Red Riding Hood – Review

May 7, 2011 5 Comments

Red Riding Hood (2011)

Directed by Catherine Hardwicke. Starring Amanda Seyfried, Gary Oldman, Billy Burke, Max Irons, Lukas Haas

One thought kept running through my mind while watching this film: “I’m so not the target audience.. I’m so not the target audience… I’m so not the target audience!!!”. Indeed research showed that 64 percent of Red Riding Hood’s audience was female, and 56 percent was under 25 years old.

That’s all right, nothing wrong with it. In fact I decided to accept that and actually embrace it.

I was going to stop being cynical and I tried my best to sit back and enjoy the ride as much as I possibly could, even if I rarely felt so out-of-place during a movie…

I tried to concentrate of the good things: the set design and the cinematography, for example, were both beautiful. Gary Oldman looked like he was having fun and, very aware of the silliness of the whole thing, seemed to have decided to match it all with unbelievably silly accent too. The rest of the cast too was competent enough: Julie Christie as the sinister, fur-twirling grandmother, an under-used Virginia Madsen as the slightly slutty Mother and of course Amanda Seyfried’s fragile near-ethereal beauty in the central role around which all the other many characters revolve.

I was almost ready to go with preposterousness of it. I could see what they were trying to do, as the incredibly good-looking young actors kept taking their shirts off and as the soundtracks kept switching from bland atmospherics, eery strings and occasional tribal drums to loud heavy (random) songs clearly aimed at teenagers (though I did wonder more than once, should a movie for teenagers have so many random songs where actually a score would have been 100 times better suited?).

I also decided to ignore the blatant attempts to ape the previous Twilight Movies, in the way the story was centered around a love triangle (Here too the girl at the centre of the story has to decide which of the two hot-looking-boys to go for), in its semi-horror themes (were-wolves galore this time here as opposed to vampires) and even in the use of the same director (Catherine Hardwicke) from the first Twilight and the same actor (Billy Burke) playing the same role of the father of our heroine (there was an interesting video entry on this on Mark’s Kermode Uncut Blog).

I even tried not to get distracted by the surge of laughter in the theatre at around 40 minutes into the film when our red-hooded-heroine who is cornered by the big wolf discovers he can speak and reacts to it with one of the worse delivered line in the film: “You can talk?!”. I was even going to excuse that too, and the many subsequent terrible lines of dialogue in the screen. “OK fine, the dialogue might not be too good, but…. But… But… And you know what!?! After a while I could not find any more “but”.

Are teenage girls really going to love this? Is the young generation really so stupid to fall for this?

I am happy to report that the answer is “NO”, if the box office figures are anything to go for the film didn’t really go too well. In fact, it underperformed right from its release date in the US (and estimated $14.1 million on 3,500 screens at 3,030 locations), showing that even the core-audience smelled cheat. And let’s not even mention the critics who have mostly panned this as a Twilight-light (and I thought Twilight was the lightest a film could be…).

The real problem with Red Riding Hood seemed to be that there is a clear discrepancy between what it is trying to be artistically (A modern slightly stylized execution of a fairy tale), the genre it is trying to follow (a horror for kids) and the type of audience for whom the marketing campaign decided it had to morph into.

In the end it just doesn’t work: it’s too silly for genre lovers, or those who were looking for something more refined like “in the company of the wolves” for example, and it’s too close to Twilight (almost like a copy of it); so much so that it actually even managed to annoy what was meant to be the core-audience. Also, it must be said, a lot of those Twilight lovers came from the original books, here it all just relies on the similarities with another saga.

It’s just a misjudged attempt. It misfires all the potential good things about it. It relied too much on the hopes to cash in on the success of the Twilight Movies and didn’t have enough conviction on its actual qualities, on the craftsmen behind it and on what this could have been if it had done with more maturity.

It will be interesting to see what the studios will learn from this lesson. They are they going to have to figure out how a better way to market this genre successfully as there are two versions of Snow White on the horizon, and Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters is currently in production.

5/10

Check out my review of the much better film: Snow White and the Huntsman

Filed under latest movies, Reviews Tagged with amandaseyfried, Billy Burke, Box Office, Catherine Hardwicke, garyoldman, Hansel and Gretel, Julie Christie, Mark Kermode, Max Irons, Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Twilight, Virginia Madsen

Insidious – Review

April 30, 2011 1 Comment

Insidious (2010)

Directed by James Wan. Starring Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Ty Simpkins

I’m going to be quite upfront in reviewing this film: the plot is preposterous, it has virtually no original ideas, it is a derivative from all sorts of films we’ve seen before, the end is ludicrous, and yet it scared the living daylight out of me, like very few films have managed to do in the last few years. Just for this reason I would recommend it to every horror/thriller fan out there. It is one of the most skilfully made horror I’ve seen in quite a while.

