Paddington: Movie Review

Paddington: Film Review

Cast: Ben Whishaw, Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Nicole Kidman, Peter Capaldi
Director: Paul King

Marmalade sandwiches, an inquisitive nature and a duffle coat.

These are the quintessentials of Paddington Bear, a quintessentially English story from Michael Bond that's been updated for the big screen and for Christmas 2014.

James Bond's Q aka Ben Whishaw is the voice of the bear, who's forced to abandon darkest Peru after an earthquake destroys the home where he lives with his aunt and uncle. Having been discovered years ago by a quintessentially English explorer, Paddington's been imbued with a love of all things English and believes that's where his future lies.

Abandoned at Paddington station (the metaphor for the displaced children of World War II freshly ensconced in your mind), the bear finds solace with the Brown family - its soft matriarch (Sally Hawkins, in endearing form) and its rather unimpressed patriarch (Downton Abbey's Hugh Bonneville in frowningly frumpy mode).

But within hours of arriving in London, Paddington catches the eye of Millicent (an icy and somewhat wooden Nicole Kidman) who's got plans for this little bear...

Paddington loses some of the sweet sophistication that blessed the books and the 1970s TV series narrated by Michael Horden in its transition to the 21st Century. In one scene in a bathroom the bear goes into full-on comedy scapegoat that would have been blessed with naivety back then but is now a series of CGI silliness aimed squarely at the youngsters.

It's a shame because King's uses some truly stunning directorial flourishes to great effect - in one, to illustrate the passing of time the Brown's downstairs is decorated with trees and blossom on their walls which wafts away leaving winter-time branches. Elsewhere Paddington watches a black and white film of his home and walks into the image, meshing with the Peruvian rainforests. These are truly remarkable touches in an otherwise relatively normal film.

The much-derided innuendo that caused an uproar in the UK smacks merely of traditional pantomime and seems a trite accusation to level at it.

Whishaw proves the perfect casting choice for the bear with his vocals mixing up innocence, childish naivety and misunderstanding that may have stood out more with the original choice of Colin Firth who consciously uncoupled from the movie. Equally Bonneville channels the usual depiction of an uptight Londoner in a city which always rains but somehow looks beautiful in the continual cinematic stereotyping of the capital, but he's likeable enough.

However, Kidman's icy wooden presence is an unwelcome addition to the bland family movie - while there has to be a villain in this origin story, she sticks out like a sore thumb thanks to some awful writing and lack of anything. Certainly, the denouement at the British museum feels formulaic and betrays some of the sparkle of what goes before.

Overall, this new Paddington may offend some fans of the original series and its innocent ways, but there's a reverence to the source material and a pleasant warmth in this unmistakably British bland flick that will ensure it's the go-to-movie for families over the festive period.

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Annie: Film Review

Annie: Film Review

Cast: Quvenzhane Wallis, Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz, Rose Byrne, Bobby Cannavalle, David Zayas
Director: Will Gluck

It's a hard knock life indeed.

Not just for the foster kids of Annie, but for anyone heading to see this relatively bland musical movie this coming festive season.

Gone is the renowned ginger kid (aside from an opening scene quirk of writing, aimed at cocking a snook at what used to be) and in is Beasts of the Southern Wild star Quvenzhane Wallis as the foster kid, who's full of pluck, smart-aleck charm and a propensity to burst out into song.

When Annie's rescued from being run down by mobile entrepreneur and mayoral hopeful, Will Stacks (Foxx) she's thrust into the limelight thanks to Stacks' approval ratings being boosted by his selfless act. But as Annie starts to become a part of  the germophobic Stacks' life, he starts to realise there is more to life than what he'd thought - but will he lose Annie forever?

Yes, the sun will indeed come out tomorrow.

If only to show those involved in this goofily energetic piece so imbued with a rap music /street vibe musicality that there is fresh hope of any semblance of life after Annie.

Granted, if you're on a sugar high or on some kind of medication, this unshakably perky take on the musical (complete with final act car chase and auto-tuning thrown in!) may well appeal thanks largely in part to Wallis' sincere take on the lil orphan Annie. Playing it remarkably seriously all the way through (with the odd exception of overt irritation), Wallis manages to convince you of the orphan's quest to find her parents when all around her seem to have stumbled in from some kind of pantomime.

Worst offender is Cameron Diaz's Hannigan, who "looks after" the foster kids for cash. Kicked out of C&C Music Factory (yes, really) just before they made it big, she's a booze-swilling panto dame whose bitterness at losing her big break is as evident as her flat singing during her big number "Little Girls".

Equally, Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavalle seem to have issues reaching the right notes as the show goes on, with both their big scenes being let down by their vocal talents. As the Daddy Warbucks figure, Foxx is earnest enough to try and pull the sentimental Annie out of the mire, but it's the mix of tones that doesn't quite fit to the big screen. Granted, the comedy of Annie is part of the appeal of the stage show, but the emotion here doesn't translate as well in this formulaic attempt at family feel-good for the holidays.

