 97 mins / Dir. Lee Cronin / Trailer

Fair play, to get an 18 certificate from the British Board of Film Classification in this day and age, your horror movie has to be particularly gratuitous or particularly malicious. Evil Dead Rise is often being one of those, and at several points it's both.

Taking time out of her job as a touring guitar-tech in what turns out to be a mild crisis, Beth (Lily Sullivan) returns to her older sister Ellie's (Alyssa Sutherland) run-down Los Angeles apartment where she lives with her adolescent kids (Nell Fisher, Morgan Davies, Gabrielle Echols) for support and advice. But when an earthquake strikes the city and uncovers a forgotten vault in the building's foundations, the discovery of an ancient gnarled book and three records where a priest describes exactly how not to use it... well, this is only going one way.

DOOMED

So whether the worst advert ever for a library-card is despatching squawky teenagers in a cabin or emotionally and physically torturing the most non-likeable dysfunctional family this side of a Will Ferrell comedy, it's clear from the off that the viewer doesn't have to spend time getting attached to the doomed players. The script certainly doesn't. In this respect, writer/director Lee Cronin's film is a clear tribute not only to the films whose name it holds, but of an entire genre of work from the decade that raised it.

Considering the 93 minute runtime, EDR's first act (once the pre-title framing-prelude is over) is surprisingly meandering. The urgency picks up as events dictate (because you can't put a demon back in the box), but it's an indication that the story itself is slight. It does feel, at times, that the only need for this film to exist is a financial one, in an era where Michael Myers, Ghostface and the Candyman refuse to lie still and stop making money for their rights-holders.

While Cronin doesn't try for anything especially new here, that also means he doesn't fail in that aim. And there is an undeniable visceral joy in this movie's unflinching quest for claustrophobic, tinnitus-baiting extremis. The film treads little new ground, but dances with practised ease in the foot prints of its forebears. We'd do well to remember of course that Evil Dead's first sequel was a remake and its second was a thinly-veiled fantasy adventure. The 2013 entry was another back-to-basic retooling of the first (or first two), so there's no real harm in retreading that path again; cinematically, there is next to no narrative thread to follow*¹.

FOXED

The storyline make as much sense as any of the series, and (thankfully) doesn't try to over-explain itself. Our characters only learn what is necessary to fight the powers tacked against them (and statistically, most of them don't even manage that), and the audience learn only what ie necessary to root for the characters. Just about. Where it gets more sticky is the seasoned viewer hoping / expecting / waiting for overt links to earlier Evil Dead films.

Because it's all very well making a hell-for-leather urban gorefest movie, but this particular one has an Evil Dead™ sticker on the case, so some connective tissue is needed at least. There are scripted references to the property's roots ("swallow your soul", "dead by dawn"), but in all honesty these moments are so heavy-handed they wouldn't feel out of place in a fan film*². Structurally we're on firmer - if still firmly linear - ground; the core of the story is a troubled soul unearthing forbidden knowledge, and unleashing arcane, malevolent forces that cannot be controlled as a result. Not only does this sit well with the Raimi/Alvarez precedent, it's also fundamentally in line with the series Lovecraftian lineage.

WHOED

It's not all plain sailing, of course. In what appears to be a bizarre clawing for moral ammunition to appease approval/censorship bodies, our heroine cannot hope to actually defeat the demon until she has accepted not only surrogate care of her young (now effectively orphaned) niece, but also her own pregnancy and subsequently impending motherhood*³. Aliens toyed with exactly the same themes of course, but in the midst of a more emotionally weighted film.

Oh, and on a purely technical level, the continuity as Beth plays the third (and crucially, plot-critical) gramophone record from the vault is appalling. Vinyl is by its definition a continuous medium, and the needle is shown to be back and forth across the disc in every intercut shot. I expect the current generation which fetishises the format so much to at least know how it works.

All of this is a nice way of saying that if you're going along for shotguns, chainsaws, screaming and everything covered in blood, you won't leave disappointed.

Ultimately, the events of Evil Dead Rise occur because of one moody teenager's obsession with locking themselves away in a bedroom with obscure and catastrophically bad records. Now that is how you pay homage to the youth of Generation X...

