fantasy

THE RED TURTLE

Cert PG 81mins Stars 5

Be swept away on waves of imagination by this remarkable animated fable.

Many familiar elements are borrowed from sources such as Robinson Crusoe, and the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. But Dutch writer/directer Michael Dudok de Wit crafts something fresh and uniquely wonderful.

It’s visually inspired by Japanese and Chinese art and uses traditional ink and watercolour in an elegant hand drawn style.

Deep currents of love and loss stir beneath the surface of what begins as a traditional adventure story and evolves into a rich exploration of the circle of life.

When an unnamed man is stranded on a tropical island, his attempts to escape on a raft are thwarted by a giant red turtle.

Without a word of dialogue, but with many an exclamatory grunt and cry, their relationship moves from antagonism to understanding.

Beaten to the best animated Oscar by Disney’s more obvious offering, Zootropolis, this is a breathtakingly beautiful, magical and moving experience.

A DOG’S PURPOSE

Cert PG 100mins Stars 2

Time seems to pass in dog years watching this fluffy-minded fable featuring a mutt which ponders the meaning of life while repeatedly reincarnating.

This sun kissed sentimental soap opera is directed in typically treacly style by Lasse Hallstrom, who last made a sentimental meal of Helen Mirren’s The Hundred Foot Journey.

Josh Gad voices Bailey the dog with puppyish enthusiasm. Each time it’s born again, the pooch changes breed, gender, and owners.

This allows this mongrel of a film to move from it’s setting from suburban drama to Chicago cop show. There’s also a Sex and the City style interlude where Bailey experiences some doggy style puppy love.

There are Lassie type heroics involving burning buildings and arresting wrong-uns. He also chases his tail, rolls in the mud and chases chickens.

Dog lovers may enjoy it, but for cat people such as myself it will raise your hackles and make you want to hiss.

 

MOLLY MONSTER

Cert U 72mins Stars 3

Wrap yourself up in this warm comfort blanket of a cartoon, aimed with gentle accuracy at the CBeebies crowd.

It’s inventive, charming, and has some sweet songs to jolly the slight story along. There’s a vaguely Sergeant a Pepper vibe to the animation, but lacks the potent menace of the magnificent Blue Meanies.

A green and yellow dragon type of monster, Molly is friendly, brave, kind, and clever.

Left at home when her parents set off to egg island, she decides to follow them, taking only her blue clockwork pet, Edison, for company.

The delightfully absurdist landscape is populated with various quirky creatures to assist along the way. Plus there are mechanical contraptions which would delight Heath-Robinson.

Based on the whimsical books of Swiss illustrator, Ted Sieger, this children’s animation is a quirky affair which tootles along at a soft and pleasant pace.

There’s nothing here to frighten your little monsters.

 

SMURFS: THE LOST VILLAGE

Cert U 90mins Stars 2

The boys in blue are back for another animated adventure, but this time the girls are doing it for themselves.

Following the success of Disney’s female-led adventures such as Frozen, and Zootropolis, this latest ham-fisted Smurf reboot tries to offer a more female friendly experience.

Smurfette leads Brainy, Hefty, and Clumsy into the Forbidden Forest on a journey of self-discovery, where they find a lost village of female Smurfs.

This is an attempt to address a longstanding criticism regarding Smurfette’s status as the only girl in the village. Unfortunately the clumsy script reduces her status from a spare rib to a non-Smurf, saying she was created from a piece of clay by an evil Smurf-hating wizard.

Despite this bizarre twist, it’s generally good natured and filled with slapstick and shenanigans. However all but the youngest of kids will struggle to be entertained, and the patience of parents will be tested to the limit.

 

GHOST IN THE SHELL (2017)

Cert 12A 107mins Stars 2

Beneath the glossy exterior there’s not much spirit to be found in this curate’s egg of a sci-fi action thriller.

A hard working Scarlett Johansson stands at the centre of the spectacular visuals, but even the Avengers star can’t bring the soulless storytelling to boil.

The story is based the acclaimed Japanese cyberpunk comic strip which was followed by a successful big screen animated version in 1995. They were a huge influence on The Matrix, which is why a lot of the ideas here seem very familiar.

This future version of Japan is a neon vision of eye popping CGI. The population pay for cybernetic enhancements to make themselves quicker, stronger, smarter, etc.

Johansson gives a nicely judged mechanical performance as a kick-ass military cyborg known as the Major. She’s a human brain in a synthetic body and possessed of unexplained powers of flight and invisibility.

