Evil Dead (2013)

It wouldn’t do good to pretend that this film can be thoroughly reviewed by someone who never caught up with the notorious 1981 film but the truth is – like most in the screening I found myself in – I’m too young to remember the original The Evil Dead and too overwhelmed with a long list of past classics to have yet seen everything made before I was born. Just know that I’m ignorant and guiltless, like every 20-something.

Apologies dealt with, I enjoyed 2013 Evil Dead. It is a very well made 5-young-adults-go-to-a-cabin-in-the-woods-and-get-hacked-to-bits-by-demons horror film. Sam Raimi obviously saw fit to trust debut feature-length director Fede Alvarez with the reboot of his franchise and Alvarez delivers a spectacularly gory effort with absurd amounts of blood and plenty of opportunities for audiences to laugh at the sight of themselves jumping out of their collective skin.

The editors have the pacing of the scares measured to a science, beginning with innocuous loud noise transitions, progressing to faux tension builds, finally reaching genuine jumps before descending into all out gore at the halfway point and not letting up until everyone’s dead and buried (or are they?). All of this wraps at 91 minutes, a very sensible length and one that you suspect could have been stretched to a pointless 2 hours by most inexperienced directors. Raimi’s original clocked in at a similar 85 minutes and it was perhaps his genre-savvy guidance that prevented the remake from yawning on too far past this marker.

If there is one problem with the film, and it is a fairly big one, it is that Evil Dead offers nothing new to the horror genre or any of its subgenres. It employs the grotesque mutilation realism of a splatter, the soft-loud dynamics of a jump scare flick, the supernatural back-story of a chiller and the faintly ridiculous demon voice of a possession film, but has no unique identity of its own.

This is probably best explained by the fact that this IS a remake, attempting to recreate and pay homage to the spirit of a 32-year-old movie. The thing is: no genre ‘moves with the times’ as fast as horror. And nothing stubbornly holds onto the fears and phobias of a particular era than a remake. Feeling particularly out of date is the sweary male/female voice of the demon as it speaks through the possessed characters. A trope such as this is rooted in the 70s/80s and has suffered too many The Exorcist parodies to be really effective in 2013 as anything other than bait for teenage sniggers.

One nostalgic trick that does hold up is the use of prosthetic special effects, which are terrific. Making notes immediately after leaving the cinema, I wrote “this is one of the few CG-heavy films that won’t alienate you with sheer unbelievability.” Well, I’m happy to report that the makers of Evil Dead painstakingly created the bloody set pieces for real, which is brilliant. I assumed that some particularly horrific moments could only have been achieved by computers. In fact, the reverse is true. Happily, the only way to achieve utterly believable special effects continues to be through the use of the ancient method of models and prosthetics.

Ultimately, Evil Dead is notable only for its high quality production values. It has all the component parts of a classic 20^th century horror and is definitely worth a watch. Unfortunately for its legacy, the recipe was already perfected many years ago and many of the ingredients have far passed their sell by date.

Dark Skies (2013)

When trailers put you off virtually everything, the great thing about resigning yourself to anything is that sometimes something advertised as average tosh might turn out to be genuinely interesting. Step forward Dark Skies whose tag ‘from the producers of Insidious and Sinister’ promises a jumpfest of cheap scares with nothing too substantial in terms of narrative or theme. When the trailer is intercut with title cards that read: “When they come for you… there’s nowhere… you can… hide” alarm bells really start ringing. But like I said, being resigned to having “nowhere to hide” from the prospect of an awful film is a sweet state when the film actually turns out to be quite good.

The horror genre really is something special. When done well, nothing packs a greater punch in the cinema. The best horror films have always spoken in metaphors, exploiting the fears of each passing age and inviting audiences to mock themselves or – even better – shock themselves into recognising what their fears actually are and how their behaviour shapes itself in reaction to those fears.

Dark Skies targets a very traditional subject for its attention, one that stretches way back to The Exorcist (1973) and probably further – paedophobia; that is, fear of children, but more specifically in this case, fear of the maturation of children – fear of encroaching adolescence. Broadly speaking, Dark Skies’ central theme is family and the fear of anything that can undermine the institution of the family. Marital turbulence, unemployment, financial insecurity, house insecurity – all feature in the lives of the doom laden Barrett family. However, all are outstripped by what is by far the biggest concern of parents Daniel and Lacy: the world outside the boundaries of the home and the influences that could be invading and shaping the development of their growing boys, Jesse and Sammy.