*¹ I'm not including the Ash vs. Evil Dead series in this round-up, not least because I haven't watched it yet. I know I know, I'm a terrible fan. Look, I don't have time to watch quality horror on my TV when I spend my hours watching the absolute worst at the cinema. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² Also, The Necronomicon / Naturom Demonto is largely a picture-book now, with blasphemous rites of cross-dimensional resurrection reduced to background texturing... ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ In much the same way that Neeson, Wahlberg and Butler can only be The Hero™ if they have a teenage daughter in the background, in fact. It seems that in Hollywood only the breeders get to save the day. Well, quite. ^{[ BACK ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• 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 organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Renfield

Renfield
Cert: 15 / 93 mins / Dir. Chris McKay / Trailer

To New Orleans then, a classically luscious setting with a nuanced past that is in no way properly utilised in Chris McKay's Renfield. A post-modern spin on the Dracula-mythos, our eponymous hero (Nicholas Hoult) is the embattled familiar/day-servant of the archetypal vampire (Nicolas Cage). Despite the dark lord's magnetic lure however, Renfield grows frustrated and despondent. Chancing into a group therapy session one evening, he begins to realise that there's more to (un)life if he can just make the right choices. The group have much to learn from each other. Additionally, chancing into a busy bar one evening, Renfield comes across the crime family running the city's underworld (Shohreh Aghdashloo, Ben Schwartz), and Rebecca (Awkwafina), the put-upon police officer who seems to be the only force for actual good this side of the Mississippi. The pair have much to learn from each other.

That's right, there are essentially two films going on, here. Both have a connection through the deconstruction of toxic relationships and both manage this with a pleasing amount of smirk-inducing (and in places guffawing) comedy, but The Vampire Sitcom and The Crime Caper never quite meet in the middle to make a cohesive whole. And rest assured, Renfield is not a horror flick; it's first and foremost an action comedy which happens to have horror-characters in it.

The main draw for a civilian audience is Nic Cage as Dracula of course, and our man puts in a very respectable and restrained performance as a six hundred year old narcissist. While the audience get value for money from Cage's smouldering and snarling, it's the needy, passive-aggressive side of the character where he's having the most fun, and this is where the majority of the film's snide humour lies. That said, in terms of emotional performance and understated comic timing, the headliner is thoroughly outshone by Hoult and Awkwafina, effortlessly dead-panning their way through a Ryan Ridley's script and emerging as far more likeable characters than the film probably deserves. The action scenes are well executed and - in places - gloriously over the top, but again they feel as if they've been lifted from a more high-octane thriller.

Almost every other version of this would exist to take potshots at therapy-culture and the fragmented priorities of modern life. Renfield tackles its subtext (or more properly just 'text') with a remarkably straight face, and is all the more heartfelt for it. The bad guys are The Bad Guys, not the people struggling to cope or those trying to help them. While the film certainly nods to the ridiculousness of their situations, they themselves aren't ridiculed. That sincerity itself feels slightly out of place in a studio comedy and adds to the air of a movie which can't quite find its place to ensure longevity. Even the screenplay itself realises in its final moments that huge elements of the story make little-to-no sense, and instead just comforts the audience with the knowledge that they've had a good time if nothing else.

With plenty of fantastic elements from a wide array of sources, Renfield never quite achieves the greatness of its potential. It is, at its beating heart, a Saturday night movie to be enjoyed with noisy friends and messy drinks. This in itself is pretty damned satisfying, so maybe that's the real lesson here...

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• 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 organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Cairo Conspiracy / Boy From Heaven

Cairo Conspiracy / Boy From Heaven
Cert: 12A / 121 mins / Dir. Tarik Saleh / Trailer

Okay, what the fuck was all that about? This is what happens when A Movie Reviewer finds himself in front of A Film which he's barely qualified to even watch, let alone cast opinion upon, but has committed to write about everything either way...

Cairo Conspiracy*¹ is a contemporary Arabic-language political thriller, in which Adam (Tawfeek Barhom) is the son of a rural fisherman who is awarded a place in Cairo's Al-Azhar University, only find himself inadvertently recruited by Colonel Ibrahim (Fares Fares*²) into the underhand State Security forces, when political unrest threatens to boil over surrounding the election/appointment of a new Grand Imam. Absolute hell on.

CURRENT

So, not being an area of current affairs I'm familiar with I wasn't particularly invested in the plot going into Cairo Conspiracy, and director Tarik Saleh subsequently did nothing to change that. Truth be told this is more a treatise in fragile masculinity than global politics, although it also goes without saying that the line between those two grows more fuzzy year by year.

