Chiwetel Ejiofor

Doctor Strange

Director: Scott Derrickson (2016) BBFC cert: 12A

Released on a Tuesday to capitalise on UK schools half term break, this is a movie which doesn’t need the leg up to take the number one spot in the box office chart. The eye popping visuals and star power of Benedict Cumberbatch means this sorcery-based superhero adventure will have you spellbound.

In an astute piece of casting every bit as inspired as having Robert Downey Jnr play Iron Man, the star of TV’s Sherlock star plays Dr Stephen Strange, a brain surgeon turned Sorcerer Supreme.

In the latest introduction of a minor character in the Marvel canon to the wider cinema audience, the impressively psychedelic stylings of this latest product off the assembly line are sufficient to distract us from the functional plot.

Plus its East meets West magic and martial arts action means it possesses it a far stronger sense of identity than some of its franchise fellows. Yes, I’m looking at you Ant-Man (2015).

Despite a distracting American accent, Cumberbatch is alarmingly dashing in goatee beard, glowing medallion and a red cape. Similarly to the magic carpet in Disney’s animated Aladdin (1994), the cape has a mind of its own and is a major character in its own right. It says a lot for the actor’s comic ability he can play straight man to his costume.

The strong supporting cast includes Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams and Benedict Wong. Stan Lee has one his better cameos. McAdams is focused, bright and underused in the role of Strange’s love interest. By coincidence she appeared in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes (2009) as Holmes’ love interest Irene Adler.

A rampant egotist, the Doctor’s glamorous lifestyle and career are ruined when a car accident crushes his hands. In Nepal he is trained in the art of sorcery by Tilda Swinton’s mysterious Ancient One. Her sink or swim teaching methods include abandoning her pupils on Mount Everest to find their own way to safety.

Having fun in a role which is absolutely not stretch of his talent, former Bond villain Mads Mikkelsen sports glam rock eye shadow and periodically teleports in to cause carnage. As renegade mystic Kaecilius, he’s attempting to destroy the world with the help of Dormammu, a powerful demon from the Dark Dimension.

The story skips between London, New York, Hong Kong and Nepal in a series of gravity defying, time twisting, space curling, mind bending action set pieces. For a lot of the time it’s like watching Christopher Nolan’s Inception on acid.

This is easily the most visually ambitious, funny and entertaining superhero movie of the year.

★★★★☆

@ChrisHunneysett

 

Secret in Their Eyes

Director: Billy Ray (2016)

In my eyes there’s far too little mystery in this plodding political pot boiler.

The star of 12 Years A Slave (2014) Chiwetel Ejiofor is now 13 years an investigator, that’s the time his character Ray has spent hunting for a killer.

As talented as the public school educated British actor is, he fails to convince as a blue collar New York cop.

Ray’s convinced he’s found the man responsible for the murder of the daughter of former colleague Jess.

Julia Roberts performance has been described as ‘brave’, meaning she wears no make up.

To borrow Stephen Fry’s ungentlemanly phrase from the Baftas, she looks, albeit intentionally, like a bag lady.

Nicole Kidman’s glamorous District Attorney is reluctant to jeopardise her career by reopening the case on the basis Ray’s flimsy evidence.

There are corruption, confessions, chases, interrogations, break ins and some waffle about baseball.

The story switches between two years, most of what happens in 2002 lacks tension and 2015 is too concerned with Ray trying to resolve a romantic obsession.

The top drawer cast are on great form and none disappoint as in turn they’re granted the space to demonstrate their considerable ability.

But we’re not terribly invested in the characters and the script isn’t interested in the plot and moments of humour are misjudged as the cast strive to carry weighty themes.

Based on an Argentine film The Secret in Their Eyes (2009) it’s been heavily retooled for the American market.

There’s an effectively created mood of paranoia and uncertainty in the aftermath of 9/11.

Addressing the attacks’ effect on the American psyche, the script demands the US bury its grief and stop feeling guilty over allowing it to occur.

Arguing the US must in future deliver swift and terminal justice to wrong doers is an insular and biblical view point which may play better across the pond than over here.

