Year One

Year One comes across more as a variety show than a narrative film. Purportedly about the beginnings of humanity’s very existence on the earth, it is in fact a series of cameos and skits strung together loosely by a weak storyline.

Zed (Jack Black) and  Oh (Michael Cera) are two cavemen who leave their village, disaffected with hunter-gatherer ways, to search for better times. They wind up on a quest to rescue their former village mates, and travel across the Holy Land meeting Cain, Abel, Abraham, Isaac, some Roman legionnaries and party pagans in Sodom, before finally being reunited in freedom with their respective love interests.

It’s a funny enough film. I’m unashamedly a Jack Black fan, and feel he can (and has) carried films in the past on the weight of his own bombastic performances. But even he could not save this ragtag collection of scenes. Perhaps it was the fact that the narrative is forced, so clearly at odds with the material, onto such a disparate selection, that I was left distinctly dissatisfied. It felt a lot like a narrative had been  hastily pasted over the top of what should have been a series of sketches. Perhaps it’s the fact that the performances do nothing particularly special at all. I’ve cooled towards Cera (best displayed in my upcoming Scott Pilgrim vs The World review - apologies for the delay in getting that posted) and this did little to change my mind. 

There are some beautiful cameos too. A film built so heavily around bringing together most of the Hollywood comedy elite should be able to pull together some gems. Bill Hader as the village shaman is brilliantly dead-pan, while Hank Azaria’s Abraham was a real show stealer for me. Every time he says the word “God” he spits it out with ever increasing vehemence that starts understated but builds to a near-frenzy. Poor Abraham (click for video!). 

A shame, because the film is lively and silly, but it never quite takes off.

~~~

2009

Jack Black, Michael Cera

dir. Harold Ramis

Kindergarten Cop and Back To The Future

I had the pleasure of rewatching Kindergarten Cop and Back To The Future this week, the latter in a theatrical press preview celebrating its 25th anniversary. I think it's a rewarding exercise to revisit these films, because I remember so little about them from my childhood except that they were good. Were they really any good? And do they stand the test of time?

Confidently I can aver they are, and they do. Schwarzneggar is at his best as Detective John Kimble in Kindergarten Cop. I mean really. It's a mushy film all right, but heartfelt, and streaked with moments of real tension and enough red herrings to keep a casual viewer thoroughly engaged. It also dares to bring in child- and substance-abuse, again quite casually, suggesting a director entirely on top of his material. I boggled to think I'd loved this as a child and not understood at all some of the big issues being bandied around. At its heart, Arnold is both lovable and tough, and it's before the time when he starts to look simply terrifying (He's formidably muscled, as it is). He walks the line between action hero and soulful chap, and the plot elements are all there to make it work. Big tick!

Meanwhile, Zemeckis' '85 classic remains exactly that. The film received cheers and spontaneous applause as Marty McFly (Michael J Fox) and Dr Brown (Christopher Lloyd) get trapped in 1955 and Marty has to bring about his own parents' coupling. There's a big dose of incest awkwardness alongside humour and tension in equal measure, again, something I had entirely no recollection of as a child and now marvelled that I'd ever missed it. McFly's prudish mother turns out to be a real go-getter, much to Marty's own terror. It's great fun; like a joyful wedding, it demands smiles and happiness from its viewers. I couldn't quite believe that I didn't hold the film in even higher esteem, because I hurt my face smiling. Even the device of time travel, a slippery slope to losing an audience entirely, is kept just about simple enough, while being hammered home repeatedly, that one can feel like trying to wrap one's mind around the physics of it all isn't ruining the delight of Fox bouncing about a stage rocking out to bring about his parents' first kiss. Entirely wonderful.

Two classics that in my estimation deservedly remain so. 80s to early 90s blockbusters with punch and feeling.

