Well I for one wouldn't have put money on a cinematic highlight of 2018 being Ewan McGregor's chemistry with a CGI bear. In fact, it's a damned shame that this (repeated) display is the best thing about Disney's Christopher Robin. As a demo-reel for what a great physical and emotional actor Ewan can be, this movie is worth every penny of the ticket.
But it's… well, it's Disney. We know what to expect from the sentimental live-action fare they present, yet it still stings a little when it's not as perfect as their animation. Don't get me wrong, Christopher Robin is a solid movie, but it's one you've seen elsewhere - and not just in Winnie The Pooh stories. Great care is taken to gently lay All The Hits into the script in terms of callbacks and catchphrases, and there are some solid gold moments in here. But it feels like a large idea written in small words, while Jon Brion and Geoff Zanelli's score tells the audience what they should be feeling at any given moment.
Never quite patronising but certainly simplistic, all the emotional buttons are pushed in a way which suggests a safe-play from the studio. Some great deadpan comedy performances get slightly lost in a script which uses twee slapstick as its default setting. I'm not entirely sure that director Marc Forster is the best candidate for the job (despite his excellent work with McGregor, as noted), having previously delivered the lacklustre World War Z and the oft-derided Quantum Of Solace. Moving around the genres is perfectly permissible, but mastering one along the way is preferable.
Christopher Robin's story itself is based on a solid enough premise of nostalgia, family values and paternal redemption, but it's a formula which Disney have already done to perfection with their first Mary Poppins outing. December hares toward us with considerable expectation, to put it mildly.
The film all but abandons its core-message after the first act, racing for the finish line and becoming that movie where the businessman tells his snide boss to stick it up his backside while making an inspirational speech with his daughter at the back of the room that results in a gradual-applause response. Basically, a Jim Carrey film in the late 1990s.
Christopher Robin is good, but despite its high-points you know it should be better.
On the plus side, the recurring motif of the red balloon was very reminiscent of IT, and during the dreamlike underwater-sequence I did expect Ewan to pick up then discard two opium suppositories. Damn that PG certificate.
It feels like a property with the cultural legacy of Winnie The Pooh perhaps deserves more, but that comes down to Disney's stewardship of the brand more than anything else, which is by no means a new issue.
At some point in its development, Christopher Robin was a fantastic movie. But this feels like Disney are lazily trying to ape the success of Paddington, and for that they'll need a little less schmaltz and lot more sincerity…
Well, Paddington, frankly.
Not that it really should be.
Wet Sunday afternoon, sure.
When it comes down to a sensible price it'll be a one to have on the shelf.
Yes, even though I've done little but complain about it.
It's because I care, honest.
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.
I won't lie to you, when I first heard that a live-action Paddington film was being made, my heart sank a little, and seeing the prospective cast list did nothing to change my mind. Thankfully, the first full trailer gave me a little reassurance that things were on the right track, and I'm happy to report that it's an excellent snapshot of the film itself.
After a localised earthquake forces young Paddington from his home in darkest Peru, the young bear finds himself stowing away on a ship, hoping to meet with the kindly explorer who befriended his guardians forty years previously. Bound for London armed only with the knowledge that his aunt and uncle have given him of the world's most polite and courteous city, Paddington finds that the years have not been kind to that reputation...
Paddington may well be the most charming film I've seen this year. Beautifully animated, genuinely funny and heartwarmingly silly. A family adventure film in the truest sense, Michael Bond and director Paul King have written a thing of great beauty, and it's brought to life by a cast who (largely) play the screenplay straight rather than patronise the younger audience (naturally Nicole Kidman's Millicent is more the cartoon villain, but that's what the part calls for). Hugh Bonneville and Sally Hawkins pretty much steal the show as Mr & Mrs Brown, with Ben Whishaw's Paddington being just on the right side of sweetly loveable.
But as I said it's not all saccharine, and the film's trump card is its inherent playfulness (and Hugh Bonneville dressed as a cleaning lady like a latter-day Ronnie Barker, flirting with Simon Farnaby*1). The greatest example of this being that no-one really questions a talking bear. It's commented upon, certainly, but at no point does anyone freak the hell out over it. And when the characters buy it, so do the audience.
On the downside, the film's relatively delicate allegory for immigration and integration is pretty much undermined in one scene between Nicole Kidman's evil taxidermist and Peter Capaldi's nasty-neighbour, Mr Curry. It's no biggie, but feels like the one part of the script which wasn't proofread, somehow. There's also a nice bit of product placement for First Great Western in the film too, although I suspect that the scene set last thing at night in Paddington Station was meant to be in the early evening, but they ended up having to wait for the train to come in ;)
You'd have to be some kind of heartless monster to get nothing out of this film; go and see it.
It pretty much is.
I did indeed.
I think it certainly does.
A family outing to the cinema is certainly called for, but you won't lose much if you decide to watch it at home in four months' time.
Maybe a little.
I will, but probably not at the cinema.
There isn't, although there *is* a brief Die-Hard reference. And an Indiana Jones reference. Well, two actually, if you include the fridge. Which I do.
