While Governer A. Schwarzenegger summons up all his legendary might and braces himself for battle with feisty eco-warriors over his inability to protect California’s salmon stock, the fate of the Terminator franchise now lies in the hands of bolshy method man Christian Bale and excitably trashy director McG and their reboot of the legendary spectacle factory.

Moving the battleground from the present to the future, Terminator Salvation find the adult John Connor (Bale) seeking an end to the war between man and machine, while seeking to ensure the time-travelling events of the previous movies aren’t halted, thus throwing a spanner in his whole saviour-of-mankind routine.

Into the mix comes Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a condemned man who gave his body over to the Skynet Corporation while on death row. Part-man, part-cyborg, Marcus seems to hold the key to the resolution of the war and the fate of John Connor – but can he be trusted?

The Terminator movies have rightly achieved iconic status. While being symptomatic of the puffed-up grandeur of the 80s, they also helped to shape the modern event movie – Terminator 2 set a high watermark for CGI that others followed. But as movie-making technology has accelerated in recent years, has it ironically left no room for the daddy of techno-futurism?

With James Cameron away from the project, Charlie’s Angels director McG calls the shots. While other music video director-turned film directors have shown an imaginative flair for storytelling – think of Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine and Spike Jonze’s Being John Malkovich – McG sadly only appears to have a propensity for highly glossy, well-framed visuals that mask a lack of depth or character.

This isn’t helped here by the casting – Bale’s now-legendary meme-inducing antics during the filming of this paint him as an unlikeable individual in real life, and on-screen his performances all seem to hover around the blandly sullen mark – here he goes for blandly sullen with a gruff voice.

Such is his tepid turn that he increasingly becomes an irrelevance throughout the film, marginalised by a showing from Worthington that grows as the movie progresses – he redeems the film by neatly giving nuance and a sense of depth to the angst-ridden manborg trapped between the warring factions.

With a story that lacks any mental depth beyond the logic conundrums that underpinned the originals, Terminator Salvation is reliant on its set-pieces for impact – and even here it falls sadly short. There’s a lack of dynamism to the pyrotechnics – the sole defining feature of the SFX here is often the size of them, not the impact of them. As monumental terminators and ships come crashing down, there’s little in the way of invention to sell them, you’ve seen it all done better elsewhere, from the Matrix right up to Transformers – in short, jaws will stay firmly in the upright, non-dropped position.

Verdict:

For all its flaws, Terminator Salvation is still a totally watchable actioner that clocks in under a comfortable 2 hours. But sadly, given the heritage, that’s not quite enough – in an era of CGI saturation, people like Peter Jackson and Sam Raimi have proved that blockbusters can be epic, spectacular and compelling, McG is not a man to handle anything bigger than the lightest of fluff, while Bale needs a time out to take stock of where he’s going.

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Rating: 12

Starring: Christian Bale, Sam Worthington

Directed by: McG

Extras: Trailers

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Tags: Home Cinema DVD

Terminator Salvation - DVD originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:00:00 +0000

The term reboot is one that’s becoming more and more familiar to film buffs, a frankly irritating high concept notion that implies Hollywood fat-cats seeking to wring the life out of franchises, rather than adhere to any noble creative impulse.

Only this month we see both Star Trek and Terminator following Batman and Bond down the ctrl-alt-delete path on DVD, while the promise of Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes reinvention has fans of the risible reaching for the popcorn.

Amidst all this comes Moon, the debut picture from British director Duncan Jones. Rather than looking to reboot, Jones has tried the opposite – perform a system reinstall on the sci-fi genre. Jones has no time for the Red Bull-tinged pyrotechnics of modern sci-fi, instead he’s drawn on the timeless, thoughtful, brooding quality that marked films like 2001: A Space Odyssey out as genre classics. Smart, human, touching and expansive, Moon is every bit as impressive as the films that Jones so openly chose to pay homage to.

With moon-based mining now able to provide the earth with all the energy it needs, technician Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) mans the moon base alone and, aided by the Hal-like computer Gerty (suavely voiced by Kevin Spacey), manages the flow of raw material back to the planet.

Nearing the end of his 3-year contract and struggling with the isolation and his slowly failing health, Sam begins to look forward to returning home to his wife and child. After a routine check on the mines ends in disaster, Sam comes to in the infirmary, having seemingly been out cold for some time.

Returning to the site of the incident, Sam finds another person in the wreckage – which turns out to be him, or at perhaps a clone of himself. Having had only had Gerty to talk to for some time, socialising proves a problem, and the two Sams struggle to co-exist. But as the ice thaws, the pair slowly begin to uncover the sinister reasons behind their bizarre co-existence and the truth about their lunar tenure.

