Film Review: Divergent

Divergent. Rated M (science fiction themes and violence). 139 minutes. Directed by Neil Burger. Screenplay by Evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor. Based on the novel by Veronica Roth.

Verdict: A new young force to be reckoned with makes her debut.

Like The Hunger Games, Divergent bursts vividly onto the screen with a crystal clear intention: to win the hearts and minds of its devotees who have catapulted 25-year-old Veronica Roth’s award-winning trilogy onto the prestigious New York Times best-selling list. As obvious as the comparisons are (The Hunger Games’ Katniss is closely related to Divergent’s Beatrice ‘Tris’ Prior), the success of the novels and their respective cinematic incarnations has created a force to be reckoned with.

At the centre of this compelling genre are determined and independent young women who take extraordinary risks to forge their individuality and purpose in life. In Divergent, a post-apocalyptic world is a divided into factions, in which humans of similar personalities are cloistered away from each other. There are the clever people who populate ‘Erudite’ and the peace-loving hippies of ‘Amity’, but it is the fearless avengers of ‘Dauntless’ who attract the attention of the restless and ambitious Tris (Shailene Woodley). As soon as she has the opportunity to choose her own faction, Tris leaves the respectable family home and begins an adventure that will challenge everything she knows, and thought she knew, about the world in which she exists and her place in it.

Woodley (who was excellent as George Clooney’s eldest daughter in The Descendants) is great as Tris, and manages to beautifully encapsulate the central character’s foibles, strengths and over-riding curiosity about the strange new world she has literally jumped into, feet first. Theo James is perfect as the mysterious ‘Four’, while Jai Courtney (A Good Day to Die Hard) brings Eric, the cruel trainer of the new Dauntless initiates to life equally well.

Burger (Limitless), Daugherty (Snow White and the Huntsman) and Taylor (Game of Thrones) have kicked off this trilogy in energetic form, and even though it eventually limps over the finish line, the promise of all that is to follow in the next two movies (Insurgent and Allegiant) is smartly and tantalisingly defined.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Rated M (action violence). 136 minutes. Directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo. Screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.

Verdict: Another successful outing for Captain America.

This sequel to Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) reunites writers Markus and McFeely and introduces new directors, the Russo brothers (Arrested Development). It is a mostly happy union at the helm of one of Marvel Comics’ cinematic universes, helped enormously by the return of the regular cast members and Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America in particular.

Evans is a fine actor, and the time this film takes to explore Captain America’s past is extremely rewarding. Rogers’ reluctance to be a pawn in SHIELD’s defensive plans against future terrorist attacks (three monstrous Helicarriers capable of destroying millions of ‘targets’ at a time) is countered by the realisation of who the ‘Winter Solider’ (Sebastian Stan) really is, providing Evans with an opportunity to bring a superhero with a conscience to life beautifully.

The big action set pieces are fantastic, and even though they are over-edited, they still stand up. The Russo brothers have opted for less CGI and more live action, which lends the film a gritty realism that results in the central conflict being much more effective than the effects-heavy, boom-crash-destruction finale. The car chase sequences are brilliant, with the stand-out being the scenes when SHIELD’s Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) fights for survival after being ambushed by the Winter Soldier and his rogue warriors on the streets Washington D.C.

While it’s great to see the venerable Robert Redford strolling through the film as SHIELD leader Alexander Pierce, it’s the high-impact, energetic performances of Anthony Mackie (The Hurt Locker) as Falcon and the fabulous Scarlett Johansson’s return as Natasha that provide Evans with valuable support.

The two sequences during the closing credits guarantee we will be seeing a good deal more of Captain America, which based on the quality and entertainment value of this latest outing, is something to look forward to.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Mr. Peabody & Sherman

Mr. Peabody & Sherman. Rated PG (mild themes and animated violence). 97 minutes. Directed by Rob Minkoff. Screenplay by Craig Wright.

Verdict: Whatever you do, hold off on the red cordial.

As ‘The End’ appeared on the screen, a little girl sitting down the front of the cinema yelled ‘Yay!’ with all the enthusiasm it was possible for her to muster. Such a spontaneous display of joy from members of the audience for whom films like this are primarily made are, like Mr. Peabody & Sherman itself, fantastic to witness.

Wright’s action-packed screenplay finds our genius inventor canine Mr. Peabody threatened with having his adopted human son Sherman removed from his care by a tyrannical social services bureaucrat, Mrs Grunion (voiced by The West Wing’s Allison Janney).

