DVD Review: The Road

The Road. 112 mins. Rated MA15+. Directed by John Hillcoat. Written by Joe Penhall. Based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy.

Our current generation of filmmakers’ obsession with how our world will end has resulted in a ever-increasing library of bleak, indulgent, gloomy and depressing films that try, at times impossibly hard, to reach that part of our collective psyches that may want to consider the demise of our planet and all that we know exists on it.

And while possibly no-one is expecting it to be a laugh-a-minute, there is yet to be a film that permeates the significant divide between ‘their’ wanting to tell us the story and ‘us’ wanting to embrace the cinematic result. But if ever a film has managed to challenge this ‘will you just stop telling me all the really bad news’ stand-off, then it is this one: a rare, poetic, soulful tale of how the spiritual essence of our survival is to care deeply about what happens after we are gone – not only about ourselves, but each other.

Our planet has been devastated by an apocalyptic event that has rendered it barren, ash-strewn and almost uninhabitable. A man (Viggo Mortensen) and his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) are heading south to the coast. Apart from the shopping trolley that holds all that is left of their worldly possessions, there is only a gun with two bullets in it – one for each of them to use to end their life if they find themselves at risk of being captured by the marauding cannibalistic savages that roam the desolate countryside between them and the sea. When the man is forced to use one of the bullets to defend himself and his son from being ‘collected’, it becomes imperative that they survive to reach the coast, where some semblance of hope awaits them.

Based on McCarthy’s extraordinary Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Road is an utterly compelling journey featuring an astonishing performance from Viggo Mortensen, arguably one of the most under-rated actors of his generation – and it is Mortensen’s perfectly realised performance of McCarthy’s ‘Man’ that is reason alone to see this film.

Queensland-born Hillcoat’s (The Proposition, Ghosts of the Civil Dead) loving, unsparingly intimate, fearless and uncompromising direction is faultless. Gershon Ginsburg’s Art Direction and Chris Kennedy’s (The Proposition) production design perfectly render a world of iconic architectural and environmental ruin and desolation, and without exception, every one of The Road’s gruelling and inhospitable moments is captured in overwhelmingly artful and considered beauty in detail by Cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe (The Others, New Moon).

Smit-McPhee is a revelation as the ‘Boy’ – and the scenes he shares with Mortensen in an apparently abandoned underground larder (where the film’s welcome lightness of touch and nostalgia for a world destroyed are most welcome) are extraordinarily touching. An unrecognisable Robert Duvall shines in his cameo as ‘Eli’ and Charlize Theron is perfect in her brutal and confronting cameo as the Man’s fatalistically defeated wife.

The only aspects preventing The Road from being considered a true masterpiece are its capitulation into muddied and bloodied shlock horror territory with an unfortunate and gratuitous abandoned fairground sequence, and its incredibly unsatisfying ending – which to all intents and purposes, appears to be tacked on to the devastating penultimate imagery that underlines the film’s almost entire purpose of being. No, it’s certainly not going to be entertaining, but great work in the post-apocalyptic genre – of which this film is a stunning example – goes some of the way toward defining for us that essence of our survival. And how important it is that we care.

Film Review: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. 111 mins. Rated M. Directed by Mike Newell. Written by Boaz Yakin, Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard from a story by Jordan Mechner.

Since the dawn of cinema’s silent era, audiences have delighted in swashbuckling adventures set in exotic, faraway lands. Hollywood’s global influence today was partly forged on the success of films (such as 1924’s The Thief of Bagdad) freely adapted from One Thousand and One Nights – a collection of stories featuring the now instantly recognisable characters of ‘Aladdin’, ‘Sinbad’ and ‘Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves’.

When the King of Persia witnesses a young street urchin’s rare act of bravery, he adopts him into the royal household where it is hoped his selfless courage and inventiveness will influence their shared destiny. Years later, the grown-up Prince Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal), reluctantly joins his brothers on a quest to invade the Holy City of Alumut where, it is believed, an army of traitors are preparing to wage war against the royal family. Instead, once inside the walls of the great city, Dastan discovers the existence of a magical dagger that has the power to change the course of history – and in the wrong hands, the results could be disastrous.

In spite of the work of three of Hollywood’s top editors – Martin Walsh (Clash of the Titans), Michael Kahn (Raiders of the Lost Ark) and Mick Audsley (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) – Prince of Persia, somewhat alarmingly, doesn’t ever entirely hold together. While Newell (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) obviously has an incredibly tight grip on the forced, flabby and clumsy proceedings – it still manages to flounder all over the place in an exemplary display of style over substance.

