Film Review: Cars 2

Cars 2. Rated PG (mild animated violence and coarse language). 113 minutes. Directed by John Lasseter and Brad Lewis. Screenplay by Ben Queen.

Computer animation royalty Pixar Animation Studios are responsible for raising the bar almost impossibly high, and with Cars 2 there is absolutely no doubt that they remain the masters and mistresses of their domain.

The CGI environments they have created for this sequel to the much-maligned Cars (2006) are out of this world – and the cinematography by Jeremy Lasky and Sharon Calahan (Finding Nemo, Toy Story 2, A Bug's Life) is sheer perfection. Michael Giacchino’s (Star Trek, Up, The Incredibles) score, too, is a fantastic accompaniment to the new adventures of Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) and his loyal best friend Mater the Tow Truck (Larry the Cable Guy) as they hit the international Grand Prix circuit on a whistle-stop tour to promote clean fuel.

What is particularly fantastic about this sequel, though, is the way in which Lasseter, Lewis and Queen take on the celebrated espionage genre – with the result being a better ‘007’ film than practically any of the actual 007 films that have come before it. It’s ambitious and audacious great fun – all edited into a breath-taking, chaotic, high-octane action adventure by Stephen Schaffer (WALL-E, Cars).

Chiefly responsible are Michael Caine (Special Agent Finn McMissile) and Emily Mortimer (Special Agent Holly Shiftwell) who absolutely nail it – with Ms Mortimer, in particular, obviously thoroughly enjoying her riff on everyone from Barbara Feldon’s Agent 99 in Get Smart to Judi Dench’s M in Casino Royale.

As we have come to expect from Pixar in the storytelling department, the now signature themes of the importance of loyalty, trust and friendship all play out effortlessly, and the environmentally-inspired clean fuel subplot is neatly woven into the action. And as I walked home through the carpark, I must admit to having a few sideways glances at all the cars parked around me – contemplating whether or not they had just stopped talking as I approached. Now that’s magic at work.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Bridesmaids

Bridesmaids. Rated MA15+ (strong coarse language, sexual references and a sex scene). 125 minutes. Directed by Paul Feig. Screenplay by Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo.

It is often said about comedy that timing is everything – and if Bridesmaids doesn’t quite sustain its arrival in the realm of tear-inducing hilarity (which it absolutely reaches in one sensational sequence in a posh bridal gown shop), it’s certainly not through want of trying.

It’s not often you laugh until you cry in the cinema much anymore, but the winning bridal gown shop sequence not only charges across the boundaries of good taste, but also successfully crashes through the gender barrier – blissfully escorting Bridesmaids into toilet humour (both metaphorically and actually) territory that is usually reserved for similar movies about blokes.

Annie (Ms Wiig, who also co-wrote the screenplay) is unlucky in love and life generally. Her small bakery business has gone bust, and she has found herself broke, miserable and desperately trying to rediscover her self-esteem. When her best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) announces that she getting married, Annie is invited to be Maid of Honour. Will our defeated and directionless heroine be able to rise to the challenges of the occasion?

The success of Bridesmaids all hinges on a delightfully self-deprecating performance from Ms Wiig (who is well-known to American audiences as one of the stars of the hit comedy show Saturday Night Live). It’s a star turn, but without any of the usually attendant vanity and ego. Ms Wiig is supported by an excellent ensemble of characters including Molly (the seriously unhinged sister of Lillian’s fiancé) who is played with ferocious intent by Melissa McCarthy (pictured above, centre), and a fabulous turn by Australian-born Rose Byrne as wannabe socialite Helen.

If there is a fault, it’s that Feig’s experience as a director for television (the US version of The Office, Weeds, Arrested Development) results in an essentially one-dimensional visual engagement with the material. But Bridesmaids’ profound lack of directorial ambition and depth is the only disappointment in a movie that sets a new benchmark in the evergreen ‘Chick Flick’ genre.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Super 8

Super 8. Rated M (science fiction themes, violence, coarse language and drug use). 108 minutes. Written and directed by J J Abrams.

