X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019)

The Low-Down: In the age of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and the Avengers, it can be hard to forget that the X-Men were actually here first. The hyper-kinetic, gloriously operatic X-Men (2000) made blockbuster superhero movies cool again – plucking several of Marvel Comics’ best characters out of cult comic books and launching them into the mainstream. It’s a shame that such an iconic franchise is ending with a whimper rather than a bang. X-Men: Dark Phoenix is the final installment in the series – because it has to be, now that Fox is merging with Disney/Marvel. But the film does itself no favours in revisiting a storyline that was already told, albeit rather poorly, in The Last Stand (2006).

The Story: We’ve already met the ridiculously powerful cosmic force that is the Phoenix: it latched onto Famke Janssen’s Jean Grey over a decade ago, and decimated a bunch of fan-favourite characters in its fiery wake. This time around, the Phoenix finds a host in Sophie Turner’s younger Jean Grey, unlocking past trauma and present angst as it burns through the childhood defenses put in place in Jean’s mind by Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy). As Jean goes on the run, her former allies rush to find her – some set on protecting her, others on eliminating the threat she poses to their safety and loved ones. But can they save her from Vuk (Jessica Chastain), the ice-cold leader of an alien race hellbent on claiming the Phoenix’s power for herself?

The Good: There’s actually a decent amount of good seeded throughout Dark Phoenix. Most intriguing of all is the film’s darker take on Xavier – he’s usually portrayed as an unequivocally good (and therefore slightly boring) character, devoted to his young charges and leading the fight for a better, more unbiased world. Paired with a fascinating, almost petulant performance from McAvoy, Dark Phoenix reminds us that, sometimes, the road to Hell on Earth is paved with good intentions. Long-time X-Men writer Simon Kinberg makes his directorial debut, and proves more than equal to the task of whipping up fantastically thrilling action sequences. He peppers the film with plenty of lovely imagery and aesthetic touches: from Jean’s hair taking on a life of its own when she’s in Phoenix mode, to Quicksilver (Evan Peters) speed-climbing a whirlwind of debris.

The Not-So-Good: It’s hard to shake the feeling that there isn’t much reason for this film to exist, other than giving Kinberg the opportunity to take a second stab at the same story. (He co-wrote The Last Stand, to eternal fan derision.) Dark Phoenix edges closer to the classic Chris Claremont storyline in the comics, but it never quite fulfils its own potential. The Xavier subplot doesn’t get anywhere near the true depth or darkness it deserves. Chastain is brilliant casting, but for no real reason. If the screenplay had supported her better, Chastain could have transformed Vuk into a properly sympathetic antagonist; instead, she’s stuck in the key of one-dimensional supervillain. We get a peek at Genosha, a mutant safe haven under the governance of Erik Lensherr/Magneto (Michael Fassbender) – but we don’t linger there.

Phoenix Rising: Turner isn’t given much to do other than glower and fret, but she does it all well enough. The trouble is Jean Grey as a character. In all her incarnations, including in the comics, she gains immeasurable power, but loses all agency. She seems strong, but is actually a frustratingly passive protagonist. That’s compounded here by literally everyone around her constantly telling her what to do – from Charles, Erik and the annoyingly maternal Raven Darkholme (Jennifer Lawrence), to her well-meaning boyfriend, Scott Summers (Tye Sheridan), and the relentless Vuk. Is Jean supposed to master her emotions, to repress her powers, to stay quiet? Or is she supposed to unleash them, to revel in them, to metaphorically shout about her remarkable abilities? It’s a conundrum that exists in the source material – and this film makes a strong case for retiring Claremont’s Dark Phoenix for good.

Recommended? If you’ve ever loved the X-Men, you’ll probably want to say goodbye to this incarnation of these beloved characters before they’re resurrected in the MCU. But this is a decidedly middling installment in the franchise – not as dreadful as Apocalypse, but nowhere near the giddy heights of X-Men or Logan.

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

It’s hard to fault anyone for approaching X-Men: Apocalypse with optimism. 20th Century Fox has consistently failed the Fantastic Four, but they’ve had a better track record in recent years with Marvel’s mutants. We’ve been #blessed with Bryan Singer’s Days Of Future Past, a brainy, bold thrill ride that uses its myriad characters to excellent effect in telling a time-twisted tale of doom and… well, apocalypse. Tim Miller’s snarky, wacky Deadpool proved without a doubt that the studio is willing to take a risk on a cult property and let it explode all over the silver screen, rather than neuter it out of hand. With Singer back on board and a top-notch cast, hopes are understandably high for the cataclysmic confrontation suggested by the title of this latest entry in the X-Men franchise.