Fortunately, that ‘style’ is wonderfully adequate, and the computer-generated set pieces – particularly the early aerial shots of the great Persian cities and the film’s climactic underground sequence – are great. Art Directors Luca Tranchino (The Aviator), Marco Trentini (Kingdom of Heaven) and Production Designer Wolf Kroeger (The Last of the Mohicans) account superbly for the film’s visual flair, while Australian Cinematographer John Seale (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone) keeps us tantilisingly up close and personal to all the frantically whiz-bang, over-produced goings on.

Gyllenhaal, whose career to date has consisted of rivetting performances in films as diverse as Donnie Darko, Jarhead, Brokeback Mountain and Brothers, is unhapppily miscast as the pumped, swashbuckling young Prince, while Gemma Arterton’s faux Princess grandeur exists almost entirely of lots of stomping and striding all over the place – obviously due to an almost palpable fear that she will go entirely unnoticed at the expense of the scenery. The film’s patchiness is not helped, either, by the noticeable absence of any genuine chemistry between its two young romantic leads.

When the real stars of the show are a tax-shy entrepreneur (a fabulous Alfred Molina who appears to be acting in a totally different movie altogether) and his suicidal Ostrich, you know you’re in trouble.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspapers Group and was published in the print edition of the Geraldton Guardian.

DVD Review: StarStruck

StarStruck. 90 mins. Rated G. Directed by Michael Grossman. Written by Barbara Johns and Annie DeYoung.

There’s a worthwhile message hiding in this ‘musical’ fairytale. It’s about how, in our celebrity-obsessed world, meaningful connections between people can happen in the most unlikely of circumstances. The attendant power of celebrity was witnessed recently when YouTube’s teen idol Justin Bieber arrived in Australia. Everywhere he went, he created pandemonium – proving that if adoring teenage girls want to get close to their young heartthrobs, nothing but significant police intervention can stop them.

Christopher Wilde (Sterling Knight) is a young pop star on the brink of mega movie stardom. He has the perfect ‘A-list’ girlfriend and thousands of devoted fans clamouring to know the details of his every move. When he is photographed during an altercation with the notorious Hollywood paparazzi outside a Los Angeles nightclub, his agent warns him that unless he can maintain a squeaky-clean image, his movie career will go nowhere.

In the meantime, one of his most obsessed fans Sara (Maggie Castle) and her younger sister Jessica (Danielle Campbell) travel to LA with their parents to visit relatives. Sara is determined to use the opportunity to meet her idol, whereas the straight-shooting Jessica cannot understand what all the fuss is about. When Jessica and Christopher accidentally meet outside a nightclub, the young heartthrob is forced to confront the concept that genuine feelings are quite different from the manufactured ones forced on him by the circumstances of his career.

You would think it would have been relatively uncomplicated for Disney to produce an engaging and possibly even thoughtful film starring two young leads whose characters have very different views about what’s important in the world. After all, it’s one of the things they do best. Instead, with the help of a collection of banal and over-produced songs, StarStruck struggles to maintain our interest before it collapses under the weight of a script so impossibly trite it becomes difficult to believe you’re actually listening to it. And while Knight and Campbell have a certain surface appeal, they both lack the necessary depth of acting ability that a film focussed almost exclusively on their complicated young love affair demands.

The result, with the exception of a cute mud-bath sequence in the middle of nowhere, is a very ordinary little made-for-television movie that fails to deliver on its promise. The film’s target audience – young girls with enquiring minds, wild imaginations, dreams and aspirations about what it is possible to achieve with their lives – deserve a great deal more than this DVD equivalent of junk food.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspapers Group and was published in the print edition of the Geraldton Guardian.

Film Review: Harry Brown

Harry Brown. 103 mins. Rated MA15+. Directed by Daniel Barber. Written by Gary Young.

‘The Vigilante’ archetype has been an enigmatic and hugely successful character in film – exemplified by no-one more successfully than Clint Eastwood’s career-defining ‘Dirty Harry’. When the defenceless and hard-done-by need rescuing from their perilous situation, there can be something undeniably exhilarating about the man with the serious weaponry arriving on the scene to ensure justice – or at least the cinema’s often altruistic version of it – is done.