Dished up with a big side of cheese, Annie is only worth seeing for Wallis, who manages to rise above with her reputation relatively intact.

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The Young and Prodigious TS Spivet: Movie Review

The Young and Prodigious TS Spivet: Movie Review

Cast: Kyle Catlett, Helena Bonham Carter, Callum Keith Rennie
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Mixing visual whimsy with the road trip genre, acclaimed director Jeunet concocts something nostalgic and yet timeless in The Young and Prodigious TS Spivet.

Newcomer Catlett is Spivet, the very definition of precociousness. Living on a ranch with his family in Montana, this prodigy finds his life changed when he's called by the Smithsonian Museum who ask to induct him because of an invention that he created.

Without telling his parents, Spivet packs a bag and sets out on a journey for the accolade - but also to claim some kind of personal redemption for events past.

The Young and Prodigious TS Spivet has a beautiful eye for nostalgic detail and moments of a childhood in America's mid-west, mixed in with perfect flights of fantasy and imbued with a sweetly tragic undercurrent.

Catlett is given a hard job for the final third of the film but manages the right mix of innocence and tragedy when called upon to deliver the Smithsonian speech. He also captures a vein of ribald childish cheekiness when needed such as with an encounter with a policeman where he corrects the cop for misuse of language, without realising his attitude could cause more trouble.

But The Young and Prodigious TS Spivet is more concerned with the visuals with Jeunet bringing his famed eye for beautiful vistas and also quirky visual tics. With maps, pop-up books and illustrations floating around the screen (and likely to look the full monty in 3D), there's plenty of visual treats to tickle the eyeballs. Jeunet regular Dominique Pinon adds to his repertoire of eccentric characters, completing the director's requirements.

All in all, The Young and Prodigious TS Spivet is a child-like road trip of visual whimsy in many ways; but when it comes down to it, it all stands on the shoulders of the Macauley Culkin-esque young Catlett who more than adequately rises to the occasion to give this the emotional pull and the gravitas that it needs.

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Transformers: Age Of Extinction: Blu Ray Review

Transformers: Age Of Extinction: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Universal Home Ent

TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION begins after an epic battle left a great city torn, but with the world saved.  As humanity picks up the pieces, a shadowy group reveals itself in an attempt to control the direction of history…while an ancient, powerful new menace sets Earth in its crosshairs.

With help from a new cast of humans (led by Mark Wahlberg), Optimus Prime and the Autobots rise to meet their most fearsome challenge yet.  In an incredible adventure, they are swept up in a war of good and evil, ultimately leading to a climactic battle across the world.

This time around, following the mass destruction in Chicago inTransformers 3, the Autobots are being hunted down in a series of black ops raids, headed by Kelsey Grammar's conniving Harold Attinger who's in cahoots with robot bounty hunter Lockdown.

When Mark Wahlberg's Cade Yeager, an inventor (go with it, it's Michael Bay's world) and single struggling father, finds the battered and beaten truck Optimus Prime, he inadvertently brings him back to life - and brings the fight directly to his door and his daughter Tessa....

Transformers : Age of Extinction is exactly what you would expect from the fourth in a series that's not exactly set the world alight in terms of character-driven plot.

In some ways, this latest is a reboot with a new group of humans brought into the fold; but it's the usual fare of noble speeches about what it means to be human, loyalty and mass scale destruction, packaged up in an overly bloated FX fest.

And this does go on; in its 2hour 45minute run time, it feels like the story will never end as one video game level moment is tenuously linked to the next, with each full stop being a set piece of destructive Bayhem.

Not content with smashing up Chicago and putting his humans in a post 9/11 world where humans are encouraged to dob in any robots they see (it can't be a coincidence that a lot of the early scenes have the American flag flying high wherever possible and the robots are on a pack of cards a la Saddam Hussein), Bay turns his attention to getting the gang into China under the most tenuous of circumstances but no doubt to appeal to the lucrative Far East market.

Lunk-headed it may be, and with an over-reliance on slow mo action shots and an ear-shattering score, but there's no denying Bay knows how to do a set piece (even if the pre-requisite tensions are missing due to good characters). Instead of speeding up the action, Bay gives some scenes the benefit of breathing and thereby providing the IMAX with some visual treats.

However, Bay brings his usual level of depth to the plot; bringing into the world a new element called Transformium, turning the initial bad guy of the piece Joshua Joyce (a great turn by the eminently watchable Stanley Tucci) into a comedy caricature full of ham and throwing into the father / daughter mix a boyfriend (Jack Reynor) who has zero charm and exists simply to shoe horn tension into the piece.

