The Imitation Game: Movie Review

The Imitation Game: Movie Review

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Mark Strong, Charles Dance, Rory Kinnear
Director: Morten Tyldum

Perhaps it's fitting that a movie about the cracking of the Enigma code tries to serves up the cracking of a character who's an enigma himself to many.

Benedict Cumberbatch is Alan Turing in this biopic that never really scratches the surface of the character as it chooses to concentrate on Turing and his peers trying to save the day at Bletchley Park during World War II.

The film starts with Turing being investigated by police (headed up by sympathetic Rory Kinnear) after a burglary at his home - Turing's stand-offish behaviour and insistence that nothing's been stolen actually provokes the police to dig deeper into the case and his background.

While the kernel of the story focuses on Turing's initiation into the Bletchley Park world and his inability to work with others thanks to a sense of superiority, flashbacks to Turing's early days and love at a boarding school and flashforwards to the police investigation dizzy up the narrative, that's swamped with newsreel footage of the war effort and Hitler's relentless push towards dear old Blighty.

And that's the majority of the problem of The Imitation Game.

The first half of the film is formulaic, by-the-numbers Oscar-baiting period piece which lacks a frisson of excitement and a depth of character. While Cumberbatch soars as Turing (more on that in a moment), those who swirl around him are lazy stereotypes ripped from a Boys' Own novella.

There's the suave mysterious head of an unknown MI6 (Mark Strong), the suave cad that clashes with Turning (played by Matthew Goode), the military leader who answers to nobody but Churchill (Charles Dance) and the woman who's better than the men (Keira Knightley) - all of these are simply sketched dancers who pirouette around Turing's troubled genius and ultimately, end up dancing to the mad man's tune.

But amongst it all is a truly impressive character turn by the chameleonic Benedict Cumberbatch. To say that he inhabits the role and overtakes the screen is a massive understatement. Essentially playing a variant of Sherlock's intellectual superiority, inability to suffer those whom he perceives as fools and arrogance with a dash of A Beautiful Mind's genius thrown in, Cumberbatch's fiery genius Turing tears up the screen - but at the cost of those around him unfortunately, who thanks to formulaic underwriting fare less well.

And it is parts of the writing that really make the film suffer; the flashbacks to the youth and flashforwards narratively don't mesh and integrate as well as they could, leaving a dramatic frisson and depth unexplored. Equally, Turning's homosexuality is merely subtly hinted at which is fine for some but for a picture that aims to expunge history's view of him seems like a major oversight thanks to hints and broad brush strokes. The single moment of drama only comes with the cracking of the Enigma code - though you suspect here the drama is piled on for drama's sake and artistic licence.

The Imitation Game really feels like an imitation of a formulaic biopic; there are manipulative moments of swelling music that seek to orchestrate your feelings and the decision to hold off from truly delving deeply into its subject proves to be a crippling flaw. It's only thanks to Benedict Cumberbatch's dizzyingly mesmeric turn that the film rises out of a potential mire.

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Dr Who: Series 8: Blu Ray Review

Dr Who: Series 8: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by BBC and Roadshow Home Ent

The Doctor will see you now - but perhaps, you're not ready.

In this latest season, Peter Capaldi takes over from the relative zippyness of Matt Smith to bring a darker and slightly grumpier take on the Time Lord.

In this string of adventures, the Doctor's faced with a very old enemy, some old friends and a series of new stories (which are of varying quality). From the opener, Deep Breath to the closing Death in Heaven, there's plenty of scope this time around for difference.

Capaldi is scratchy, almost unlikeable as the Doctor, with his TimeLord spending most of the series pondering whether he's a good man or not; it's an interesting idea and one that certainly warrants exploration particularly given some of his actions throughout, with moments making him appear callous and cold. It's a shock to those who've appreciated the man as the enduring hobo with a love for humanity, but it's good to see the writers going elsewhere.

However, this series belongs to Jenna Coleman, whose Clara has a more interesting journey, and a narrative which is compelling and sees her open to a warmer writing and a more approachable nature. Sadly though a love interest thrust upon her doesn't quite hit the mark and doesn't hit the emotional high for what's needed come the end of the season.

Notable episodes are Listen, which sees Moffat go back to basics, Flatline which is really Coleman's tour de force and Dark Water which deliciously sets up a finale which doesn't quite deliver.

All in all, an interesting year for ideas but in the execution the TARDIS hasn't quite hit its mark. Year 2 of Capaldi's reign could be a very interesting one indeed.