As mentioned, Jones doesn’t hide his love for films like 2001 – the set design and pacing are instantly recognisable, but rather than impose a template on the film, it puts you at a comfortable ease which allows the story to flourish. The boredom, isolation and antiseptic atmosphere create a mental space for Sam Rockwell to thrive, as the Sams go through a number of different stages of deterioration before ultimately coming to terms with the bizarre situation they find themselves in.

Despite often playing two parts at the same time, both he and director Jones make it seemless and an utterly natural relationship that carries the film to its conclusion. Moon succeeds as it walks the line between the reality and illusion, smartly flipping the perspective of both the characters and the viewer, weaving the sensory-deprived paranoia in with the blurred reality of the Sams’ miserable lives on the moon.

Verdict:

Moon is smart, fresh, timeless and totally entrancing. For a debut picture, and one made on such a relatively small budget, it’s effortlessly grandiose and expertly executed – its design is flawless, from the classic 70s space station chic to the perfectly pitched atmospheric soundtrack. Even the bountiful crop of extras fit the bill, setting a benchmark for what can and should be offered on a standard-def single disc. All in all, it’s hard to go wrong with Moon.

Rating: 15

Starring: Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey

Directed by: Duncan Jones?

Extras: Commentary, featurettes, short film, Q&As, trailers

Tags: Home Cinema DVD

Moon - DVD originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Director Michael Mann, he of Heat and Collateral glory, return for yet more tough guy hilarity with this old-school tale of guns, gals and gangsters

The ever-reliable Johnny Depp ventures into a dark era of modern American history, playing John Dillinger, a notorious 1930s criminal who led a wave of headline-grabbing bank robberies during the Great Depression. Cocky, connected and seemingly unstoppable, his success and penchant for escaping from prisons stands as an affront and embarrassment to the authorities.

Keen to take Dillinger and his cronies down, FBI chief J Edgar Hoover declares a War on Crime, appointing hotshot cop Melvin Purves (Christian Bale) head of a crack unit, tasking him with the job of bringing Dillinger to justice. Employing modern crime-fighting techniques, the case offers the newly formed FBI the chance to become recognised as a national power, and for both Purves and Dillinger their success requires the downfall of the other.

Though a hard man to pin down, Dillinger does have one link to the real world, his girlfriend Billie (Marion Cotillard), a feisty sort who has little fear of her other half’s lifestyle. Left behind while he’s on the run, Billie holds the key to Public Enemy No.1’s capture. With Dilliinger looking for that one big bank job that’ll fund their escape route from America, the race is on for Purves and his boys.

As with all of Mann’s work, there’s a reliance on simmering tension punctuated by violence, yet here the balance feels out of whack. Usually, the characters carry off the film, but here it all feels like the outlines haven’t been filled in. Depp is his usual charming self, which gives Dillinger some appeal, but beyond a cheeky smile and a few soundbites there’s little of interest. Bale fares even worse, his G-Man being nothing more than starchy template, what doesn’t help matters is Bale’s default setting, a stern, unflinching fa?ade that he tends to be sporting whichever role he takes.

More confusing is the film’s inability to decide what it wants to be – Public Enemies is supposedly based on a true story, and seems preoccupied with the historical details of the pursuit, yet plays it loose with actual events. The nature of his relationship with Billie deviates wildly from his real-life marriage – which is fair enough, but as it’s made a key aspect of the film it fudges the veracity.

Though hardly short on action, Public Enemies feels weirdly melodramatic - no matter where the plot turns, it always returns to the bond between the gangster and his moll, passing over the interest in crime-fighting methodology (with its subtext reference to the recent naughtiness of the US government) and the urban folklore the bank robbers inspired.

Verdict:

Undoubtedly suave, beautifully shot and smoothly put together, Public Enemies still weirdly fails to hit the spot. Blandly hollow, it lacks any feeling of depth, but mercifully, Mann’s trademark high-gloss style means it’s an affable enough journey to the end credits.

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Rating: 15

Starring: Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Billy Crudup, Marion Cotillard.

Directed by: Michael Mann

Extras: Commentary, featurettes

Tags: Home Cinema DVD

Public Enemies - DVD originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:00:00 +0000

They say, well the non-biblical they, that the geeks shall inherit the earth – but it’s clear that the horror film directors among their number are already making serious headway. After making their name with their fanboy-chic low-budget horrors, former blood and guts junkies like Peter Jackson and Guilermo del Toro have gone on to dominate the mainstream, giving Hollywood a fresh shot of flair and imagination with the likes of the Hellboy and Lord of the Rings franchises.

Chief among their ranks must surely be Sam Raimi, who, after rising from the underground to give the establishment a near-coronary with the Evil Dead, achieved universal acclaim with his Spider-Man reboot. Drag Me To Hell finds Raimi returning to those grisly roots in full-on, yet utterly accessible style.