Harry Brown (Michael Caine) is an elderly man dealing with overwhelming grief. His beloved wife is lying comatose in hospital and the poverty-stricken housing estate in which they live is ruled by a gang of drug-dealing thugs, who terrorise the community with murders, bashings and random acts of extreme violence and intimidation. When Harry's best friend Leonard (David Bradley) is murdered in the pedestrian underpass that he, himself, is too scared to use, Harry decides to takes matters into his own hands by holding each gang member personally accountable for Leonard’s violent and senseless death.

Not since Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting (1996) has there been such an astonishing emergence of a potent new voice in British cinema. Barber (in his feature film debut) has delivered a supremely confident, angry and impatient vision of a community in extreme danger of self-annihilation. Young’s screenplay is vicious in both its near-flawless structural simplicity and the manner in which it divides the ‘good’ from the ‘evil’ with razor sharp authority.

Michael Caine – at the peak of his powers – gives one of the greatest performances of his career. His every move – from the subtly endearing, grieving old man going about the details of his daily ritual to his transformation into the ex-Marine taking revenge with military flair and precision – is unerringly brilliant. Emily Mortimer (Shutter Island) is superb as Detective Inspector Alice Frampton, and the supporting cast attack their roles (and each other) with passion, skill and undeniable ferocity.

The film’s extraordinary visual style, superbly photographed in painstaking detail by cinematographer Martin Ruhe (The Countess), sets the action in the heart of a pre-apocalyptic environment – magnificently realised by art director Chris Lowe (The Golden Compass, The Constant Gardener) and production designer Kave Quinn (Trainspotting).

Harry Brown’s vision is a bleak one – owing more to Shakespeare’s tragedies than it does to The Bill. The violence and mayhem, which many may find extremely confronting, is savagely realistic. But for those who have experienced violence and assault or have feared for their safety and their lives, this is a film that unapologetically demands we consider the very essence of social order and justice.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspapers Group and was published in the print edition of the Midwest Times.

Film Review: Robin Hood

Robin Hood. 148 minutes. Rated M. Directed by Ridley Scott. Written by Brian Helgeland.

Make no mistake. We are now entering Big Motion Picture territory. Robin Hood, arguably one of the most eagerly-awaited and heavily-publicised big picture epics of the year has finally hit the big screen. So, is it any good? Yes, of course it is. It's one of the masters of cinematic storytelling Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise, Gladiator), at the helm, after all. Is it Scott's best film to date? No it's not (that's, for my money, still Alien). Is it Russell Crowe's greatest performance? No, it certainly is not (that's A Beautiful Mind closely followed by Romper Stomper). And what's Cate like? She's as marvellous as you'd expect an actress of her calibre to be. And this is the key to Robin Hood's most significant failing: everything is exactly as you expect it to be – that, and nothing more.

It is 1199, and archer Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe) is a member of King Richard I's (The Lionheart) mighty army. When the King is killed in battle, Robin and his companions are freed to return home to England. Along the way, they discover that the King's Guard (charged with the safe return of the dead King's Crown) have been ambushed by the traitor Sir Godfrey (Mark Strong). After fighting to support their fellow Knights and wounding Godfrey in the process, Robin promises the mortally-wounded Sir Robert Loxley that he will honour his memory by returning his precious and unique sword to the dying knight's father Sir Walter (Max von Sydow) in Nottingham. Back in England, Richard's younger brother John (Oscar Isaac) is named the new King and the country is immediately plunged in chaos. Only the fearless Robin can empower the people to rise up and defeat the invading French forces.

Robin Hood is a serious, lead-footed and humourless film that lacks even one minute in its almost two and a half hour running time of genuine excitement. We anticipate nothing. And while the fine ensemble deliver excellent performances, the encyclopedic nature of Helgeland's (Green Zone, Mystic River) verbose screenplay constantly weighs them down with dialogue so entirely plot-driven and didactic, that not even the promise of light, or romance or personal conquest can shake the immense sense of foreboding that everything is going to play out precisely as we expect it to. And, almost without exception, it does.

Isaac is sensational as the tyrannical, juvenile King John and Strong is great as the evil, duplicitous Sir Godfrey. Von Sydow's spirited performance is all class, and Crowe plays Robin Hood with a great sense of nobility, humility, charity and charm. He belts along on horseback with the very best of them and his moments of wry humour are almost impossibly welcome. Regrettably, they are soon eradicated by yet more thundering hooves, clanging swords and bows and arrows. There's a ridiculous number of bows and arrows actually, which are photographed relentlessly from every possible angle.