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Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham: PS4 Review

Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham: PS4 Review

Platform: PS4
Released by Travellers Tales / Warner Bros Interactive

It's back to the world of the little blocks and the superheroes we go with Lego Batman 3 - but this time around, the DC Universe comes into play.

Batman and Robin are the main heroes of the game, but there's just a little more scope this time around as Brainiac shows up and takes on the Lantern team as well. It all kicks off with Bats and Robin innocently hunting down Killer Croc in the sewers before things take a turn for the predictable with the appearance of the Joker.

However, when Brainiac comes into play, that's really when the game starts to move its focus outside the world of the Caped Crusader and is all the better for it. It's your usual LEGO fare though; break the items, collect the studs, collect the characters, but it's the wealth of material this time around which really adds to the universe feeling well populated and the characters really taking the positions they rightfully deserve on their stages.

Collectable suits work for them all too; and with plenty of collectible material, a heap of upcoming DLC and so much to do, there's a chance that this could be a little overwhelming in total. But that's the thing with the LEGO Games - they never lose sight of their humour throughout and adding in little Adam Wests to be saved from the game is also a nice touch as well.

With a Bat Mite character from the past on hand to help you out, there's never really the danger that you'll become totally stuck with the game - and sometimes thinking laterally and literally will help as well.

Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham may not break the little plastic mould; but it's great childish fun for the DC fan and anyone who's serious enough about platforming game. With so much to do and so many options to redo it, the chances are you'll keep playing this for a long time to come.

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Into The Woods: Film Review

Into The Woods: Film Review

Cast: James Corden, Emily Blunt, Meryl Streep, Anna Kendrick, Johnny Depp, Chris Pine, Tracey Ullman, Daniel Huttlestone
Director: Rob Marshall

A veritable Venn diagram of fairy-tales collide on the big screen in this version of the Stephen Sondheim /  James Lapine Tony Award-winning musical, starring Meryl Streep as a blue-haired witch.

Centring on James Corden and Emily Blunt's baker and their wife, the story tells of how the pair try to reverse a witch's curse that has left them childless. Given the quest of collecting four items to revoke the spell, the duo heads off into the woods, encountering famous fairy-tale characters like Cinderella, Jack, Rapunzel and Little Red Riding Hood on the way.

Into The Woods is a film of two halves. (Much like the musical in many ways)

The first hour is an irreverent, amusingly self-mocking look at the various stories and one which comes out of the stables firing on all cylinders, providing laughs, creepiness (Johnny Depp's cameo as the Big Bad Wolf is deeply unsettling) and setting the tone for the movie as it builds up to Happily Ever After aka the Disney norm - and what comes after.

Corden and Blunt have an affability that's endearing from the get go to the moment the shock-haired witch blows their bakery door down and reveals the deception within their world. Streep's compelling enough in the first hour, and commands most of the time she's on screen. Equally, Pine amuses in his OTT turn as the Prince, a blackguard whose hamminess is matched only by his poster boy poses and riffing on the perception of the Prince in fairy tales as a dishy dreamboat whose bravery is superseded by his ego.

But it's the second half of Into The Woods which really lets itself down - possibly due to the slavish debt to its source material. Characters we've been asked to care for in the build up are casually tossed to one side or dismissed as the Giant's widow attacks. And the glut really starts to kick in too, with the energy levels falling quickly as we lurch toward the finish line. However, the holes really show as emotional exits fail to hit any such note and blink-and-you'll-miss-them endings are wasted as the blandness of some of the characters comes through. Costuming and music impress though, with Streep's impressive charisma and relative presence being the main takeaway of Into The Woods.

Unfortunately though, when the pace drops, the paper-thin nature of the characters and the relative blandness of their actors seeps uncomfortably to the fore leaving you lamenting the fact the film feels overlong and unnecessarily stuffed to the gills with moments that miss the mark rather than seizing them.

If you go Into The Woods today, you may be in for a mixed ride.

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Game of Thrones: Fire and Ice: Episode 1: PS4 Review

Game of Thrones: Fire and Ice: Episode 1: PS4 Review

Platform: PS4
Released by Telltale Games

It's to the world of Westeros we go for Telltale Games' latest TV based outing. (The last being the very successful Walking Dead series)

And once again, the studio proves that by dedicating its MO to storyline over any other kind of CGI shenanigans or slight of hand tricks, that there's gold to be had in the roleplaying elements of the series.