Director James Wan certainly knows how to create the most tense atmosphere out of a simple scene where a person is walking along a corridor. His mastery in the use of sound, in the use of music (or better, when to use music and when silence is a lot more powerful), the positioning of the camera is to be admired.

Wan clearly knows that the anticipation to an event could be a lot more powerful than the event itself. He knows that the fear of seeing the devil can be a lot scarier than the moment when the devil actually reveals himself.

There are some incredibly tense sequences (a particularly creepy one involving a baby monitor) throughout the whole first part of the film. There’s a constant sense of dread as the camera moves around the empty rooms of the house and when the scares come, they really make you jump, however expected some of them might be.

A lot of time is spent in building some believable characters and making the audience care about them (credits due to both Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne too of course) and it’s good to see the “usual sceptic” changing his mind and actually believing the supernatural.

The film looses a little bit of its edge and its eerie atmosphere once the supernatural get officially introduced, and yet even the reveal of the Devil (which is usually quite a let-down in any other horror films like this one) still manages to be incredibly unsettling. Since the script is a bit obvious and a photocopy of films like Poltergeist (including the Ghostbusters team and the not-so-reveal of the fact that it’s not a haunted house, but a possessed child), and of course the Exorcist, I can only deduce that it’s the direction of Insidious that really makes it work.

Of course, once the film is over and the lights are on, it’ll take you 2 seconds to realize that it was all pretty silly and it’s going to be a lot easier to dismiss it as junk (really scary horror films should really stay with you long after they finish), but while you’re in it I’m sure you’ll be as frighten as a little boy who hears a suspicious noise coming out of his closet at night…

6.5

Filed under latest movies, Reviews Tagged with Barbara Hershey, exorcist, horror, Insidious, James Wan, Leigh Whannell, Lin Shaye, Paranormal Activity, Patrick Wilson, Poltergeist, Rose Byrne, supernatural, thriller, Ty Simpkins

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec – Review

April 29, 2011 4 Comments

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec (2010)

Directed by Luc Besson. Starring Louise Bourgoin, Mathieu Amalric, Jean-Paul Rouve

Director Luc Besson finally returns to live action after a 6 years hiatus, though after watching this film, I wished he had waited a little bit longer.

The film is adapted from Jacques Tardi’s early ’70s comic book series, set in 1912 Paris: in fact it’s taken from 2 different adventures (the first one is the story-line about the pterodactyl and the second one about the mummies) and throughout the film there is so much going on that I really wished thinking they had sticked to just one of storylines.

The international posters sells “Adele Blanc-Sec” as a cross between Indiana Jones and Amelie (and that’s an already pretty bold and yet suspicious claim as the two films despite being both very good are surely quite incompatible with each other), but there are also hints from the Tintin strips and even reminders to Lara Croft herself.

The film certainly looks very stylish and quite expensive (though some of the CGI work looked a bit ropey): both the cinematography and the art direction are top-notch, as we’ve come to expect from Besson’s films. The 1900 Paris is recreated with ravishing details as the camera swoops along the many sets, and locations but unfortunately it’s the story-line that ultimately lets it all down.

The plot is so convoluted that in the end it takes all the fun away from what could have been quite an enjoyable experience.

It’s hard to see what the target audience for this film should be. Sometimes it is all so silly that you could be forgiven to think this is one for the kids, and yet the use of the voice over and the actual structure of the story both seem to aim at a much more mature type of audience (and let’s not even mention the completely gratuitous nudity, which is just baffling and really pointless).

There are individual some good scenes here and there (for example the Indiana-Jonesenque adventure in Egypt) which give you a glimpse of what the film could have been if it had sticked to a more simple genre.

But where the film really fails completely is in its comic timing (there’s one funny joke toward the end, to do with a certain pyramid in Paris…): the comic characters are so stupid and over the top that not only are more reminiscent of Inspector Clouseau from the Pink Panther films, but they somehow manage to diminish the impact of the rest of the film, especially from both the most poignant moments.

