Three Recent Films

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The Great Gatsby: Baz Luhrmann's crazy fairy tale

I went with the lowest of expectations to see The Great Gatsby, Baz Luhrmann's film version of F Scott Fitzgerald's book. I'd read a number of so-so reviews, and had been given personal recommendations ranging from the indifferent to the positively dismissive.

We saw it at the Dalston Rio, a cinema swathed like a theatre, where Gatsby cocktails (well, cocktails labelled with character names) were on sale. I went in, armed with a "Gatsby" - a gin and tonic (large) - prepared for the worst.

And in a sense my feelings, and those of the world, were confirmed. What this is, is  Fitzgerald if Walt Disney had taken the helm. Leonardo di Caprio is a fairy prince offering vast wealth and pleasure; Daisy is the princess trapped by an evil wizard or king, who  trips out at night to the other realm, wearing out her dancing shoes.  When you first see di Caprio, and he all but fizzes with magic dust, my yelps of laughter could be heard throughout the cinema. How long would it be, I wondered, before they all broke out into song? The princess will never be tempted by the empty promise of magic; she will retreat into the apparent safety of her prison. And so she does.

It was strange, too, to make Nick (a jug-eared Tobey Maguire) into such a cypher. In the novel there are at least hints of his character; here he was simply, totally, in love with Gatsby, a vehicle to transmit the truth behind the glamour. And Jordan Baker, such a brittle, malevolent presence in the book, here just loomed about looking like she was permanently embalmed. But then, with the personality of Gatsby exploded from a few lines (all that is needed in the book) into the fleshy-faced persona of Leonardo di Caprio, there wasn't much room for anything else.

There were some lovely touches: those parties! Nick being left on his porch in nothing but his underwear; also when Gatsby fills Nick's house with flowers, awaiting Daisy. "Do you think it's too much?" he asks Nick. "I think it's what you want," is the answer. Gatsby agrees. Of course it is.

The problem is that Luhrmann has made a fairy story out of a fable. He's taken a morality tale rooted in realism and transported it to the realm of fantasy; by trying to inject it with some historical resonance (the Wall Street crash, etc.) he in fact simply makes it more unreal. All that tinsel and glitter fades the moment you've seen it: like fool's gold, or a fairy's spell at dawn; behind the glamour, there is nothing but an empty promise.

Avengers Assemble an Ikea Bedstead - sorry, they come together. Review.

Avengers Assembling

Mash-ups entice us. When I was a child I used to imagine that all the books I read interacted; somewhere, there existed a world where Snow White drank tea with Alice, and Gandalf the Grey companionably locked horns with Sparrowhawk over a game of wizard chess; Middle Earth was just a boat's ride away from Narnia, in my supra-fictional framework.  There is a lot to be said for cross-hybridisation. I haven't read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, but it seems like quite a funny idea. But in my experience, those mixtures tend not to work, as some part of the original artistic whole is invariably compromised. Gandalf the Grey looks a little greyer beside Sparrowhawk. Dumbledore wouldn't even get a look in.

Avengers Assemble is different, of course. (When I first saw the film's title I thought - Avengers Assemble what? An Ikea bedstead? That's pretty damn hard, but  a whole film about it? Really?) The heroes already exist in the same comic book universe. Bringing them together is a fan's dream. It also stems from the childhood need to collect all your playthings into one big meta-playground. The film sees Earth under threat (again) from the usual mysteriously motivated aliens with big weapons, and an energy source called the Tesseract, a hyper-cube that can open portals into other worlds. If it falls into the wrong hands... well, you can probably guess. Oh, and Loki, Thor's brother, (a fantastic Tom Hiddleston, who really ought to be given his own film) struts around smiling a lot and looking inscrutable because that's what monstrous evil people do, isn't it?

There are three problems with Avengers Assemble. But first, let's get the good stuff out of the way. Joss Whedon manages to leaven proceedings with a bit of wit - if it was a curry it would be a lamb korma. The actors give it their best shot, too, with some particularly good lines from Chris Hemsworth as Thor, and everyone yomps and punches and fixes things (there's a lot of fixing things) with aplomb.

