Inferno Cert: 12A / 121 mins / Dir. Ron Howard / Trailer
Okay, here's an example of how the internal plot-logic of Inferno works. Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), the celebrated professor of religious symbology and iconography, awakes in hospital with a head-trauma from a bullet-wound and suffering intermittent hallucination-flashbacks. After hurriedly escaping an assassin who comes to finish the job, he discovers he's carrying a flashlight/projection image of Botticelli's famous Map of Hell painting, inspired by Dante's Inferno: the image of the netherworld which has (and the script even says this) defined how humanity has envisioned Hell for the last five centuries.
As the famous and revered expert looks at the famous and much-studied painting, he notices a letter, "R" has been branded into the leg of one of the figures in the painting on one of the levels of Hell. "That's not part of the original", he gasps. His sidekick and co-adventurer, Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones) then pipes up "Look, there's another letter on a figure in the layer above, too!". They realise that there's a letter on each level of Hell in the painting, left as a clue for Robert to decypher. Fair enough.
Then they suddenly notice more additional lettering, this time at the bottom of the painting. Not scattered about as above, just a regular line of text curved around the pivotal globe. In instantly recognisable English. That they didn't notice when they were picking out individual letters from the hubbub of the layers above.
ThenRobert says "And the layers of Hell are in the wrong order, too! Someone's swapped them around!". Now, if you take a gander at the painting, you'll see that due to the concentric nature of the levels, you wouldn't just be able to cut and paste this around in Photoshop. There'd not only be a lot of content to lose, there'd be loads to magically generate for the upper, wider levels too. It's going to look very different from the original.
So, our learned lecturer on religious symbolism has been looking at one of the most definitive, cryptic artworks of all time for about four minutes before realising that everything's in the wrong order, is made-up, and has a message written on it.
Now, you could put this down to the character having recently sustained a consciousness-altering cranial injury. Or you could put it down to Dan Brown's writing*1. They appear to be the same thing…
Well, The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, I imagine. Full disclosure, I hadn't seen either of those two films until last weekend. Despite Ron Howard's publicity-trail assertions that Inferno can be enjoyed as a standalone movie, I figured I needed to watch the earlier entries for the sake of context if nothing else. Yeah, they're not great, are they? Although from a certain point of view, Ron was absolutely right. As Inferno unravels through its many scenes of exposition, setups and twists, it feels like a kid who's been told to read their homework in front of the class, except they haven't done their homework so they try to ad-lib a story as they go, quickly descending into a context-free rollercoaster of narrative incoherence. In that respect, you can absolutely watch Inferno without seeing the earlier films; it will make just as much sense…
Well, Robert's hallucinatory-flashbacks are one thing, but the accompanying Concussion-Cam™ which punctuates those scenes threatened to induce a migraine before the film hit the ten-minute mark. If you fancy that on a massive screen, go for it…
Clearly, I am the wrong person to answer that question.
No. It's not even the best film in this series.
And like I said, they're not great.
No, because if you enjoy this one then you're probably a fan of the previous two movies and I'll (genuinely) enjoy your explanation as to why they're not slapdash drivel.
There isn't.
Level 1: This film's got Jyn Erso in it.
*1 Although Mr Brown wrote the source-novel, David Koepp is credited with penning the screenplay here. Although I can only imagine such a pivotal plot-device is lifted from the original book. If you know otherwise, please tell me; I'd hate to be taking the piss out of Dan Brown's literary prowess unduly…
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.
To be fair to the Jurassic Park franchise as a whole, there are really only so many ways you can spin "we may have built a theme park full of murderous carnivores which we've underestimated a tad". Each film is an unashamed variation on that theme, and the fourth entry to the canon is no different.
Thankfully, most of the preachy eye-rolling is contained to the film's first act, as is most of the perfunctory plot-setup, and as soon as Chris Pratt is done scowling at some scratch-marks on a wall, it's carnage-central (y'know, in a sort of agreeable, 12A-friendly sense). In terms of Summer blockbuster action, you'd be hard pressed to ask for anything more, and Jurassic World is an enormous amount of fun, but it's never anything more. The film's main handicap is that it spends so much time trying to recreate the beats of its predecessors (1993's Jurassic Park in particular), that it forgets to really develop any ideas of its own. And it does have some, they just feel as tacked on as the underused 3D post-conversion.