Can we somehow stop Michael Gambon from doing voice-roles, though please? It's one thing when he's on-screen refusing to be anything other than Michael Gambon™, but his 'no job is beneath me' attitude to voiceovers has cheapened his own brand to the point where his Uncle Pastuzo character just sounds like an overly-smug TV advert for HSBC. Or that Sky ad which ran directly before the film.
*1 Yet despite having one of the film's most tear-inducing comedy sequences, Farnaby isn't credited on the film's IMDB page. What gives there?
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.
Bill Condon's latest is a real mixed bag. Simultaneously fascinating and apathetic in equal measure, it's careful not to sensationalise the Wikileaks affair too much, but it also stylises events above and beyond your usual docu-drama fayre. It's nice to be able to sit back and watch from a non-judgemental point of view, but there's very little in here that hasn't been all over the news for the past couple of years. It's difficult to reveal the untold truth about the story when that's exactly what Wikileaks have been doing. There are references to the central characters' private lives, but they end up as window-dressing, serving little purpose other than fleshing out the players which the director doesn't want us to get too attached to anyway.
The main problem seems to be, how do you really tell a story which isn't finished yet? Concerns in the press about the lionisation of Julian Assange with this film seem unfounded to me; he's portrayed as neither a hero or villain here, just a flawed, contradicted man whose reach is bordering on exceeding his grasp. Similarly with Assange's protégé/partner, Daniel, while he certainly seems to have a clearer moral compass than Julian, he's essentially just the eyes of the audience, and most of the film is told from his frustratingly-neutral point of view. Benedict Cumberbatch is comfortably eccentric as usual, and Daniel Brühl is quietly fantastic, keeping everything dialled down to everyman-level like a bearded Peter Parker.
The Fifth Estate is an engaging watch, even if it doesn't remain consistently accessible, sort of like a GuardianistaZero Dark Thirty. It's definitely worth a go, but definitely a DVD. The final scene manages to both bolster and patronise the audience; telling them to keep up the good fight for The Truth™, whilst also reminding them that what they've just watched is probably quite far from that exact thing. In many ways it's the perfect analogy for the 21st century.
Well, I suppose.
Yeah, I guess.
I don't actually know.
DVD, tops.
No.
I don't feel the need at the moment.
There isn't.
This will still be miles better than the 'blockbuster thriller' version that will inevitably come out though, won't it?
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.
World War Z (3D - SPOILERS)
Cert: 15 / 116 mins / Dir. Marc Forster
This latest addition to the Pitt-canon is a curious beast. A sort of zombie-flick for people who don't normally watch zombie-flicks, yet based on one of the most acclaimed zombie-novels whilst having nothing in common with the book except the title. Bizarre.
So, how does it fare? Well, it's a summer blockbuster starring Brad Pitt and Her Out Of The Killing*1, and that should tell you everything you need to know. It often feels more like an adaptation of a video-game than a novel, with its chiseled hero dashing through action-mission after escape-mission after stealth-mission, interspersed with talky-plot-cut-scenes. The final act in particular has more in common with Jurassic Park than Dawn of the Dead.
In short, it's not really a horror film, but then the trailers never suggested it was going to be. It's not the absence of gore that leaves me wanting, but rather that of engagement. There's never any doubt that our hero is going to stick around for the long-run, which wouldn't be a problem if he didn't go through action-sidekicks like sickbags on a rollercoaster. Secondary characters seem to be introduced with the sole intention of helping out for one 'level', imparting one piece of the solution and then dying (with one exception, and hero-Brad saves her by cutting her hand off, after which she's completely under-used). So while the structure is largely 'go to A to get B', it feels far more formulaic than it should when 'everything goes wrong so end up going to C, D and E as well'.
In the interests of full disclosure, I didn't particularly like the book either*2, but for completely different reasons. I just want you to know that I'm not complaining that it's not the same as the source material; I'm complaining because it's a very pedestrian film. I'm honestly not bothered that it's not exactly to my tastes, but I think it could (and should) be so much better*3. The 3D's not particularly good, either. There was a lot of ghosting, and the action-scenes feature too many fast-cuts to use it properly. If you think it's worth your money, go for the 2D.
If anything, I feel let down by how unremarkable The End Of The World is going to be...
For an action film, it's not too bad; but for a zombie film it's pretty damned poor. And since it's not called 'World War A', but 'World War Z'? Well…
WARNING: Contains Piers Morgan in the first five minutes.
Pretty much, yeah.
Sometimes. It has its moments.
I'm going to go with 'no'. Your mileage may vary.
DVD, tops.
Yeah.
Maybe when it's £3 in the Sainsbury's DVD section?
Not that I heard. I mean, come on…
Now that the zombie genre is as irrevocably mainstream as the vampire one, where do we go from here?
*1 No offence intended, Mireille, but that's what I heard one patron in the cinema calling you.
*2 And yet I loved Max Brooks' Zombie Survival Guide. My problem with WWZ was that there wasn't a cohesive enough narrative; like it would make a fantastic series of blog posts, just not a great novel. But hey, that's just me.
*3 The most excited I got throughout the whole film was when I realised that the supermarket-scene (set in Philadelphia) was the bit that was filmed at Heyford Air Base, about 30 miles away from where I live. I got similarly excited in Sherlock Holmes 2 where they used the railway museum down the road from me. It's all go, round my way.
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.