With the peculiar exception of the last five minutes, Robin Hood is a film entirely lacking in irony, joy, intimacy or soul. Yes, it starts with a Big Battle (but nowhere near as big or as interesting as Gladiator's sensational opening sequence). It also almost ends with a Bigger Battle – but apart from some impressive aerial establishing shots of the French invasion, we're quickly back on the sand and in the water with yet more thundering hooves, clanging swords and whizzing arrows.

As it, relievedly, begins to wind up, its tone lightens and, for the first time, we sense a pulse – a heartbeat – a pure and restrained optimism and delight that has been chronically lacking from everything that has gone before. While England under the tumultuous reigns of King Richard and King John was quite obviously no fun whatsoever (expect, possibly, for them) – the result is a film that, somewhat perversely, is equally no fun whatsoever. None.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspapers Group and was published in the print edition of the Geraldton Guardian.

DVD Review: Everybody's Fine

Everybody's Fine. 96 minutes. Rated M. Written and directed by Kirk Jones.

Films about the paradoxical relationships fathers share with their children are rare beasts in Hollywood's 'big picture' output. The grand-parents of them all – films like The Godfather, Father of The Bride and Guess Who's Coming To Dinner? – successfully reached into the dim, dark vault of family drama. And while the circumstances that give meaning and purpose to these values differ dramatically, audiences can't help but bring their own unique and very personal experiences of family to films that dare to take the subject on.

With Everybody's Fine, Kirk Jones (Waking Ned Devine, Nanny McPhee), with the help of an arresting performance from a perfect Robert De Niro, has risen to meet this challenge and has delivered a heartfelt, unforgettable film of genuine emotional authority.

Frank Goode (De Niro) has been left alone after the death of his beloved wife, who (as wives and mums so often do), has nurtured and attended to every finite detail of family life. When, at the last minute, each of his four adult children suddenly become unavailable to attend a reunion at the family home (the first since their mother's passing), a wary and suspicious Frank sets out on a journey across America to surprise each of them with a visit instead. What he learns in the process will challenge his life's experience of being a hard-working father and husband.

Based on the 1990 Italian film Stanno Tutti Bene (Everybody's Fine) starring the incomparable Marcello Mastroianni, Kirk Jones's English-language adaptation bucks the trend of Hollywood feeding like piranha on the jewels of European cinema with a distinct lack of respect. The result is a perfectly-structured story that gently unravels, before all the various strands unite in a marvellously inventive sequence – played to the hilt by De Niro – around an outdoor dining table.

Beautifully and insightfully directed, Everybody's Fine is helped considerably by the work of Cinematographer Henry Braham (who was cinematographer on Jones's earlier films as well as the ravishing The Golden Compass). Braham ensures that the photographic essence of the film perfectly matches the incandescent, searching qualities of De Niro's central performance. Drew Broughton's (House of Sand and Fog) art direction and Andrew Jackness's production design combined to create the film's stunning visual aura which enhances the story, and the compelling performances, at every turn.

And if there is such a thing as the perfect cast, then this film has it in spades. The performances from the first-class ensemble of Hollywood stars (Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale and Austin Lysy play the siblings) are flawless. But ultimately, it is De Niro that anchors this film in the purest of reality – resulting in a film of intricately layered, intimate detail. Just be ready to tell your dad how much you love him … and have the box of tissues handy.

Everybody's Fine will be available on DVD from 2 June, 2010.

DVD Review: Mao's Last Dancer

Mao's Last Dancer. 117 minutes. Rated PG. Directed by Bruce Beresford. Written by Jan Sardi. Based on the autobiography by Li Cunxin.

Mao Zedong, the leader of the People's Republic of China from its inception in 1949 until his death in 1976, is, today, remembered as one of the most influential and controversial leaders in modern history. While his brand of Communist theory and policies is credited with having laid the foundation stones of contemporary China's position of power and influence in our world, the extremes with which his policies were enacted throughout the new republic have fuelled the controversy associated with the legacy of his rule to this very day.

