Film Review: The Age of Adaline

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The Age of Adaline. Rated M (mature themes and sexual references). 113 minutes. Directed by Lee Toland Krieger. Screenplay by J. Mills Goodloe and Salvador Paskowitz.

Verdict: A fascinating and deeply engaging film about a life flooded with too many memories.

When Adaline Bowman (Blake Lively) becomes immune to the process of ageing as a result of a car accident and metaphysical cosmic influences, she finds herself on the run from the authorities who are determined to exploit the miracle of her eternal youth.

Before she is frozen in time in 1935 (aged 27), Adaline has married her sweetheart Clarence (Peter Gray), had a daughter, Flemming (the magnificent Ellen Burstyn), before she is tragically widowed – destined to spend the rest of her life with too many memories that the passing of time will never allow to fade. When she meets philanthropist Ellis (Game of Thrones’ Michiel Huisman), Adaline believes that this new relationship might represent the opportunity to share the truth about her unusual life with her devoted new soulmate. But when Fate plays its final, cruel hand, their future together suddenly becomes almost too fragile to survive.

It is this fascinating premise that provides The Age of Adaline with its epic, romantic and dramatic sweep. The flashbacks to the 1930s, masterfully edited by Melissa Kent (The Vow), also benefit from the sublime period costuming by Australian costume designer Angus Strathie and Claude Paré’s (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) production design.

Lively and Huisman are perfectly matched as the star-crossed lovers, and Lively (who is hardly ever off-screen), rises beautifully to the complex emotional demands asked of her. But it is Harrison Ford’s performance as Ellis’ father, William, that remains the highlight. For years now, Ford has been trapped in ‘reluctant action man’ territory, and the performance that Krieger captures from him here is simply the best work Ford has done for a very, very long time.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: The Expendables 3

The Expendables 3. Rated M (action violence and coarse language). 126 minutes. Directed by Patrick Hughes. Screenplay by Sylvester Stallone, Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt.

Verdict: Chaos reigns as the Kings of Cinema shoot lots of people.

You have to hand it to Sylvester Stallone. That The Expendables works at all is due not only to his monumental onscreen presence, but his ability to gather all his mates together into one of the largest ensembles in recent memory. And what a cast it is.

The spectacular opening sequence (there’s always one in an Expendables movie) sees Barney (Stallone) and the team freeing Doctor Death (Wesley Snipes) from a train that is delivering him to a high-tech prison. The team needs the good Doctor’s help intercepting a shipment of weapons being sent to arms trader Conrad Stonebanks (Mel Gibson) in Somalia. When the operation goes pear-shaped, Barney retires the old team members and recruits a new, more agile and technologically savvy gang.

The fatal flaw in the concept lies in the casting of Mel Gibson, who is spectacular. Plagued with all sorts of public relations disasters in his private life, Gibson burns up the screen from start to finish. When you add Harrison Ford (who replaces Bruce Willis) and the indefatigable Arnold Schwarzenegger to the mix, the young’uns (including Kellan Lutz who is currently starring as Hercules) are at a distinct disadvantage.

Australian-born Hughes and cinematographer Peter Menzies Jr are on their way to becoming a formidable duo behind the camera, but the chronic over editing (Sean Albertson and Paul Harb) suggests that this is not the break-through they might have hoped for. There are some magnificent close-ups of Stallone, Gibson and Ford (whose faces reveal years of cinema history), but the bulk of this disappointing outing for the Kings of Cinema is just migraine-inducing, blood-lusty chaos.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Ender’s Game

Ender’s Game. Rated M (science fiction themes and violence). 114 minutes. Written and directed by Gavin Hood.

Verdict: A compelling study of the moral dilemmas associated with resolving conflict.

With Earth’s population recovering from near-annihilation at the hands of an alien invasion, the military – led by Harrison Ford’s Colonel Graff – decide to recruit young video game-playing geniuses to develop a defensive strategy that will not only protect the planet from the next invasion, but eliminate the threat entirely by exterminating the hostile alien species.

Led by an outstanding performance from young Asa Butterfield (Hugo, Nanny McPhee Returns, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas) as technology wiz Ender Wiggin, Ender’s Game makes no apology for feeding the brain as much as it dazzles the senses. Hood’s script skilfully covers the important and topical issues of generational change, bullying, peer pressure and survival strategies – resulting in compelling character studies that are equal to the stunning visual environment, confidently directed by Hood and expertly photographed by veteran Australian cinematographer Donald McAlpine.

Like it’s siblings The Hunger Games and TRON, Ender’s Game explores its moral imperatives (and ambiguities) within a complex gaming environment that is increasingly the exclusive domain of the next generation.

Ford is at his best espousing the rules and regulations of militaristic and moral fundamentalism, while Viola Davis (Prisoners, The Help, Doubt) is excellent as his colleague, who is charged with determining what psychological impact the relentless preparation for conflict is having on their young warrior.

While the militaristic motivations are relatively easy to comprehend (no-one wants to perish in an alien invasion after all), the film’s penultimate battle sequence is not only a tour de force of visual effects mastery, but one that generates an extraordinary moral dilemma. It is here that Ford’s Colonel and Butterfield’s Ender absolutely nail the film’s central conflict, resulting in a scene of immense power that challenges us to contemplate the film’s lasting message – which is how conflict of any kind might be resolved through striving for mutual consideration and respect as opposed to brutal aggression.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Cowboys and Aliens

Cowboys and Aliens. Rated M (science fiction themes and violence). 118 minutes. Directed by Jon Favreau. Screenplay by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby. Based on the graphic novel by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg.

It is 1873. When Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) regains consciousness in the desert, he discovers that he has a rather nasty wound on his side and a ripper of a bracelet on his wrist. “That must have been some wild, Wild West-themed office party!” he says. No he doesn’t. Sadly. He and his killer jewellery (pictured) easily account for group of murderin’, thievin’ marauders before he sets off to the town of Absolution where he finds Harrison Ford’s Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde. Colonel Dolarhyde and his cronies are holding the town to ransom due to the fact that, as the colonel’s spoilt little brat of a son Percy (Paul Dano) informs us, his Pa is responsible for all the money that is spent in the near-bankrupt little town. And almost before you can say “Was Star Wars really that long ago?”, the aliens arrive (shortly before the Indians), and everyone tries to kill everyone before they get killed. “Where did we park the car?”

Favreau (Iron Man, Iron Man 2) and cinematographer Matthew Libatique (Black Swan, the Iron Mans, Phone Booth) occasionally hit their marks, while Scott Chambliss’s (Salt, Star Trek) engaging production design delivers a particularly impressive upside down Showboat and a marvellous gold-mining spaceship. Mr Craig spends a good deal of time being Clint Eastwood to excellent effect, while Olivia Wilde (TRON: Legacy) is perfect as other-worldly Ella Swenson who might also have mistakenly stumbled onto the film set from a fashion shoot just over the hill. Mr Ford, when not looking extremely uncomfortable running about all over the place, gets a big rambling monologue moment that ends up being a compelling lesson in just how great an actor John Wayne was with this kind of material.

While it’s a vaguely better western than it is a science fiction adventure, Cowboys and Aliens is ultimately an utterly bizarre curiosity that manages to fail entirely by absolutely outstaying its welcome. And I can guarantee you won’t be the only one wondering “What on earth were they thinking?!”

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.