This afternoon I took a trip to the cinema to see The Book of Eli, the new film from the Hughes Brothers. I enjoy the work of the Hughes Brothers, but they are not always critically aclaimed film. I'm mainly talking about their last feature, From Hell, which I think was wonderfully directed, and they drew fantastic performances from Johnny Depp, Heather Graham and Ian Holm.
The Book of Eli is, yet another, post-apocalyptic film, this starring Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman, with eye candy supplied by Mila Kunis. Denzel plays Eli, a man who is walking across the barren desert that is post-apocalypse America, his ultimate goal being the west coast (sound like anything from my last post?). Along the way he comes into a shanty town run by Carnegie (Oldman), who controls gangs with his supply of water, making them hunt down other 'walkers', like Eli, in search for books. Carnegie lives with his blind wife and her daughter, Solara (Kunis), and operates his searches from a bar.
The apocalypse is, as with The Road, never explained. In The Road, mind, the apocalypse is barely mentioned, but in The Book Of Eli, characters mention that the apocalypse was caused by a war, and that after the war the sun left most of the world blind. This information is given as if it is a taster towards some resolution, but instead it is promptly ignored, which left me rather annoyed. Also, Carnegie is introduced as a reasonable man, but it doesn't take much prompt to turn him into the sinister antagonist. The source of his aggression is, again, never fully explained, other than his hunt for a certain book (The title may suggest who is in possession of said book).
Eli, as a character, is pretty fantastic. He's a dab hand with pistols, knifes, shotguns, and his own fists. The action sequences which involve Eli taking on more than one aggressor use violence superbly, with limbs falling off left, right and centre, but done with class, no obvious annoying slow motion. One particular scene takes place in sillhouette and is stunning. Another takes place in a bar and is jaw-droppingly enjoyable.
Mila Kunis is very frustrating in this film, her age is not given so she jumps from horny temptress to whiney teenage sidekick to bad-ass chick more than Megan Fox in a Michael Bay film. Sadly she contributes to the disappointing final act of the film. The first hour is incredibly watchable, with the aforementioned violence mixed with Denzel just being Denzel. The second hour lacks something of the first. The violence stops being hand to hand and turns to shoot outs, meaning slightly less decapitation, and there are a handful of explosions thrown in about for about 10 minutes for effect. I enjoyed the first hour for not trying too hard to make me care about the characters, it was just a fun film, but a smattering of shallow emotion gets thrown in to dilute the coolness.
Without saying too much, this is a 'twist' movie, which you may have already heard from Roger Ebert, or Empire, but if now, hear it from me...try not to get this film ruined for you. A twist is, for me, a plot point that makes you look back through the film and cock your head back and say, "Awwww yeah, that explains that", but in The Book of Eli, there is literally one line of dialogue which makes perfect sense through the revelation.
It's worth seeing, but its not worth rushing out too, unless you want to avoid the plot being ruined for you. But here's a favour for you, at the end of Knowing starring Nicholas Cage, the world ends.
I know I promised last time I restarted my blog that I would continue it every time I saw a film, and get it back up and running again...but I didn't.
So here's a retrospective view of the films I saw over Christmas and so far this year.
Sherlock Holmes
It's a Guy Ritchie film and it's good. No one has said that since 1998. But yeah. The title character is taken on by a favourite of mine, RDJ, with the handsome sidekick Watson tackled by Jude Law. And our femme fatale is Rachel McAdams.
The film is based on a Sherlock story not written by Conan Doyle, but written by the films producer, and it focuses on Holmes and Watson investigating the death and subsequent resurrection of the evil Lord Blackwood (played by Mark Strong). A string of deaths lead our loveable detective and his equally brilliant doctor friend on a quest delving into magic, machinery and midgets. Along they way, Holmes is 'reunited' with his ex-lover Irene Adler (the aforementioned McAdams), a 'world-class' criminal whom Holmes finds hard to trust.
Robert Downey Jr is fantastic in this film, so fantastic with his comic timing, and is believably the master detective of Doyle's tales. Jude Law is very easy to swallow, he jumps from Holmes' neurotic carer to his hero very comfortably, easily giving off the air of a life long companionship. I thoroughly enjoyed this film, and I will openly embrace the inevitable sequel.
