Sanctum – Review

February 11, 2011 3 Comments

Sanctum 3D (2011) 

Directed by Alister Grierson. Starring Richard Roxburgh, Ioan Gruffudd, Rhys Wakefield.

I don’t think this film really deserves a proper analysis nor a proper review, mainly because I don’t think anyone involved must have taken it too seriously, so why should I? I am however surprised to find James Cameron‘s name attached to this pretty average (actually below average) effort. Doesn’t he have any shame to advertise this film with his name so big on the poster? Well, on a second though, considering that this is the guy who shouted at the 1997 Oscars “I’m the King of the World!!”, you should probably scrap my previous question! We know the answer.

Sanctum in the end is just a pretty pointless exercise in 3D: yes, the 3D cinematography works very well: the director was obviously very keen to make sure every single shot in the film was composed for it: there’s always something in the foreground or in the background (or even both) to give the right sense of prospective, whether it’s a plant, or a piece of rock or some water dripping between the audience and the actors. I must say that is possibly the only redeeming feature of this film: I suspect once the movie is out on DVD or BluRay (in 2D) is going to be even duller! (and before you ask, no, I’m NOT suggesting that you watch this in a cinema, but if you really must, then yes, the 3D cinema is the only way you can possibly digest it).

Obviously if you go and watch a film like this, you certainly don’t go for the characters, or the script, you just go for the action and the thrill of the adventure. But as all know, there’s no point in creating any action scene if you don’t really care about any of the characters on the screen! And in “Sanctum” it’s really hard to care for anyone (except maybe for the kid, who’s the only half decent actor, and given the material he’s given, he does actually a pretty good job). All characters are so annoying, one-dimensional, uninteresting and they behave so badly that I ended up really hating them and actually waiting for them to die as quickly as possible!

I mean, with all those producers attached to this project, why didn’t anyone at any point say “ehm… excuse me, should we try to get our audience to actually like these people?”. I guess not, especially because some of the producers are also behind the writing… if we can call it “writing”

I must confess some of them were also so badly defined that when the first few started to die I wasn’t even quite sure which ones they were… (but then again, I had a long day at work, please forgive me).

The script is so weak that makes even the dialogue in Cameron’s Avatar sound “deep and clever”. This is one of those films where they actually do say lines like “It’s just caving, what could possibly go wrong?”, “I’ll see you on the other side”, “remember, trust the cave”, “this cave is not going to have me!” and “down here I can hold a mirror in front of myself and see who I really am” and other rubbish like that. And the problem is that they take themselves very seriously tool

Between one clichés after another and a whole series of scenes full of exposition, the awful characters move about in one the most predictable story I’ve seen since the 80s. There’s no prize at the end for guessing who’s the one who’ll survive.

The film is also quite badly paced: at 109 minutes it feels even longer. Even that “action scene” where everyone gets trapped at the beginning feels long and boring.

But the most amazing thing for a film like this, is the absolute lack of any sense of claustrophobia. I mean, let’s face it, I knew this film was going to be rubbish, but at least I thought “well, it’s a mindless action flick and if caving worked on the low-budget The Descent“, on this multi-million dollar budget 3D extravaganza produced by Cameron it’s going to work even better”. How wrong I was!! The Descent might have had its faults too (mainly to do with the creatures living in the caves.. though, even those were pretty scary!) but my God, it was one of the most claustrophobic experiences I ever had to sit through (probably on the same level as Buried). In this one there was none of that. The reason is probably a mixture of the wrong camera angles, the wrong choice of cuts in the editing and most importantly an ever-present bombastic musical score that felt it had to spell everything out for you and killed any sense of enclosure and claustrophobia by drowning all the other sound effects which could have been so effective in creating more tension: the echo, for example, the heavy breathing, the noise of the rocks underneath the feet. All this was missing and replaced by music all the way through the film.

In other words, a pretty good disappointment, even on a movie popcorn level. Go and watch the Descent instead.

5/10

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Never Let Me Go – Review

February 9, 2011 3 Comments

Never Let Me Go (2010)

Directed by Mark Romanek. Starring Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley

Finally Never Let Me Go gets released in the UK (more than 5 months after its premiere): maybe there were hoping for a few Oscar nominations to get more exposure. Instead they’ve got none… And you know why? I think it’s because actually the film is not that good.

