Happy Halloween!

It's that time of year again, and have I got some treats for you, my pretties!

Later today, we'll look at Merlin 3.8: The Eye of the Phoenix, followed by SuperSunday:The Dark Knight. If you can't wait for those, why not take a look at my reviews of Sweeny Todd and Shaun of the Dead?

Happy Halloween.
Thanks.

Review: Sweeny Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

It doesn't usually work when someone tries to convert a Victorian tale for modern viewing. Often the sense of morality is much less liberal, and so unidentifiable for modern audiences. When, however, you have one Tim Burton on board, and when the morality in the story is clear enough, one can make a stirring and powerful tale.
      As it stands, Sweeny Todd (2007) is a chilling adaptation of the book/stage show that stands out on its own with its share of excellent direction, acting and cinematography. It's more or less faithful to the original, complete with appropriate musical numbers. Yes, that's right. Musical.
     Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp) returns to London a broken man. A former barber, he was ripped away from his family when the envious Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) and his sidekick the Beadle (Timothy Spall) have him locked up and sent to Australia. Barker now goes by the name of Sweeny Todd, and returns to his former barber shop over Mrs. Lovett's (a wonderfully gothic Helena Bonham Carter) pie ship. Lovett helps Todd to regain his spirits and open up his barber shop, while telling him that his wife his dead and his daughter is Turpin's ward.
     The two attend a fair where Todd humiliate flamboyant Italien Signor Pirelli. Pirelli then visits Todd's barber shop, where he tries to blackmail him. As a survival instinct, he kills Pirelli and hides the body, while Lovett looks after his assistant Toby. Later, Lovett has an idea - seeing as the price of meat is so high, they might as well use the corpse to make tasty pies for her customers.
      It plays out like a true Victorian tragedy, with Todd killing Turpin, his now-insane wife and then Lovett, before then being killed himself. Luckily, his daughter is fine. It's all done very melodramatically, with good turns by Bonham-Carter and Rickman, while Depp just comes across as a moody (and evil) Captain Jack. The excessive blood-spurting (un-convincing in some areas, brilliant in others) doesn't negatively effect the story, and I think it highlights the absurdity of the tragedy.
      In conclusion, Burton's adaptation is loyal and respectful to the original while bringing the tremendous acting talents of Depp, Bonham-Carter and Rickman to the table, with a great musical score and visual feel. It truely deserves its awards and while it may be in an outdated setting, its messages ring true - vengeance always falls back upon the avenger.

Thanks.

Review: Merlin 3.7: The Castle of Fyrien

We take a more straight-laced approach at the mythology than last week, with the episode presenting an new sort of format. While The Castle of Fyrien wasn't perfect, it was still a great episode in context with Series Three, and fully exercised its characters.
     Cenred (our gruff enemy-type bloke from The Tears of Uther Pendragon) has Gwen kidnapped as part of a plot by Morgause and Morgana. He's also got her brother, and offers her a deal - get Arthur to come to his hideout, Castle Fyrien, or her brother dies. Predictably (to the villians) Arthur organises an attempt to rescue her brother and stop Cenred. They do so, but Morgana comes along for the ride.
     The Castle was really a character piece for both heroes and villians. The extent to which Morgana was fully on the Dark Side was exposed, but there were some good moments where she was confused by Merlin about loyalty. We also saw that Cenred was fighting Camelot sheerly to please Morgause, who he seems to have fallen for. On the other side, we look at the extent to which Arthur will now go both against his father and for Gwen, and there were also some nice quick bonding scenes between Arthur and Merlin.
     On the whole, Castle excelled more on Character than it did on its Plot, but this is never a bad thing. It was enjoyable, well-written and didn't fall back on any of the conveluted plots that we've come to expect from Merlin so far in Series Three. I'm glad that by this half-way-point, the quality has taken a turn for the better.