This is, by necessity, a fiddly and very 'wordy' storyline; not too complex to follow in and of itself, but the sheer velocity of the script dictates that each subtitle card appears on-screen for an absolute bare minimum of time before the next. In a test for fidgeters, look away and you'll be lost. Worse than this though, the story itself takes place over Adam's entire university career; with such a chronological span to cover in relatively few locations, Saleh often gives us the passage of entire days indicated by a two second smash-cut to another area*³, then cutting immediately back to where we were (and mostly with the characters wearing exactly the same clothes*⁴). The pacing here is exhausting, and there has rarely been a film where the viewer's rapt attention on the screen has been more vital to following what's actually going on.

CHELSEA

The ambiguity of the characters' motivations is well handled, but this also means there's little-to-no bonding between the audience and the players (even yer main lad gets the backstory scenes and still feels like hard work). While I mostly followed the plot (certainly the large story-markers, although I'm bound to have missed smaller intricacies), I confess I really struggled to care about any of it. The whole thing hares along its runtime with almost no emotional luggage, until the final act where the empathetical-crowbar comes out of Saleh's toolbox, although by then it's really too little too late. It's difficult to empathise after two hours of watching socially repressed characters being awful for reasons they can't and won't explain.

But like I said, this wasn't made with me in mind. Truth be told, if this had been called Papal Perfidiousness and was about behind-the-scenes skullduggery and fallout when the Vatican was selecting a new Pope, I wouldn't have been bothered about that either.

Far greater minds than mine will get far more out of this, but don't say I didn't warn you...

*¹ Yeah it's not a particularly great title, although the original Boy From Heaven is even worse. At least they're trying to create a bit of intrigue with the US and UK release, I suppose. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² Tell me this isn't Bradley Cooper going deep undercover to clean up at the next awards-season. ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ In all honesty, the only reason for an edit as brutal as this is if the raw workprint of the film was around two weeks long. ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁴ Seriously though, is a dedicated Islamic university going to be okay with one of its students slobbing around in a Morbid Angel t-shirt (this actual one) every night in the dorm? Okay, the university itself isn't run by strict fundamentalists (although they certainly have a presence there), and okay Morbid Angel are pantomime Satanists one step below Cradle Of Filth, but still. Appearances, y'know? I just get the feeling something would be said at what is very much A Faith School that's shown to be kinda straight-laced in pretty much every other area. ^{[ BACK ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• 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 organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: The Pope's Exorcist

The Pope's Exorcist
Cert: 15 / 103 mins / Dir. Julius Avery / Trailer

Well, the Devil may have all the best tunes, but his screenplays are still appalling. Hollywood's favourite midlife crisis Russell Crowe barges his way through Evan Spiliotopoulos and Michael Petroni's ham-fisted script as Father Gabriel Amorth, The Pope's Exorcist*¹, called away from Rome in 1987 to investigate an apparent demonic possession*². Out in the Italian countryside (by which I mean rural Ireland, where it was filmed), a newly-arrived American family have moved into a deconsecrated church built right on top of a portal to Hell which opens when a builder nudges a brick in the cellar*³. Standard.

Gabe spends the film meting out righteously maverick Mediterranean justice, leaving a trail of dead farm animals in his wake while exposing higher clerical ineptitude. The Godfather Ted, if you will.

ENGLISH

Making the worst of a thuddingly linear storyline, Russell's dialogue is deftly split 80/20 between English and Italian*⁴. While I cannot vouch for the linguistic accuracy (or otherwise) of the latter, Crowe's accent work as 'world-weary Roman cleric' comes out closer to 'Polish Welder'*⁵. There are lines in his script which appear structured like dryly funny, off-hand quips, but our hero delivers them with the timing and nuance of a toddler looming over a box of eggs with a claw hammer.

Arguably more egregious though is Ralph Ineson as the voice of the spirit possessing the unfortunate child, who has decided that an Italian demon channelled through an American boy should sound like it's from Stepney...

MULLARD

To their (genuine) credit, the score, makeup, cinematography and effects are all passable here; the problem is the ideas and writing they're all being used to prop up, and the baffling miscasting used to deliver it all. The Pope's Exorcist is the Sony execs wanting to play in the fetid sandpit of Blumhouse for easy money, and coming back with just as much dogshit under their fingernails as a result.

This is every low-rent exorcism film you've ever seen, except now the film crew have managed to wangle a jolly to Ireland into the bargain. I'd not necessarily expected the movie to be a better effort than its classmates, but it's so happy to steal wholesale from them that it's an insult to an already-struggling genre.