The genius of the film is that we empathise at all times with the young couple and never suspect them for the perpetrators of their own nightmare. They are presented as an extraordinarily ordinary middle-American man-and-wife with the hope, dreams, trials and troubles of any family in the developed world. The film does not attack them for over-parenting but instead implicitly hints at a culture, accepted as ordinary, which obsesses over the safety of children – a culture which may be inadvertently damaging the futures of young people by anesthetising their environments.

The invasion of the Barrett home by extra-terrestrials I believe to be a metaphor for Daniel and Lacy’s fear of the influences on their children of things beyond their control. The feared abduction of their children is tantamount to their terror that Jesse and Sammy might one day fly the nest and leave home. The Barretts refuse to accept that their eldest, Jesse’s, new set of interests are a natural side-effect of hitting 13 years of age and instead lash out at his older friend Ratner who is assisting in their son’s exploration of violent computer games and pornography. In fact, Jesse’s one fumbling foray into the world of girls results in no harm, merely light relief and, eventually, an innocent kiss. His night time bike ride home after the incident is gloriously underscored with “Days” by The Drums and stands out sweetly from anything else in the film.

Meanwhile, the domestic-centric view of the world held by his mother Lacy is highlighted in a scene where hundreds of birds all converge on the house in a mass mistake of migration. As the supernatural expert Edwin Pollard, who she later consults, explains, “it isn’t what you want to hear but your case is nothing special”. In fact, many families are invaded by what Pollard terms “the Grays” and most cases end in child abduction. Hmm… He also adds (as a brilliant side note) that there have been rare cases reported where the abductees are eventually returned to their families (which I’m thinking is simply the grown-up child visiting from university during the holidays).

Aside from its excellent web of symbology, for me the film succeeds in building a claustrophobic atmosphere of tenebrous inevitability in which one always feels a storm is just around the corner. In fact, it was this heavy sense of doom that hooked me onto what I’ve explained I believe the film to be about. I linked together the moments of dialogue and the set pieces that it seemed were contributing to the moodiness of the piece and all of a sudden it all became clear.

Now there is plenty about Dark Skies that might convince you that all of this subtext is a happy coincidence or a result of my reading too much into things. After all, the film does aim to be a jumpy ‘boo!’ horror film and, without the padeophobic slant, it is a very silly and very average scarefest in line with the Paranormal Activity fare of the world. Its scary moments aren’t particularly blood-freezing and it would be dishonest to pretend that the film doesn’t fail somewhat on that basis. But it would also be dishonest of me to pretend that I don’t fully believe that its makers really did intend to create a biting satire on society’s exaltation of the nuclear family and its attitude of protecting the perfection of the 2-parents-2-children paradigm at all costs.

‘Cos I’m convinced they did mean it and I liked the message and I liked the film.

Compliance (2012)

First screened at Sundance over a year ago, Compliance only made it to UK screens last Friday and is unlikely to linger thereon far past next Friday before sliding off onto DVD. Based on a series of real-life incidents across America, it depicts the ordeal of a fast food restaurant employee (Dreama Walker) when she is accused of stealing by the ‘policeman’ who rings her place of work.

Sandra (Ann Dowd) is the manager of the restaurant taking directions from the man we find out very quickly is a prank caller. She and her staff are, at every step, convinced to carry out the ‘police procedures’ dictated by the caller whose demands become increasingly disturbing as the ordeal continues.

It begins in a typically indie-serious manner with a series of still life shots (a shopping trolley, a stack of boxes, some pans) underscored by a driving cello ostinato. As the characters are introduced and the situation set up, it has the awkward feel of a sort of GCSE Psychology educational drama made to teach students how conformity works. Maybe this is because I knew what was coming but so does everyone – the film’s plot is detailed in its synopsis.

One major gripe of a great number of people who have seen the film is how unrealistic it seems that everyone at the restaurant complies with the caller, with no proof that he is a genuine officer of the law, to the extent that the innocent girl, Becky, is thoroughly humiliated and plainly abused.