So. The first problem is that the threat is so vague. Oh dear, the earth's under attack, again. What is it this time? Giant scaly flying tortoises? Sigh. Things that are alien have all but ceased to be frightening: things are much more scary when they come from within.

The second is that though the film consists of one frenetic scene after another, it actually manages to drag. That's largely because of its entirely predictable arc. Yes, there is a bit of friction between the Avengers; yes, there will be a moment when everything looks like it's going to fail; but yes, of course, it doesn't. And the film itself knows this. One of the characters (with whom I think the director thinks we have a lot more sympathy than we actually do) says to Loki that he'll never win. We know this. That's partly why we're watching this film; we don't go to watch superhero movies to see the world blown up. But the film would have had more of a hook if the threat felt genuine; the villains more pressing; the tensions less contrived.

The third problem relates to the assembling (I ought to call it mustering, really) of the heroes. Though the film managed not to spend too much time on their back stories, and getting them all together, there really were too many of them to care about. And since they're all super heroes - bar Black Widow and Hawkeye, who as far as I can see are just pretty handy in a fight - it's not that interesting watching them fight. The film does a good job of adding some spark to the battles, particularly with the Hulk. Ultimately, though, one can't help but feeling that these uber-men ought to be kept apart.

A much more interesting proposition would be to see Loki having to become good. That I'd love to see - the monster redeemed. The problem with heroes like Captain America is that they're just too damn boring. It's the same as Galahad, or Jesus Christ in Paradise Regained. You need your Lancelot, just as Milton knew that Satan was more interesting to write about. So, Marvel, I ask you: give Tom Hiddleston a chance. Avengers Assemble might be a comic book fan's dream - but maybe it should have stayed that way.

Read my review of Thor

The Artist: review

The artist. And his owner.

I want to go and live in Silent Movie Land. (Although maybe it wouldn't be entirely practical - remember that scene in Love Actually where Andrew Lincoln declares his love to Keira Knightley via cardboard signs? Imagine the expense on marker pens, not to mention the environmental cost! But it would be fun, don't you think?)

Everything in Silent Movie Land seems to happen more solidly - walking out of a room, off a stage; winking, whistling, weeping; everything has a kind of physical significance that we rarely get in "talkies." "Mugging," as new talkie star Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo) dismissively puts it when she's being interviewed in The Artist about the death of silent stars. But then she doesn't mean it, as she later admits. Silent films have their own artistry, depth and power. The metamorphosis that came with The Jazz Singer gave us something - but it also lost us a simple pleasure.

The plot of The Artist is straightforward. Peppy (and boy is that an apt name) is an ingénue seeking fame; her trajectory is onwards and upwards. On the way she meets someone coming in the other direction - George Valentin, a silent film star, and the artist of the title, (played by Jean Dujardin, whose looks make him seem like every matinée idol rolled into a big matinée idol package.) He plays men in masks and top hats; dashing heroes who flee villains in motor cars and biplanes, and always get the girl. And he has a funny dog, too.

When talkies arrive, Valentin refuses to join in, saying they'll never work; his career is ruined faster than you can say (or, rather, mug) "I told you so." Peppy, meanwhile, reaches the dizzy heights of sonic fame. She can talk! And act! America swoons at her slippered feet. There is a very touching moment when Valentin goes to see her latest blockbuster, which has elbowed his own effort into oblivion - it mimics a scene right at the beginning, where Peppy watches her idol, Valentin, and dreams of glory to come. It does cast a slight shadow over the whole film, though - one cannot help but wonder what will happen to Peppy when the next bit of "fresh meat" comes along.

The actors put in sterling performances: both have immensely mobile, expressive faces. Both have sinuous, slinky movements, whether dancing or even just walking. Peppy has two lovely "trademarks" - a whistle and a wink, which render her pretty face at once vulnerable and strong. There are some innovative touches to the cinematography as well - Valentin, drunk and depressed, pours his drink onto his reflection; more weirdly, he hallucinates a tiny version of himself which then proceeds to attack him with a whole load of men wielding spears; and more frighteningly, when he dreams that he's actually in a talkie.