Granted, you don't do a Michael Bay film for characters and banal dialogue (One line - "Contracts are like humans - they expire"), but for the action and while Bay delivers the mechanical mayhem and catastrophic carnage in spades, there are moments when the film feels like it's going on for much longer than is remotely necessary. 

Certainly, there's a juncture where it feels like two films have been sandwiched together with a weak story plot and the dinosaur ex machina won't satisfy some as the Bayhem never ends and the Transformer legacy hokum is extended (a final sequence hinting at more to come)

The problem with Transformers: Age of Extinction is that it's a soulless experience, with the ideas that the human race has turned on the Autobots and their place in the universe is threatened wildly unexplored and traded for reams of action sequences that do nothing to really service the plot. 

While the human element (particularly Nicola Peltz - even if she is just in short shorts and spends most of the movie being leered at by Bay's camera) goes someway to expunge the likes of Megan Fox and Rosie Huntington-Whitely from the Transformers memory, this latest outing for the franchise doesn't feel like it actually brings anything radically new to the table. It lacks a real cohesion for the plot and as a result, makes the whole thing feel like a slog determined to visually beat you into submission rather than a blockbuster pleasure.

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Housebound: DVD Review

Housebound: DVD Review

Rating: R13
Released by Vendetta Home

Writer / director Gerard Johnstone's inventively witty Housebound is already picking up accolades - both here and abroad.

With SXSW success and NZIFF Festival director Bill Gosden's praise ringing in its ears, the mash up of horror and comedy stars Morgana O'Reilly as Kylie, a sullen woman placed on home detention after a particularly Kiwi robbery goes somewhat awry.

Confined to the house with her mother Miriam (a sensational Rima Te Wiata), rebel without a cause Kylie discovers there are more horrors than just dial up broadband and regular dollops of Coro to contend with after she hears her mum talking about how she believes the house is haunted.

With a security guard Amos in tow, Kylie begins to investigate the spooky goings on...

Housebound serves up a riotous mix of shock moments, suspenseful scenes and bang on gags.

With a delicious premise and an awe-inspiring treatment of the genres, director Johnstone's infused his script by way of The Innkeepers, The Frighteners, a hint of Beetlejuice and a gory dollop of Kiwi blood and guts' homage to Sir Peter Jackson's earlier works.

But as well as infusing these all together, he's done something uniquely kiwi as well as making a film which universally accessible, thanks to O'Reilly's sullen Kylie, Glen Paul-Waru's brilliant Amos and Te Wiata's perfectly shrill and cuckolding mother.

With an eye for great one-liners ("You can't punch ectoplasm" to name but one) and a burgeoning trademark in suspenseful set ups and masterfully subtle execution, Housebound is an absolute riot, an unashamed blockbuster treat and a triumph of film-making (let's leave the New Zealand out of this one, eh?)

The pay-off is cleverly constructed and the final sequences deliver and wrap up everything that was promised so deliciously throughout the comic beats.

As infectious as Ghostbusters was all those years ago, Johnstone's flair for the comic paranormal and grip on the various genres he's paying homage to treads the right balance between out and out scares and good time humour.

Housebound's spookily and truly unmissable - it's assured massive success and shows that Kiwi film-makers don't always have to examine their own navel to create some great cinema.

Extras: Deleted scenes, Commentary

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Guardians of the Galaxy: Blu Ray Review

Guardians of the Galaxy: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Sony Home Ent

Finally, after the Marvel Universe has spent its last few outings hinting at a world beyond our own, it heads out into the Universe - and as a result, breathes new life into the Marvel franchiseafter the likes of Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and The Avengers threaten to become too Earth-bound with their obsessions.

Chris Pratt stars as brash adventurer Peter Quill aka Star Lord, abducted by aliens when he was young and had just lost his mother. Complete with a Walkman full of 80s tunes and a cocky swagger (Han Solo / Indiana Jones anyone?), Quill finds himself the object of a bounty hunt after making off with an orb sought by Lee Pace's Ronan, a despot who wants to destroy everything in his path.

It's this hunt which puts him in the sights of beautiful green skinned assassin Gamora (a kick-ass Saldana), psychopathically enhanced Rocket Raccoon (a CGI creation voiced by Bradley Cooper), his protector the tree Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), as well as Drax The Destroyer (Bautista).

Forced to team up, this ragtag bunch of squabbling and quipping misfits are determined to save the day when Ronan's ambitions threaten the entire galaxy...

Essentially, the plot of Star Wars redux with a mash of every 80s film you can think of (even the legend of Footloose is tossed in there), Guardians of the Galaxy is a space adventure which benefits from not taking itself too seriously at all.