Fiendishly simple, yet devastatingly potent, Drag Me To Hell offers a welcome return to the creepier old school of shocks, away from the brutality of modern horror, yet without reducing the shock value. Meek loans officer Christine Brown is keen to prove to her boss that she has the tough streak needed to win the promotion to assistant manager, so she decides against cutting an elderly lady some slack on her mortgage payments.

Being of east European gypsy stock, the proud woman takes umbrage and busts out an ancient curse on her, and soon Christine’s job prospects become the least of her problems. After kicking off with a bout of impressively nasty geriatric catfight action with the gypsy in the confines of her car, Christine finds herself being relentlessly pursued by both the crone and a malevolent spirit who make her life a living hell, from rearranging her furniture and facial features with extreme prejudice and ruining dinner parties to introducing swarms of maggots and flies into her daily diet.

A bit put out by this, Christine goes with boyfriend Clay to see a medium, who has the tricky job of telling her she has 3 days to lift the curse before the spirit claims her soul and gives her a one-way ticket to the one hot place they’ve yet to make a strong enough sun-factor lotion for. Events take a frantic turn as she attempts to prevent her fire and brimstone destiny, as she is forced to compromise her placid nature in the hope of redemption.

Drag Me To Hell is a fun-packed shocker with a strong eye for striking visuals, all merrily soaked in director Raimi’s trademark sick tastes – bodily fluids are exchanged in the worst way imaginable, fists find homes where they rarely belong and stationery is put to bizarre and painful uses.

But curiously, it plays out like a strange cross between two of Raimi’s biggest successes – fusing the teeny melodrama of Spider-Man with the gross-out stunts of the Evil Dead films. The two play-off against each other with great glee; despite the demonic aggravation, Christine still has to try to win over Clay’s snooty parents and deal with a back-stabbing work colleague.

It’s this juxtaposition between the mundane and the outlandish that gives the film its drive. Christine and Clay are irritatingly bland, while she couldn’t be any less of a horror movie heroine, as Raimi pushes the idea of a what a normal person would do in that situation, rather than following the well-worn Hollywood path of heroic dynamism.

But mostly it’s Raimi’s abyss-dark humour that carries the picture. Twisted, playful and more than a touch reminiscent of Tex Avery cartoons, the viewer is repeatedly given a treat as Raimi works his magic to squeeze every ounce of intensity out of the stripped down set-up.?

Verdict:

Raimi set himself a tough task by making a low-budget, mainstream horror without an 18 certificate and pulled it off in great style. The plot and characters, though kept to a minimum, work in service to the rollercoaster ride. Swapping brutality for good old-fashioned primal fear and imagination, Drag Me To Hell turns out as a striking, enjoyable, and at times startlingly visceral shocker.

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Rating: 18

Starring: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver.

Directed by: Sami Raimi

Extras: Production notes featurette.

Tags: Home Cinema DVD

Drag Me To Hell - DVD originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:00:00 +0100

Hugh Jackman busts out his fulsome sideys for a fourth time, as the X-Men creative team attempt to discover if three films in a series really is the cut-off point before the rot sets in. Focusing on the pedicure-phobic firebrand, XMO:W delves into Logan’s pre-trilogy past to explain how he became the much-loved cigar-chomping berzerker Wolverine.

It turns out that not only is he nigh-on indestructible, Father Time also has a hard time landing one on him, as it all kicks off back in the mid-1800s with a young Logan inadvertently killing his father with the aid of his trademark claws. Fleeing the crime scene with his equally mutanty brother Victor, the genetically gifted pair drift into military service, fighting for over a century thanks to their invulnerability.

Victor’s increasingly unruly nature eventually lands the pair in front of a firing squad - and when that fails to hit the spot, they’re enlisted by a General Stryker into a covert black ops team of fellow mutants. After one mission to locate a crashed meteorite in Africa leaves a bad taste in his mouth, Logan walks away, leaving Victor behind in favour of an idyllic life as a Canadian lumberjack with girlfriend Kyla.

Of course, there’s no place for an idyll in an action film, and Stryker tracks Logan down, claiming that Victor is killing off his former team-mates. After he refuses to help, Victor’s actions soon force his hand.

Stryker offers Logan assistance in his quest to get revenge on Victor by reinforcing his skeleton with the metal from the meteorite, but Stryker’s attempt to wipe his memory at the same time causes the newly pimped Wolverine to do a runner. After an attempt to take Wolverine down fails, the spiky-knuckled hero realises he needs to deal with Victor and Stryker – plus any other surprise packages the general has up his sleeve.

Less operatic than the X-Men trilogy, this outing feels more conventional action fare and a perfect jump-on point for newcomers. Hugh Jackman is reliably spot-on as the reluctant ass-kicker, capturing the more human, renegade anti-hero vibe that makes Wolverine closer to cinematic icons like Dirty Harry than spandex-packers like Spider-Man.