Li Cunxin is a young peasant boy growing up in a small village in rural China who, at the height of Mao's Cultural Revolution, is inadvertently chosen by visiting delegates to study ballet in the capital, Beijing. The ruling Communist Party's desire for cultural supremacy soon sees him sent to the United States of America as a guest artist with the Houston Ballet, but as his success elevates him to international stardom, the ensuing culture clash finds Li having to choose between his newfound desire for personal and artistic freedom and the profound bond with his beloved family in China.

Sardi's (Shine, The Notebook) meticulous screenplay is absolutely up to the challenge of representing not only the complex political landscape of Communist China in the early 1970s, but also the heady, disciplined world behind the scenes of a major, internationally-renowned ballet company. Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy, Black Robe, Paradise Road) is one of Australia's most highly-respected directors – and his work here is finely nuanced, sensitive and brimming with cinematic confidence when dealing with the epic qualities a biopic with this kind of global resonance and significance demands.

Overall, however, the ensemble of performances are its weakest link, with only the superb Joan Chen (as Li's mother 'Niang'), Penne Hackforth-Jones (as the Houston Ballet's fearsome 'Cynthia Dodds') and Amanda Schull (as Li's first love-interest 'Elizabeth') really managing to bring the necessary flair to their performances that – whenever they are onscreen – lifts the film from a fairly standard level of engagement to an appreciably higher one. While Birmingham Royal Ballet Principal Dancer Chi Cao is certainly up to the choreographic demands of his role as 'Li', his acting is no match for his dancing, and regrettably, particularly in his many scenes with Bruce Greenwood's Houston Ballet hero 'Ben Stevenson', it all ends up looking and feeling a little too earnest and, ultimately, disingenuous.

At a critical point in the story, Li says "I don't want to walk – I want to fly." The chief disappointment with this film is that it never actually manages to match this simple, yet fearless grand ambition.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspapers Group and was published in the print edition of the Midwest Times.

Film Review: I Love You Too

I Love You Too. 107 minutes. Rated M. Directed by Daina Reid. Written by Peter Helliar

Television and film are vastly different mediums, and when writers, directors and actors attempt to cross over from careers in one to careers in the other, the results can be disastrous. George Clooney (who, perhaps not ironically, is mentioned in I Love You Too) did it – gaining international fame in ER before going on to build an impressive CV in the film business. But for every George Clooney there's a cast of Friends, an almost impossibly successful sit-com, whose attempts at respectable film careers has, more often than not, resulted in an embarrassing poverty of ability and talent.

Jim (Brendan Cowell) is having trouble telling his gorgeous, well-adjusted and devoted girlfriend Alice (Yvonne Strahovski) that he loves her. The death of his parents in a car accident has stunted his emotional development and he works, rather endearingly, as a driver of the "largest miniature steam train in the southern hemisphere" – a tourist attraction that his father owned. He still lives in the bungalow out the back of the family home, which is now occupied by his pregnant sister (Bridie Carter) and her booze-loving partner (Travis McMahon). Finding himself newly-single, Jim meets the grieving widower Charlie (Peter Dinklage), and the two new friends set out to help each other reach new heights of romantic and emotional maturity.

There is a great deal to like and enjoy about comedian Helliar's debut screenplay and Daina Reid's (City Homicide, All Saints) assured, if unadventurous, handling of it. The performances are all well-grounded and every character gets their moment in the spotlight. Ultimately, however, the art of film is all about story, character and photography. With much of the action taking place either indoors or at night, I Love You Too ends up being all too one-dimensional and under-lit – one of the many ways in which it ends up resembling an expensive episode of Love Something Or Other as opposed to the fully-fledged feature film it is trying so hard to be.

As far as the story is concerned, there's an over-riding sense of clutter – a result of the script trying to tell us too much. The collision between Jim and Charlie, while feeling incredibly contrived, relievedly takes us away from the seen-it-all-before "you're my best mate" rubbish that suffocates the film's early scenes and threatens to collapse our interest and engagement within minutes. In the end, though, it all comes down to balance of character and story, and while Cowell works hard in the leading role, it is Dinklage (Death at a Funeral, The Chronicles of Narnia: Price Caspian) who walks away with the film in every scene he appears in. His vast experience and skill in front of the camera occasionally leaves his less-experienced and more television-drilled co-stars struggling to match the pace. The really positive thing about that, though, is that it is Helliar's script that gives him that opportunity – and with the services of an expert script editor, Helliar has a really exciting future as a script writer ahead of him. For an Australian film industry starved of even half-decent scripts, that's the best news imaginable.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspapers Group and was published in the print edition of the Geraldton Guardian.

