Film Review: The Hangover Part II

The Hangover Part II. Rated MA15+ (strong sexual references, nudity, coarse language and drug use). 95 minutes. Directed by Todd Phillips. Screenplay by Craig Mazin, Scot Armstrong and Todd Phillips.

As Stu (Ed Helms) finally prepares to marry the beautiful Lauren (Jamie Chung) in Thailand, he wisely avoids having another buck’s party and, instead, settles for a quiet beer (just one) around the fire on the nearby beach with his friends Phil (Bradley Cooper), Alan (Zach Galifianakis), Doug (Justin Bartha) and Lauren’s younger ‘boy-genius’ brother Teddy (Mason Lee) who have all made the trip to the resort in Thailand for the big event. But their calm and nostalgic seaside reminiscence of their big hangover weekend in Vegas are quickly shattered when they find themselves waking up in a sleazy hotel room in Bangkok – with no sign of the precious young Teddy.

Sequels of any kind are often peculiar beasts – and, at first glance, this follow-up to the box office smash The Hangover (2009) certainly has its share of peculiarities. Phillips and his team have made no effort whatsoever to change the blueprint – with Bangkok replacing Las Vegas and Teddy replacing the hapless Doug. Bewildered girlfriends still wait anxiously by the telephone for updates and the good old ‘race-against-time’ formula kicks in right on cue.

What works undeniably, however, is the simple fact that it’s just nothing less than great fun spending yet another ridiculously high-stakes 24 hours in the company of our impossibly irresponsible friends. Didn’t they learn anything in Vegas?!

Helms, Cooper and Galifianakis throw themselves into the tasks at hand with sheer abandon, but it is the re-introduction of Ken Jeong as the outrageous Mr Chow that absolutely sets the tone for all this movie will be. The Hangover’s unexpected bromance-inspired heart and soul of friends bonding for life in extraordinary circumstances is banished – replaced by a crueller, in-your-face through-line of humiliation that often just seems as though Phillips is more determined to ‘push the envelope’ than understand why we cared as much as we did about his characters the first time around.

But ultimately, we do – thanks in no small way to the big star of this film, Bangkok. Revealing itself to be a city of spectacular contradictions, it instantly rises to the occasion to become more than a match for our fearless, fun-loving friends – who, in some strange way, we hope will never grow up. Which is more than likely the point.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Rated M (supernatural themes and violence). 137 minutes. Directed by Rob Marshall. Screenplay by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio.

As big budget, box office-storming extravaganzas go, it’s difficult to imagine a more successful motion picture franchise than Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean (which originated in 1967 as a Disneyland attraction).

The first three films – The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), Dead Man’s Chest (2006) and At World’s End (2007) – have made the studio billions of dollars while ensuring that Johnny Depp’s endearing ‘Jack Sparrow’ is one of the most instantly recognisable fictional characters in contemporary cinema.

In this latest instalment – On Stranger Tides – the rules of engagement have changed. Significantly, Gore Verbinski (who directed the first three films) has been replaced by Mr Marshall (Nine, Memoirs of a Geisha, Chicago) who fares less well with the strangely more conventional material. Gone, too, are Pirates … stalwarts Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley – replaced by two new ingénues – Sam Clafin as ‘Philip’ the Missionary and Astrid Berges-Frisbey as ‘Syrena’ the Mermaid.

Mr Elliot and Mr Rossio’s screenplay about the search for the Fountain of Youth is far less creatively ambitious than their scripts for the previous films in the series, while regular Pirates … cinematographer Dariusz Wolski keeps us, quite literally, in the dark for far too much of the time.

Mr Depp (who obviously relishes playing this role) storms his way through the proceedings with typical flair, while newcomers Penélope Cruz (as love interest and co-conspirator Angelica) and Ian McShane (as Blackbeard) bring some much-needed passion to the screen. Geoffrey Rush continues to have a ball with the, now, one-legged ‘Barbossa’. What is somehow regrettable is that the couple of memorable sequences between him and Mr Depp (involving a pair of goblets) chiefly serve to momentarily re-ignite the constantly inspired comedic delight of the previous films – delight that is sadly lacking in this entry into the franchise.

But the mermaids are great!

Pictured: Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Water for Elephants

Water for Elephants. Rated M (mature themes and violence). 120 minutes. Directed by Francis Lawrence. Screenplay by Richard LaGravenese, based on the novel by Sara Gruen.

When young veterinary student Jacob (Robert Pattinson) loses his beloved parents in a car accident, he finds himself not only orphaned, but suddenly destitute. Forced to leave the repossessed family home, Jacob jumps onboard a moving train and discovers that Fate has determined his future in the most extraordinary way.

While it is owes a significant debt to Cecil B. DeMille’s superior circus epic The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), Water for Elephants boasts lavish production and costume design by Jack Fisk (Mulholland Drive, There Will Be Blood) and Jacqueline West (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Social Network) respectively, and is beautifully photographed by cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (21 Grams, Brokeback Mountain, Babel).

