Film Review: The Good Dinosaur

The Good Dinosaur. Rated PG (mild themes and threat, some scenes may scare young children). 101 minutes. Directed by Peter Sohn. Screenplay by Meg LeFauve.

With generous amounts of storyline lifted directly from The Lion King, Jungle Book, Ice Age, How to Train Your Dragon and The Croods, the tale of the bond between an awkward young dinosaur, Arlo (Raymond Ochoa), and a tenacious little caveboy, Spot (Jack Bright), is a slippery affair.

While it fails to win points for the originality of its storylines, the visual wonder of the computer-generated animation may well be the most extraordinarily photo-realistic work yet from Pixar Animation Studios. The lavish, gorgeously detailed environments created for the story are superb, but this also serves to highlight the fact that LeFauve’s screenplay fails to live up to the many possibilities.

What is equally confusing is the extent to which the story relies heavily on nightmarish scenarios, many of which will simply terrify the younger members of the film’s potential audience. At the same time, The Good Dinosaur is unable to find a way of offering older children anything much in the way of new and interesting takes on the familiar ‘rites of passage’ formula.

The exceptions are a couple of exquisite night-time sequences, the first being when Arlo’s father introduces him to the local population of fireflies in the hope that the experience may inspire his anxious son to conquer his fears. The second is the incredibly moving sequence when the lost Arlo and Spot realise how important their respective families are to them. By using twigs and drawing circles in the dirt, the film’s most meaningful point of engagement is also its least sophisticated.

When the simple circular motif is used again late in the characters’ journey, The Good Dinosaur makes a powerful statement about the importance of family, which makes it something like an ideal family film for the festive season.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens

Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens. Rated M (science fiction themes and violence). 135 minutes. Directed by J.J. Abrams. Screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan, J.J. Abrams and Michael Arndt. 

Our return to the Star Wars universe was always going to be complicated. Courtesy of a protracted pre-release marketing strategy, expectations about how welcome Abrams’ (StarTrek Into Darkness, Super 8, Star Trek, Mission: Impossible III) vision for the revered saga would be, soared. 

The good news is that as nostalgia, The Force Awakens is faultless. The masterstrokes are having Kasdan (Return of the Jedi, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back), composer John Williams, and our beloved original heroes of the resistance – Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Peter Mayhew’s Chewbacca, and Anthony Daniels’ C-3PO – return.

When Chewie and Han Solo appear on screen together again for the first time, you may very well find it impossible not to either burst into tears or stand and cheer. Abrams’ camera lingers long on the returning icons, allowing us to reconnect with characters who undeniably shaped the cinematic experiences of a generation.

The new leading players – ace resistance pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), Finn (John Boyega), a Stormtrooper with a guilty conscience, Rey (Daisy Ridley), who trades space junk for sustenance, and dark lord Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) – deliver outstanding performances and effortlessly match the trusted old guard with an abundance of passion for their place in Star Wars history.

The work of cinematographer Daniel Mindel (Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Trek, Mission: Impossible III) and production designers Rick Carter (War Horse, Avatar, Jurassic Park) and Darren Gilford (TRON: Legacy) is never less than completely spell-binding, and the true wonder of The Force Awakens is how stunning it looks and feels. It is a beautifully detailed realisation, and the entire film contains precious gems of references to the story so far.

Long may it continue.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Creed

Creed. Rated M (mature themes, violence and coarse language). 133 minutes. Directed by Ryan Coogler. Screenplay by Ryan Coogler and Aaron Covington.

Officially the seventh film in the Rocky series, Creed politely ignores the less successful Rocky V (1990) and Rocky Balboa (2006), and picks up where 1985’s Rocky IV left us.

Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) still mourns the loss of his wife Adrian (Talia Shire), and dutifully works in the restaurant he named in her honour. Meanwhile, Adonis Johnson (Alex Henderson) the young son of his great adversary (and eventually friend) Apollo Creed, is doing time in a juvenile justice centre for being unable to control his temper. When the late Apollo’s wife Mary Anne (Phylicia Rashad) arrives to take the boy into her care, Adonis realises that this may be the second chance he has dreamed of.

