CINEMA: Quantum of Solace

After scoring a resounding hit with Daniel Craig as the new, meaner, leaner James Bond in Casino Royale, Eon Productions was hoping for great things from this second instalment of the reinvigorated franchise. However, for all the barnstorming action, speed and sheer explosiveness of Quantum, there’s something rather important missing – a plot.

.

Following the death of his girlfriend in Casino, Bond (Craig) is out for revenge against the shadowy organisation that brought about her demise. M (Judi Dench) warns him there is no place in international espionage for personal feelings, but Bond begs to differ and embarks on a killing spree that takes him from Italy to Haiti. Here he encounters the enigmatic Camille (Olga Kurylenko), who at first appears to be the disgruntled girlfriend of businessman Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), but who could be something much more sinister.

.

From here the action returns to Europe via numerous car chases, boat chases, motorbike chases and even plane chases, before the finale is set up in the arid Atacama Desert in Chile, where Bond and Camille must both face their personal demons.

.There’s no denying that all the millions of dollars spent on the production are most definitely up there on screen as the action whizzes by as smoothly and as slickly as an Aston Martin. In fact, with your eyes glued to the screen from scene one it may be ten minutes or more before you realise this movie makes absolutely no sense whatsoever – it is totally vacuous. Yes, Daniel Craig is all chiselled jaw and steely blue eyes, but he has become a one-dimensional assassin rather than a complex, multi-faceted secret agent. However, the biggest problem here is while the Bourne series made you care about Jason Bourne the man, while being thrilled by the action (Bourne’s chase across tiled rooftops is almost duplicated here), you really don’t care about Bond.

.

Quantum Of Solace is superficially thrilling, but it has no heart – and that combined with the lack of plot means that although this has plenty of boom and bang, there isn’t a satisfying climax.      Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: The Outlanders

Is blood thicker than one’s moral conscience? So it seems in this bleak, rather downbeat look at the illegal immigrant’s lot in modern Britain.

On the death of his father in Poland, Adam (Jakub Tolak) comes to London in search of his adored older brother Jan (Przemyslaw Sadowski). He soon finds him living the good life having set himself up as the gang master for illegal immigrant labourers on the capital’s building sites. Adam doesn’t like what Jan does, but decides to start working for the ‘firm’. That is, until a labourer is killed on site and he must choose between the ties of blood and family, what his conscience tells him is the right thing to do, and his love for Anna (Alexis Raben), the beautiful Russian girl who has become his only friend in the city.

Although this is a beautifully realised film with some outstanding performances, its subject matter is so unrelentingly depressing and gloomy you’ll leave the cinema feeling deflated and disenchanted with humanity.      Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: Chocolate

Wham, bam, kapow! If you like your fight scenes to be gun free, CGI free and full contact then Chocolate is an eye-watering treat.

Martial arts director Prachya Pinkaew (Ong-Bak) likes to shoot his high-kicking combat sequences without stunt doubles or special effects and the results are wincingly visceral (especially during the closing credits outtake montage, which brings howls of sympathy from the audience).

Autistic Zen (the brilliant JeeJa Yanin) has taught herself martial arts skills by copying what she sees on the TV, especially old Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movies. An outsider herself, Zen befriends chubby and bullied Mangmoom (Tapol Pobwandee) who becomes like a son to Zen’s mother Sin (Amara Siripong). When Sin falls ill, it is Mangmoom who persuades Zen they must use their combined talents (his wits, her fighting) to get the money to pay the hospital bills. But an autistic female martial arts expert is bound to attract attention and soon Zen has come to the notice of some very unsavoury characters.

Although the storyline is staccato and difficult to follow, the highlights of the movie are most definitely the fight scenes and the stunning climax shot as the actors grapple with each other on window ledges and neon signs above the city streets is thrilling stuff. Expect a Quentin Tarantino Hollywood remake in the very near future.      Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: Ghost Town

Oh joy of joys, after months of being fobbed off with really rather desperate attempts at the genre, we finally get a romantic comedy that is actually funny. Rather than going down the sentimental route Ghost Town is spiky and uncomfortable, clever without being too knowing, and really rather sweet – and yes, I am talking about a movie that stars Ricky Gervais!

Here he’s playing socially inept dentist Bertram Pincus whose idea of communicating successfully with patients is to tell them they have bad breath. It’s not so much that he’s a misanthrope, more a man who is a bit lost in the company of other human beings. However, his unease deepens when he wakes up after a seemingly routine operation to be confronted by ghosts. It seems Bertram died on the operating table for seven minutes and this sojourn to the other side means he can see dead people, all of whom want something from him.

The most persistent ghost turns out to be self-centred Frank (Greg Kinnear) who has been run over by a bus. Before his untimely demise Frank was cheating on his lovely wife Gwen (Tea Leoni) and now he wants to enlist Bertram’s helping in scuppering Gwen’s forthcoming engagement to Richard (Billy Campbell). But as Bertram gets to know Gwen he finds himself falling in love with her – and this is where the film scores an ace because their romance isn’t all celluloid, lovey-dovey plain sailing, it’s awkward, just like Bertram himself. By making Bertram less snide than his other comic creations Gervais lets the man’s vulnerability and also his loneliness shine through and that’s what makes the film such a delight.

Yes, Bertram is self-involved, but as his relationship with Gwen develops and he starts ignoring the rather oafish Frank and taking notice of the needs of the other ghosts, you’ll warm to his clumsy efforts at being more likeable. He’s bumbling and anything but smooth but his feelings for Gwen are heartfelt and sincere. Meanwhile, Tea Leoni is delightful as the equally vulnerable Gwen.

With a script of this quality and intelligence Ghost Town may not be to everyone’s comic tastes (especially those who like Gervais when he is being more acerbic), but it’s a surprisingly unschmaltzy gem of its genre.     

Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: Igor

This animated tale of crazy inventors and their hunchbacked assistants is firmly aimed at the pre-teen market, although very young children may find the humour too dark and adult to really understand.

In a land called Malaria, evil scientist Dr Schadenfreude (voiced by Eddie Izzard and looking like a cross between Liberace and Elton John) keeps winning the Evil Invention Competition, but hunchback Igor (John Cusack) plans to beat him by inventing a truly evil monster. He sets to work with the help of his immortal but suicidal lab rat Scamper (Steve Buscemi) and no-brain Brain (Sean Hayes) to make his giant monster Eva (Molly Shannon), only to discover she’s not evil at all, but a real sweetie who just wants to be an actress.

There’s a really old-fashioned feel to the animation, but this fits in well with the Heath Robinson-esque look of the scientists’ labs and inventions, while the film fair rattles through its 86 minute running time. It is not as refined or polished as a Pixar animation, but it will certainly keep 8-year-olds entertained until the happy ever after ending.      Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: Burn After Reading

After the thought-provoking, serious drama of No Country For Old Men, Joel and Ethan Coen return to their trademark kooky comedy genre. But Burn After Reading is not classic Coen fodder in the vein of The Big Lebowski, mainly because the comedy is too patchy and there are long sections that aren’t funny at all.

Linda (Frances McDormand) and Chad (Brad Pitt) work in a fitness centre where one day they come across a computer disc left in the locker room. It appears to contain sensitive information about the CIA and Russian agents and so the pair hatch a plan to use the disc as a bargaining chip in order to obtain money from its rightful owner, CIA agent Osborne Cox (John Malkovich). But Linda and Chad unwittingly open a veritable Pandora’s box of intrigue with their amateur espionage, drawing in Cox’s wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) and her married lover, federal marshal Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney). Soon the heat is on, the pair can’t get out of the mess they’ve created and bodies start turning up.

Although Brad Pitt is hilarious as the camp and clueless Chad, and there’s a great scene where Cox tries to overcome his writing block, there are other scenes that take too long to set up and fail to hit the comedy button. Yes, it’s mildly amusing, but it’s just not up to the Coens’ usual, barmily brilliant standard. Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: Eagle Eye

This week’s action thriller certainly moves forward at the speed of sound with the booms, bangs and special effects you’d expect from a big budget blockbuster. However, what Eagle Eye lacks is a coherent plot and plausible stunts because everything here is so improbable and unbelievable as to become preposterous.

Slacker Jerry (Shia LaBeouf) arrives home one day to find his flat filled with bomb-making materials and the Feds about to break down his door. He’s being set up by a female who keeps ringing his mobile and issuing ultimatums. Jerry has no idea who she is but what he does know is if he doesn’t follow her instructions he’s likely to end up dead. Soon Jerry is joined by Rachel (Michelle Monaghan) who is also enrolled by the voice on the mobile, and together they must figure out what the voice is up to and foil her plan before government agents Toby Grant (Billy Bob Thornton) and Zoe Perez (Rosario Dawson) can catch them or kill them.

If you want car chases, cranes crashing through high rise buildings, death defying leaps from speeding trains, plenty of Big Brother paranoia and a plot that is so thin as to be anorexic then Eagle Eye certainly ticks all the relevant boxes, just don’t expect it to make any sense.      Dee Pilgrim

LINK: London Film Festival Blog

Far be it for us to blow our own trumpet, but we are currently offering some fantastic coverage on the London Film Festival.

Click here each day to read what our crack team of bad-ass film journos are saying about the country’s biggest and best film fest.

CINEMA: Nights in Rodanthe

Novelist Nicholas Sparks was responsible for romantic weepie Message In A Bottle starring Kevin Costner and Robin Wright Penn. Nights is based on another of his novels and is basically Message In A Bottle MkII, although less about boats than a frankly ridiculous boarding house built on a beach in the coastal town of Rodanthe, North Carolina.

This is where single mum Adrienne (Diane Lane) arrives to look after the property while her mate who owns it is off on a romantic assignation. The only boarder is Dr Paul Flanner (Richard Gere) and Adrienne at first finds him rather standoffish, but then a major storm comes in and leaves them stranded by themselves. During a howling gale the pair find solace in eachothers’ company and the film gets more clichéd and banal by the minute. This is a great shame because the acting of both Lane and Gere is exemplary, it’s just the material they have to work with is so trite and predictable they can’t raise the film above its frankly second rate quality.

There hasn’t been a really good romantic weepie in ages and this film certainly doesn’t change that fact.      Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: City of Ember

For some reason, 2008 is seeing a spate of really rather intelligent, superior films for older children, with City Of Ember being the latest (and look out for Inkheart in the near future).

Based on the book by Jeanne DuPrau it centres around a city built deep underground when life above ground becomes untenable (the reason for this – nuclear holocaust or global warming – is never made clear). For centuries the citizens of this Ember City go about their business, their lives dependent on their massive generator.

Unfortunately, the map to the exit of the city, left in the keeping of the incumbent mayors, gets lost, and so when the generator starts to break down (the blackouts get longer and longer) it is up to two sparky teens to work out an escape route. Messenger Lina (Saoirse Ronan) and pipeworker Doon (Harry Treadaway) have to battle prejudice, the corrupt mayor (Bill Murray at his oiliest) and the decaying city itself in order to lead their community to safety.

Although the acting is top notch, what really makes the film is the amazing realisation of Ember City, stuffed full with rotting, decrepit Heath Robinson-esque contraptions and machines. It really has created an atmospheric world of its own and Lina and Doon’s flight from it is full of excitement and danger. Much younger viewers may find this baffling but eight-year-olds and above will definitely identify with the two leads.     

Dee Pilgrim