In the end and after the batshit finale, we don't even see the family that all this has happened to. The survivors of an actual otherworldly intervention are written out with a 'yeah they're all recovered now they've gone away, they're probably fine and with no post-traumatic stress disorder lol' because The Pope's Exorcist is too busy going all Da Vinci Code and optimistically setting up a sequel/franchise.

This film should never have seen the light of day, but to unleash another on humanity would be truly demonic...

*¹ If someone as holy and divinely protected as The Pope needs his own exorcist, what hope do the rest of us have? It's a wonder there's anything left outside the walls of The Vatican... ^{[ BACK ]}

*² The Pope's not even really in this, by the way. Just some cardinal bloke that Russel Crowe reports to. But the film's not called "The Cardinal's Exorcist", is it? No, because they wanted a more eye-catching title. And having watched the film, what on earth has The Pope done to get implicated in all this? Actually, don't answer that...^{[ BACK ]}

*³ The story opens in 1987 with a newly-single mother driving to an idyllic retreat to start a new life, with two complaining kids in-tow and a soundtrack of 80s rock bangers. This transparent and unearned fanboy wink to The Lost Boys might be the most insulting thing about a movie which is the diametric opposite of fun... ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁴ The majority of which is even subtitled! By which I mean yes, there are lines and exchanges in this film which are delivered in Italian and which have no subs for an English-speaking audience. And that's not for dramatic concealment or comic effect, someone just that forgot to put them in there. Ottimo lavoro, ragazzi... ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁵ By my own admission I do not know any world-weary Italian clerics. But please be aware that my day-job brings me into regular contact with several Polish welders, so I'm confident on this one. ^{[ BACK ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• 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 organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: The Super Mario Bros. Movie

The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Cert: PG / 92 mins / Dir. Aaron Horvath & Michael Jelenic / Trailer

It feels distinctly odd given the perennial popularity of the character that it's taken three decades for Nintendo to go anywhere near another Mario movie, and even moreso that it feels like this has only been accelerated by Sonic's cinematic success. But here we are.

And for the very most part, The Super Mario Bros. Movie works. This time. Steering clear of live-action, this world-establishing animated affair comes from Illumination studios, penned by Matthew Fogel and directed by Aaron Horvath & Michael Jelenic. This might give a tingling impression of overcrowding, but the storyline is - without wishing to damn with faint praise - refreshingly basic. Everything is set up clearly for viewers unfamiliar with the Mario-verse, but not hammered home to the point where veterans will be rolling their eyes.

HISTORY

Setpieces give transparent nods to various iterations of the game history, and while that canon includes far more than can be effectively covered in a 92 minute film, glaring omissions are being saved for the sequel*¹. For obvious reasons, an animated movie retelling established origins does a far better job of showcasing the actual game-mechanics (both as Easter eggs and direct features) than something broader like Dungeons & Dragons. This is one of the rare occasions where a film being like watching someone playing a game is still supremely enjoyable.

On a technical level Illumination have excelled themselves, although you get the impression that Nintendo insisted on this. The texturing, lighting, physics and heavily stylised character models all look gorgeous throughout (even if there are entire sections where the film intentionally feels like a Haribo-induced migraine). The voice-work is largely solid, yet it's notable that Illumination have once again gone for recognisable credits-friendly A-listers over actual dedicated voice actors. Luckily, their enthusiasm papers over the cracks.

THE DAY

While there's plenty in here for a young audience, the judiciously retro jukebox soundtrack lets slip the film's real target audience: 30-40 something parents with disposable income. Brian Tyler's score itself doesn't fare quite so well however, by turn generic and insipid. The orchestral arrangements themselves aren't particularly strong*², and a necessary insistence on including stings and riffs from the games makes this feel more like musical fan fiction. This is the Glowing Nostalgia Market of course, and if it can't be thoroughly wrung-out for a product like Super Mario then there's no point in anything.

By this point Illumination know their strengths and weaknesses, and The Super Mario Bros. Movie is - like its central characters - small but perfectly formed. The film doesn't leave the audience with much to ponder, but then it also demands nothing more than the admission fee and an enjoyment of slapstick. I spent far too much time throughout grinning like an idiot to award the film any less than the following...

*¹ Because of course there'll be a sequel, this is a globally established character property with a nailed-on fanbase. Although the sequel won't be quite as good because the film won't have the structure of the introductions, world-building or origins-story conventions to fall back on. cf. Sonic 2. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² And I say this as a fan of Tyler's work, because I know he can certainly achieve a big sound when it's needed. ^{[ BACK ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• 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 organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.