Lawrence’s (I Am Legend, Constantine) camera is never very far away from the intense personal drama – almost to the point of claustraphobia, and while LaGravenese’s (The Horse Whisperer, The Bridges of Madison County) screenplay works beautifully much of the time, the laboured run home and the chaotic ending are less-than-satisfying.

The cast, including Pattinson (Twilight), Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line, Legally Blonde) as the circus’s star attraction Marlena and Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) as the cruel and abusive circus owner August, are all excellent – but are acted off the screen by the memorable Tai, who plays Rosie the elephant. And while an elephant doing a headstand might have once been an awe-inspiring sight, it’s impossible to ignore ‘the elephant in the room’ – which is “how on earth did she learn to do that?” And it is this sad bewilderment that ultimately overshadows everything the filmmakers were trying so hard to achieve.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Source Code

Source Code. Rated M (science fiction themes, violence and infrequent coarse language). 93 minutes. Directed by Duncan Jones. Screenplay by Ben Ripley.

Just as he did with his stunning debut feature Moon (2009), Jones escorts us flawlessly into a fantastic science fiction-infused world of parallel realities featuring a main character (armed forces helicopter pilot Colter Stevens played by Jake Gyllenhaal) who exists in circumstances not of their choosing. It’s a complex and fascinating set-up – perfectly matched here by the excellent performances of Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan (Due Date), Vera Farmiga (Up in the air) and Jeffrey Wright (Quantum of Solace).

When he awakes up from a trance-like sleep, Stevens is utterly bewildered to find himself onboard a train that is speeding toward Chicago with his ‘girlfriend’ Christina (Monaghan). Minutes later, after a series of beautifully observed details of onboard run-of-the-mill activity, an exploding bomb kills everyone – except Stevens, who begins to learn the reason for his new existence and the terrible circumstances of the situation in which he now finds himself.

Jones, cinematographer Don Burgess (The Book of Eli, Spider-Man, Castaway) and editor Paul Hirsch (Mission: Impossible) don’t miss a beat, and Ripley’s tight screenplay (with an obvious debt to Christopher Nolan’s Inception) manages to efficiently and inventively negotiate the multitude of complex layers between altered realities and each new resulting circumstance. Only once (in a pointless and verbose sequence where the ‘source code’ of the title is explained) does the script risk crossing the line between patronising us with techno-babble and trusting that we are more than capable of suspending disbelief and going along for the ride.

Ms Farmiga’s wonderful performance as ‘Colleen Goodwin’ is mostly responsible for the success of the way in which the story unfolds, and her handling of the difficult challenges associated with defining precisely what kind of future Stevens will experience are beautifully handled – providing the film with its unexpectedly haunting ending.

Ultimately though, the grand themes associated with ‘what you would change about your life if you were given the opportunity’ and ‘making every second count’ roll out with an eery familiarity, but Source Code is most definitely a film worth spending the time deciphering.

Pictured: Jake Gyllenhaal and Vera Farmiga in Source Code.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Rio

Rio. Rated G. 96 minutes. Directed by Carlos Saldanha. Screenplay by Don Rhymer, Joshua Sternin, Jeffrey Ventimilia and Sam Harper.

Three cheers for this bold, colourful, romantic, musical comedy adventure that literally bursts onto the screen in a non-stop fiesta of bravura 3D computer-animation. It’s hardly surprising that Rio has raced to the top of the worldwide box office (taking over $300 million to date) – such is its very welcome ‘G’ rating and its determination to be a refreshingly unsentimental and almost impossibly lively take on the age-old ‘rites of passage’ formula.

When domesticated Macaw ‘Blu’ (delightfully voiced by The Social Network’s Jesse Eisenberg) is found to be the last surviving male of his species, he reluctantly returns to his native habitat (Brazil) to breed with ‘Jewel’ (voiced by Anne Hathaway). When exotic bird smugglers threaten to bring an end to the breeding program, Blu and Jewel (with the help of a gorgeously idiosyncratic supporting cast) must escape the clutches (and cages) of their criminal captors and fight for their freedom, their independence and the survival of their species.

Saldanha (the Ice Age movies), cinematographer Renato Falcão, editor Harry Hitner and composer John Powell (Shrek, How To Train Your Dragon) deliver astonishing levels of creativity and skill to the screen. From the moment Rio de Janeiro’s native birdlife bursts into song, frame after frame is beautifully realised – with the lighting, in particular, simply extraordinary.

While the musical numbers don’t come anywhere near the more memorable ones in films such as Disney’s The Lion King, the sadistic sulphur-crested cockatoo ‘Nigel’ (wonderfully voiced by Jemaine Clement) gets a show-stopper about his failed career as a television actor, while Powell’s samba-infused score sets the perfect mood and tone for the spectacularly achieved locations – from tropical Brazilian jungles to the natural and man-made spectacle of Rio de Janeiro and, in one fabulous sequence, its famous carnival.

If Avatar and How To Train Your Dragon set the benchmark for 3D rendering of magnificent aerial sequences, there are some equally dazzling aerial escape and pursuit sequences that ensure Rio reaches its big, heartfelt conclusion while not sacrificing its marvellously entertaining thrills along the way.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.