Fast-forward seventeen years, and the restless Adonis (Michael B. Jordan) decides to quit his job at a financial services company to pursue his dream of becoming a champion boxer like his father, and begins by tracking down Rocky in the hope that he will become his trainer. While he is at first incredibly reluctant, Rocky gradually realises that the path to realising a lifetime’s resolution may lie in the future of this determined young man.

Coogler (Fruitvale Station) is in complete command of the cinematic history he is creating, and the great performances he elicits from his outstanding ensemble. His and Covington’s screenplay is the perfect combination of respect to the formidable Stallone’s iconic Rocky, and the passion, discipline and drive of a young boxer’s fearless ambition.

Jordan (Fruitvale Station) brings the many contradictions of Appollo’s rite of passage to the screen superbly – matching the great Stallone to perfection. Every one of their scenes together bristles with an emotionally-charged, powerful energy that, as the story powers up to its stunning conclusion, becomes almost overwhelming.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: In the Heart of the Sea

In the Heart of the Sea. Rated M (survival themes). 122 minutes. Directed by Ron Howard. Screenplay by Charles Leavitt. Based on the book ‘In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex’ by Nathaniel Philbrick.

When a director as good as Howard sets sail for the high seas, we have an almost watertight guarantee that gripping drama will ensue. After all, with A Beautiful Mind (2001), he achieved what many considered highly improbable, by turning the study of mathematics into an Oscar-winning masterpiece.

His Apollo 13 (1995), about the battle for unlikely survival aboard a severely damaged spacecraft, remains an infinitely watchable film. And then there was the fantastic Rush (2013), the director’s first outing with Heart of the Sea star Chris Hemsworth, when the rivalry between Formula 1 champions James Hunt (Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl) resulted in one of the most compelling films of that year.

If Heart of the Sea fails to reach the heights of Howard’s previous adventures that have also been based on true stories, it’s because the ‘survival at sea’ (or anywhere for that matter) genre is packed with vastly superior films, of which Ridley Scott’s White Squall (1996), Wolfgang Petersen’s The Perfect Storm (2000), and Peter Weir’s Master and Commander (2003) are just three examples.

This is not to say that the tale of the whalers aboard the ill-fated Essex, including First Mate Owen Chase (Hemsworth), the privileged Captain Pollard (Benjamin Walker), and Second Mate, Matthew Joy (Cillian Murphy), is not an interesting one. The problem lies in the fact that with the exception of the brilliantly realised confrontations with the massive ‘demon’ white whale, every other scene, circumstance and conflict at sea and on land has a doom-laden sense of wearying familiarity – as though we’ve seen and heard it all before.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2. Rated M (mature themes, violence and horror sequence). 137 minutes. Directed by Francis Lawrence. Screenplay by Peter Craig and Danny Strong. Based on the novel by Suzanne Collins.

It was never going to be easy. With the arrival of the game-changing The Hunger Games (2012), the epic contest between Collins’ reluctant heroine Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and the menacing megalomaniac President Snow (Donald Sutherland) kicked off in spectacular fashion. Then came the sequel Catching Fire (2013), and then the first part of Collins’ third novel in the series, Mockingjay, released in 2014 as the first of a two-part finale. 

It is impossible to deny that with each new addition, The Hunger Games has progressively lost all of its uniqueness. Instead, in this ultra-violent and haphazard Part 2, the once complex and resourceful Katniss is reduced to a blind-sided, vengeful warrior, fixated on assassinating Snow.

With Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), Gale (Liam Hemsworth), Finnick (Sam Claflin) and a handful of other bodies in tow for the astonishingly high body count, Katniss chooses a ridiculously conventional route to Snow’s mansion –exposing herself and her unfortunate comrades to any number of cruel (and obvious) life-ending dangers.