We’re even promised the holy grail of X-Men villains: ancient mutant Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac, buried under too many layers of make-up and prosthetics). This righteous blue-hued dude, with his huge but poorly defined power-set, is an iconic antagonist for our band of superheroes in the comics: he’s been known to lay waste to Earth in the past, present and future. In Singer’s incarnation, Apocalypse’s four Horsemen include wing-tipped Angel (Ben Hardy); weather witch Storm (Alexandra Shipp); energy-blade-wielding Psylocke (Olivia Munn); and a bitter, broken Magneto/Erik Lensherr (Michael Fassbender).

It’s up to Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and his X-Men – superpowered students that include younger versions of uber-powerful Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) and Cyclops/Scott Summers (Tye Sheridan) – to stop Apocalypse from claiming the entire world for himself. Along the way, shape-shifter Raven/Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) must decide just how she can best contribute to the mutant cause in which she so firmly believes.

Here’s the thing: keep your expectations low – lower – lowest – and X-Men: Apocalypse may just pass muster. This is a cookie-cutter blockbuster, sliced and diced together with more efficiency than heart. It dutifully ticks boxes as it chugs along: Apocalypse recruits his acolytes. Magneto loses his heart and soul (again). Charles and Raven discuss and disagree on tactics. Superheroes face off. It’s all strung together with several sequences of world-destroying action, filmed in true Roland Emmerich style.

Devotees of both the movies and the comics will find things to enjoy: a twitchy, endearing young Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who looks very much like a demon but is deeply devout; another deeply amusing explosion of special effects as fan favourite Quicksilver (Evan Peters) zips through a hilarious rescue mission; and an already publicised cameo by Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) that will drive fans berserk.

But think a little harder or poke at its shaky plot, and X-Men Apocalypse falls apart quite readily. The truth is that much of this film is neither inspired nor inspiring. It’s okay, for the most part, but it’s never great, and barely ever good. Simon Kinberg’s script is a limp affair, recycling bits that worked better in other movies in the franchise but breaking very little new ground. The stakes are insanely high, but the threat never feels genuine – a feeling that is only reinforced by the clumsy and anti-climactic way in which the final showdown takes place. Can we say deus ex machina? Yes, we can.

The character work that lends so much emotion and power to earlier installments like First Class and Days Of Future Past is missing here too. Too much of the story relies on emotional connections that aren’t established too well, and which can only be supplied by the viewers themselves. The film meanders without much purpose through its many relationships, staging a series of first meetings or reunions that basically amount to: Jean and Cyclops meet cute! Charles and Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne) meet cute! Raven and Hank McCoy (Nicholas Hoult) meet cute!

But very little of it sparks to life, and there’s a troubling disregard for female agency, too, that fuels Magneto’s entire emotional arc in this film. We’re also told why Moira disappeared in between films, but she’s not given any time to forgive what she has had to forget.

At least Singer’s cast does good work with what little they are given. As a re-energised Charles, McAvoy is as appealing and charming as ever. Fassbender remains a gift to the franchise: he imbues Erik with the perfect blend of heartbreak and hatred, which serves as a potent reminder of why he makes a far better antagonist than the automaton-on-evil-autopilot that is Apocalypse. In the context of the film, Lawrence delivers a decent performance. But it’s still hard to shake the feeling that she’s miscast in the role, with her explosive star power prompting the filmmakers to transform Raven into someone pretty much unrecognisable to comic readers.

In just eight years, the genre that was once treated as the difficult bastard stepchild of the movie industry has come fully into its own. It’s only May and we’ve already seen three superhero films hit cinemas – Captain America: Civil War: excellent; Deadpool: awesome; Batman v Superman: awful. This latest installment in the X-Men franchise falls on neither extreme. It displays a couple of flashes of brilliance, but not enough to drag it out from the uncomfortable middle ground of mediocrity it occupies. Here’s hoping Singer (if he signs on to direct) and Kinberg find their footing again with the inevitable follow-up to X-Men: Apocalypse – we’ve already been told that it will be set in the ’90s, with a rather obscure end-credits scene teasing just where the franchise will go next.