Investigating the assassination of corporate suits, the Major discovers a secret about her past which causes her to question her mission.

Controversy was caused by the casting of Johansson in the lead role. Giving an Asian role to a caucasian actress has led to accusations of whitewashing.

But technically Johansson is playing a robot, and the film’s Chinese financiers don’t seem to have a problem with it. And anyway, it’s the least of the films problems.

Despite casting one of the worlds most desirable women and encasing her in a nude body suit, this is a remarkably sexless enterprise.

Plus the cardboard cutout characters are dwarfed by the locations and the drama is lost in the scrambled action sequences.

A flat script fails to explore the idea of identity, and the dull dialogue suffers from a severe humour malfunction.

And without love, poetry or anything else to give it humanity, the Ghost In The Shell offers very little of substance.

 

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (2017)

Cert PG 139mins Stars 5

Be spellbound as Emma Watson swaps the wizarding world of Harry Potter for a fairytale featuring a fantastic beast.

Having found global fame as Hogwarts schoolgirl swot, Hermione, Watson takes centre stage in Disney’s big budget, live action adventure. It’s a remake of their own musical from 1991, which was the first animated movie to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.

Surrounded by the cream of camp theatricality, and the finest CGI technology, it would be cruel and unfair to suggest Watson is the film’s least animated performer. She is faultless as the bookish, brave and beautiful, Belle.

Dan Stevens is demonically horned and hairy as then Beast. The English actor’s stock has only risen since escaping the upstairs confines of TV’s Downton Abbey.

The story is unchanged. To rescue her father from the frozen castle of the Beast, young Belle sacrifices her own freedom. The majestic monster is really a cursed Prince. He must earn her love or remain a creature forever. And time is running out.

To ensure a box office success, Disney have deployed the full creative might of their empire. There is excellence everywhere, from the superb cast, to sumptuous costumes and detailed design.

From the Oscar wining title track, to the boisterous ‘Gaston’ and the glorious ‘Be Our Guest’, the show stopping tunes are the magic which elevates this above last year’s excellent live action, Cinderella.

Competing for the limelight are old hams and grand dames of the theatre, such as Emma Thompson, Ewan McGregor and Ian McKellen. They breathe life into the castle’s other inhabitants, the talking clock, teapot, candelabra, and so on.

Bill Condon doesn’t direct the film, as much as pilot this jazz handed juggernaut safely into cinemas. It’s far from ground-breaking but it is enchanting, exciting and funny.

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THE HOUSE WITH THE CLOCK IN ITS WALLS

Cert 12A 104mins Stars 4

Jack Black stars as a warlock full of tricks in this early Halloween treat of frighteningly entertaining family fun.

With expert comic timing he conjures up plenty of crowd-pleasing magical mayhem in this charming, funny and nicely scary supernatural adventure, based on the popular children’s book by John Bellairs.

As kindly uncle Jonathan to ten-year-old orphan, Lewis, Black sees all hell breaks lose when his nephew secretly uses magic in an attempt to gain popularity at school, and inadvertently unleashes a demonic force in the form of Kyle MacLachan’s deceased evil sorcerer.

This sets the clock ticking on the end of the world, and to prevent it Jonathan and Lewis team up with their neighbour. Suitably dressed in regal purple the imperiously talented Cate Blanchett resembles Mary Poppins’ stylish older sister, and enjoys herself immensely as the brolly-wielding witch.

Blanchett and Black are an unlikely and seemingly mismatched double act but have a sparky chemistry, while Owen Vaccaro gives a bright and articulate performance as Lewis, and is never upstaged by his illustrious co-stars.

After contributing enormously to the huge success of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, early this year and having unveiled his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame this week, Black’s career is recovering it’s sparkle.

And although director Eli Roth filmed this year’s woeful remake of Death Wish starring Bruce Willis, he’s recovered strongly with this latest effort and is careful to be faithful to the tone and intention of the source material.

His film bursts with warm nostalgia for the 1950’s US small town setting, typical enough for a film co-produced by Steven Spielberg’s company, Amblin.

Populated with pet-like living furniture and self playing musical instruments, kids will love the handsomely designed house where the action takes place, and they’ll totally agree with the story’s premise that chocolate chip cookies have the power to soothe any problem.

MORTAL ENGINES

Cert 12A Stars 3

The latest blockbuster to rumble across the big screen from the makers of The Lord of the Rings trilogy is surprisingly clunky and run of the mill.