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Review: Sarah-Jane Adventures: Death of the Doctor

It's a well known fact that I'm not a big fan of Doctor Who's Softer and Lighter spinoff Sarah Jane Adventures, whose childish and light take on the Whoniverse really fails to connect with my age group. Coupled with RTD's inferior writing, this series' repetition and laziness means that I try to avoid it when I can. However, I only seem to sniff quality wherever the series crosses over with its parent programme, as here, and so I'm going to review the Series 4 episode Death of the Doctor.
     For the first time with SJA, I actually enjoyed the episode to a degree. The main reason for this was the overwhelming amount of fanwank involved with the process - an appearance is made by the Third Doctor's assistant Jo Grant (Jones now, apparently), leading to minutes and minutes of stock footage from the Classic series. There are also plenty of jabs at the fanbase, such as The Doctor ensuring everyone that the story is "neat and tidy" and mentioning in passing that he can regenerate "507 times" (Bollocks of the purest degree, of course.)
     The plot, of what remains after you strip away all of the fanwank, is that The Doctor has been dicovered dead by a race of Vulture-Undertakers called the Shan-Sheeth, who send the body back to Earth for his funeral. SJ and Jo Grant were invited, and neither seem to believe that he was dead. Sure enough, Eleven managed to swap bodies with SJ's companion Clyde (prompting an unfortunate instance of, "my hand isn't white!"), quickly explaining his regeration. You see, the Vulture people (very expensive animatronics) were trying to use the TARDIS to end death. Luckily, Eleven helped to save the day.
     While Russel's add-ons to continuity (Mentioning that Ten went back and visited all of his companions and not just the 2005-9 lot, explaining that some of the old series companions had very happy endings.) may have felt heartwarming, his misunderstanding of Eleven's character was quite irritating. RTD had a habit of treating his Doctors as Jesus himself, and under Moffat that just doesn't apply. Also, some of the jabs were a little petty, in particular his use of Eleven as an Author Proxy to appeal to the fans ("Nice and neat!").
     So, while overall the episode was easy to follow and contained some fun and heartwarming continuity, the cracterisation was totally wrong, the enemies were ridiculously made and the whole excercise had far too much fanwank to be a cohesive story. I'm sorry Sarah Jane. But you'll have to try again. Or not at all.

Thanks.

Review: Shaun of the Dead

I had intended to do this as part of Super Sundays in December, but it's just too good to resist. My previous Blood and Ice Cream review, Hot Fuzz, explains how their films tend to be genre-busting but still well written as well. While SotD may not be as fully laughter-centric as its spiritual sequel, it's just as strong if not more.
     Spoilers follow. Shaun (Pegg) has a problematic life; his job is annoying and repetitive, his flatmate Ed (Frost) is a lazy slob and he is having relationship trouble with his girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashworth), her friends Dave and Diane, and with his mother (Penelope Wilton) and step-dad Philip (Bill Nighy). One day, after being dumped, he decides to get his life back together. There's one problem - he decides to do this on the cusp of the Zombie Apocalypse.
     What follows is predictably a cauldron of comedy, horror and tragedy, well done everywhere with subtle but stark transitions between them. It helps that the two genres (Comedy and Horror) so naturally compliment each other - one can easily flash between hilarious, over-the-top Zombie ("Don't say the Z word") whacking to David unsuspectingly being ripped into pieces. The film's reliance on running gags and Brick Jokes, as in Hot Fuzz, also help because of their different contextual meanings (e.g. Shaun's old friend Yvonne converse at the beginning and end of the film, with it going something along the lines of, "How are you?" "Surviving".) This depth means that it has plentiful rewatch value, and can still be enjoyed on first viewing.
     In summation, Shaun of the Dead is a well-written blend of Comedy and Horror with a brilliant script, cast and overall tone. Its depth means that it can be enjoyed many times and continually reinterpreted without making it any less funny or scary. As an homage to Romero zombie films it stands out as an excellent and logical extension to the concept. I look forward to the third and final installation in the Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy in 2011.

Thanks.

SuperSunday: Spiderman 2

Spiderman 2 (2004)