~~~

1991

Arnold Schwarzneggar

dir. Ivan Reitman

1985

Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd

dir. Robert Zemeckis

Wonder Boys

I'm a great Michael Chabon fan. I reckon he can't really set a word wrong, all told. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and Summerland are both books that really deserve glowing write-ups here (I read them both after this blog began). But I'd not come across Wonder Boys, an early outing of his, and I didn't know it had been adapted to the screen. Imagine my surprise to discover not only that there's a film adaptation, but it features Michael Douglas, Robert Downey Jr, Tobey Maguire and Katie Holmes. They're popular names, if nothing else.

Wonder Boys traces a few days in the life of Prof. Grady Trip (Douglas). He's had that first break-through novel, which has earned him an esteemed, if low-key, position in the great American canon. Now he's teaching creative writing, but he's in a rut. Just as his editor, Crabtree (Downey Jr), comes to visit he discovers a gifted student, James Leer (Maguire). So begins a journey of discovery for professor and student, as the tangled webs of their lives are slowly unpicked. Of course, it helps that Leer's creative talent might stem from a compulsive desire to lie. Fabrication seems to have penetrated every aspect of his life.

This is a remarkably well-observed drama. The dialogue is at times too obvious, and tends towards cliche, but never quite grates, and it's skilfully enough put together that the personalities of the film (Douglas, Maguire) are comfortably negated, or at least softened. It's easy with such big players to expect certain tropes or kinds of performance. But the eccentricities of some (Downey Jr) are underplayed, even if other characters (McDormand in particular, as the long-suffering dean and sometime lover of Douglas), are not really given an opportunity to shine.

It is, in the final analysis, a very American film. It's saturated in questions of creation and discovery, and funny and moving at the right times, without quite taking itself above and beyond the ordinary. It has traces of Chabon's excellence, and one can detect echoes of his emotional charged writing in scenes that never quite soar to the heights they should. But it works, all the same, and remains enjoyable.

~~~

2000

Michael Douglas, Robert Downey Jr., Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Katie Holmes

dir. Curtis Hanson

Speed Racer

Bit of a guilty pleasure here for me. As a proud owner of a Speed Racer red t and a quiet fan of the 60s series, I have to put hand to my heart and declare this is a well put together film. I think I might be the only one.

The film has many of the hallmarks of a Wachowski production. Emphasis is placed heavily on effects and on the power of emotions to overcome any obstacle (Neo's love-gamble anyone?). But it's also marvellously fun.

Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch) has always dreamt of following in his brother Rex's footsteps and being a racer, from his earliest schoolboy daydreams. Ably assisted by the family-run crew of Racer Motors, he becomes a racing car driver, only to discover operating independently is not only dangerous but also extremely difficult when the major corporations want to dominate, and rig (ooh, ahh!), the sport.

It's a bright, vibrant film. Apart from ill-judged comic episodes from the youngest of the Racer progeny, the film sparkles. The Racer parents (Sarandon and Goodman) are both excellent presences, while Hirsch and girlfriend Trixie (Ricci) are both entirely laudable. The tension ratchets up rapidly, and the racing scenes are gloriously over the top and colourful. But beyond any individual performance or the suspense or colours or score, it's essentially a film about going it alone and fighting for something you believe in. And I approve of that.

~~~
2008
Emile Hirsch, Matthew Fox, Christina Ricci, Susan Sarandon, John Goodman
dir. Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski

The 13th Warrior

I hesitated before posting this up, partly because I have so little to say about the film and partly because it's just not very good.

Banderas plays Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan, an Arab poet sent as diplomat to the north. He meets some Norsemen, and by a tiresome twist of fate, ends up the thirteenth warrior in a party setting out to rescue a tribe from supernatural enemies.