The narrative arc is predictable, but then that doesn't seem to matter, as the charisma of the stars makes up for it. There was, I thought, one slight problem - there is a hint, at the end, as to why Valentin might have been so anti-talkie, in one of the film's few moments of sound. I won't give it away, but it did seem to me marginally unbelievable that an actor as keen on fame as Valentin wouldn't try to get himself into new technologies just because of one attribute. But hey ho. The film more than makes up for that: for instance, there is a priceless scene where Valentin's increasingly estranged wife yells at him (and when I say "Yell", you know what I mean) "We need to talk! Why won't you talk?"

The Artist is a delightful piece of cinematic froth; an intelligent, witty and pleasing rejoinder to  the manic jet-setting and incomprehensibility of such films as Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. Whether there will be any more silent films remains to be seen; but with its simple tale of love, loss and redemption, it will please the hearts of many. (And don't forget the dog, either.) Now, if you see a man walking down the street holding up cardboard signs and mugging furiously, then it's probably me, unless it's someone on day release. Do feel free to join me in a foxtrot, if you like.

Scream 4 and the nature of horror

"How meta can you get?" is something that people in Scream 4 say. A lot. Most critics, when it came out last year, thought that it could have been, er, well, a bit less meta and a bit better. Which was a shame, since Scream (directed by Wes Craven and written by that most savvy of scribblers, Kevin Williamson), stands as a biting comment on horror films - and yet, as a truly biting horror film itself. Scream 2, with its film within a film (Stab, starring Tori Spelling, and retelling the events of Scream) succeeded; Scream 3 was, though it had lost its bite, still enjoyable as practically a screwball comedy. They all followed the practised ruts of a horror film though, in which an external force causes mayhem for a while, but is tamed and neutered. They do, though, like revenge tragedies, bleed into each other; and like revenge tragedies, it's very hard to stop the cycle. The Oresteia did it by chaining the Furies up underneath a statue of Athena - but you can't do that with mask-wearing pyschopaths, can you? There just isn't enough room.

So what of Scream 4? Well I would argue that it has found a way to end the cycle. The meta-ness takes many forms. There has been a Stab franchise (they are now on the sixth - or seventh - outing; nobody can quite agree). Sidney Prescott (an always effective Neve Campbell), the original survivor of all three films (boy she must have some scars, says someone wryly), has emerged from the darkness to write a memoir of her experiences, and returns to her home town to give a reading. Gail Weathers, the fast-talking reporter, is now married to dopey Sheriff Dewey (David Arquette), and unable to write her own novel (having written the book that Stab was based on). Meanwhile the highschool students act out versions of Stab, hang up ghostface masks in reference to the original killers, and even have their own Stabathon, where they watch all the films in one go whilst brandishing fake knives.

The pacing of the first two thirds is uneven; new characters are either goofy (such as Dewey's deputy and Sidney's assistant, one of whom dies [the wrong one, in my opinion]) or unbelievable, like the high school geek who records his entire experience on a webcam nailed to his head. Imagine Peepshow, but with added toilet time. Mercifully we get none of that. The death scenes are not particularly frightening; and there is hardly a batsqueak of suspense. But it's still enjoyable, as a curiosity.

Until the final reel, that is, when a surprise is sprung upon us in true Wes Craven style. The film becomes a mordant, affecting response to the horrors of social networking and the vapid need for fame, with echoes of Nicole Kidman's To Die For. As a film, it's entirely clued up (with references to mobiles, Facebook, Twitter and so on) - but these references are not merely window dressing. They are part of the texture of the whole, and essential to the success of the film.

The last third, when Sidney is running for her life, then becomes almost better than the first three films put together. The tension, entirely lacking, suddenly appears like a noose around the neck.  Everything is called into question: love, family, friendship; the nature of celebrity, the desire for an admired self. Nothing is sacred in Scream 4. Which makes it, perhaps, closer to the bone than any of its predecessors. And in the final scene, after the film has quietly managed to laugh at itself, you're left feeling troubled, not cleansed; and that, surely, is what a horror film is meant to do.

