Blade of The Immortal: DVD Review

Blade of The Immortal: DVD Review

For his 100th feature, director Miike Takeshi has reached for the epic, and ended up in the cartoonish.

With plenty of choreographed samurai mayhem and blood and slicing a-plenty, it's the story of Kimura Takuya's Manji. Manji's cursed to live as an immortal after being healed by a witch following a fight to take down those who killed his sister in front of him.

Opening with a 11 minute pre-titles sequence that sets the stall out with gusto (fights and humour, including a line about how something's not a rice ball, but a horse turd), give you an indication of what lies ahead in this 141 minute film. Though, as the film goes on, it does feel like it needs more of this.

Hired years later as a bodyguard to someone called Rin who looks uncannily like his sister, Manji has to slice and dice his way through retribution, conspiracy, revenge and superstition.

Based on a Manga series and with an ethos that's more crowd-pleasing than arthouse fare, Blade of The Immortal is a film to wallow in rather than to over-analyse.

In many ways, Miike's 100th film is a traditional film; one with minimal dialogue that concentrates on the action and gives those who love the genre exactly what they'd want - and more.

A little long in the tooth in parts and with perhaps one too many slow narrative bits to balance out the action, it's more a film of atmospherics that genre fans will lap up and adore, rather than attracting new admirers to the cause.

But its ethos of revenge and vengeance is a universal one to savour and Miike's desire to expertly capture everything as it unfolds means that it's certainly going to have a cult appeal and be adored by those who already love the genre. 

Red Sparrow: Film Review

Red Sparrow: Film Review

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Jeremy Irons, Charlotte Rampling, Joely Richardson
Director: Francis Lawrence

Based on the first of Jason Matthews' trilogy of books, Red Sparrow unfortunately struggles to make a real case for further escapades to be filmed.

Lawrence stars as ballet star Dominika Egrova, whose career is cut short by a tragic accident - though it seems suspicious, the first of Red Sparrow's weaker attempts to set up ongoing mystery and subterfuge.

When her shady uncle (Schoenaerts, surely no coincidence that he looks like Putin with his pushed down hair and pallid complex) approaches her offering a chance of money, she's thrust into the world of espionage, via way of training in Sparrow school.

Headed by Rampling's icy matron, Sparrow school dehumanises its subjects and teaches them to use themselves as weapons in the fight for the motherland and against the invaders.

Soon, Dominika is assigned her first task - to infiltrate Joel Edgerton's CIA Agent Nate Nash's world as part of an international sting.

Extraordinarily stretched out into an over-long 135 minutes, Red Sparrow struggles to engage from the get go.

When viewed through the current prism of social concerns, it's a queasy watch with Lawrence's character feeling manipulated throughout, even though there's talk of her having free will to decide what to do.

It's never the case though, and with men who are varying degrees of creeps pulling the strings and sexually manipulating her, it's an odd feeling to sit through. It helps little that Lawrence delivers a cool, fierce and detached turn, with her aloofness proving as hard to thaw as the Russian snow which peppers some of the shots.

There's a steely feel to Lawrence's performance throughout, and in some ways, it's about a woman learning about control and growing, but it doesn't stop it feel less uncomfortable as time goes on. And while the end twists hint at more, the barbed treatment throughout makes it a difficult watch.

Edgerton has a grounded humanity to his role, but he and Lawrence fail to fire up the screen and consequently, parts of Red Sparrow feel robbed of the push and pull and tension that a good, gritty complex spy thriller should impart.

There are moments of good characters which shine through - Rampling's stoic turn in particular stands out, and there's a feeling of nuance and backstory which could easily lead to more.

Ultimately, the anti-climactic end of the Red Sparrow throws a shed-load of plot at frustrated and numbed viewers. While it doesn't pander to basil exposition to engage its audience, and tries for complex, what evolves is more muddled and muddied than anything.

My Life as a Zucchini: Blu Ray Review

My Life as a Zucchini: Blu Ray Review

Released by Madman Home Ent

Blessed with both poignancy and occasional humour,Claude Barras’s layered stop-motion drama My Life As A Zucchini is the sadly, nuanced and yet optimistic animated treat that you'd expect from the festival.

It's the story of Icare, or Courgette, as he'd rather be known. Living in his attic and collecting his bitter single mother's beer cans, tragedy befalls Courgette and he's sent to the local orphanage.

Befriended by the local policeman Raymond, Courgette tries to fit in with the other kids there. But it's not until the arrival of Camille that he starts to come to life.

Bathed in tragedy and with more darkness than you'd expect (murder suicide, abandonment, jailed parents, refugees, neglect) the gorgeously animated claymation film is a bittersweet treat.

There's an underlying sadness running through its veins that makes My Life As A Courgette the story of an orphan that has more in it than Oliver.