Using their tried and tested point and click way of gameplay, the series concentrates with the House of Forrester, a family not yet introduced in to the TV Series but mentioned very briefly in one of the novels, A Dance With Dragons.

Once again, choice is a relative illusion in these outings as every single decision you make has consequences; taking on the role of a squire Gared after witnessing the start of the events of The Red Wedding (to those spoiler phobes, this is not a game to appreciate without some knowledge of what's passed already). And herein lies some of the thrill of Game Of Thrones: Fire and Ice: Episode 1 - the way TV event from the show pass through and intersect, as well as characters.

In terms of look and feel, Game of Thrones doesn't quite have the graphical pull of the previous outings from Telltale Games - while it looks and plays like a Game of Thrones novel, the fact it looks more cartoony than previous outings (which were based on graphic novels and fables) gives the piece somewhat of an odd feeling. However, as ever with Telltale's MO, it's about atmosphere and story. And once again the studio's got it spot on.

The greatest success of Game of Thrones: Fire and Ice: Episode 1 is the way it effortlessly adds to the world of Westeros which you already know. Deepening the experience was never going to be easy, but given the twists and turns that this journey starts off on (best to be relatively unspoiled) it's fair to say future episodes are going to build on that world and totally engross you in the upcoming way it plays out.

I for one cannot wait.

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The Interview: Film Review

The Interview: Film Review

Cast: Seth Rogen, James Franco, Randall Park, Lizzy Caplan
Director: Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen

"I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore"

Peter Finch in the movie Network and the hackers who threw Sony into disarray have a lot in common in The Interview, which has been the target of either a very smartly chaotic marketing plan or the embodiment of all that is evil in the cinema.

However, with all manner of pre-publicity and talk threatening the launch of The Interview, it's certainly gathered some momentum, with shades of the rather un-PC Team America and South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut thrown in for good measure.

James Franco once again over-acts as the sharp-suited, false-smiling Dave Skylark, the presenter of a news talk show that deals more in tittle tattle than hard news (witness Eminem coming out on the show and Rob Lowe revealing he wears a wig in obligatory self-deprecating cameos) but scores big in the ratings.

However, his behind-the-scenes guy Aaron Rappaport (Seth Rogen in usual laid-back stoner form) is rattled when at a celebration for 1,000 episodes, another news show producer rails at him for the cheap and tawdry nature of his show.

But the manchild boys are thrust into the limelight when they discover that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un is a fan of the show and has granted them an interview. As they prep to head to Pyongyang, the CIA (lead by a largely sidelined Lizzy Caplan) demands they kill Jong-Un for the good of the world....

The Interview is as scabrous, puerile and as scatalogical as you'd expect from the team who brought you Pineapple Express.

Ineptitude and goofiness, as well as all things anal consume the uneven script as Franco and Rogen continue their on-screen bromance to largely comic effect. Mixing in racism and a sly piece of satire on the state of the Buzzfeed and continuing celeb obsession of our culture, The Interview works as a piece of comedy that's designed to entertain, occasionally offend and nothing else.

Franco's over-acting initially grates, but proves to be the perfect antidote to the situation in Pyongyang as the star-struck Skylark falls under the spell of Randall Park's apparently insecure, margherita loving, Katy Perry Firework adoring, B-balling Jong-Un (sound familiar, Dennis Rodman?); his resistance to carry out the assassination plays nicely against Rogen's uptight caught-in-the-headlights stooge and gives the comedy the broadness and low-hanging fruit it panders to. Their continued eminent likeability helps you through the odd moment that feels crass and base as this frat-based relationship head abroad.


Caplan's horrendously sidelined in a film that throws out the line "This Is 2014, women are smart now", so perhaps that's a blessing; and Park deserves some credit as the Supreme Leader, channeling moments of Dr Evil-like insecurity, general madness and adding more of a dimension to a character that could have just been a broad parody. Even America and their domestic policy comes under scrutiny, so the writers have ensured that it's not just North Korea who's in the firing line.

With a third act that goes for as much violence and a slow-mo helicopter destruction shot that's clearly going to upset the North Korean leader and nation, The Interview has nowhere to go but up its own butt (an analogy I expect those involved in the film will delightfully relish) and into familiar OTT action territory.

And yet, it's unshakably funny, ribald and pointless to rail against The Interview.

Rogen, Franco and Goldberg have certainly got some cinematic balls to take this on given the furore that Sony's currently enduring; but they've got some even bigger balls to have produced something that manages to avoid the majority of its excesses and turn them into something that seems tame in comparison to outrage that's been levelled at it.

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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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