Director Craig Zobel of course can, and does, hide behind the true story that inspired his film. Speaking on Radio 5live, he explained its partly negative reception at Sundance last year:

‘Everyone’s reactions, when they hear these stories is, “well I would never do that, I would never listen, I would know it was a fake” yet it happens all the time… there are certain people that are not comfortable imagining themselves ever being in that place and reject that idea.’

Fair enough, these things do happen, and this particular event actually did. Earlier in the interview, Zobel demonstrates his familiarity with Stanley Milgram’s conformity experiments which illustrate that it is indeed horrific the things humans will do if an authority figure tells them to. But when viewing a film, obviously people are going to get angry and mistrustful if their engagement with the story isn’t sufficient enough for them to suffer the same lack of moral judgement as the characters on screen do.

It would be an incredible feat to pull this off – the best bet might have been to attempt to fool the audience into believing that the caller was a real policeman, which would necessitate less of a giveaway title than Compliance and more secrecy in the media. But here’s the real problem – the media can’t describe the film in any other way than revealing the caller to be a prankster because the film is made in such a way that its only focus, only point of interest is how people respond to a fake authority figure. Like I said, it feels too much like an educational film and while watching it, I constantly pictured the director nodding sagely mouthing the words “it can happen”. OK Craig Zobel, yes it can, but while you treat your characters like dummies whose only purpose is to illustrate a textbook case, the message isn’t really hitting home.

This leads neatly to the second big problem of the film: with the characters, especially Becky, often looking and behaving robotically, it invites accusations of exploitation. Because we aren’t invested in the verisimilitude of events (even if we do accept that they really happened), as the film progresses and the central actress loses more and more clothes, there rises a creeping suspicion that the film is starting to play to the male gaze. Zobel doesn’t help himself by moving the camera behind a storage cabinet while Becky removes particular items of clothing. Rather than protecting the actress’ modesty with an artsy tracking shot, this moment comes across more as a tease. The ‘you can see this, but you can’t see that’ attitude is a big moment of discomfort. If the film was serious about depicting a real event/tackling a serious issue, surely the way to confront something is to represent it clinically, entirely. The way the director handled this moment reeked of exploitation.

If you’re going to make an exploitation film, fine; it isn’t a crime, there are some sleazy merits to doing so. If you’re going to make a serious issue docudrama, then do that instead. I’m sure there are some rare genius instances where the two can be combined but in this case, they most definitely shouldn’t be.

To pay Zobel his due, his writing, especially for ‘Officer Daniels’ (Pat Healy), does at times display a good understanding of the psychology behind coercion and conformity. I believe he has a thorough apprehension of the subject and even good intentions. The trouble is, he is much too impressed with the knowledge on a theoretical level and seems to delight in imparting the shocking news that human beings are far too enamoured with anybody who wears a uniform to think clearly. What he needed to do was force us to see it through good characterisation, without clouding the issue with suspicious exploitative moments.

Side Effects (2013)

All artists – directors especially – run the risk of becoming too precious with their output. Reticent to send out into the world something that doesn’t exactly embody their style/outlook or fully display their talents, they can find the gaps between pieces of work starting to increase. Years soon pass with no new releases. Eventually, if the one film every six (or more) years isn’t gold dust, it can just about finish a perfectionist off.

Steven Soderbergh, it seems, experiences no such creative block. Side Effects is his 5^th film in 2 years and it isn’t bad either. If nothing else, Soderbergh deserves credit for the solid consistency of his work and the drive and ambition with which he dives into each new project.

This said, there is often a feeling of slight disappointment upon leaving most of Soderbergh’s recent films. They seem to promise something special and original before settling into one of many well constructed but well-worn narrative paths about halfway through.

The Side Effects trailer invites one to expect a scathing attack on the pharmaceutical industry and a story that perhaps focuses on the negative consequences of prescribing brain chemistry-altering drugs to depressed individuals. The film does begin with this set up but somewhere along the way abandons any serious agenda in favour of the twists and turns of a traditional thriller. It gives the impression of being through composed from start to finish, with writer Scott Z. Burns unable to follow through on his original idea so juicing it up with one shocking revelation after another for his own amusement.

