Review: The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!***
There is an unquestionable deep respect for our British creative institution Aardman Animations, and eager anticipation for their next project. Don’t be put off by the fact that its geniuses have teamed up with Sony and added 3D – The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists! is a quintessentially Aardman affair, bursting with fine detail that you can’t possibly take in, in one viewing. In fact, it could be argued that this detracts from the plot, which has its lagging moments, if being totally honest – Aardman magic aside. Pirate Captain (voiced with expert comic timing by Hugh Grant) is tired…
Review: Wild Bill****
Shot in the heartland of London 2012, actor-turned-director Dexter Fletcher’s new gritty Brit drama Wild Bill could be set anywhere, if it wasn’t for the occasional skyline prompt. But unlike the gloomy, award-winning Junkhearts that follows a similar ‘deprived London’ vein – and was released at the same time as Fletcher’s directorial debut at last year’s London Film Festival, Wild Bill has a more genuine heart to it for those of us who know the London Borough of Newham area, and it’s not obsessed with trying to hit rock bottom to provide grim reality portrayals. Wild Bill may well be guilty of…
Review: Project X****
Imagine throwing the party you’ve always dreamed of in a venue primed for purpose – pesky neighbours and law enforcement aside. Imagine all the coolest people attending and dancing to some kick-ass tunes. It’s the stuff of decadent dreams that this out-of-control juggernaut feeds off, tapping into a real deep-rooted deviance from our days of youthful carefree living. After all, someone else can pay later; it’s all about tonight and now. And for The Hangover fans – director Todd Phillips produces this time – there is an even greater sense of the party boys being plunged into the virtual unknown…
Review: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel****
Charm and experience go hand in hand, and director John Madden (The Debt) has coaxed this potent combination effortlessly out of a truly stellar British cast of Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson, Penelope Wilton, Celia Imrie and Ronald Pickup. This film may have an older audience in mind, but its characters’ personal issues are universally felt on the whole. – In The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, British retirees from different walks of life travel to India to take up residence in what they believe is a newly restored hotel, run by an over enthusiast young entrepreneur called…
Review: We Bought a Zoo
Director/writer Cameron Crowe was at the top of his game when he continuously released some of the most iconic movies to date, including Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous and Vanilla Sky. However his boom went bust when Elizabeth Town flopped. After a seven year hiatus, audiences have been anticipating his recent light-hearted venture, We Bought a Zoo. The project is based on a true story, adapted from Benjamin Mee’s memoir, We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Animals That Changed Their Lives Forever. There are alterations from the…
Review: The Muppets****
Co-writer and star Jason Segel and director James Bobin courageously embraced the arduous task of recapturing the magic of The Muppets for a new generation, safe in the knowledge that the adult ‘kids’ out there who remember the show first time around would only need a few bars of Sam Pottle and Jim Henson’s iconic theme tune to secure a captive interest. However, this alone cannot guarantee a whole new movie’s success, and it’s because Segel and Bobin – of The Flight of the Conchords fame – have stuck to making this a puppet character-driven piece full of the coy innocence…
Review: Young Adult****
High school reunion flicks are ten a penny, and play to our morose curiosity of what others are up now, and how better/worse others have faired since leaving education. Up in the Air director Jason Reitman has teamed up with Academy Award-winning writer Diablo Cody of his other hit teenage dramedy, Juno, to take this ‘home-coming’ idea to depressing new levels of self reflection and blacken humour that the results of unregulated and misguided nostalgia can generate. Charlize Theron is Mavis Gary, a writer of teen literature that is going out of fashion who returns to her small hometown to…
Review: Journey 2: The Mysterious Island***
Our thirst for family adventure movies is never quenched, and the promise of yet another involving a mystical, far-off land packed with interesting creatures promises big things. Carving a niche in such a market is Canadian filmmaker Brad Peyton, the debut director of Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore that got mixed reviews in 2010. Tasked with breathing life back into the Journey to the Center of the Earth franchise from 2008, and with the second film simply shortened to Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, Peyton’s shaky foray into family feature filmmaking has been redeemed. In this adventure,…
Review: Carnage*****
Tried and tested on stage from Paris to London to Broadway, New York, Yasmina Reza’s successful play God of Carnage was always going to present a challenge being adapted for film by the playwright herself. However, the key to the story – shortened to Carnage – is the power of the acting talent assigned to play the parents; director Roman Polanski’s excellent casting of Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly as the Longstreets, and Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltzas the Cowans is the absolute tour de force of the film. After the Cowans’ son, Zachary (Polanski’s own son Elvis) ‘disfigures’…
Review: The Descendants*****
It’s Hawaii – but not as we know it. Writer-director Alexander Payne has set one of star George Clooney’s most anticipated releases, The Descendants– since its unveiling at the BFI LFF 2011 – in paradise. But it’s a paradise of a viewing kind that is the perfect combination of dramedy, tragedy and familiar fallouts that simultaneously brings tears of joy and sorrow, with seemingly effortless effect. And with a sprinkle of the Clooney magic in this, its possibilities are endless for the route the story will take. Matt King (Clooney) is a workaholic lawyer who has lost touch with his…
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