Adapted from a series of books by Brit author Philip Reeve it’s a steampunk sci-fi fantasy epic set 1000 years into the future on an apocalyptic Earth.

Icelandic actress Hera Hilmar plays a young orphan bent on revenging her mother’s death and becomes involved in a fiendish plot to unleash centuries old technology with the power to destroy the world.

Her target is Hugo Weaving’s duplicitous patrician, who’s geared to driving London to a brighter future.

Tremendously designed and rendered in faultless CGI throughout, it’s a world where Europeans inhabit cities resting on ginormous armoured vehicles which prey on smaller mechanical towns for scarce materials such as fuel and salt.

There are sea-travelling prison towns on crab-like legs, small scavenger villages and a floating hot air balloon metropolis, while in the Asiatic east a static settlement sits behind a huge wall, and is presented as a fortified Shangri-la.

However the inspired premise is crushed beneath the wheels of misfiring storytelling, which has clanking dialogue, comedy and romance which barely register and is bereft of a sense of time or distance.

London is a giant tank thundering across Europe, flattening opposition and scooping up resources for it’s over-privileged upper classes, but this abundant wealth of satirical possibilities is wasted.

Despite determined efforts by the actors to provide emotional fuel, they’re too often squandered as grist for the towering spectacle.

Plus Hilmar’s nominal central role is squeezed out of focus by a bevy of subplots and not particularly interesting characters.

The best of which are Stephen Lang’s undead cyborg, who takes the story into an agreeably dark place, but it’s all too quickly back-pedalled from in favour of more family friendly action scenes.

And despite some game playing by Irishman, Robert Sheehan, his lowly historian and wannabe aviator is required to bridge an awkward divide between romantic lead and comic support.

With it’s strong Antipodean accent in front and behind the camera, this too often feels like an enormously souped up riff on Mad Max, but one with a fraction of the dynamism.

 

 

DUMBO

Cert PG 112mins Stars 3

Disney’s mission to remake their classic animated films with a blend of live-action and CGI loses hard-earned goodwill with this disappointingly tame and heavy-footed fantasy adventure.

Competent but rarely endearing or involving, the story again treads the path of a young big-eared circus elephant, called Dumbo, who longs to be reunited with his mother.

When a chance encounter with a feather reveals a talent for flying, it makes him a star of the show, and brings him to the attention of an villainous impresario.

1941’s much loved original is a charmingly brief tale drunk on trippy invention and which won an Oscar for its musical score.

This is a very different beast and though it offers an all-star cast and some spectacle, it’s nearly twice as long with a barely a song of note, and lacks sufficient warmth and humour.

The performing pachyderm himself is a leathery lump of CGI who is sidelined in his own film in favour of the likeable Irishman, Colin Farrell.

He plays a one-armed single parent who after military service returns to work in the circus, where he struggles to reconnect with his kids.

With a long standing fascination with the circus and a track record in creating big budget mainstream fantasies such as Disney’s 2010 billion dollar box office smash, Alice In Wonderland, Tim Burton is a safe and predictable but far from inspired choice as director.

He’s recruited regular collaborators to help out, but Danny DeVito’s struggling circus owner isn’t as funny as the film thinks he is, Eva Green is stilted as a trapeze artiste, and Michael Keaton lacks his familiar fiendish energy.

Circus acts such as jugglers and contortionists are often busy in the background of scenes, and are possibly there to compensate for the lack of magic and excitement in the big ring, which fails to capture all the fun of the fair.

MISSING LINK

Cert PG 95mins Stars 4

Hugh Jackman leads an all-star cast to a high old time in the Himalayas in this delightful animated comedy full of family fun and excitement.

With engaging energy and charm the Aussie actor plays a 19th century English aristocratic adventurer searching for the missing link between humans and apes.

A sighting of the legendary Sasquatch in the US leads to a madcap whistle-stop journey by steamship, locomotive, stagecoach and elephant, from the Wild West to the fabled city of Shangri-La.

Along for the ride are Zoe Saldana and Zach Galifianakis, with wonderful support from Brits Emma Thompson and David Walliams.

Astonishing heights of craftsmanship mix the richly detailed texture of traditional stop-motion animation with beautiful CGI vistas to glorious effect.

The producers were deservedly Oscar nominated in 2017 for their wonderful fable, Kubo and the Two Strings, and though this more mainstream adventure feels a tiny evolutionary step backwards by their lofty standards, it’s still a wonderful early Easter treat.