Acting is typically dependable from stars such as Jude Law, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Channing Tatum. The screenplay is a little hammy and much of the dialogue doesn’t ring true but the cracks are capably papered over by the cast. Given what seems like the fewest lines and handed the arguably easy task of looking distraught for much of the film, Rooney Mara gives the most believable performance. She plays Emily, a woman prescribed ‘Ablixa’, a trial antidepressant with some undesirable side effects. As a tragedy unfolds, Emily’s doctor Jonathan (Jude Law) faces charges of negligence and the motives of everyone involved are gradually untangled (then re-tangled and finally re-untangled).

The thing that holds Side Effects together once its narrative begins to slip is Steven Soderbergh’s workmanship as a director and editor. The film is well put together by a man who knows how to tell a story. This makes it enjoyable long after you realise that the controversial issue-based drama you were sold isn’t quite what is being delivered to your eyes and ears.

Whatever genre it begins in, the film ends up as a sort of neo-noir with yellow (not black) washing out all else in the colour palette. I quite like this. Soderbergh did the same thing with Contagion, using some sort of filter throughout the film to jaundice almost every shot. It makes the film look ill and is very effective although not necessarily appealing to the eye. Its phlegmy aesthetic is just one of I’m sure many little tricks the director uses to give the film its shape and consistency.

Side Effects may not be the film you were expecting to see, but it is a good watch. Although the themes it touches upon may provoke an afternoon on Wikipedia, the film itself doesn’t clarify or engage in such debates as “how to treat depression” or “who benefits from prescribing certain medications – the patient or the pharmaceuticals?” It simply exploits this subject matter to fuel a thriller – albeit an enjoyable one.

Robot & Frank (2013)

It’s rare that a film looks into ‘the near future’ and doesn’t see digital chaos, silicon tragedy and human slaves being electronically whipped by their robot overlords. Robot & Frank bypasses the technophobia of such films to present a far more recognisable version of our probable old age.

On the surface, Robot & Frank comes across as a gentle comedy about an elderly ex-jewel thief who is addled with a robot helper when his children stop visiting.

But it is neither as anodyne as this sounds nor as cynical as the sentimental tosh often lacquered with the ‘feel-good’ tag. It is gentle but unfolds with a real melancholy as the dementia of Frank (Frank Langella) is woven delicately with the perfection and pitfalls of computer memory.

Although initially rejecting the robot (I love that he never gives it a name), Frank eventually recognises its potential for assisting him in one last dip into his old criminal ways. The robot is the perfect friend for Frank, offering complete servility and confidentiality. Programmed to help Frank stay healthy, the robot also gives Frank the opportunity to fulfil his need to rebel – ironically, the more Frank disobeys its agenda, the more his youthful spark returns.

The best thing about the film is its portrait of Frank. The robot may be Frank’s reliable rock but as it consistently reminds him, it doesn’t really exist as a tangible personality. The truth is, its main function is to allow Frank to become reacquainted with himself. Through his interaction with an infallible computer memory, Frank begins to recall long forgotten slivers of his life story – bittersweet both for him and us.

The film is a thoughtful meditation on ageing and delicately raises questions about the perceived burden of the aged, the failing human memory’s capacity for improvement and what benefits might be lost to both parties if the young abandon the old.

Stoker (2013)

So generally infantile are trailers in their desperate splurge of what distributors feel are the best moments of a film and so rife are they with conspicuous plot spoilers that I’m sold to any film that uses its minute-long advertising spot to give nothing away about what it might be about, what happens in it or even what genre it might be conveniently placed into.

See I hate trailers. I never post them. But this one is perfect.

Having watched Stoker, I remain somewhat unable to pigeonhole it. Psychological thriller? Dramatic horror? However best to comfortably describe it, the film holds up as one of the most affecting I’ve seen for many months.

Mia Waikowska plays India, an introverted teenager on the cusp of adulthood whose father has recently died in a car crash. Acutely aware of everything her 5 senses deliver and inherently suspicious of everybody around her, India lives with her troubled mother Evelyn (Nicole Kidman) in their isolated family home. When India’s estranged Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode) introduces himself, she finds herself repelled and captivated in equal measure by her new relation as he aids her transition into adulthood.

Stoker is beautifully made, with a directorial touch as delicate as the central character’s super-tuned senses. The care taken in framing each subject is absolutely sublime and the pinpoint symbolism (keys, shoes, locked drawers, trees) is better than Hitchcockian.