The essence of Part 2’s problems lies in the commercially-driven decision to split the third book into two films. It rapidly becomes obvious that, apart from the Peeta’s character development (beautifully played out by Hutcherson), there is neither enough interesting story developments nor originality to guarantee it will survive, dramatically, as a stand-alone film.

Francis Lawrence (no relation to Jennifer), has directed all but the first film in the series. And as the sun sets over the final scene, it is difficult not to imagine that he might be feeling as though he’s arrived a little too late at what had been a fantastic party, only to discover that there’s only a cold sausage roll left.

And no more beer.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Spectre

Spectre. Rated M (action violence). 148 minutes. Directed by Sam Mendes. Screenplay by John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Jez Butterworth.

For this twenty-fourth film about Ian Fleming’s illusive Secret Agent 007, Mendes (Skyfall, American Beauty) and his writers (with Butterworth making his 007 debut having penned the gripping Black Mass), deliver yet another spectacular feat of cinematic endurance. 

James Bond (Daniel Craig) is in Mexico City on unofficial business to assassinate Marco Sciarra (Alessandro Cremona), a terrorist who plans to detonate a massive bomb in the middle of the crowded city. When he souvenirs Sciarra’s ring, engraved with an octopus, Bond discovers that he worked for an organisation known as Spectre – a group responsible for a series of devastating terrorist attacks, planned to ensure the world’s most powerful governments buy-in to ‘Nine Eyes’, the global surveillance network Spectre has created.

When Bond learns from MI6 rogue agent Mr White (Jesper Christensen) that his daughter Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux) can lead him to Ernst Blofeld (Christoph Waltz), the mastermind behind Spectre, Bond teams up with the, at first, reluctant Swann to bring the organisation down.

Spectre is, in every sense, a massive undertaking – and having landed in Mexico City for the annual Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead) festivities, the epic scale of what lies ahead for our hero becomes crystal clear. Mexico City, London, the Austrian Alps, Rome and Morocco provide the astonishing array of locations, with the moody nature and purpose of each one captured brilliantly by cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema (Interstellar).

Craig returns in superb form, powering through the grand adventure in a role he has now definitively made his own. Within the outstanding ensemble, Seydoux (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol) is perfect as the cool Madeleine, while Waltz (Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained, Water for Elephants) brings the sinister Blofeld to life in a performance of the purest evil.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: The Last Witch Hunter

The Last Witch Hunter. Rated M (supernatural themes and violence). 106 minutes. Directed by Breck Eisner. Screenplay by Cory Goodman, Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless.

Cursed with immortality for preventing the Witch Queen (Julie Engelbrecht) from wiping out humanity with a deadly plague during the Middle Ages, witch hunter Kaulder (Vin Diesel) now tries to keep the peace between witches and humans in the modern world.

Accompanied by priests (known as Dolans) from a secret witch hunting organisation, Kaulder realises that traces of dark magic are beginning to appear. When the 36th Dolan (Michael Caine) suddenly vanishes in what was obviously a violent struggle, it becomes clear that the Witch Queen and her followers are planning their revenge.

On paper, The Last Witch Hunter would have looked like a sure-fire hit. As he has proved with his successful Fast and the Furious and The Chronicles of Riddick films, Diesel is a capable and charismatic star. Even though his range as an actor is limited, he always knows how to give his devoted fans everything they want.

The final result on screen, however, is a different matter. It all begins promisingly, with a great (if very dark) opening sequence in which Kaulder and the Witch Queen fight to the ‘death’. But once we arrive in modern times, the script becomes jumbled and confused. In Caine’s sudden absence, Elijah Wood (The Lord of The Rings) becomes the 37th Dolan before he, too, is given less and less to do.

Apart from a couple of well-staged sequences overloaded with CGI, the film’s real interest lies in the character of Chloe (Rose Leslie), a ‘dream walker’, who accompanies Kaulder into the dream state of his past. Leslie is a great match for the smouldering Diesel, and in many of their scenes together, we get a real sense of the fascinating film The Last Witch Hunter might have been.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.