2014

Into The Woods

Director: Rob Marshall (2014)

Disney embraces the dark side in this dazzling big budget live-action adaption of the award-winning magical musical fairytale.

Based on the stories of the Brothers Grimm, the wicked lyrics of songwriting maestro Stephen Sondheim are performed by an all-star cast on top form.

Plus as great sets and costumes boost the sometimes uninspired direction, it all makes for a spooky and frequently funny fantasy.

Once upon a time, a baby-stealing witch (Meryl Streep) has cursed the house of a poor baker and his wife (James Corden and Emily Blunt) so they cannot conceive a baby.

Corden and Blunt share a bickering chemistry and play commendably straight which allows the more fantastical characters to showboat.

Streep indulges herself with may a shriek and cackle as the witch who is also under a spell, forcing the couple to help her before she will lift their curse.

They must go into the woods to find a white cow, a golden slipper, a red cape and some yellow hair before the full moon in three days’ time.

On the way, they meet familiar characters such as Little Red Riding Hood, played by an astonishingly confident and scene-stealing teenage Lilla Crawford.

She is of course preyed upon by the big bad wolf, an excellent Johnny Depp in an extended cameo.

There’s also Rapunzel (MacKenzie Mauzy), Jack of the beanstalk (Daniel Huttlestone) giants, ghosts and some golden eggs, Anna Kendrick is pitch perfect as Cinderella.

She is pursued by a a philandering Prince (Chris Pine). He’s wonderfully vain, self-centred and thoroughly enjoys himself delivering the funniest song and the best line.

Proving you should be careful what you wish for there are betrayals, mutilations and deaths as well as some unpardonably poor parenting.

As greed is punished and bravery and honesty win out, you won’t fail to be charmed by this wonderful tale’s dark magic.

★★★★☆

Boxtrolls

Director: Graham Annable, Anthony Stacchi (2014)

Funny and exciting from the off, this delightfully dark fairytale is a painstaking miracle of old school stop-motion animation.

For ten years since the Trubshaw baby was kidnapped there’s a nightly curfew in the cobble-stoned city of Cheesebridge.

Despite the horror stories about them devouring children, the Boxtrolls are actually peaceful, kind and incredibly inventive.

Their subterranean grotto is a Heath Robinson paradise, a magical place full of weird and wonderful contraptions built out of all the junk the city-folk have thrown away.

Living with the Boxtrolls is a boy named Eggs (Isaac Hempstead Wright). They’ve raised Eggs so successfully he thinks he’s a troll and the well-intentioned ‘trolls have difficulty explaining the painful truth.

Meanwhile First citizen Lord Portley-Rind and his white-hatted councillors employ the ferocious red-hatted exterminator Archibald Snatcher (Kingsley) to hunt down the cardboard box-wearing trolls.

If he can hunt down and destroy all the creatures, social-climber Snatcher is promised a white hat – an honour only bestowed to the cheese-gobbling upper classes.

Cheese-eating is the ultimate in conspicuous consumption for these burghers who drip with delicious self absorption. In the best tradition of Roald Dahl the films designers and animators delight in every exaggerated ill-mannered slurp.

One night as Eggs and the Boxtrolls venture out to tidy the city, his adopted dad Fish (Dee Bradley Baker) is captured by the fearsome Snatcher and his crew.

As the voices of Snatcher’s henchman Pickles and Trout, Richard Ayoade and Nick Frost are a curious casting choice with neither offering much energy or spark, they’re adequate with added whimsy.

Pickles is the more interesting of the two, constantly questions the validity of his dark deeds even as he perpetrates them. This is a lengthy set-up for a beautifully crafted gag which pays off tremendously in the final reel when Ayoade provides a wonderfully delivered monologue culminating in a brilliant reveal.

Eggs attempts to rescue Fish, teaming up with Portley-Rind’s spoilt, headstrong and argumentative daughter Winnie (Elle Fanning) along the way.

Breaking into Snatcher‘s factory they discover the captured Boxtrolls and the truth about the fate of the Trubshaw baby. It’s dangerous information and the resulting battle threatens to tear Cheesebridge apart in an action-packed finale.

Unwrap these Boxtrolls with care and you won’t be disappointed.

★★★★☆

Lucy

Director: Luc Besson (2014)

Chemically enhanced Scarlett Johansson goes into overdrive in this bonkers but brilliant bloody thriller.

The time-travelling, superhuman heroine tackles Chinese Triad gangs, French cops and dinosaurs in this knowingly daft sci-fi film.

Lucy (Johansson) is studying in Taiwan when she’s kidnapped by gangster Mr Jang (Min-sik Choi). He surgically inserts a bag of a wonder drug, CPH4, into her stomach so he can illicitly transport it to Europe.

But a henchman beats her up, the bag rips and Lucy absorbs a potentially fatal dose. Instead of killing her, the CPH4 unleashes her full brain power. Normally humans use only 10% but hers is rocketing.

Luckily Morgan Freeman (Professor Norman) is on hand to do what Freeman always does in such situations: spout sciency-sounding stuff to explain what’s going on.

Accelerated evolution gives Lucy access to secrets of the universe but also threatens to destroy her. As she develops super-agility, mind control and telekinesis, she’s becomes a deadly shot and goes on the rampage.

Director Luc Besson can’t see a corridor without having an actor sashay along it waving firearms – and he needs no excuse to follow Johansson’s famous curves.

With her cool detachment and deadpan delivery, the more powerful Lucy becomes the sexier she is. She joins forces with police to trace the other drugs mules.

When Jang’s heavily armed mob arrive in Paris for shoot-outs and a great car chase, Lucy begins to travel in time and space and it’s not just her mind that’s blown.

★★★★☆