Sound design is also very careful and close. Slow egg cracking, squeaking wine glasses and the amalgamation of a digging-spade with heavily played piano keys are about as good as it gets for a micro-sound junkie.

The trio of actors at the heart of the drama play their dysfunctional family with minimal… minimal drama actually, which really suits the piece because under each ice-cold exterior, you can see everyone is boiling. Uncle Charlie has a simmering malevolence, Evelyn is bubbling with grief and jealousy and India is brewing the potential of adulthood, never betraying quite in which direction she is blossoming until the final act.

I suppose you always realise a good film by how necessary everything you see and hear is to the effect it produces. Mysterious gestures, fastidiously-designed montages and complicated sound processes can all seem very gimmicky when used as a smokescreen to deceive audiences by glossing over a film’s shortcomings. But in a film such as this, where every carefully realised element is integral to its nature, the effect is simply stunning.

Maybe I’ve just had too many underwhelming experiences in the cinema of late but when a film completely traverses the alienation of a huge silver screen, beguiles you into its odd little world and then horrifies your sensibilities to the point where it still cloys at your mind 10 days after seeing it – well, that’s something to celebrate.

February Catch-up Part 2: Beautiful Creatures & I Give It a Year

Beautiful Creatures

With the Twilight Saga done and dusted there is understandably a desperate clamouring by the major film studios to find the next supernatural literary phenomenon to adapt into a moody romance and thereby hopefully take the world’s teens for millions and millions of dollars. While cynical producers may have chosen Beautiful Creatures to adapt with this in mind, thankfully it seems to have been made by people with a little more humour and humanity.

Ethan Wate (Alden Ehrenreich) is a big dreamer in a small-dreaming town in the deep south of America. When gothic misfit Lena Duchannes (Alice Englert) turns up at school and the other students start to gossip, we find ourselves immediately in familiar Twilight territory, just with the genders reversed.

Turns out Lena is a fledgling witch whose big issue is that her undeveloped powers will be claimed for either good or evil on her sixteenth birthday depending on her true nature. Trouble is, like all 15-year-olds, she has no idea what her true nature is. Her uncle, Macon Ravenwood (Jeremy Irons) is adamant she will be a force for good. As she and Ethan become close, the dark side of Lena’s family show up including her mother Sarafine (played like a force of nature by Emma Thompson) to complicate matters further.

Comparisons to Twilight are exhaustive: the romance between a human and a supernatural being, the supernatural as metaphor for teen troubles and the humans vs. ‘monsters’ dichotomy are all well-trodden themes – even the moody weather of its towns gives the light of both films a similar tone. Despite Beautiful Creatures using its predecessor as a template, the main distinction to be drawn is that this film has more of a sense of humour, less of an anti-sex subtext and generally a more down-to-earth feel than that of Twilight.

This works both for and against it.

The couple at the centre of the film are very likeable and drawn with a streak of self-awareness of the ludicrousness of their story’s supernatural themes. This helps them to never descend into the kind of stern self-torture of the straight-faced vampire fable. While this lends a better believability to their relationship, it waters down the power of its bond somewhat. Like it or not, although the life or death love of the Bella and Edwards of the genre seem sometimes like a melodramatic lie, I think teenagers recognise the desperate cling of first love best when the stakes are high. Adults may understand that Ethan and Lena are a better rounded couple but I think a younger audience are slightly less interested. This may already be showing in Beautiful Creatures box office figures, which – unfortunately – are nowhere near that of the first Twilight film.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the film is tongue-in-cheek. Both Emma Thompson and Jeremy Irons establish the good vs. evil battle with their weighty presences and no character or funny one-liner ever invites you to make fun of Lena’s predicament. It just isn’t as gripping as a film like this needs to be. It is easy to mock the young for being frivolous but however fleeting it may be, regarding idealised love, they are deadly serious. And this film isn’t deadly serious.

I can see why middle-aged reviewers warm to Beautiful Creatures more than other coming-of-age teen fantasies and, me now being the adult side of the dividing line, I’d sooner watch it again than another Twilight. But I suspect we aren’t the demographic being targeted here. For what it wants to achieve, Beautiful Creatures is fated as a well-meant misfire and I’d be surprised if the next book makes it to the big screen.