If you haven’t seen it and you still want go spend some money for a ticket, then you should probably stay away from this review as it will contain some spoilers and as always a film is better enjoyed when you know as little as possible. I came to it knowing absolutely nothing, so you can imagine my surprise when I realized that it was actually a sort of a sci-fi story!

In a way I like I was watching an extended episode of “The Twilight Zone”: it had the same feel of impending doom that some of those best episodes seemed to have, but also I couldn’t help thinking that it all could have worked better as a short story/film, instead of the long drawn-out experience that “Never Let me Go” is.

First of all let me just say that I really want to applaud the original concept: I like the actual and the whole message  behind it all. The film has been adapted by Alex Garland (who’d written The Beach, 28 Days Later among the others) from a novel by Japanese-English Novelist Kazuo Ishiguro (who gave us things like The Remains of the Day).

Alex Garland does deserve some credit for sticking to the restraints of the novel, but also director Mark Romanek deserves some credit too for the intense mood he managed to create: however all that gray from the sky and the landscape and in the characters’ clothes after a while does spill into my feeling about the film. It’s neither black nor white… just a middle dull gray that failed to engage me as much as it probably should have.

The founding premise, must be said,  has already been explored in several novels and film within the sci-fi genre many time before (see Michael Bay’s The Island, for example… Obviously that is on the complete opposite side of the spectrum), but at least here it’s good to see them avoiding the clichés of the typical futuristic-looking-city with people dressed up in translucent lycra and flying cars… Instead we have a sort of alternate reality looking like 60s or 70s.

I haven’t read the original, but I hear it has some of the same issues (or faults in my view) that the film has. You can probably got away with on the written page, but up there, on the screen, my patience run out pretty soon as the story became too mechanical and the plot holes became more and more apparent. There’s something literally “vital” missing. It just didn’t ring true!

So much so, that after a while the film completely stopped working for me, especially on an emotional level. And it’s not because the whole thing is sparse and slow and muted, but mainly because the story became so unreal and contrived that after a while I stopped believing in the characters and eventually stopped caring for them.

It’s strange to be put off by the feeling on “unreal” in what’s essentially a sci-fi, but when that gets in the way of the emotional response one should have towards the characters, then something is wrong with it.

For a start I just could not  believe that these people would do nothing to try to question their fate that’s been set up for them. I also myself not really buying into the fact that Andrew Garfield’s character was in love with Carey Mulligan. I can’t quite figure out if it’s again a problem with the script itself or with Garfield’s acting: I prefer to go for the first option, since I’ve already stated my problems with the story anyway and I want to believe Garfield is actually a better actor than he was allowed to be here.

Carey Mulligan is probably the best of the three actors, but even poor Carey’s doomed face became a bit tiresome after a while.

Finally Keira Knightley, even though she pulls off one of her best performances she’s ever displayed, still manages to annoy the hell out of me, even though, as it’s been noted before, she overcomes the implausibility of being donor of organs: where would she actually keep them?

In short, there wasn’t enough to fill a whole movie… and for me to care.

6.0

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Tangled – Review

February 4, 2011 14 Comments

Tangled (2010)

Directed by Nathan Greno, Byron Howard. Starring Mandy Moore, Zachary Levi, Donna Murphy