Theatre Review: Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto

Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto: The story of Emanuel Ringelblum by Neil Cole. Directed by Dominique Bongiovanni; Performed by Alex de la Rambljie, Liran Shachar, Phil Zachariah and Joseph Strou. An Eagle's Nest Theatre production at La Mama Courthouse, Melbourne until May 16.

The Holocaust has inspired many artists around the world to share their interpretations of the events that, collectively, define the single greatest crime against humanity in living memory. As an historical event, it has become increasingly scrutable, thanks largely to the tireless endeavours of publishers, authors (such as Primo Levi), filmmakers (Steven Spielberg), archivists and benefactors who are determined to document the extent of the horrors before the generation of survivors are lost to us forever. And while it is a cultural imperative that we record and share these experiences to enhance our understanding of how such systemic annihilation of our fellow human beings could happen, it is also equally imperative that we do the telling of them justice: something which this ambitious Eagle's Nest Theatre production struggles to achieve.

The story of Emanuel Ringelblum bears extraordinary witness to the horrors of the Warsaw Ghetto, the single largest Jewish Ghetto in German-occupied Europe. Together with other members of the doomed community, he collected a wealth of information and documentation about such things as the effects of starvation and disease throughout the ghetto, as well as details about the revolutionary anarchists who would later form the foundation of the famous Warsaw Ghetto uprising – the single largest act of resistance and revolt by the Jews against the Germans during the Holocaust.

Director Ms Bongiovanni just doesn't seem to have been able to find a theatrically invigourating way to bring Mr Cole's didactic script to theatrical life. As Ringelblum, Mr de la Rambelje spends the night shuffling and generally fussing about with bits of paper and wandering upstage where these critical historical documents get filed away in some random order and location. The actors are also hindered by too much sitting and standing around, and too many unfulfilled comings and goings. Mr Stroud (who plays the young radical David), has the unenviable task of constantly arriving onstage to deliver increasingly desperate news about the escalation of human tragedy that was unfolding in the ghetto. That he was too often met by a lack of depth of reaction (other than cursory nods to how terrible it all was) made the night increasingly uncomfortable.

There also appeared to be some difficulty remembering lines, and the apprehensive and, at times inaudible cast, were not helped by the lack of atmosphere or even the fundamentals of design (there is no designer credited in the program). The over 25,000 individual pieces that made up Ringelblum's collection are represented by shambolic bits of paper and some second-hand books which only lends the production an unfortunate mood of a garage sale.

Mr Cole is to be acknowledged for bringing the story of Emanuel Ringelblum to a wider audience, but the overall feeling is that, while he obviously reveres his subject, he has not found the raw and honest connection with him and what he and his colleagues achieved, to make it a fascinating and illuminating insight. There's a great deal of idle and, ultimately, repetitive chat about Trotsky, anarchy and the sins of the Jewish Council (the Jews who formed what was essentially local government in the ghetto). But to come away from a night at the theatre that purports to tell the stories of the Warsaw Ghetto unmoved and underwhelmed, is to do the service of these memories a significant injustice. I hope it improves as the season progresses.

Film Review: Iron Man 2

Iron Man 2. 124 minutes. Rated M. Directed by Jon Favreau. Written by Justin Theroux. Based on the Marvel comic books by Stan Lee, Don Heck, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby

The art of making sequels to immensely popular films is a complicated affair. It can be extremely difficult to define precisely what it was that captured the imaginations of audiences around the world the first time, and, more often than not, it will be the filmmakers' blind faith in expecting it all to work equally as well the second time around that can leave a sequel struggling to make its own unique impact. While Iron Man 2 works well on a number of levels (chiefly the spirited performances and its abundant tongue-in-cheek humour), its failure to advance the story or the visual imaginings in meaningful ways (like the Superman, Spider Man and Batman franchises did), renders it immediately second-rate, before it eventually goes on to drown in its own conceit.

The main problem, as is so often the case, is the script. Actor/writer Theroux (who has one other screenplay, Tropic Thunder, to his credit), simply fails to elevate the story beyond this messy, derivative and imagination-starved incarnation. There are certainly hints of some interesting possibilities (such as the fact that the element that keeps Tony Stark/Iron Man alive is rapidly killing him by poisoning his blood stream), but they are abandoned within minutes. This is, after all, a determinedly 'feel-good' popcorn crunching affair. Sadly though, all we're left with is an incredibly old-fashioned 'might of the US Armed Forces' analogy that manages to not only deflate our expectations, but also to slide into an awkward, mind-numbing slump at the critical half-way mark from which it fails to recover.