I Give It a Year

Second-guessing the ending of this film almost confused me into thinking it had something new to add to the romantic comedy genre instead of actually having nothing new to add to the romantic comedy genre. Will newly married Josh (Rafe Spall) and Nat (Rose Byrne) make it past a year of marriage or will their obvious differences and attraction to the other people in their lives tear their relationship apart?

I definitely know that I want them to divorce, if only on principle (because the film never beguiled me into truly caring); they’re so ill suited that they pretty much hit the rocks the moment they tie the knot. But if the film starts this way, will it move to resolution by the end? Will they sort out their differences? Probably. We’re all used to romcoms convincing unhappy people that their unhappy relationships are worth the crushing disappointment for some deeply buried sliver of ‘love’. But then again as other love interests are introduced and the couple drift further and further apart, I’m being turned again. Is the most subversive and interesting outcome that they do in fact somehow stay together despite belonging apart?

All of this spun me into the most bewildering mind slush that I convinced myself I could be happy if only the outcome of this quandary was to my satisfaction. And when it ended right, I left the cinema with such a sense of resolution that it was only on the way home that I realised I’d been tricked.

I think the reason my brain turned I Give It a Year’s narrative into an epic twisting rollercoaster is because nothing on screen really occupied my attention. It meanders awfully, giving the impression of several improvised vignettes with no strands pointing in any particular direction. As I guessed from the cast list, the funniest turns were given by Stephen Merchant and Tim Key, but even these moments were too ill disciplined to squeeze anything more than smile and seemed isolated from all other scenes as if belonging in a completely different movie.

I’d been away from these kinds of films for so long that I forgot how placid the lighting is. All angles are covered, no shadow is allowed, the whole toolkit of cinematography is rendered utterly anodyne by the bright bright bright.

On a positive note, the characters themselves are likeable, individually. It’s just that there’s no pairing for an audience to root for – no two people that seem to click. Also praiseworthy is Anna Faris who is handed the best-drawn character I’ve ever seen her play. Even if she is a side note, Chloe is certainly the most interesting and warm in the whole film and Faris hits exactly the right note. If we’re rooting for anyone, it’s her.

Overall, I Give It a Year provides no emotional ride to jump on. But on the plus side, it’s sometimes so vacuous that you might find yourself inventing all manner of plot twist dilemmas with which to fill up the time.

February Catch-up Part 1: Zero Dark Thirty & Wreck-It Ralph

Zero Dark Thirty

For anyone but the most bloodthirsty American, the filling in of the minor intricacies in the last chapter of the War on Terror is the main attraction of this film. Watching it is an easy way to get better acquainted with the who’s who and (more importantly) who’s where of America’s Most Wanted list 2001-2011.

Which is handy. When bin Laden was killed I didn’t look into it too much, so watching Zero Dark Thirty served as a recent history lesson – which I think is how many will experience it.

I didn’t engage too strongly with Jessica Chastain’s Maya character and her struggle to be taken seriously by her CIA colleagues who are convinced she is pursuing a dead trail. Her triumph in convincing the men around her to follow the lead that eventually takes them to bin Laden seems inconsequential. If the film wants us to experience it as a feminist victory (at times it pushes this agenda but overall seems largely unsure) then it fails, if only because we all know that the highly classified nature of America’s intelligence organisations mean that the real life characters involved in ‘Operation Neptune Spear’ won’t enter public knowledge for many decades yet.

But I don’t mind too much that it fails on that level. No fictional CIA agent’s ‘personal journey’ can ever be as juicy as the actual storming of bin Laden’s compound, which Kathryn Bigelow directs with superb pacing. I caught myself with my mouth open as the helicopters reach their destination and the Navy SEALs silently rope down to the floor.

The odd thing about this film is that it’s worth seeing despite the fact that it fails to accomplish the emotional drama it sets out to fictionalise. The fast talking military speak and leaps of faith on ropey intelligence are the exciting thing – that’s why it is a good film, not because of any heart wrenching backstory.

 

Wreck-It Ralph

A successful modern Disney film finds new ways of presenting a familiar story. It succeeds on its surface freshness despite the underlying pedalling of proven ideas. This is not a criticism; a fresh look goes a long way in a surface medium and I am pleased to report that Wreck-It Ralph is indeed a successful modern Disney film.