Disney’s 50th animated feature came at a time which was overloaded by all types of cartoons. With the likes of Madagascar, Ice Age and especially Shrek, which had been so irreverent towards fairy tales (and princesses singing to birds) it seemed almost impossible for the Mouse House to go back to their origins and produce another fairy tale.
And yet, the wonderful thing about Tangled is that underneath all the pointy/tricksy 3D effects, the visual splendor , the ultra-saturated colours, and the sharp humour (which we’ve now become to expect from these types of films), it is actually a very traditional Disney story and yes it has a princess singing to birds barefoot in the forest. And you know what? It works!!!
It has been slightly updated for the 21st century audience, but it has not lost the heart and the magic: here the princess is not just pretty, but she’s also a strong character with more personality and internal conflicts than most of the previous Disney princesses put together (The scene where she she’s just been rescued and her mood changes from happy to terrorised to desperate , all in the space of few seconds, is pure genius).
But don’t worry, there’s a great male hero too, Ryder, looking as hot as ever (apparently there were meetings held at Disney to make sure that every little girl would fall in love with him), but also charming, funny and playing against expectations, with lines line “I don’t do singing” or “I don’t do back-stories”.
But it’s Mother Gothel who pretty much steals the show: she’s not just one of the most memorable baddie of the last few years, but probably up there with the stepmother from Cinderella and the Queen from Snowhite (Yes, really!). And, in the best Disney tradition (SPOILER ALERT) she will eventually fall down to her death.
And since it’s a Disney fairytale, there are animals sidekicks too. Maximus, the horse (hilarious!! you just wish the was more of him) and the cute chameleon Pascal (which was most probably born out from various brainstorm-meetings thinking of toys and merchandising).
But brushing aside any cynics thoughts, this film is a joy to watch and it looks absolutely gorgeous: the first time the Mother goes up the tower and the music swells over the wide landscape is breath-taking (even my son said “wow” aloud), the sequence in which thousands of floating lanterns light up the night sky is truly magical (also allowing the animators to really use the 3D to maximum effect). The characters look more alive than most real life actors: you can see their chest moving as they breathe, the veins on their neck pulsing before they speak, and they’re eyes are so real that it really feels they are looking at each other. Not to mention the details and care put into Rapunzel’s golden hair as she hurls it around, and even uses it as a weapon, a hook, a whip and a swing. What fun!
And talking about fun, the action set pieces are so exciting and perfectly choreographed (The scene with the water, all the chases in the forest, swinging from trees or riding horses..).
This is what animation should do: make the impossible look possible.
This is an immersive glorious 3D experience, perfectly calibrated and yet seems effortless at the same time.
Great characters, clean and simple storytelling (yes, it’s all pretty formulaic, but so are the best fairy-tales for kids!), rich in colours and details.
It may not aim as high as some the classic Pixar masterpieces, but in my book it’s family perfection. One of my favourite of the last 20 years.
On Disney + (or just buy the bluray!)

8/10

Check out my review of Toy Story 3 too

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The Dilemma – Review

January 31, 2011 9 Comments


The Dilemma (2010)  

Directed by Ron Howard. Starring Vince Vaughn, Kevin James, Jennifer Connelly

The truth might hurt, as the poster says, but so does this film!

In a way I should have known better, but in my defense I really wanted to go out and watch a movie tonight and it seemed like I had already seen everything else that my multiplex was showing. Ron Howard‘s latest comedy sounded like an easy watch for a Sunday night… How wrong I was!

This is one of the most misjudged film I have seen in a very long time and the possibly worse since I’ve started writing on this blog (I didn’t see “Vampires suck” last year, which I hear could have taken the crown).

The biggest crime of all, for a comedy of this kind, is that not only it’s just  un-funny (I probably chuckled once or twice at the most), but also it’s really boring. In fact I don’t even think it can be called a comedy… and yet it’s so superficial that it can hardly be considered a drama.

It has the longest introduction ever but I sort of decided to go for it anyway, hoping that the more time the film would spend setting up the scenes and its characters, the more engaging I would find it all once the “dilemma” would come.

Finally a good 30/40 minutes into the film (though it surely felt like a lot longer) the dilemma does arrive. Unfortunately that is almost the moment when I realized that the film was not going to improve and I plunged into complete boredom.

Everything about this film is wrong: Vince Vaughn’s monotone acting and his ludicrous religious moments, the pacing of the scenes, the lack of jokes and the complete misfires of the few that are actually there (the long speech at the 40th anniversary being the most glaring example of something which is supposed to be funny but fails on every level), the casting of Kevin James (who should clearly stay on TV) randomly paired up with Winona Ryder (never for a moment I believed that those 2 could have got married), the wasted use of Jennifer Connelly (she probably owed Ron Howard a favor from the time they did “A beautiful Mind” together: nothing else would explain why she should have taken this thin-paper part), and even Queen Latifah feels like it’s a character added in at the last moment, even on a half day re-shoot) because they felt the film didn’t have enough laughter.

What on earth happened to Ron Howard?!? I mean, only a few years ago he did Frost/Nixon, which I really loved and whatever you thought of A Beautiful Mind (over-rated Oscar bait in my view) at least it had a style and it felt as if it actually had been “directed” by somebody who knew what he was doing. Ransom was a fairly competent film too, edge of the seat drama/thriller (completely ruined by one of the worse trailer ever, which gave away 9/10 of the plot). Apollo 13 (which I haven’t seen in ages) was huge at the time and quite engaging. I even remember liking Cocoon back in the 80s (though I haven’t seen it since…).Despite all this he’s not the kind of director I would expect to see behind a comedy, but then again with Parenthood and even Edtv, he did prove  that at least he knew how to make entertaining light films… And after all, he was one of the forces behind “Arrested Development“, or was he? I’m beginning to doubt he was even involved with  the photocopying of the scripts in that series!