We’ve all experienced the misfortune of being trapped in a never-ending conversation at a party with the most boring guest in the room. You know the one: that person who bangs on for hours about every mundane possibility in their impossibly ordinary lives. But their big party trick is telling us a long-winded joke, with a punch-line that was never going to be worth the wait. And we dream of excusing ourselves before they start showing us holiday snaps or describing every detail of their kitchen renovations.

Welcome to the motion picture equivalent.

Perversely, given the talent involved, it is difficult to find more than a couple of moments of inspiration (or originality) in this seemingly interminable, muddled 108 minutes – such is Abrams clear intention to reference Steven Spielberg’s (credited as Executive Producer) back-catalogue of vastly superior films. An awkward air of self-reverential indulgence pervades practically every scene – not helped by the fact that the ‘kids making a zombie movie with a Super 8 camera’ premise provides the movie with its only points of charm and genuine engagement.

15 year-old Joel Courtney makes an impressive acting debut as young Joe Lamb, whose mother dies in a workplace accident at the beginning of the film, and who finds solace in doing the make-up for the film project and a burgeoning relationship with Alice (the excellent Elle Fanning). When ET’s cranky relative turns up to wreak havoc, the authoritative adults arrive (in typical Spielberg fashion) to spoil all the fun.

Abrams screenplay rolls out the ‘your childhood’s over now kids’ metaphors at a hundred miles an hour – of which the spectacular train crash in the middle of their film shoot is one great big thundering, over-produced clunker (topped only by the tank rolling through the playground and crushing the swings scene).

One good thing to come out of it all though, is that you’ll have a ‘DVDs I want to watch again’ list as long as your arm. At the top of my list is Rob Reiner’s coming-of-age masterpiece Stand By Me – which is precisely the film that Super 8 is trying so desperately hard to be. Regrettably, it misses the mark by a long shot.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Snowtown

Snowtown. Rated MA15+ (strong themes and violence, sexual violence and coarse language). 120 minutes. Directed by Justin Kurzel. Screenplay by Shaun Grant.

As serial killing sprees always do, the infamous ‘bodies in the barrels’ murders in South Australia have both captivated and repelled our society’s fascination for the evil that men and women are capable of. In Snowtown, Kurzel and Grant hit their marks – absolutely – with an unrelentingly gruelling, shocking and unapologetic study of how the pursuit of deadly intentions can infiltrate a vulnerable community with utterly devastating results.

When the charismatic and resourceful John Bunting (Daniel Henshall) rides into town, his first task is to rid the neighbourhood of the sex-offender who lives across the road from a family of three young boys and their mother Elizabeth Harvey (Louise Harris). Having earned the admiration and respect of young Jamie Vlassakis (Lucas Pittaway) and his two brothers, Bunting’s blood-lusty killer instinct finds a foothold, and before too much longer, perverts, friends and acquaintances are dispatched with alarming precision and a singularly precise motive – they deserve to die.

Magnificently photographed in an uncompromisingly colourless fashion by Animal Kingdom cinematographer Adam Arkapaw, Snowtown is an astonishing feature film debut from Kurzel, and Grant’s screenplay is bone-chilling in both its efficiency and the way in which it refuses to detour from the entirely horrific circumstances in which this fragile community exists.

Ms Harris is brilliant as the complex and tortured matriarch, and without her potent (and often wordless) comprehension of the unravelling horror and her powerlessness to do anything about it, Snowtown would disintegrate into a shocking indulgence. It is one of the best performances in an Australian film – ever. Henshall is magnetic as Bunting, even if his one-note role in the story ultimately becomes (as you might expect) too wearying. Pittaway (pictured) is equally superb as the damaged teenager – whose eyes reveal the dead heart and soul that provides the film with its confronting final shot. The brilliant supporting cast all commit to the story with rare skill and a complete lack of pretension – providing the film with a incredibly confronting level of honesty and authenticity.

Like its step-brother Animal Kingdom, Snowtown represents something of a new maturity in our film culture. It is an often unwatchable, exhausting, cruel and confronting piece of cinema – and should either be seen, or avoided, for precisely those reasons.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.