That said, at least director Colin Trevorrow has taken the time between JP retreads to riff heavily on Aliens, too. Luckily that lends the film its only real sense of menace, as there's precious little coming from the dinosaurs. The series has never managed to top the raw danger emanating from the Velociraptors of the original film, and JW sees them pack-bonding with Chris Pratt's dino-tamer, Owen, which anthropomorphises them slightly too much to be any real threat. They're pretty cool, but they're not meant to be cool; they're meant to be fucking terrifying. That mantle is also supposed to be handed to the film's new creation, Indominus Rex, and also misses its mark by some way there, too.
Look, I'm being far too hard on the film, but it's no Jurassic Park. And this wouldn't be a problem if all of Universal's pre-press and trailers hadn't tried so desperately to convince us that it is. The sense of awe, the sense of wonder, the sense of danger… all lost in a frantic bid to up the ante for the 2015 Summer crowd. I can't work out if Park Director Claire's cynically hard-nosed line about needing bigger attractions to maintain visitor numbers is overflowing with self-awareness, or echoing around an empty barrel.
As enjoyable as it is (and it is), Jurassic World really makes me want to watch JP again. And that's not necessarily a compliment…
If Summer blockbusters are your thing, yes it is.
If you're on the fence, probably a rental. But you'll want to see it on the biggest TV in your house.
Not quite.
Not quite.
Not really.
Fairly sure I heard one during the pterodactyl-attack, yeah.
Chris Pratt's breakthrough role was of course Peter Quill/Star-Lord in 2013's Guardians Of The Galaxy, a movie which also starred Peter Serafinowicz, who voice Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace.
*1 And it's nice to know that there are enough people on the internet who can't spell the word 'Jurassic' that the first predictive, auto-fill hashtag on Twitter is for #JurasicWorld…
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.
Have you ever wondered what lessons you'd learn from being trapped on a lifeboat with limited emergency rations and a hungry Bengal tiger? Other than the lesson that a hungry Bengal tiger doesn't really want to become domesticated?
Other than the wordless, visually stunning trailer for Life of Pi, I had no idea what to expect from this film. Having not read the book it's based on, and having a general aversion to hype*1 anyway, all I could do was keep an open mind and wait to be impressed.
It didn't take long. A beautifully shot (if slightly ponderous) title sequence sets the tone for the following two hours as the middle-aged Pi recounts the story of his shipwreck, survival and ultimate rescue to a blocked author. The film is a combination of parable, metaphor and good old fashioned adventure, and the script itself is eager to remind you of this, blurring the lines between fantasy and memory, and reinforcing the point that all that matters is the tale.
And ultimately, that's where Life of Pi comes slightly unstuck. As a spectacle, it's positively jaw-dropping, but narratively it does start to sag a little towards the end. There are only so many fantastical set-pieces that can be laid out in a sequence before they escalate to the point where you realise this may not have actually happened. On top of that, the fact that Pi himself is narrating the plot dictates the main outcome. And if the story isn't about the plot, what's left? Spectacle and metaphor.
Not to put the words down too much, but I can't say enough how gorgeous this film looks, comparatively. The cinematography and visual effects combine to create a sense of delirium that will be imitated for years to come. Yet despite what I've just mentioned, that delirium could only come from this story. With the possible exception of Gerard Depardieu's cartoon-like cameo, all of the cast are convincing, engaging and throughly likeable. The only thing which threatened to pull me out was that strange transitioning between scenes, where the backdrop fades leaving a character superimposed over a scene. Very odd. If you're going to see this, I definitely recommend a cinema for best effect, although I noticed the 3D (although well rendered for live-action) darkens the film horrendously in places. For what's on offer, it'll probably look better in two dimensions.
Ultimately, I thoroughly enjoyed Life of Pi, I just wished it had left me with more, somehow. There's a little too much self-analysis and shrugging of shoulders for my liking, although that probably says more about me than the film itself. In the words of the eponymous hero: "It happened. Why should it have to mean anything?"
Or, to quote from another movie, "…What's in there?" "Only what you take with you."
*1 By which I mean the hype that surrounds worthy films, novels, plays etc. You know the kind of thing I mean. I have no problem with hype when it comes to zombies, robots or spaceships.
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 organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