I did have a few qualms with Ritchie's direction. He didn't seem to know what he wanted to do. The slow motion stylised fight scenes that showed off Holmes' clear skill in hand-to-hand combat worked in some instances, but then were ignored in certain stand offs. Also, the spinning and upside-down camera shots were disorienting, and only used three or four times in the two hour presentation. And I hope the crow doesn't become a directors trademark, because it's very annoying.
Daybreakers
Daybreakers is the true definition of a 3-star film. The big-budget directorial debut of the Spierig Brothers, after their largely unseen Undead. Starring Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe, with support from Sam Neill and Claudia Karvan, Daybreakers tackles a future in which the 'vampire plague' has over taken humanity and humans are harvested (a la The Matrix) for blood.
The Spierigs had, in their hands, a fantastic concept. The idea that vampires walk the earth and work as regular joes, keeping humans under strict population control, should make for a fantastic story. Sadly, they fell short, pretty far short. The film offers far too much for 98 minutes: Corrupt businessmen, human harvesting, vampire mutation and blood shortage. It rushes along at such a brutal pace that you feel nothing for the characters. There are so many minor characters that they expect you to give a damn about but have less than 10 minutes screen time each. I've said before and I will again, I'd love to see this adapted as a television show. The Spierigs clearly have a firm grasp on what they want from their films, with a lot of violence and some fantastic CGI in Daybreakers, but they also have too many flaws. Some vamps explode into fire, some just burn from the inside out, where some pop and leave their innards all over the room and people in it. Also, there are rather flat performances from all the characters, Sam Neills sinister businessman was like watching Stephen Baldwin the Big Brother house on the big screen, Ethan Hawke was cold and lacked substance, while Willem Dafoe delivers quip after quip in a manner not disimilar to Sean Connery in The Rock.
Avatar
I'm not going to write about Avatar, for I won't stop. I shall sum it up quickly as I have learnt to do so without getting annoyed.
It is the most visually stunning film you will see until someone else does it better, but it's incredibly boring and unoriginal. It genuinelly is EXACTLY the same as Pocahontas, and many of the other ingratiation films such as Dances With Wolves and *cough* Titanic *cough*.
And one last thing....UNOBTAINIUM. SERIOUSLY?! That is such a ridiculous use of language.
The Road
Based on Cormac 'No Country For Old Men' McCarthy's post-apocalyptic tale of a Man and his Boy trekking across America whilst constantly evading cannibals.
The film adaptation, directed by John Hillcoat, stars Viggo Mortenson as The Man and Kodi Smit-McPhee as The Boy. Viggo constantly delivers in every role, and is comfortably one of the greatest actors around today.
The film is a stark and emotional journey, which takes the novel almost as a screenplay, but adds in flashbacks of the years slightly before the unexplained apocaplypse. The cinematography is fantastic, taking advantage of Pennsylvanias bleak landscapes, and post-Katrina New Orleans for its grey pallette.
I'd always recommend reading the book before the film in most cases, with the exception of a few on this list: http://www.cracked.com/article_15694_8-kick-ass-movies-you-didnt-know-were-based-books.html
Up In The Air
I'm going to say now that I love everything Jason Reitman has done, Thank You for Smoking, Juno and now Up In The Air. The latter and most recent is the newest film that probably deserves to sweep up at the Oscars, but, judging by it's Golden Globes perfomance, may not.
It stars former Oscar winner George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, a middle aged 'corporate downsizer'/'insolvency practitioner'/'absolute bastard if you're on the receiving end' who spends the majority of his life in the air, travelling from city to city to fire company employees when the company can't do it themselves. With support from the sublime Vera Farmiga and annoyingly good Anna Kendrick, the former as a fellow air traveller, and the latter as the woman who could cost Ryan his job. After striking up an erratic romance with Vera Farmiga's Alex, and being forced to babysit the young and potentially job threatening Natalie (Kendrick), Ryan begins to question his life up in the air.
This film is absolutely fantastic. I, for one, adored it. Every performance is absolutely phenomenal, from the leads, Clooney, Farmiga and Kendrick; to the short and superb support from Jason Bateman, Zach Galifianakis and J.K.Simmons. The story floats along at a perfect pace, with the comedy scattered in places that would falter a lesser rom-com.