Odd lines here and there offer more than hints of the uncertain life faced by the older orphans (one opines that no one looks at the older children) and the hope they all have each time someone visits - it's heartbreaking stuff writ large on a wider canvas and yet, for family viewing, it's a sign that not every animation is rosy.

And yet in among the darkness, there's a playfulness at work too with the happier moments feeling like small victories in the day-to-day loneliness. Plus, it helps that Barras has made sure the adults in charge at the orphanage are actually normal, rather than the usual caricatures of nastiness.

There are plenty of adult touches and less rose-tinted glasses throughout, but the film never loses sight of the fact it's there to entertain as well.

A detour to the snow brings joy and frivolity to proceedings, and the sense of camaraderie is evident. With a luscious colour palette, the film looks great and yet also different with hues and animation feeling a little different from the norm.

Ultimately, My Life As A Courgette is a Euro treat that hints at much more adult and tragedy than you'd expect. But it does it in a way that never rams home the message but delivers it in the most powerful way it could. 

The Death of Stalin: Film Review

The Death of Stalin: Film Review

Cast: Jeffrey Tambor, Steve Buscemi, Simon Russell Beale, Michael Palin, Adrian McLoughlin, Jason Isaacs, Paddy Considine, Olga Kurylenko, Paul Whitehouse
Director: Armando Iannucci

Based on the graphic novel of the same name, Veep and The Thick Of It writer Armando Iannucci's The Death of Stalin is very much of the ilk of the TV series you'll be familiar with.

With Stalin's dictatorship in full force with hitlists being undertaken, fear rules Moscow in 1953.

No more so than in the echelons of power and the cabal that surrounds Stalin himself, thanks to his push of the Great Terror.

But when Stalin collapses and dies after receiving a recording of a symphony, the power vacuum that opens up sees years of fear and repression bubble over as his deputy Malenkov (Transparent former star Tambor) readies himself to take over.

However, he's not alone with NKVD head Beria (Beale) and Nikita Khruschev (Buscemi) scheming for the top job.

There's a level of absurdity obvious from the start in The Death of Stalin - and one which will feel very familiar to anyone who's sat through any of Iannucci's other satires, as those with inflated senses of power try to manipulate the deck chairs to their own benefit, and end up being hoist on their own petard.

However, as the madness and meanness grows in The Death of Stalin, Iannucci makes it difficult to empathise with any of those on screen, as the argument over which regime is better to follow comes to the fore. Which is no bad thing, as tragedy mixes along with some darkness.

At some point in The Death of Stalin, the jokes, such as they are, run dry and what you're left with is the horrible realisation that all of these people are monsters, desperate and determined to vault over each other via the knives recently supplanted in others' backs.

Farce takes place amid the backdrop of people being shot in the head, children raped - it all leaves a tartly depressing taste in your mouth.

This is gallows humour where actual gallows are more likely to be employed throughout, leading to a feeling of bleakness among the mirth, and one which at times, threatens to overwhelm the screen and your gut reaction to it.

Threaded through are the kind of intellectual superiority games which swirled in Yes Minister and the incessant political squawking and squabbling that Iannucci employs in The Thick of It, with Beale feeling very much like the manipulative Malcolm Tuicker in a historical role.

Allowing the actors to use their own accents and playing skewed versions of their characters (Isaacs in particular appears to have a ball playing Zhukov as a northern rough and tumble thug via a Sean Bean prism) proves to give the film a humanity that it needs.

It's not as gut-bustingly laugh-out-loud funny as you'd expect, but the underplaying covers the whole thing in a leering menace that's hard to shake.
Iannucci delights in the fleeting moments such as when a son is reunited with the father he sold to their authorities or the throwaway moment when conductor says you won't get shot but his uncertainty in his face tells more than it ever could.

Simon Russell Beale is particularly venal as Beria, and the darkness that he displays is as sickening in parts as the humour will allow and that the quick rapid-fire dialogue will give pace to. His is the character to watch from beginning to end, and it's to his credit that his ultimate end feels as discordant and unsettling as ever you'd feel for a monster.

The Death of Stalin is not exactly an omnishambles in any stretch of the imagination.

It is, instead, darkly sickening viewing as the life goes out of the political vacuum which emerges - its satire is a little more scattershot and harder to find among the bleakness, but Iannucci is to be complimented for the intelligent edges he's brought to the visualisation of the film - rather than allowing the farce to make light of the true terrors which blighted Russia.

Win a copy of Outlander Season 3

Win a copy of Outlander Season 3

OUTLANDER SEASON THREE

The third season picks up right after Claire (Caitriona Balfe) travels through the
stones to return to her life in 1948.

Now pregnant with Jamie's (Sam Heughan) child, she struggles with the fallout of her sudden reappearance and its effect on her marriage to her first husband, Frank (Tobias Menzies).

Meanwhile, in the 18th century, Jamie suffers from the aftermath of his doomed last stand at the historic battle of Culloden, as well as the loss of Claire.