Eschewing the brooding of the Earth set Avengers in favour of plenty of action, humour and general lightness of tone, Guardians of the Galaxy simultaneously succeeds in expanding the Marvel Universe and introducing a great new set of characters to it, who bristle with unpredictability and hints of chaos. This is not a team that has superpowers to fall back on most of the time, may not succeed with their plans and bicker affectionately along the way.

But it also benefits from a large dose of heart in places; Quill's determination to cling to the Walkman and the mix tapes his mother made for him is a lovingly poignant touch, a way into his past and a nostalgia the older parts of the audience will recognise.

The group have a great chemistry (particularly thanks to Bradley Cooper's scene-stealing Rocket Raccoon) and synergy together and off-set the po-faced and overly serious nature of Ronan and his gang. Former Doctor Who companion Karen Gillan impresses as cyborg Nebula, even if she is slightly underwritten. Even Thanos shows up to link the last lot of film, but he's casually tossed aside as an irrelevance to the plot and inadvertently loses some of his menace because of it.

If there are echoes of previous film's denouements and big final act action pieces, it's probably to be expected given how Marvel is all about spectacle and team building. A final sequence of ramming home the message very nearly chokes the film - but even with this cinematic deja vu, former Troma director James Gunn handles it all with a certain directorial aplomb, never losing sight of the fun and action of the piece throughout - and creating some truly stunning space visuals.

But it's Pratt's film for the taking. And it sees him seize his chance to soar as an occasionally vulnerable lead, who's always ready with a quick comment and a self-knowing wink (he describes the orb as a Ark of the Covenant / Maltese falcon type) in any given situation. For Star-Lord, this is a charismatic star-making turn - along with his colleagues - that suggest Quill's future is assured (even with hints of more personal discoveries to come).

Oh, and stick around for the now obligatory post-credits sequence - it fits perfectly with the 80s kitsch colourful vibe, even if it does little to advance the ongoing Marvel threads.

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The Water Diviner: Film Review

The Water Diviner: Film Review

Cast: Russell Crowe, Olga Kurylenko, Jai Courtney, Yilmaz Erdogen
Director: Russell Crowe

As we approach the 100th anniversary of the ANZAC involvement in Gallipoli, it's only natural that Aussie actor Russell Crowe would feel the pull of life behind the camera with this, his directorial debut.

Set four years after the devastation of Gallipoli in Turkey in World War I, Aussie farmer Connor (a bearded, understated and relatively muted Crowe) is struggling to cope with the loss of his three MIA sons. When his wife succumbs to her grief, Connor decides enough is enough and packs up to head to Turkey to try and find out once and for all what happened to them and to fulfill her dying wish they all be buried together.

Initially rejected by the army (including Dan Wyllie's stereotyped straight down the middle-chocks-away general), but with a cause taken on by Jai Courtney's moustachioed and stoic Lt-Colonel, Connor ignores the rebuttal and heads to Istanbul regardless - forging a relationship with Ayshe, a Turkish woman whose husband is also missing post- Gallipoli.

The Water Diviner is a heady mix of the creative and the occasionally cheesy.

Crowe's peppered his pictorial premiere behind the lens with a preponderance of war flashbacks and slow mo shots that somewhat pile on the emotion and manipulation as this bond of brothers story and overwrought melodrama plays out.

Olga Kurylenko feels a little wooden initially as Ayshe, taking time to settle in and awkwardly feeling like a potential romance / friendship was shoe-horned into proceedings that are based on true events, and their interactions slow down the piece. Equally, a scene where Connor uses that most Aussie of icons (currently), the cricket bat to take out a squadron of Greeks about to execute some Turkish soldiers rankles rather than triumphs. And Connor's ability to divine where his children have fallen (interlaced as it is with flashbacks to the sons at war) causes more head-scratching than actual emotional heft.

And yet, there are some flourishes in among the crowd-pleasing which really do mark The Water Diviner out as something a little different.

Crowe starts the film from behind the Turkish lines, wrong-footing you into believing we're watching Aussies; sequences in the actual trenches are visceral and like repeated blows to the stomach as they show the true horror of hand-to-hand combat; and throwaway shots like a mountain of bones clutch at more disgust than any lingering shot could ever achieve.

It's the understated moments which are the more moving and powerful within The Water Diviner.

Aided by a strong performance from Crowe as the father-on-a-mission and interactions with Turkish actor Yilmaz Erdogen have a resonance that's lacking in scenes with Kurylenko and the bureaucratic Wyllie, The Water Diviner proves to be a solid directorial debut from the usually brash Crowe.

However, a dialling down of the more manipulative elements, a pulling back of the over-egging of the emotional pudding and an avoidance of the cheesier could have seen this Water Diviner strike cinematic gold - instead, we're left with a film that's occasionally evocative and moving but fails to fully soar as it quests to be a fitting and different piece for the 100th commemorations of the ANZAC involvement in Gallipoli.

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