Basically: The latest X-Men film isn’t completely dreadful, but you may be tempted to cancel the Apocalypse after watching it.

X-Men: Days Of Future Past (2014)

With its mind-boggling premise and jaw-dropping cast, X-Men: Days Of Future Past blasts into cinemas bearing the weight of great expectations. Surely this mash-up of X-Men past and future has the potential to be the best superhero blockbuster our world will ever see? Well, yes and no.

To be strictly objective, Days Of Future Past can occasionally come off as a little too earnest, its enormous cast of characters getting somewhat lost in the grinding of its narrative gears. But, when it works (which is most of the time), Days Of Future Past comes pretty darn close to nerdvana – this is a smart, rich film that effectively mines its source material (both the movies and Chris Claremont’s classic 1981 storyline in the comic books) and its incredible cast for emotion, power and depth.

Flash forward to the bleakest of futures. X-Men we have known – led by perennial frenemies Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Erik Lensherr/Magneto (Ian McKellen) – are being hunted mercilessly by a horde of intelligent, death-mongering robots known as Sentinels. With little hope for survival, the desperate X-Men decide to send Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back in time to the 1970s. There, he must find the younger Charles (James McAvoy) and Erik (Michael Fassbender) – several years estranged after the traumatic events of X-Men: First Class – and get them to change the future before it can happen.

Sounds simple enough? Not really. Days Of Future Past frequently threatens to fall foul of its complicated puzzle-box of a narrative, one that involves time travel, quantum physics and a swirling mess of characters, action and motivations. There’s Dr. Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), creator of the Sentinel programme, whose assassination in the past by Charles’ pseudo-sister Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) brings about the dystopia of the future. There are prison breaks, astral projections, and several grisly mutant deaths. Truthfully, this incredibly ambitious mix of character, plot and spectacle could very easily go horribly wrong.

What’s so impressive about director Bryan Singer’s return to the franchise is how well he weaves all the disparate threads of his narrative together. This is emphatically not the Singer who gave us mediocre misfires like Superman Returns and Jack The Giant Slayer. Rather, this is the work of the Singer who made his mark with films like X1, X2 and The Usual Suspects, all of which featured a masterful blend of wit and wisdom, character and story.

In Days Of Future Past, Singer skilfully plays on the schism that opened up between Erik and Charles at the end of First Class to add welcome depths of emotion to the high stakes already in play. The deep, difficult relationship between the two men has always been the fulcrum of the series, and Singer allows it to breathe and grow. With the help of McAvoy and Fassbender (not to mention Stewart and McKellen), some of the best actors in the business, the director makes it possible to believe that resentment can give way to forgiveness, and vice versa, often in the blink of an eye. McAvoy, in particular, gives a shudderingly good performance as a man called upon to help others when he’s lost his own way.

With such an enormous revolving cast of characters, Singer even manages to give many – though not all – of them their hearts and souls. (Alas, Storm/Ororo, we will never know ye!) Thrust into the unlikely role of mentor to the broken, heartsore Charles, Wolverine must find a different sort of strength and ingenuity within himself. Jackman plays the role beautifully, anchoring the two timelines with charm and gravitas. Though still something of an awkward fit for her part, Lawrence, too, plays Raven’s dilemma very well, as she wavers between Charles’ offer of hope and Erik’s often bloody single-mindedness.

But Days Of Future Past doesn’t just mire itself in the toss and tumble of its characters’ emotional journeys. Singer throws in a few crackerjack action sequences, opening the film with a heart-stopping massacre that very effectively underscores the dire threat posed by the Sentinels of the future. Crucially, Singer also finds the time and space within the darkest shadows of his story to have a little fun, judiciously tossing quips and sight gags into the mix – particularly in a tour de force prison break sequence, in which the preternaturally speedy Pietro Maximoff (Evan Peters), better known to comic aficionados as Quicksilver, literally runs away with the entire show.

Make no mistake about it, this is a behemoth of a film that won’t go down well with everybody. Newbies will almost certainly find themselves lost, bewildered, and perhaps even bored. Singer’s tale sprawls in so many directions that, if you’re not at least marginally invested in the characters, it could prove to be a trying experience.