If Superman is the leader in the D.C. collection, then Marvel's poster boy is definitely Spiderman. The teen infected by a radioactive spider bite, he stands as an identifiable role model to preach the rights and wrongs of society. They also made some films, and if this is news to you than you're either deaf, blind or both, in which case you have no way of understanding this article in the first place.
      The first Spiderman movie in 2002 was ok; it was a decent origin story for the character, as well as using his iconic villian The Green Goblin to great effect. I remember liking it as a kid, as we all did. It was so popular, they made a sequel, which was insanely popular. Then Spiderman 3 came around. We're not talking about that today. No, I'm reviewing the first film I ever got on DVD, Spiderman 2.
     Tobey Maguire (Pleasantville, one of my favourite films) stars as the eponymous hero Peter Parker, along with Kirstin Dunst (Jumanji, Wimbledon, many other films) as the Mandatory Love Interest Mary-Jane Watson and that guy off the perfume ad as Harry Osbourne, Peter's pal and love rival. Maguire's acting is very samey to me; light. sensitive, and very unrealistic. It isn't bad acting but it certainly isn't appropriate for a character like Spiderman, who's usually much more headstrong and cocky.
     We pick up two years after the first film, and Peter is having trouble keeping up with both his life as Peter and Spiderman - losing his job, forgetting his birthday, and having Spiderman turned into a public enemy. He's also madly in love with MJ. As usual. This early part of the film has a few OK scenes, but everything is played very lightly, and when it jumps into serious relationship territory the move feels jarring and awkward. Maguire's acting really doesn't help here, as his thoughtful, stoic figure just doesn't fill the gaps. He's often like a small child, and the script doesn't do him any favors.
     The main subplot early in the film, apart from an intoduction of the villan, is that Peter has to go and see a play that Mary Jane is in, and cannot make it because he's too busy Spidermanning. The whole thing isn't very interesting. Oh, and he loses his powers. For some reason.
     Peter's writing an essay on Doctor Otto Octavius (totally a villan name). He's played by excellent British actor/comedian Alfred Molina, who's quite charming early on here. Otto has been working on a form of atomic fusion to create renewable energy, but he needs a four-armed steel structure around his waist to help his control the reaction. In an accident, the fusion fails and he becomes fused to the arms, turning him instantly into a Supervillian.
     While its not necessarily a bad thing when a film's strongest character is its villan (see The Dark Knight for a good example) you need to have at least an interesting set of events for your protagonists to go through. That isn't apparant here; all of the main scenes are either boring or romantic mush, with such a light-hearted tone that it's lethal to Care Bears.
     Spiderman 2 is an enjoyable movie once it gets underway, but the constantly schizofrenic flittering from interesting to dull means that there are huge chunks where you'd rather not be watching. Having the main character as perhaps the most unlucky person in the world is never a good move unless you're a pure comedy; moving into tragedy every five seconds makes for an unpleasant experience. You can't define the film by one level of quality, because it shuffles itself too often.

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Review: Hellboy

When I wrote the schedule for SuperSundays, I regretted not being able to review Hellboy and Fantastic Four. I felt that I needed instead to cover Superman, Spiderman and Batman, by far the three biggest Superheroes in fiction. First, I review Hellboy.
     The titular character (Ron Perlman under heavy makeup) is a devil from Hell, who escaped as a child through a dimension-gate opened by para-normal obsessed Nazis (aided by the immortal Rasputin) in rural Scotland at the height of the Second World War. Adopted by the proffessor (I can't remember his name, so hereon he's John Hurt), he grows up to be part of an elite paranormal group that fights other demonic creatures. Yes, this thing is epic. Introduced to this team is John Myers, an FBI agent asigned to "look after" Hellboy after repeated public sightings. He's the audience proxy, of course.
     The nature of the comic means that the colours and designs are very cartoonish, and the characterisations and ideas serve to lay a childish bed for the film to lay in. But somewhere just under the surface lies a complexity that outshines its simple nature. The film's structure doesn't help - it spends half-an-hour throwing background at the viewer, then serves up a few excellent action scenes before settling down and churning a mixture of the two. The film is good at each different tone, but it doesn't flow very well between them.
      Ultimately, director Guillermo del Toro has done very well to match the comic's style and colour scheme, as well as its general themes, but in some places adapting the comic-based slapstick is a little weak. Otherwise, the camerawork is fine. The film's other main issue is that when the focus isn't on the paranormal/scientific, it's relationship based, and the script doesn't do well to make us empathise with Hellboy.
    In summary, Hellboy is a fun demonic romp that while sometimes being cartoonish and over-the top with it's mythology, actually has some very strong moments and is overall quite powerful and thoughtful. It just needed that little bit of toning down during its lighter moments to fine-tune it into an efficient and more watchable experience.

Thanks.

SuperSunday: Superman Returns

Superman Returns (2006)