Billionaire businessman Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jnr) is on top of the world. Stark Industries has created the 'Stark Expo' – a year-round technology expo which, apart from providing him with his own personal playground, allows Tony Stark to shamelessly flout his wealth and success. His Iron Man suit is now the envy of the US Government, and his fiercely competitive rival Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), is beside himself with jealousy. Meanwhile, in Moscow, Ivan Vanko/Whiplash (Mickey Rourke, pictured) – whose father worked in collaboration with Stark's in the engineering of the Iron Man's arc reactor technology – is using the identical blueprints to create his own version of the suit. Once it is complete, Vanko is determined to use it to avenge his father's treatment at the hands of Stark Snr, while destroying Stark Jnr and everything he stands for.

Problematically, the sequel never lets us know what it is, exactly, that Tony Stark stands for. Downey Jnr continues along on the same playful route as he did in the first instalment which, over the course of two hours, just becomes boring. With the exception of some cute interaction with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), there's nothing to either dislike or like about him. In a film about him, in which we're supposed to acknowledge him as the champion we all cheer for, it renders the whole thing kind of pointless. Fatefully, Favreau (who directed Iron Man) fails to bring new cinematic vigour (other than a fantastic Monaco Grand Prix sequence and some impressive Stark Expo action) to the whole affair. The climactic sequences only serve to remind us how much better Iron Man was. The camera ends up just being too far away from the action – resulting in Iron Man appearing to be nothing more than Tinkerbell on steroids.

Ultimately, though, Iron Man 2's final conceit is that we wish we were having as good a time watching it as everyone obviously was making it. That we actually don't, and by a long shot, just doesn't seem all that fair. Let's hope they spare us from Iron Man 3 which, if you hang around until the end of the credits, seems highly unlikely.

DVD Review: Moon

Moon. 93 minutes. Rated M. Directed by Duncan Jones. Written by Nathan Parker from an original story by Duncan Jones.

All too rarely, a movie comes along that, on the surface at least, is apparently incredibly simple and understated. But as it slowly begins to unfold, it reveals itself to be fantastically original and complex, and before long, you somewhat unexpectedly find yourself under its spell. Moon is one such film. Directed by Duncan Jones (the son of David Bowie), Moon is a mesmerising little masterpiece that slowly hypnotises you with its nihilistic vision of not only the future of lunar exploration and the possible exploitation of the planet's resources, but also the very essence of our human identity, fallibility, beliefs and values.

Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is employed by Lunar Industries to oversee giant harvesters that extract helium-3 from the moon's surface. With only his computer assistant GERTY (superbly voiced by Kevin Spacey) for company, Sam must ensure that once the machines have harvested a certain quota of the precious element, it is jettisoned safely back to earth in canisters where it will aid the development of our planet's clean energy programs. But with only two weeks to go before his three-year contract expires and his replacement arrives, a near-fatal accident involving one of the harvesters threatens his return to earth.

As the lonely engineer who appears to be slowly losing his mind, Rockwell is magnificent. It is a tour de force performance of such immense skill and craftsmanship, that you practically forget that this is, essentially, a film with only one actor in it. He is helped enormously by Parker's marvellously engrossing, lean, mean and inventive script from Jones's fact-based story (the scientific community are actually researching ways to harvest Helium-3 from lunar soil and the film was screened privately for NASA's scientists).

While it lovingly references previous films of the sci-fi genre (particularly Soylent Green, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Silent Running and Blade Runner), Moon's modest special effects are less concerned with flashy explosions and random space-based exotica, and consist of exemplary model and miniature work (supervised by Alien and Casino Royale Model Master Bill Pearson). And like director Ridley Scott, Jones has the ability to employ the services of his gifted special effects crew to serve his vision and drive the story forward – not distract from it.

But it is Rockwell (who was the voice of guinea pig Darwin in G-Force and who is also starring in Iron Man 2) whose virtuoso performance brings this extraordinary film to life. For those film-lovers who are more than a little fatigued by big expensive flashy epics and want a film that will have you thinking and contemplating the very nature of our existence for days afterwards – Moon is the film for you.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspapers Group and was published in the print edition of the Midwest Times.