But, for everyone else, ranging from casual fans to enthusiasts and obsessives, Singer and screenwriter Simon Kinberg have crafted something truly remarkable. Steeped in history and lore, both of the cinematic and comic-book variety, Days Of Future Past feels like a dark love letter to the spirit of that original band of mutants and the message of hope, tolerance and humanity that has always accompanied their attempts to find their place on Earth.

Most remarkably of all, Days Of Future Past practically radiates a bravery and freshness that you’d never expect from the seventh film in a blockbuster franchise. Instead of playing it safe and sound, Days Of Future Past mashes up past, present and future, sweeping up a lot of what has been taken for granted in the X-Men cinematic universe and, well, chucking it out of the proverbial window. The ending of this film truly opens up an intriguing plethora of narrative possibilities that stretch in any and all directions. On the strength of this outing, that’s something to be anticipated, rather than feared.

Summary: A stunning achievement – a blockbuster movie packed with at least as much heart as spectacle.

 

Filth (2013)

In almost every respect, Filth is a film that shouldn’t work at all. An adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s complicated, difficult novel laced with shades of psychosis and depravity? In the hands of a director who has only one other film under his belt? Featuring a central character who’s more monster than man, not so much demanding sympathy as being almost completely undeserving of it? Starring James McAvoy, a charming, nice-guy bloke of an actor who made his big-screen debut as a faun? No, it really shouldn’t work – and yet, it does, remarkably well.

Bruce Robertson (McAvoy) is a wretched beast of a man who lies, cheats, manipulates and fornicates his way through life. To snag a promotion to Detective Inspector in the Edinburgh police department, Bruce ruthlessly plays his colleagues off one another. But it soon becomes clear that his latest case – the gang murder of a Japanese student – is not the only thing unravelling around him. Bruce’s wife and child have left him, and it seems likely that his wits will soon follow suit.

By rights, there’s nothing particularly funny about Bruce’s predicament. Filth could easily have been presented as a bleak, cautionary drama about mental illness and sociopathy, asking questions about when a personality defect tips over into madness. It would be far more difficult to give full play to the blackest of black humour that suffuses Welsh’s novel.

And yet, writer-director Jon S. Baird’s decision to do just that is precisely why Filth works as well as it does. It’s not an easy or comfortable watch, and could prove utterly repulsive to some. But there’s something magnetically enchanting about the film as it zips by. In effect, it’s a live-action cartoon on steroids, chasing after Bruce as he bounces from reality into his drug-addled imagination and back again. Miraculously, Baird ensures that Filth never veers into the realm of camp. Instead, the entire experience is a perverse mix of charm and horror: you’ll find yourself almost ashamed to take delight in a film and character so unapologetically depraved.

The sheer electric power of McAvoy’s performance cannot be over-stated. Everything in the film sets Bruce up as that rare villain who becomes a leading man: he preys mercilessly on those more innocent than himself (including Jamie Bell’s awkward young detective and Eddie Marsan as Bruce’s hapless, self-termed best friend), and disdains those more competent or trying to help him (his main rival as played by Imogen Poots). McAvoy commits utterly fearlessly to Bruce’s villainy. It’s a revelation to see an actor known for his genial, everyman demeanour descend into such dark and sordid places.

But the true magic of McAvoy’s performance comes in the quieter moments, the handful of shuddering silences that pepper Bruce’s outbursts of action and manipulation. Therein, McAvoy unearths a fast-fading glimmer of humanity – not in any way enough to redeem Bruce, but essential to forming a more complete, tragic picture of the man who has lost himself beneath layers of monster and menace.

As a film, Filth asks a lot of its audience: trust in the crazy twists in its story, forbearance for its more morally repugnant characters and moments, faith in its ability to tie all the loose ends up in a way that doesn’t cheapen itself. Not everyone will think Baird has succeeded. Those who haven’t walked out by the end might be upset by the cheeky audacity of its final scene. But those who give themselves over to the streak of insanity – both literal and metaphorical – laced throughout Filth will be rewarded with one of the smartest, darkest and most intellectually beguiling films of the year.

Basically: A merry mix of murder, mayhem and madness. McAvoy is marvellous.

Welcome To The Punch (2013)

When James McAvoy first appeared on the cinematic scene, it would have been hard to believe he’d make a credible leading man in action thrillers. He seemed perfectly mild-mannered and gently British – a successor to Colin Firth rather than Jason Statham. Unwilling to remain stereotyped, however, McAvoy has shifted into high gear, providing a surprisingly steely presence in the likes of Wanted and Trance. He completes a trilogy of sorts with Welcome To The Punch, a stylish if ultimately hollow crime thriller with an interesting twist on the mutability of the moral spectrum.

