Film Review: Mr Popper's Penguins

Mr Popper’s Penguins. Rated G. 94 minutes. Directed by Mark Waters. Screenplay by Sean Anders, John Morris and Jared Stern. Based on the novel by Richard and Florence Atwater.

It’s always interesting discovering what ‘Consumer Advice’ needs to accompany a film review. Consumer advice consists of those words we all recognise like “action violence and coarse language” – words that let you know how racy, violent or foul-mouthed the film in question is so that you can make an informed choice about whether to go along or not.

With Mr Popper’s Penguins, we don’t have to warn you about anything – because here is a completely charming film that, if nothing else, serves to remind us how utterly obsessed Hollywood has become with blowing stuff up. And swearing about it all the time. When they’re not having sex. In 3D.

When Tom Popper’s (Jim Carrey) rise up the corporate property development ladder suddenly depends on the acquisition of a quaint and historic restaurant run by Mrs Van Gundy (Angela Lansbury), he begins a charm offensive to rattle the old girl into selling up. But when Tom’s explorer father dies and sends him a rare penguin as a parting gift, Tom discovers that there is a good deal more to living a good life than clinching the deal.

Even though the novel on which the screenplay is based was first published in 1938, the extent to which the story remains relevant to audiences today is, frankly, quite startling. Manipulative, self-obsessed corporate high-flyers hell-bent on feathering their own nest at the expense of everything (and everyone) else. Sound familiar?

From start to finish, Mr Carrey is (as usual) in complete command of the screen, and under the honest direction from Waters’ (Mean Girls) hasn’t had to rely on elastic face-pulling or manic desperation that have been the trademarks of his previous performances. That contribution is left to the supporting cast of show-stopping penguins – both real and computer-generated – that quite literally steal the show.

With references to golden age of Hollywood (courtesy of James Stewart and Charlie Chaplin), it’s clear that the filmmakers intended to escort us back to a time when good, honest storytelling was actually about something meaningful. They succeed beautifully.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Box Office Matters: Snowtown takes a bow at a million plus

In only its seventh week of theatrical release, Snowtown – the debut feature from director Justin Kurzel and producers Anna McLeish and Sarah Shaw – has passed the magical $1 million box office mark.

Madman Entertainment, the film’s Australian distributors, have announced that Snowtown’s current cumulative box office take is AUS$1,001,760 – making it the third highest grossing Australian film of 2010 behind Sanctum and Oranges and Sunshine.

Snowtown will also receive an international theatrical release through Revolver Entertainment in the UK and IFC Films in North America.

Pictured: Louise Harris in Snowtown. Image courtesy Madman Entertainment.

Film Review: Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Rated M (action violence and coarse language). 149 minutes. Directed by Michael Bay. Screenplay by Ehren Kruger.

Nothing, it has to be said, can compare to the bravura technological showmanship of the brilliant, big-screen world of the Transformers. From the inspired dinky ‘turn, click and soar’ toys of 1984 to this latest (and apparently final) cinematic installment, the Transformers managed to capture and continually inspire the imaginations of young devotees around the globe.

In the world of our heroic Autobots and their arch-enemies, the Decepticons, anything was possible – and Bay (the first two Transformers movies, Pearl Harbor, Armageddon) ensures that his film franchise’s conclusion is reached with a spectacular full metal slap-down of monumental proportions.

Joyfully blasting off with a wonderful re-imagining of the motivation behind the USA’s first moon landing, Kruger’s screenplay runs the gamut from A to Z – while also managing to find time for some quaint but entertaining sequences involving Sam (Shia LaBeouf) and his Mom and Dad, who join him in Chicago on holiday. The boys (much like Bay’s camera) will also find much to appreciate about Megan Fox’s replacement, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (making her feature film debut), while the regular hard-working cast members are joined by Frances McDormand (Fargo) and John Malkovich (Burn After Reading) – who both polish off their cameos with scenery-chomping efficiency.

But as any Transformer fan knows, it’s not really about human fallibility at all – it’s about the machines – and it is on his spectacular Transformers that Bay and his colleagues (especially production designer Nigel Phelps and cinematographer Amir Mokri) lavish most of their skill, care and attention to detail.

Shockwave’s pet ‘Driller’ (like the Kraken in Clash of the Titans) fits the bill of the seriously-big-predator-set-crushing alien perfectly – and while it takes an eternity to finally arrive on the scene, when it does it is something to behold. In 3D particularly, the transformations take on an astonishing new complexity – and the sequences involving the cast of Transformers are magnificently realised with flawless and uncompromising artistry. Which is both as much and as little as we could possibly have hoped for.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

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.