I’m not even sure Howard himself knew what kind of film he was making, as the film switches from bad slapstick to slow melodrama (a balance that as the New York Magazine noted “Perhaps the late Blake Edwards could have got right, but not Ron Howard”).

The general un-likability of the (potentially good) cast and the fact that this is a Ron Howard’s film makes the failure even greater.

I probably shouldn’t even waste anymore words on this.

The real dilemma for me was whether to give the film more than 1 star! In the end 4.5  will do.

4.5/10

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Loose Cannons – Review

January 29, 2011 5 Comments

Loose Cannons (2010) 

(Mine vaganti: Original Title)

Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek. Starring Riccardo Scamarcio, Nicole Grimaudo, Alessandro Preziosi, Elena Sofia Ricci, Ilaria Occhini.

Italo-Turkish director Ferzan Ozpetek goes back to what he knows and does best: a”coming-out” comedy” about homosexuality and family values, full of memorable quirky characters, laugh out-loud moments mixed with bittersweet and poignant reflections.

These are also the themes of one of my old favorite Ozpetek’s film, the Ignorant Fairies (Le fate Ignoranti), made 10 years ago.


It is all fairly watchable stuff and it sort of works as long as it’s on the screen. However, any attempt of social comment or critique at any serious issue (the close mindedness of the South of Italy, and the way Italians like to appear which is more important than the way they are, among the others) quickly fades away and gets diluted in the pursuit of easy laughers and in the over-the-top, almost caricatural depictions of the characters. Of course, it is supposed be a comedy… but sadly that’s all it is.


The story is set in Lecce, a city in the heel of the Italian boot, in the deep south. and it focuses on the large Cantone family (so large that it took me a while to work out who was who). Tommaso, is about to come out to his parents. One night, at the dinner table, just when he’s about to break the news to the family, his older brother, Antonio announces himself to everyone that he’s gay.

The father’s refusal to accept or understand his older brother’s sexuality gives him a heart attack and leaving Tommaso at the helm of the family pasta making business, whilst at the same time trying to deal with his own hidden truth (fearing that his father won’t survive the news of both of his 2 sons being gay).

There are a lot of other storylines, and the family is certainly large enough to offer several opportunities for sub-plots. Unfortunately most of the characters remain just superficial caricatures (the wise grandmother, the loony aunt, the apprehensive mother, the homophobic father, the girl in love with the gay man and so on…) and in the end the film falls into the same clichés the director is trying to ridicule in the film.

In a way, there’s nothing here we haven’t seen before, (funnily enough even within Ozpetek’s previous films too) but it’s good to see the overshadowed-by-the-Vatican-Italy finally arriving there too.


The film is handsomely filmed and the great looking, almost-perfect settings only seem to enhanced the imperfections of the family itself.

The editing (and direction) both seem a bit too pleased with themselves: some scenes could have gained something by being trimmed a bit. Even the most emotional moments always seem to go on for a bit too much than it’s needed (I’m thinking of the scenes around the tables, or more crucially – SPOILER COMING –  the one where the grandmother decides to go for her cakes, or even the one at the beach. You get the point after a few seconds and yet both scenes go on and on and on).

The same goes for the over-used music, both in terms of the actual score (which once again stresses the slapstick aspect of the film) and known songs, most of which seem rather random and a bit intrusive.

Most of the acting is very good especially the woman grandmother (Ilaria Occhini) who seems to be the only one really sees what’s happening within her family.


In the end I am happy I saw this film, and I did enjoy it, but I’m still longing for the return of the real Commedia all’Italiana of the 50s and 60s (and to a degree the 70s too) which really provided a mirror of Italian customs and values, attacking prejudices and questioning the general thinking of elites and institutions in a much more subtle way. The sometimes dark and bleak vision of the society and the bittersweet laughers those films provoked, felt a lot less forced than they are in this film which is clearly trying to be bit more commercial. Still, we’re probably heading towards the right direction.

7/10

You can read more about “Commedia all’Italiana” on my previous post on Mario Monicelli

Mario Monicelli (1915 – 2010)

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