As the final credits roll, the horror is rooted deep inside the viewer, much as it is when you read of true crime. There is nowhere left for the Scream series to go. In its meta-ness it returned to the beginning; but it's also carved out an end.

The Immortals: review

There is no canon in Greek myth. They're fluid, and The Immortals has moulded something of its own out of them, bearing no resemblance whatsoever to hardly any of the legends we know. It's crazy, balletic, silly, powerful, beautiful, and totally ridiculous; and it's also amongst the most fun and impressive films that I've seen this year.

Theseus and his army

It takes place in a never-never Greece (about 1,200 BC, apparently, although it looks more like an alien desert landscape); the Olympian gods have suppressed the Titans (who suffer, chained up in something that looks like it came from the brain of the Human Centipede guy, under a mountain) but have decided not to take any active part in human affairs. This does not prevent Zeus, however (played with an impish might by Luke Evans) from disguising himself as an old man - and not just any old man, but John Hurt, who is so wise that practically every other word is an aphorism – in order to influence (but not actively, you see) his son Theseus, who must learn to do things of his own free will (and not having been influenced by Zeus. At All.)

Theseus lives in a stone town which has conveniently been carved out of rocks looking over a cliff edge, which can't be very practical, or comfortable when the wind blows, but that doesn't really matter, because it looks pretty impressive. Theseus is also a humdinger of a man - played by Henry Cavill, who's obviously been working out (since he's about to play Superman) - he's the sort of chap that would make the average Abercrombie and Fitch model not want to take his top off on the beach for shame. He is not the prince of myth, though; he is a humble peasant who would die to protect those he loves. He's also pretty nifty with a spear, as it turns out, which is lucky. Think Brad Pitt in Troy but without the sulkiness. And boy does the camera love him, lingering on his body whenever it can; even when he's close to death, having been enslaved, he looks like a bronzed Lycidas. Even the virginal Oracle  (Frieda Pinto, for whom most would swoon any day) whose second sight is tied to her chastity, thinks twice when she sees Theseus. Cavill does a good job with the fairly dire script, too - when he gave a speech to his soldiers to rouse them up a bit, I found myself getting roused up too, despite the cringeworthiness of the lines.

Zeus and Athena: Daddy's girl

The village's - and all of Greece's - existence is threatened: the vile King Hyperion wishes to find the Epirus bow (a magical weapon of great power) and, well, like all baddies ever, take over the world; he also wants to unleash the Titans, though quite why is anyone's guess. Meanwhile, he invades a monastery where the Oracle lives - who happens to be an extremely beautiful girl who likes sleeping on a silken couch with her three other very beautiful oracle-friends - and tortures and kills people, willy-nilly. When one of Theseus' villagers defects to Hyperion's camp, and sees a silver bull into which victims are thrown and burned, as well as dead bodies hung up everywhere, you can almost hear him think, uh oh, this was a bad idea, wish I'd stayed with those lame villagers... Hyperion is so evil he makes Darth Vader look like Bambi. He likes wearing masks, too, as do all his followers - weird, toothy animal masks. He believes in democracy, you see (apparently).

The plot, though, is sort of beside the point, because every scene is so enthrallingly enjoyable in its sumptuous finery, violence or lunacy that one is compelled throughout. It doesn't seem to matter that the Olympus of the Greek gods resembles a gay nightclub, with all the male gods lounging around half-naked  in diamanté and Heath-Robinson hats (there's only one female god, Athena, played by a too-beautiful Isabel Lucas - she should have been Aphrodite, surely?) Nor does it matter that the oracle and her friends wear jangling tea-cosies on their heads. I think the film itself is aware of its excesses - Theseus laughs at a priest's similar headgear.

The film has its own grace, and if you are prepared to take it on its own terms, then you'll find yourself swept away just as if Poseidon himself had come down and caused a tidal wave. And the final scenes point towards a sequel that looks like it might be even bigger, and even sillier, with an aeronautical battle between gods and Titans. Hats off - the sillier the better - to director Tarsem Singh, for this deeply luxurious nugget.