Packed with gorgeous Canadian scenery, it has a less intense, densely packed quality than the trilogy, which is both a good and bad thing. That sense of airiness reinforces the fact that for all its merits, this film is merely a sub-plot blown to feature length.

The origin story is an import from comics, usually used as either a filler between storylines or as a major exercise in character exploration – we’re unsure how much a fan will have got from this, so we feel inclined to the more exploitative former.

Verdict:

Enjoyable as it is, we can’t help but be distracted by the efforts to rinse the franchise – especially by the proliferation of new characters, who feel more like markers for future films (a trend Marvel films has been working recently, with small guest spots setting up future films like The Avengers).

With the casting of these roles also favouring newbie actors over the experienced heads that populated the trilogy, the films LAO SADLY lack the weight of presence that the likes of Ian McKellen, Halle Berry and Patrick Stewart gave (oh, and Vinnie Jones).

It’s a dynamic, entertaining and solid piece of cinema that won’t disappoint fans of the series – yet it won’t wow them either.

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Rating: 12

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Dominic Monagahan, Ryan Reynolds.

Directed by: Gavin Hoods

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Extras: Commentaries, interviews, featurettes, deleted scenes

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Tags: Home Cinema DVD X-Men Origins Wolverine

X-Men Origins: Wolverine - DVD originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:00:00 +0100

I’m worried about Charlie Kaufman. His films show such an unwillingness to adhere to the crushing universal guidelines that we all live under, basics like the laws of physics and the tedious linear rigidity of time, that I wonder that he might decide that everyday existence is too bland and start eating power cables or trying to find portals to the future in a Staffordshire bull terrier’s arse.

As arguably the most forcefully imaginative mind working in modern cinema, Kaufman’s scripts for films like Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind have all refused to fall in with the accepted perception of reality, instead tinkering with the language and structure of film to create a universe that’s at the same time recognisable and wildly transformed.

Equally liberal in its relationship with everyday logic, Synecdoche is a vast, sprawling epic of personal crises. Given a prestigious cultural grant, New York theatre director Caden Cotard (a typically weighty turn from Phillip Seymour Hoffman) attempts to create a significant, meaningful and truthful play, and takes up residence in a massive warehouse space so as to develop his masterpiece.

Deserted by his wife Adele, a celebrated painter, and his daughter Olive, Caden struggles to fill the void with the play and with his relationships with box office girl Hazel (Samantha Morton) and leading lady Claire (Michelle Williams). As the play and cast expand, it fills the warehouse, becoming a world within a world, then a world within a world within a world.

In pursuit of the unforgiving truth, Caden casts actors as himself and those around him, re-enacting events. Divorced from the crumbling world outside, the play becomes its own reality, and the barrier between the characters and their actors vanishes as art begins to dictate reality. With Caden’s body in a continual state of decline, he slowly and painfully tries in vain to come to terms with his life and art, and attempts to resolve the differences with his family that fuel his turmoil.

Synecdoche, New York often feels like a slog – it’s dense, morose and wilfully obtuse, but it’s also stunning, breathtaking, passionate, innovative and genuinely moving. While Kaufman’s work with Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry had seen them marked out as a new school of visionaries, Synecdoche emphatically proves that it is Kaufman who is the true genius among them. Until now his scripts were interpreted by those directors, but this time Kaufman sees the job through, taking on the director’s role for the first time.

While both Jonze and Gondry have had much less of an impact without a Kaufman script behind them, Charlie more than holds his own when flying solo. One of the problems of the likes of Being John Malkovich was the overt eccentricity, an attention-seeking quality that amused and irked in equal amounts, but Kaufman has risen above that.

Synedoche is no less odd, but it’s tied to such a powerful human touch that it over-rides any potentially grating archness. Kaufman drenches every scene with such personal detail that it makes the unbelievable utterly resonant. So much care and attention has gone into Caden’s world, from the set to the seemingly throwaway clues in the script, that it doesn’t feel like it’s 2 hours long - instead it feels 2 hours long, but a lifetime wide.

Verdict:

There was a massive wave of negative feedback for Synecdoche on its initial cinema release, openly acknowledged in the extras, and it’s easy to see why it may not be for everyone. But for all its reluctance to spoonfeed cheap thrills, this film is a marvel – rejecting comfortable predictability for a heartfelt philosophical piece that’s astounding in both its vision and execution.

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Rating:15

Starring: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Katherine Keener, Samantha Morton

Directed by: Charlie Kaufman

Extras: Interview, Charlie Kaufman Q&A, featurettes, Kaufman animations

Tags: Home Cinema DVD Synecdoche New York

Synecdoche, New York - DVD originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:00:00 +0100