Sherman (superbly voiced by 10-year-old Max Charles) has bitten the school bully Penny (Ariel Winter), so Mr. Peabody (Ty Burrell) sets up a reconciliation dinner party with Penny’s parents and Mrs Grunion. But when Sherman takes Penny for a spin in the WBAC, Mr. Peabody’s state-of-the-art time-travelling machine, the past, present and future collide in spectacular fashion.

Minkoff’s (co-director of The Lion King) command of the story-telling is astonishing, even if the frenetic pace of the action occasionally threatens to become overwhelming. Under-pinned by the absurdist premise that a dog should be legally entitled to adopt a human, Wright’s screenplay and Minkoff’s account of it, doesn’t hang around in any one part of the world – past, present or future – long enough for the ridiculousness of it all to deflate the action.

Veteran composer Danny Elfman (who is best known as the composer of The Simpsons), delivers a marvellous score that powers the visual flights of inventive science fiction-based fantasy to perfection. Apart from the brilliant animation on display, the star of the show is Burrell (Modern Family), who finds an emotional range in his voice work for Mr. Peabody that is outstanding.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspapers Group.

Film Review: Cuban Fury

Cuban Fury. Rated M (sexual references and coarse language). 98 minutes. Directed by James Griffiths. Screenplay by Jon Brown.

Verdict: Strictly Ballroom lite.

Just like last year’s The Silver Linings Playbook, in which Bradley Cooper shimmied his way into Jennifer Lawrence’s heart by learning to dance, Cuban Fury’s plot focuses on the liberation of our heart and soul, which is only possible when we are doing that thing we love the most.

Nick Frost is most well-known for his performance as Ed, the slovenly flatmate of Simon Pegg’s Shaun in Shaun of the Dead (2004), and he and Pegg worked together again in Hot Fuzz (2007) and Paul (2011).

In Cuban Fury (in which Pegg has a drive-by cameo), it is Frost’s turn to star as Bruce Garrett, a one-time Salsa champion who was bullied into giving up his passion at a young age. Twenty-five years later, Bruce is still bullied by Drew (Chris O’Dowd), his cruel and over-bearing colleague at work. But when Salsa-loving Julia (Rashida Jones) arrives from the USA to lead the sales team, Bruce decides to win her over through their shared love of dance.

Frost is charming in the leading role, but it is the wonderfully idiosyncratic supporting characters that bring real interest to Brown’s stock standard story. Ian McShane (Snow White and the Huntsman, Pirates of the Caribbean) and Kayvan Novak (Syriana) make meals out of their roles as dance teacher Ron Parfait and dance school buddy Bejan respectively, while O’Dowd plays against type too, and delivers a smarmy workplace bully.

As predictable as it all might be, Cuban Fury is an undemanding piece of escapism, and it will certainly bring a smile to your face and a tap or two to your toes, courtesy of the marvellous soundtrack from artists including Tito Puente, Sunlightsquare and Oscar D’Leon.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspapers Group.

Film Review: The Monuments Men

The Monuments Men. Rated M (violence). 118 minutes. Directed by George Clooney. Screenplay by George Clooney and Grant Heslov. Based on the book by Robert M. Edsel.

Verdict: Self-indulgence on a monumental scale.

Based on the real-life exploits of the officers and civilians who made up the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program (established to locate and return the millions of valuable artworks and artefacts that had been stolen by the Nazis), Clooney and Heslov’s screenplay barely skims the surface of what must have been at stake for these people during dangerous and difficult times.

Despite James Bissell’s (ET the Extra-Terrestrial, Good Night, and Good Luck) meticulous production design (or perhaps because of it), The Monuments Men resembles an over-produced episode of Hogan’s Heroes, as Clooney and Matt Damon, with support from John Goodman, Bill Murray and The Artist’s Jean Dujardin, stroll through the action, barely managing to alter their facial expressions or register a single degree of difficulty.

The result is also often quite funny, as though Clooney and Co have chosen to play it mostly for laughs, which is not only incredibly disconcerting given the subject matter, but also somewhat disrespectful to the honour and the memory of the men and women whose stories they borrow.

Even if Clooney and Heslov do not appear to have been terribly concerned about the fact that there were also women involved in the program, the film boasts a fine performance from Cate Blanchett as French art curator Claire Simone, a witness to the massive art theft the group are charged with retrieving.

Hugh Bonneville (Downtown Abbey) is also excellent as Donald Jeffries, whose passion and dedication to protect Michelangelo’s Madonna of Bruges from the thieving Nazis, provides the film with its only moments of genuine and deeply-moving drama. And yes, the elderly man in the final scene is George Clooney’s Dad. How nice.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.