Big studios learn what works from the wild failures and unexpected triumphs of more experimental fare. Wreck-It Ralph certainly has its foundations in other places. It’s central conceit of video game characters carrying on independent lives outside of human company has more than an echo of the Toy Story about it. The big heart of a designated bad guy also borrows from Shrek. Finally, the whole gamer style owes as much to the aesthetic of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World as anything else.

The story follows Wreck-It Ralph (John C. Reilly), the stuff-smashing nemesis of Fix-it Felix, Jr., whose 30 years of watching everyone rooting for the game’s hero Felix, has him try to turn the tables and win a medal for himself at long last. Eventually ending up in the game Sugar Rush, Ralph befriends another ostracised character, the glitching Vanellope Von Schweetz, and realises that helping secure his new friend’s victory in her kart-racing game (and so secure her very existence) is perhaps a nobler pursuit.

The voice acting is the best thing about the film. John C. Reilly has complained of being consistently typecast in the role of a man-child and Wreck-It Ralph offers him the chance to almost parody himself, playing the man-child card to the max. The difference here is that his character isn’t written for the audience to poke fun at for a change; his vulnerability is central to the role. Ralph is a powerful physical presence with the simple desire to be accepted and Reilly is perfect at giving voice to this innocent agenda. Sarah Silverman is excellent too; she lends a real sparky zaniness to Vanellope whose strong individuality yet sensitivity to Ralph’s plight really rings true.

The gaming style of the film’s look is fresh like I said and it’s no problem to accept the invitation to dive into it’s world, although I think it could actually have played up a lot more to the retro gaming theme. I might be too much the Scott Pilgrim fan but it borrowed an awful lot from that film’s aesthetic without doing the whole arcade game homage thing half as well. The pixelated Disney ident before the film begins isn’t as brilliantly brash as the 32-bit Universal ident it ripped off from Scott Pilgrim and its flashing “Press Start” text at the film’s close seemed tokenistic and didn’t tie in with the film’s story as perfectly as the Scott Pilgrim “Continue? 10…9…8…etc” ending.

Nevertheless, Wreck-It Ralph is good fun, feels shiny and original (even if it isn’t quite) and has enough of a strong narrative to carry it through. Kids probably love it – (I’ve no idea, don’t know any.)

Hitchcock (2013)

I re-watched an old interview with Alfred Hitchcock the other day and was almost surprised to find that he didn’t resemble the moon-faced muppet that currently invites cinema goers to “silence their mobile telephones” before each film begins (or, more accurately, before the slice of Kevin Bacon before each film begins).

But in a way what could be more perfect? In an industry where the symbols that connote a thing are unflinchingly interchangeable with the thing itself, Alfred Hitchcock now IS Anthony Hopkins in a fat suit.

And what could be more perfect? The actual films made by actual Hitchcock – that’s what.

It’s not that Hitchcock the film made me feel let down, it just floated on like a little puff of nothing. If you have an interest in filmmaking, are a fan of Psycho (1960), or have read/watched books and documentaries that detail the history of its production then you’ll find yourself counting off the well-known incidences (ranging from widely-accepted fact to downright urban legend) that you already know about. It’s like a wild rush through a checklist that the director compiled while watching several “The Making of Pyscho” documentaries.

Which is fine. But then odd liberties are taken to dramatise the story and make it some kind of sentimental slush where perhaps Hitchcock has dreadful anxiety about making a film at 60-years-old, perhaps his marriage is on the rocks too, oh and perhaps he has hallucinations and begins sharing his problems with the ghost of Ed Gein – the notorious murderer on whose killings Psycho is based.

One of the most grating things is the relationship between “Hitch” (every film about Hitchcock must call him Hitch where possible) and his wife Alma Reville (played by Helen Mirren) which the film not only assumes to have all the inside gossip on, but spells out in phoney dialogue. Who knows exactly what their relationship was like but I’d bet anything that a) they didn’t have the hyperbolic showdowns depicted in the film and b) that Hitchcock never said in his trademark drawl “of all my leading ladies, you are the most beautiful Hitchcock blonde of them all”. Vomit vomit vomit.