In the end it is very hard to take any of that seriously, or to care for any of the characters on the screen (despite a good performance by Louise Bourgoin, in the title’s main role). All you’re left is a sour taste about all that money wasted on a messy and flippant film which is all style and very little substance.

Mr. Spielberg, do watch it closely and learn your lessons for your your upcoming Tintin.

6.0/10

Filed under latest movies, Reviews Tagged with Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec, Indiana Jones, Jacques Tardi, Jean-Paul Rouve, Les Aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec, Louise Bourgoin, Luc Besson, Mathieu Amalric, Paris

Scre4m – Review

April 23, 2011 12 Comments

SCREAM 4 (2011)

Directed by Wes Craven. Starring Lucy Hale, Shenae Grimes, Dane Farwell, Anna Paquin, Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Courteney Cox, Hayden Panettiere, Emma Roberts, Rory Culkin, Adam Brody

Before I can begin even talking about this film I must give you a little bit of background… Allow me to go off on a tangent for a bit.

Back in 1996 Scream was a smart, ingenious and witty take on the slasher-films. It single-handedly re-vitalized the horror genre by re-defining its rules and by combining elements of thrills and comedy like few films had successfully done before (in fact I can only think of An American Werewolves in London).

At the time, we all fell for it, but still to this day that opening scene with Drew Barrymore is arguably one of the best executed, most intense and shocking sequences of any slasher/horror film… but also one of the cleverest too, with its many references to other horrors, the film was able to send all the old rules out of the window. It all felt fresh and new, terrifying and funny at the same time. In the end it was all ludicrous, but while with it I had a ball!

A year later, screenwriter Kevin Williamson and director Wes Craven re-teamed with Scream 2 and tried to do the same for slasher sequels. Some of the originality was obviously lost, the plot got more convoluted and far fetched and certainly the scares were a lot fewer, but Scream 2 had enough tongue and cheeks to get away with… murder!

Once Scream 3 came along in 2000, the formula seemed to have run out of stream. It was still quite entertaining, with its film-within-a-film formula, but even then we all knew that it could not go on.

Then all the various “Scary Movies” came along. Cheap, vulgar, spoofs that wanted to be as clever and funny as Airplane! but in fact got worse and worse as their numbers got bigger and bigger (number 5 is in development, according to imdb).

What had begun as a sort of “piss-take” of horror films was now the subject of spoofs. It became impossible to imagine how the “Scream” series could go on.

The only way for horror to move forward seemed to be the so-called “torture-porn” (the “Saw” series, Hostel (1&2), The Devil’s Rejects, Wolf Creek and so on…) or the “re-boot” of those 70s and 80s classic (Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre), all of which were bloodier and nastier than their original counterpart, but as it happened a lot less effective.

And now, 11 years after the Scream 3 closed its curtains (and 15 after the first one), Williamson, Craven and the main surviving cast from the originals, are all back in what’s promised to be a new trilogy (though it’s hard to see where they might take this new series after this already tired fourth installment).

But if their aim is to re-define the rules once again, this time for the new generation, they fail completely, as this feels just like a cash-in exercise and an excuse to revive something by re-hashing and regurgitating everything that we have already seen.

The main rule this time (or excuse) is that there are no rules! Or at least that’s the official line, because actually behind all the talk about going against the clichés and trying to ridicule the various the character-less horror of the last few years, there is actually very little new. There a sense of Déjà-vu throughout and (aside from its far fetched ending) it is all rather predictable in its non-predictability.

Back are the usual movie references, the many (too many) characters, most of them are just there so that they can be killed off at some point (and yes, the rating system has relaxed a lot more since the 90s, so the death sequences are gorier).

Williamson’s script spends a lot of time criticizing old clichés and paper-thin characters, but more often than not falls into the same pit (and I don’t really think it’s intentional). There are undoubtedly some clever remarks and, particularly if you are an horror fan, you’ll have fun in detecting all the various in-jokes and references (is the film really trying to say that nothing good has come out since the first Scream Trilogy?It seems a bit of a pompous remark, doesn’t it?); but clearly all this post-modernism is just a smokescreen, hiding the film’s real weaknesses as Scream 4 quickly falls into the same traps as the many films it’s referencing.

Admitting a theft (or a reference) may ease the conscience, but it certainly doesn’t make it OK, nor it makes it a good film.

The problem is that none of behind the scenes seems to know what this new generation really is like: yes, of course, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, webcams, torture porn and phone apps are all name-checked, at some point or another , but that’s it: they are just name-checked.