The film is fairly standard 90s blockbuster fare. So little attention is paid to plot, which creeps predictably onwards, while location and costume are similarly neglected. One imagines that most of the budget must have gone on getting Banderas, and maybe trying to get his English passably accented, that what remained accounted for the poor set and setpieces. It's also a prime case of a Michael Crichton novel being essentially misunderstood. After early commercial successes in adapting the bestselling author to the big screen, there were a spate of poorly made adaptations that fail to capture the essence of his writing and sufficiently translate that into a workable film. So we have a film with poorly imagined characters and dialogue, simply because the makers relies too heavily on a novel. For all novel-film cross-overs, it seems to have been proven that it is not about relying on copying the novel from page to screen, but on finding a film equivalent for many of a given novel's devices. The 13th Warrior expressly fails on that account.

Laughably bad. But not worth one's time for the laughs.

~~~
1999
Antonio Banderas, Vladimir Kulich
dir. John McTiernan

The State Counsellor (Fandorin 6)

I've already reviewed the first five Fandorin adventures (starting with The Winter Queen) State Counsellor has been regarded by many as the best Fandorin narrative. It was the first book to be made into a film, and maintains popular support.

But I did not feel Akunin managed anything novel or thrilling with this offering. A gruesome murder implicating Fandorin sets the wheels of an investigation in motion. Very soon we see that dangerous nihilist revolutionaries threaten Russia. Different police inspectors and special agents get thrown into the mix; they all have their own reasons for helping or hindering the investigation. And in the middle, Fandorin, trying to piece together the evidence as best he can. The nihilists do not seem to particularly threaten. In fact, it felt almost as though Akunin was in some way attempting to foreshadow early twentieth century history by the actions of these revolutionaries, and that barely added anything to the narrative.

Part of The State Counsellor's weakness surely lies both in style and in villain. For the former, no distinct narrative voice deprives Akunin of one of his successful stylistic tricks (Compare Turkish Gambit or Special Assignments). Meanwhile, the latter, an altogether unimpressive character, Green, leaves much to be desired. There never seems to be a great threat to Fandorin. In fact, he is dispassionately removed from the majority of the drama. When one compares Green with earlier villains, particularly the master schemers of The Winter Queen and Turkish Gambit, or the terribly precise murderer of The Death of Achilles, he does not come off well. There are no major distinguishing features.

Fandorin's love interest for this story at least has a spark to her. Esfir Litvinova, a young society beauty, with revolutionary sympathies, is both unpredictable and fiery, making for a beautiful foil to Fandorin's inscrutable routines. Her very disdain for him, softening to attraction and even love, is a familiar pattern for females to follow with regard to Fandorin, but it's executed excellently here. The humour evoked by Fandorin's double confusion both with his case and the affairs of the heart is also particularly enjoyable.

The writing remains lively and I raced through the drama. But I was not wowed or awed like I have been with earlier Fandorin books. Has Akunin used all his tricks up? Am I missing a beat?

~~~
2008
Boris Akunin translated by Andrew Bromfield
Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Special Assignments (Fandorin 5)

Erast Petrovich Fandorin returns in two short stories, this time narrated by the young Anisii Tulipov. Akunin remains on form with these two tales of Fandorin's intelligence pitted against devious, dangerous Moscow criminals.

In The Jack of Spades, chance has Tulipov, who feels as though life has always gone against him, assigned to support the Deputy to the Governor of Moscow for Special Assignments (Fandorin of course). In such a position, Tulipov relates the strange habits of the young, grey-templed sleuth. Their quarry, a master of disguise, gives them the run of the city.

Then in The Decorator worlds collide as it seems Jack the Ripper may have made it to Moscow. The second story is a thrilling re-imagining of Ripper mythology, made all the more exciting both by Fandorin's intellect and the filter through which we gain access to it: Tulipov.

Akunin has struck a familiar tone with a third party narrator. While Turkish Gambit was perhaps my favourite of the Fandorin books, Special Assignments, despite this familiarity, does little to rise above the very high bar Akunin has set for himself. But the host of well imagined characters and locations, and the ability to spin a gripping story remains intact and I devoured both tales voraciously. Onwards!

~~~
2007
Boris Akunin, translated by Andrew Bromfield.
Weidenfeld & Nicolson (UK); Random House (USA)