There are good performances. Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Biel interact well as the two actresses at the centre of Psycho, Janet Leigh and Vera Miles – one new to Hitchcock’s obsession, the other a long-time victim of it. James D’Arcy is great too – a dead ringer for Anthony Perkins and has his awkwardness down to a T.

Not that Hopkins and Mirren don’t do the best with what they are given. The trouble for me is that what they are given is a script that is a little too knowing for what the available facts can provide . While the making of Psycho has many interesting incidences and anecdotes, its story is for film buffs to read about or watch interviews on. What we know about its production doesn’t contain enough shock and awe for a dramatic feature film. And what we don’t know doesn’t require fleshed out half-fabrications to fill in the blanks.

Flight (2013)

For a director celebrated for his groundbreaking special effects work, Flight is a confident and accomplished return to live-action filmmaking for Robert Zemeckis. The film is a character study of genius pilot Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington) who saves the lives of nearly every passenger on board when his plane encounters a catastrophic failure mid-flight. Forced into rolling the aircraft upside down to stabilise an uncontrollable nosedive, Whip escapes the crash landing with minor injuries and is branded a hero by the adoring public. What they are unaware of is Whip’s toxicology report which reveals him to have been heavily drunk and under the influence of cocaine while flying the plane.

Directed very simply (mid-shots all the way), Zemeckis’ camera is quiet and unobtrusive, allowing the actors to play the drama through without too much stylish trickery. Despite this, he delivers the special effects-laden plane crash sequence with as much gusto as you’d expect. It is, up to now, the most gripping I’ve seen and will do nothing to soften my only recurring anxiety dream.

Main man Denzel Washington is superb. He gives the impression of a highly skilled professional convinced he can hide his alcoholism with his genius (even to his own eyes) – a subtle trick. He isn’t likeable but, due to the performance, we understand his disease and struggle with him all the way. (The groans around me as Whip slips again and again into drunkenness were nearly loud enough even to drown out the screening’s ubiquitous popcorn rustle.)

My one main problem with Flight was strangely its most enjoyable element – I’m talking about Whip’s drug dealer, played by John Goodman who seems so alien and removed from the stern drama that his presence threatens to twist it upside down into a completely different film. It argues with the overall preachy tone of the film. I never enjoy being preached to, but at least if you’re a preachy film, don’t dish out the light relief fun drug thing at the same time to punctuate the lecture in an attempt to make it palatable. Every time the pony-tailed dealer shows up, The Rolling Stones let loose in the soundtrack and Goodman delivers enough good jokes to conflict with the film’s message.

It might work if it wasn’t for the soundtrack and the camera language (the only stylish touches Zemeckis adds are crash zoom cocaine rushes and rack focus on a heroin needle) which back Goodman up. It is as if the film is saying “Drugs are ruining this man’s life. Also, here’s a bit where we’re going all Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with non-judgemental, light-hearted, some-people-have-a-good-time-on drugs segments… But seriously though, drugs are bad… But actually look at John Goodman here, isn’t he funny?… But SERIOUSLY, addiction=bad.”

The reason it jarred so strongly with me is that, while I appreciate the pacing, the struggle, the drama of Flight, Goodman’s interjections reminded me that the film I’d kind of rather be watching would be the one where his character was the lead. The writers don’t help themselves with this character, or maybe they simply didn’t count on Goodman doing such a good job.

The scene where writer John Gatins really does shine is for me the standout moment of the film: Whips first meeting with Nicole (Kelly Reilly) on the hospital’s stairwell. He is recovering from a plane crash, she is recovering from a heroin overdose and in trundles the character named in the script as “Gaunt Young Man” who is most definitely not recovering from terminal cancer. The ensuing conversation is paced brilliantly, and the perspective offered from the Gaunt Young Man who is both upbeat and resigned to his fate is the catalyst for Whip and Nicole to try to make a life recovering together.

Ultimately, Flight is a Hollywood film and certain ideologies have to be maintained, events must have their consequences and ruined lives must be redeemed. These aren’t plot spoilers; from the moment Whip wakes up in hospital after the crash, we all know how the story is going to shake out. But the film knows we know and the important thing is how engaged we are from A to B. Thankfully the answer is: quite engaged. Invested enough to recommend it as a good watch, which is what I’m doing now.