This week – 13/08/10

Apologies for the silence on the blog lately – we’re now resuming normal service and, as usual, updating you on this week’s fresh and exciting offering of new releases.

NEW RELEASES

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (12A)
Director: Jon Turteltaub
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Jay Baruchel

This Disney fantasy-adventure-comedy from National Treasure director Jon Turteltaub and legendary producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Pirates of the Caribbean, National Treasure, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time) takes the well loved sequence from Disney’s Fantasia and drags it into the setting of 21st century Manhattan. It’s a pretty generic fantasy stroke fairy tale formula, with reluctant teen Dave Stutler (Baruchel) and master sorcerer Balthazar Blake (Cage) fighting the evil Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina) in an attempt to save the Big Apple from Horvath’s vindictive plans. Jerry Bruckheimer’s influence in the film is clear, says NME magazine, with ‘plenty of stuff getting smashed up alongside the sorcery’, whilst still including affectionate references to the original, with the dancing out-of-control mops being a particular example of this.

The cast are generally likeable, with Molina’s evil character particularly shining through, but Cage still seems unable to replicate his more convincing performances of old. And, to be frank, the more times he appears in Disney films the more difficult it is to take him seriously.

Rotten Tomatoes have given it a 42% rating so far, crediting the impressive CGI but ultimately saying it doesn’t go far enough. Ultimately, it seems a bit of a mindless summer crowd-pleaser. Which is fine really.

And here’s the original, from Fantasia 1940…

The Last Airbender (PG)
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: Noah Rigner, Dev Patel

The last time M. Night Shyamalan had a critical success was with his 2002 sci-fi thriller Signs. Since then he has unarguably had a series of complete critical failures, most recently resulting in the ‘incoherent and unconvincing’ suspense drama The Happening, which you can see Mark Kermode getting angry about here. The chance then was that The Last Airbender was going to follow in similar vain. It does.

If the appalling reviews of The Last Airbender haven’t given Mr Shyamalan a headache, then surely the race row the film has provoked will force him to reach for the painkillers. The film is a live-action remake of the popular animated children’s tv series ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ and for some, as yet unexplained, reason Shyamalan has decided to change the races of the main characters around, so that they are all whites, rather than the Asian-Mongolian-Inuit mix implied in the TV series. Not only is this ‘a distraction for fans of the hugely popular TV series’, writes Ben Child in The Guardian, but ‘all three actors are pretty bad’. It’s ‘strictly for the preteens’ wrote Scott Bowles of USA Today, with no ‘Pixar-style dual themes’.

Ian Nathan, writing in Empire, believes that the heavy criticism levelled at the film may be rather over the top, calling it an ‘occasionally stirring’, if ‘largely botched’ fairy tale. And anyway, Slumdog star Dev Patel seems to be taking it all on the chin, saying he felt there was ‘too much praise after Slumdog’ and that to get ‘critically smashed…is great’. Patel was even considering pulling out after reading the script but a phone conversation convinced him to follow through after being impressed by Shyamalan’s ‘vision’.

Altogether then, this film is in a bit of a mess, both in terms of the storyline and the unwanted controversy it has generated. Just in case you are interested in seeing it, the film is situated in a world of Waterbenders, Earthbenders, Firebenders and Airbenders who  are all masters of their respective element. A young boy called Avatar, however, is able to control all four elements. This causes war, and Avatar is the only ‘bender’ (not quite sure how else to put that’) who can restore harmony.

We would however like to draw your attention to the fact that it’s currently racked up just 8% on Rotten Tomatoes. You have been warned.

The Secret In Their Eyes (18)
Director: Juan José Campanella
Starring: Ricardo Darin, Soledad Villami

This crime thriller from House and Law & Order director Juan José Campanella revolves around corruption in the judicial system and Argentina as a whole. Darin’s character, Benjamin, wants to use details from a 1970s case in which a woman was raped and murdered in a novel, but romantic interest and judge Irene (Villami) doesn’t seem totally convinced. The plot develops, through uses of flashbacks, into a hunt for the perpetrator of the crime, who they believe is not the man that has been convicted.

It’s already claimed a controversially granted 2009 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, which caused much criticism especially from film critics who felt The White Ribbon and A Prophet more worthy winners. However, since increased screening of the film it has been already accepted as a ‘classic’ that, according to Phillip Maher of allmovie.com, ‘delights, frightens, and intrigues’.

This is supported by its 93% fresh rating on RT, with its ‘engrossing plot,…assured direction, and mesmerizing performances’ gaining near universal praise from critics.

Please note that the trailer below may not be suitable for some audiences.

This week’s

ONE TO SEE: The Secret In Their Eyes – seamlessly blending its twin genres of legal thriller and romance, this Spanish Academy Award Winner is elevated by the excellent direction and fine acting.

ONE TO MISS: The Last Airbender – easily the worst film out this week. The shocking reviews from critics coupled with Dev Patel’s revelation that he considered backing out after his first read of the script suggests you may leave the cinema feeling robbed rather than rewarded.

This week – 02/07/10

It’s that time of the week again – here’s a run down of this week’s releases, so you know which films are worth checking out, and which are best left well alone.

NEW RELEASES

Heartbreaker (L’arnacoeur) (15)
Director: Pascal Chalmeuil
Starring: Romain Duris, Vanessa Paradis

Romain Duris stars as a man who makes a living from breaking up relationships in this french romantic comedy with an unusual twist– men who want to dump their other half but lack the nerve to do so hire him to woo their woman away, and once the relationship has ended Alex scarpers. The general consensus seems to be it’s fairly standard rom-com fare, even if it is made by those speaking the language of love. 7.2/10 on IMDB would confirm this with, admittedly hard to please, Guardian film reviewer Peter Bradshaw claiming it ‘falls pretty flat’

Lymelife (15)
Director: Derick Martini
Starring: Alec Baldwin, Emma Roberts

Set in 1970s Long Island, this comedy drama written by the Martini brothers (Derick and Steven) and executive produced by Martin Scorsese, examines the lives of two families, exploring their complex relationships and their reaction to the outbreak of Lyme disease. However, despite the film’s title, says Derek Armstrong of allmovie.com, the plot doesn’t actually focus on Lime Disease, and is instead a ‘standard-issue coming-of-age story’ which means it fails to stand out from many other indie films out there. RT gives it a 55% fresh rating, citing the lack of emotional depth, despite the talented cast, as the film’s main fall.

Please note the trailer below may not be suitable for some audiences.

Shrek Forever After (U)
Director: Mike Mitchell
Starring: Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy, Antonio Banderas

So here it is then, the ‘final’ (or so we’re lead to believe) instalment in the epic Shrek franchise, that sees the now much loved ogre try and make people scared of him again. He delegates this task to the mischievous Rumpelstiltskin but all, as you would expect, doesn’t go to plan, and he enters an alternate universe where Shrek doesn’t exist and Rumpelstiltskin is king. The allmovie.com review calls it ‘highly enjoyable’ and praises the film’s ‘clever screenplay’, but not everyone is convinced. The general consensus on RT says it feels to much like a ‘rote’ rehashing’ of what’s all been seen before, which perhaps is not very surprising given it was always going to simply be another cash cow for Dreamworks – it’s already pulled in £147m at the US box office. Criticism of the film was never likely to put off Shrek fans though, was it?

54% fresh rating on RT

This week’s
ONE TO SEE: Shrek Forever After – so it hasn’t got great reviews, but it’s (supposedly) the end of an era, so it’s got to be done, hasn’t it?
ONE TO MISS: Heartbreaker (L’arnacoeur) – seems to be yet another pretty formulaic rom-com rolled off the production lines, even if it is in French.