★★★☆☆

Triple 9

Director: John Hillcoat (2016)

This confused crime drama is a loose tissue of tattoos, muscles and machismo.

Despite the violence, very strong language, drug use and nudity, the lack of focus and ambivalent moral stance makes for an un-involving experience.

Too many minor characters slow the pace and the moody lighting fails to illuminate the blunt action scenes.

Kate Winslet gives tremendous vamp as a glossy Russian-Israeli mafia mol who blackmails a crew of corrupt cops into one last heist.

The gang leader is Michael who’s played  by Chiwetel Ejiofor, an actor rarely given to compromising his character’s intensity in return for popularity.

Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul appears as a loose cannon with a drug problem. Again.

Full of epic ambition and clearly influenced by Michael Mann’s far superior Heat (1995), director Hillcoat had a much firmer grip of his material with the taut Australian western The Proposition (2005).

 

★★☆☆☆

The Martian

Director: Ridley Scott (2015)

Blast off to the red planet in this breathless, big budget sci-fi adventure which rockets along to a disco beat.

Based on Andy Weir’s 2011 novel, director Ridley Scott has rarely had so much fun or provided so much clever, crowd pleasing entertainment.

Scott washes away his reputation as a dry visual perfectionist by splashing wild torrents of humour and humanity over his typically brilliant design and cinematography.

When a Nasa team is forced to abort their experiments on the surface of Mars, Mark Watney is assumed dead and left behind.

Intelligent and likeable, Matt Damon is terrifically cast as the marooned astronaut forced to improvise to survive.

His resourcefulness allows him to farm water, oxygen and food but is constantly beset by technical problems, not least having no communications with colleagues in space or on Earth.

The operation he performs on himself is not as graphic as the one Noomi Rapace endured in Scott’s flawed Prometheus (2012) but still not for the squeamish.

Meanwhile Jessica Chastain, Kate Mara and Michael Pena begin the long journey home in their spacecraft.

When a Nasa technician discovers Watney’s alive, his now not-dead presence presents a tricky PR problem, especially if they fail to keep him alive a second time.

It’s a race against time, budgets, office politics and technical limitations.

As harassed Nasa officials, the comic ability of Jeff Daniels and Kristen Wiig are used to good effect in straight roles.

British Oscar nominated star of misery memoir 12 Years A Slave (2013) Chiwetel Ejiofor brings charm and warmth.

Sean Bean is a gruff conscience who brings heart to the constant equation crunching and scores for a big laugh.

The huge success of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) combination of humour, action, state of the art effects and pop tunes is clearly an influence. But this is more grounded and less smug.

With the exception of a strangely retro-titled ‘advanced supercomputer’, an excellent script offers plenty of plausible sounding sciency stuff.

Remember the killer scene in Apollo 13 (1995) when the Nasa techies have to improvise a new gizmo from old hairdryer parts and a vacuum cleaner? Most of The Martian is that scene – but bigger.

There are scenes in China which may well be extended when the film is released in that market. Unlike films such as Iron Man 3 (2013) the Chinese element feels a necessary part of the narrative.

Ideas and motifs touched upon in Silent Running (1972) Robinson Crusoe On Mars (1964) appear.

There’s little bitterness, fear or insanity but vast amounts of hope, hard work and optimism.

The Martian celebrates the courage, ingenuity and loyalty of humanity. It is a cry from the heart for the return of to an age of space exploration.

Cinematographer Dariusz Wolski worked on Scott’s flawed Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014). Scott often has him shoot from a low angle to include ceilings and skies in his shot, heightening the sense of Watney’s captivity and suffocating isolation.

Special effects by British SFX house Framestore bring the same bravura technical skills we saw employed to Oscar winning effect in Gravity (2013).

Having made two definitive pieces of sci-fi early in his career with Alien (1979) Blade Runner (1982), Scott has finally added a markedly different but triumphant third at the tail end of it.

Although much of the humour is as dry as the beautiful Martian landscapes, with music by Abba, Donna Summer and the O’Jays, there’s no shortage of atmosphere in this outer space epic.

★★★★★