As the years pass, Jamie and Claire attempt to make a life apart from one another, each haunted by the memory of their lost love.

To win a copy, all you have to do is email  your details to this  address: darrensworldofentertainment@gmail.com or CLICK HERE NOW!
OUTLANDER!

Competition closes April 4th

Murder On the Orient Express: Blu Ray Review

Murder On the Orient Express: Blu Ray Review

It's fair to say no-one loves Kenneth Branagh on the screen as much as Kenneth Branagh does behind the camera in the latest version of Murder On The Orient Express.

And while the lavish, star-studded affair looks sumptuous in its vistas, it narratively stutters to a halt around the same time the famed Orient Express derails.

For those unfamiliar with Agatha Christie's novel and the plot, it centres around the great Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Branagh, complete with hair lip) who tries to take some rest on a trip but finds himself called upon to solve a murder mystery on board the famed Orient Express.

When Johnny Depp's Ratchett is found stabbed to the death in his compartment on the train, it seems like everyone on board has some kind of motive to be involved.

However, the deeper Poirot delves, the more puzzling the case seems - can the self-professed greatest detective solve the mystery before the snowclad train begins its journey again?

While Murder on The Orient Express is lavishly shot on 65mm, and starts off dizzyingly with Poirot solving a case at the Wailing Wall (involving a priest, an imam and a rabbi, as the old joke apparently goes), the film comes a bit of a cropper when it starts to try and crack the conundrum.

It becomes clear that there are too many in the ensemble to give the film the time it needs to breathe - with a cast that numbers the likes of Michelle Pfeiffer, Daisy Ridley, Josh Gad, Dame Judi Dench and Sir Derek Jacobi to name but a few, the narrative groans under the strain of not enough time for any of them - other than Poirot himself. And some, such as Penelope Cruz's religious mouse get nary any oxygen needed to breathe any life upon the screen.

As a result, everyone becomes a bit of a once-over-lightly character - be it Depp's spiv-like villain or Dench's sneering Russian aristocrat.

It's not helped by the fact that the central mystery requires reams of exposition as the final reveal unmasks the culprit and motive.

To be fair, it's not Branagh's fault, merely the source material - and whilst most of the screen time is devoted to Poirot's bizarre chortling at Dickens or picking up his borderline OCD autistic tendencies, Branagh does also manage to imbue some wearied sadness into his eyes as he tries to escape the right and wrong of life.

Whilst his Poirot is perhaps not as iconic as David Suchet's portly moustachioed investigator, this one has a little more depth than perhaps you'd expect - and certainly doesn't have the flashiness of the modern day Sherlock Holmes, as depicted by Benedict Cumberbatch.

Perhaps therein lies an element of the problem as well - this is a film that's very much of its time, a period piece that has none of the accoutrements of a modern day adaptation other than perhaps a smattering of Hollywood's current glitterati. It's a curio on that front then, and one which modern day audiences may struggle with the pacing of (it goes distinctly off the boil in the middle).

While the film throws a cursory mention of a problem on the Nile in its conclusion, hinting at more for Belgium's greatest detective, one of the more infamous cases from the pen of Agatha Christie leaves you with a sad feeling of indifference.

Unfortunately, it's almost as if this Orient Express has been slightly derailed by narrative leaves on the line as it departs the cinematic platform.

Insidious: The Last Key: Film Review

Insidious: The Last Key: Film Review

Cast: Lin Shaye
Director: Adam Robitel

A final outing for the Insidious series sees the Blumhouse pile it low, return it high creativity hit a bit of a dead end.

Centring on the series' resident psychic Elise (Lin Shaye), the latest sees her called back to her family home to deal with the ghosts who are once again haunting the house. But unsurprisingly, she has her own demons to deal to as well.

Set up with a great prologue that delves deeper into Elise's background and shows that the cruellest of spirits actually dwell in the real world, the film decides to then settle for the usual mix of genre shocks and soundtrack related bumps as it continues its tale.

With a mix of comic relief thanks to two of Elise's sidekicks (one of whom looks like a schlubby Vincent Vega), the film tonally doesn't quite seem to know what exactly it wants to be.

Jumping back and forth between flashbacks to Elise's monstrous father, and then moving into family troubles in the present, complete with low rent atmospherics, Insidious: The Last Key doesn't seem to know what to do with its 74-year-old lead (a welcome change to the usual female in danger fare).

It's a shame, because at its heart, Insidious: The Last Key has a series of haunting moments (albeit mixed with a very bizarre Room-like twist) and the soundscape is certainly menacing enough, when it doesn't rely on the OST to provide all the bumps for the things in the night.

Shaye does various degrees of horrified as she wanders through a basement, but ultimately, Insidious: The Last Key doesn't really do or offer anything interesting with its histrionics and and tropes.

The most insidious thing about all this is how much it simply goes through the motions and wastes what opportunities it actually has to be a game changer.