Never during the course of the film you get the feeling that this is really what kids are like. Their dialogue fits rather awkwardly in their mouths and they feel more like a version of what an older person might think kids are like. Their comments on the horror genre today is way too self-conscious and feels rather forced and heavy handed, but more importantly, they are always unrelated to the actual event of the films.

it’s as if Craven was saying: “Oh look, some jokes and references!… Ok, now let’s get on with the film”.

Everybody in Scream 4 seems to have the same voice: they are all horror-fans, they all quote movies, and they all know the rules of slasher films, whether it is policeman or a hot young teenager, of a nerdy blogger.

In the end it’s just like a big parody of itself, slightly funny but definitely not scary. The only way the film can make you jump is by relying on loud and sudden noises… Well, that’s not very hard is it?

This might be a film about horror films but it’s certainly not a horror film!

As I said, Scream 4 is not without enjoyment and the fans will certainly like to see familiar characters back, but that’s all the do: they are just back. They are very little developed among the over-crowded cast and they have very little to do.

And then when you think the film might finally have done something quite brave and unusual, towards what you might think is the end, you’ll be disappointed to find out that there is another 15/20 minutes coda which will bring back the clichés and will leave the door open for our tired characters to come back for a possible Scream 5.

It’s hard to see what it might add to the series, as this one added next to nothing. What a shame, I was so looking forward to this film!!!

I’m sure the making of the film itself (with all the re-write, people quitting, getting divorced, re-cast and re-shoots) must have been hundred times more interesting and new than the actual film itself.

6.0/10

Filed under latest movies, Reviews Tagged with Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Hayden Panettiere, Rory Culkin, Scream, Scream 4, Shenae Grimes, Wes Craven

Fair Game – Review

April 22, 2011 1 Comment

Fair Game (2010)

Directed by Doug Liman. Starring Naomi Watts, Sean Penn, Anand Tiwari, Michael Kelly, Ty Burrell

Fair Game was the only American film in competition at the Cannes Festival in 2010, and given its political message it comes to no surprise at all that it was selected by the French.

Based on the 2 memoirs by former U.S. ambassador Joseph Wilson (Sean Penn) and Valerie Plame Wilson (Watts), a CIA agent outed by White House officials, the movie tells how the couple were betrayed by the Bush administration and attacked by the media after Mr Wilson decided to publish an article on the New York Times called “What I didn’t find in Africa“.

In the article basically Mr Wilson accuses the White House of misrepresenting him and saying that he had found evidence of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction in order to sell the case for the imminent invasion of Iraq.

Fair Game is really split into two parts: the more urgent political thriller, as the pair undertake their respective fact-finding missions (obviously taken from his version of events), and the more emotional domestic suburban drama, charting the couple’s breakdown as their findings are manipulated by the White House (which must come from her memoirs).

Penn and Watts have already worked together twice before (21 Grams and The Assassination of Richard Nixon), and whenever together in this film, they convincingly managed to convey the intimacy of a real marriage in danger of being destroyed by the constant assaults by reporters and the media in general, the sense of dread given by the death threats and arrogance of the power above them.

Naomi Watts is pretty much perfect as the tightly controlled woman who’s been training for a whole life to be secretive , and control her own emotions (“I don’t have a breaking point” she says at one point in the film).

Sean Penn, was born to play the role of Joe, the liberally opinionated fighter who’s running against the whole system. He’s basically playing himself and he’s clearly enjoying himself quite a lot (and he’s very good at it too!).

The contrast between the two of them makes a dynamic combination. I just wish there was a little bit more of that in the film.

Unfortunately by trying to stick to the facts (which in a film like this I guess is the safer option), the director Doug Liman (from the first Bourn Identity) give the film a rather slow pace which works against the tension the film is trying to create and eventually its dramatic impact is diminished.

The breaking of marriage happens mostly too quickly and off-screen and when the final confrontation comes, because we haven’t been so much invested in the relationship we get the feeling that it could have gone either way.

Also, it takes forever to actually get there and the film fells generally a bit too slow for what it’s trying to do. All the President’s Men it ain’t!

On the plus side, the sense of the real story really comes through and by the end of it, somehow you’re just left with a feeling that you’ve been watching a documentary (obviously helped by the very last appearance of some real footage) and you come out of it even more pissed off at the Bush Administration than you’ve ever been.

7/10