Driven cop Max Lewinsky (McAvoy) has long nursed a bitter, very personal grudge against master criminal Jacob Sternwood (Mark Strong). When a heist involving Sternwood’s son goes wrong, Max has another chance to take his nemesis down. Tormented by pain and the rage of obsession, Max invariably places himself and his colleague Sarah (Andrea Riseborough) in ever greater danger to get closer to Sternwood – even as he begins to uncover a deeper, darker conspiracy that he must untangle in order to survive.

In comparison to most crime thrillers these days, there’s a bigger brain and a darker heart lost somewhere in Welcome To The Punch‘s twisted narrative. The relationship between Max and Sternwood plays out in a particularly effective way, aided by the always reliably good McAvoy and Strong – who add nuance and depth to their characters that probably wasn’t present in the script. The two men, neither of them painted in shades of black or white, both surviving in the murky greys of a world tainted by crime, gravitate towards and repel each other in equal measure.

The messy tango between Max and Sternwood is easily the best part of a film that occasionally trips itself up with its shallow characterisation and clunky dialogue. The twists in the plot manage to feel both obvious and confusing at the same time, and it’s hard to shake the feeling that Welcome To The Punch is more an exercise in style than in substance. Set in an alternate-universe London with its own odd political and criminal systems, characters wander through streets soaked in blues and greys, with occasional bursts of frenetic energy (a tense face-off involving a clueless grandmother) that are fun to watch but feel as if they belong in a different, more sardonic movie.

To be honest, there’s nothing hugely wrong with Welcome To The Punch. It does what it sets out to do reasonably well, with a very strong cast, a memorable aesthetic and an interesting premise. It’s just that the film always seems to be promising something more and better than what it finally delivers – which is an action movie a shade above the standard cop thriller, but nothing much else.

Basically: An exercise in style over substance that executes its interesting premise reasonably well but doesn’t quite do it full justice.

Trance (2013)

On the surface, Trance checks all the standard boxes for a noir thriller: a complicated crime lies at the heart of its plot, and the two leading men – one a relative innocent and the other a hardened criminal – fight for the attentions of the token femme fatale, who could be the key to the entire mystery, or its biggest red herring. Danny Boyle’s attempt at the genre is jacked up on about ten kinds of adrenaline, a story-telling approach that has its pros and cons. Although the story races along in a heart-poundingly fascinating way, it feels somehow empty when the  curtain falls on the trio caught in Boyle’s narrative snare.

To pay off his sizeable gambling debts, fine art auctioneer Simon (James McAvoy) teams up with a criminal gang to steal a Goya painting worth millions of dollars. But after suffering a grievous injury during the heist, Simon wakes up to discover that he can’t remember what he did with the loot. When threats and physical torture fail to unlock Simon’s memories, gang leader Franck (Vincent Cassel) proposes an alternative method of uncovering the truth. This leads them to the office of hypnotherapist Elizabeth Lamb (Rosario Dawson), where untold lies, secrets and deception begin to surface.

Trance is a fascinating puzzle box of a film: it’s one of those movies in which every little detail matters, because you never quite know which one might turn out to be an important plot point. As the hypnotherapy sessions continue, the relationships between Simon, Franck and Elizabeth grow ever more complex – until the standard moral spectrum of good, bad and neutral ceases to make much sense anymore. As the characters discover more about one another and themselves, so too must the audience constantly re-evaluate their first impressions of them. By the time the film crashes to its explosive ending, it’s almost impossible to decide with whom your sympathies should lie.

Boyle’s actors are invaluable in helping him tread this extremely fine line of narrative and moral ambiguity. At different points throughout the film, McAvoy, Cassel and Dawson radiate charm and menace (occasionally at the same time), which works very well in keeping viewers off-balance. It’s actually their performances that anchor the movie when it finally lays all its cards on the table and heads into more surreal territory.

To be honest, that’s where Trance might lose the goodwill of many of its viewers. The final revelation is a blistering examination of memory, identity, power, control and revenge. But it’s also blatantly ludicrous. After the heart-thumping euphoria of Boyle’s trippy film fades, it’s hard not to feel a little bit cheated by its final twist. It’s pretty mind-blowing, sure, but its sheer credulity-stretching audacity leaves a bit of a sour after-taste.