Superman is the superhero. He embodies everything in the genre, its fantasticism and its range, and how the exploits of the superhuman can affect the human. In short, the Superhero Genre would be a vast empty space were it not for Christopher Reeve's Superman.
     The 4 original Superman films of the 70s and 80s mirrored the Batman films; a decent original, followed by a stronger second, and then the last two taking turns for the worse. Superman Returns decides to ignore those last two, explaining that Five Years have passed, and not explaining why all of the characters look younger than when he left. New boy Brandon Routh is a dead ringer for Reeve and yet offers his own sensitivities and quirks to the role. This incarnation is certainly more benevolent and believable. Our villian is of course Lex Luthor, played here by the brilliant Kevin Spacy, with a scheme that puts quite of a few of his originals to shame.
     The basic plot is as follows: Superman has been away from the Earth looking for the remains of his home planet. The world has learnt to live without him, and some have begun to even resent him - Lois Lane has recently won the Pulitzer Prize for an article titled "Why the world needs Superman". She has a husband and a four-year-old child (no prize for guessing who the father is.) Superman returns, as Lex begins to put into action his plan to create a new supercontinent out of Kryptonite - killing millions, including Superman.
     I'm simplifying things here. The plot does work well within the confines set for it; it remains cohesive and fluid while still allowing for well-excecuted action scenes and satifying call-backs to the original films. However, there are quite a few issues. The direction is mostly ok but there are some moments where it's a tad dodgy. A lot of the script relies too heavily on the references to the part and there isn't enough advancement with the concepts to make them more interesting.
     There's also a problem with the scale of the film. Luthor's plot is supposedly going to destroy the entire North-American continent, and yet we only witness destruction in the relatively small area of city around the offices of the Daily Planet. There are Earthquakes and power-outages for crying out loud, and Superman only had to save a street-worth of City. In New York. The younger cast, working on older material, means that the sense of sentimentality feels alien and undeserved.
     Ultimately, Returns is a light-hearted return to the franchise with a firm grasp on the previous films but with a new cast and a more modern outlook. It could have been great, but its overreliance on the past, as well as unnecessary sentiment, means that it can feel like a bit of an interloper in Superman's history. As a Superhero film? It's perfect. Not too edgy, nor too childish, but still maintaining a family atmosphere and a coherant plot.

Thanks.

Super Sundays!

Super Sundays is a new feature on my blog. Every month will have a theme, and every Sunday I will review a piece of media (mainly films) related to it. Here's the remaining year's schedule:

October - Superheroes

- 17/10/10 - Superman Returns
- 24/10/10 - Spiderman 2
- 31/10/10 - The Dark Knight

November - Africa

- 7/11/10 - Goodbye Bafana
- 14/11/10 - Last King of Scotland
- 21/11/10 - Blood Diamond
- 28/11/10 - District 9

December - Great British Comedy

- 5/12/10 - Monty Python Mega-Review
- 12/12/10 - Sean of the Dead
- 18/12/10 -The Boat that Rocked
- 26/12/10 - Love Actually

Thanks.

Review: Merlin 3.6: The Changeling

While not as clear-cut as last week, The Changeling is a good episode that manages very well to mix good-natured comedy with adult questions of love, destiny and duty. It's a good sign that Merlin is getting these issues covered, and there's finally some firm momentum with the mythology. This week's story saw Arthur set to marry Princess Elena, because Uther wants to ally with her kingdom. There are two things getting in the way, however - Elena is a clumsy, rude girl possessed by a Pixie, and Arthur loves Guinevere.
     Yes, the basic premise has been done before, in both Series 1 and 2, but this time its done a lot more realistically. More reference is made to the general problems behind these sorts of marriages - as if Merlin is finally beginning to deconstruct its more cliched plots. Merlin and Gaius managed to work out the plot in five seconds flat, and find a solution pretty easily - bettering their track record so far this series.
     The episode really reaffirms the Arthur/Gwen relationship after it's lax in the earlier episodes, and it also sees a good deal of character development for Arthur, taking him forward from Series 1's jackass to Series 2's mature prince. Uther is becoming quite a schizophrenic chararacter; last episode, he was begging Gaius to save his daughter, and look after his children. Here, he doesn't give a rat's ass about how Arthur feels about the marriage, much less cares about this emotion you call "love".
      This episode also had a guest role by Patsy Byrne, of Blackadder Ilumini (Nursie in BAII and BA:BAF). She is so far I believe the only woman on television to try and seduce Richard Wilson*, and I really didn't mind her rampant flirting (she was a Pixie in this story, if you were wondering) because in the end it actually had an effect on the plot - letting Gaius trap her so they could give the antidote to Elena. It's this type of cohesive and innovative plot structure that really revitalises an otherwise over-used story type like this, especially in a series that reuses its plots incessantly.
     Next week we actually use this series' main villians, and I'm hoping we'll make a hat-trick of decent episodes.

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*EDIT: My apologies. Elena's servant/pixie was instead played by the very similar Miriam Margoyles,who also had several roles in Blackadder such as the Spanish Infanta, Lady Whiteadder and Queen Victoria.