It’s still great fun to see Boyle firing on all his creative cylinders though. Because of last year’s London Olympics, which he directed, he wound up having to set Trance in London (rather than New York) and also took a short break from making this film – not that you can tell. Zippy, smart and positively dripping with style, Trance might not hold up perfectly well, but it definitely proves that Boyle remains one of the most exciting directors making movies today.

Basically: Boyle tries his hand at a noir thriller, and it’s an arresting, challenging film – though it crumbles somewhat under the weight of scrutiny.

Penelope (2006)

It’s easy enough to describe Penelope as a modern-day fairytale: indeed, that’s probably one of the most common descriptions applied to this film in reviews. It’s certainly not inaccurate: there is a love story at the heart of the film that, at least initially, appears to be a wonderful take on Beauty and the Beast… except in this case, the Beast in question is not so much a tortured monster as a young girl who has lived her life in an ivory tower, trapped by her own looks and the shame that comes with them. What makes Penelope different, however, is how it subverts fairy tale convention in favour of putting out a message far more suitable to its (presumably younger and female) current-day audience.

Christina Ricci plays the remarkably beautiful protagonist, whose life would be perfect except for the fact that, due to a rather unfortunate, ancient family curse, she was born with the snout of a pig where a nose should be. To break the curse, she has to find someone of her own kind (i.e., a blue-blooded aristocrat) who can look beyond her appearance and love her for herself. For poor Penelope, with her overbearing, desperate mother Jessica (Catherine O’Hara) overseeing things, the process of finding a suitor is torturous in the extreme… until scruffy Max (James McAvoy) shows up. Except that he’s little more than a hustler who has gambled away his fortune and is employed by a reporter (Peter Dinklage) with his own personal vendetta against Penelope’s family.

The film is great fun to watch – boasting a black, spiky humour that’s edgier than what you’d expect from what would one otherwise classify as ‘charming dross’, Penelope tells its story cheerfully and with great style. It’s fun to watch the poor girl’s various suitors express their absolute horror at her appearance, whether this involves throwing themselves out of windows or running as fast as their legs can carry them. Little moments featuring witches from ages past, a violently ill and obnoxious potential suitor Edward (Simon Woods) and a decidely taciturn family butler are cute touches of humour, as are the scenes that explore Penelope’s complete unfamiliarity with a world she doesn’t recognise when she finally decides to run away from home. The courtship between Penelope and Max is also adorable – well-played and charming rather than cloying and too sweet.

What really makes the film work, however, is that it turns out to be more about finding and loving yourself rather than discovering that fairy tale happily-ever-after ending. (Because we know that the latter genre is really about girls having their entire lives and self-worth validated by winning the love of hot and hunky men.) There are some genuinely touching moments between Penelope and her mom when the latter discovers what the curse really means, and how her own love for her daughter is sadly limited in a way that rings very true in our world. Penelope also benefits from a great cast – be it Ricci as the titular saucer-eyed heroine, or Reese Witherspoon as one of the straight-talking friends Penelope makes out in the real world. O’Hara is the real standout, however, making the close-to-shrewish Jessica a believable character rather than a mere stereotypical harridan.

A lilting, fun not-quite-fairytale, Penelope is a smart, engaging take on a genre that’s usually undemanding and built on far too many clichés. If it’s a bit unsteady in straddling that fine line between the whimsical and realism (given that the film does return to its roots with a bit of a soppy, predictable ending), that’s a small enough criticism.

Wanted (2008)

It would’ve been so easy for Wanted to be just another action movie that explodes onto the silver screen in a flurry of gunfire and adrenaline, makes a ton of money and then sinks quickly into mediocre movie lore – all you need to guarantee moderate box office, after all, as the Lara Croft franchise amply proved, is Angelina Jolie togged out in skin-tight leather wielding a formidable set of weapons of destruction (actual weapons of destruction, thank you very much). Certainly the promotional ads for this film suggested that was what you were going to get: the svelte Jolie, pouting as fiercely as only she can, covered in fierce tattoos and brandishing a machine gun. But Wanted does depart from the get-rich-quick mentality that one imagines usually prompts the production of films like this – and that comes in the form of unlikely leading man James McAvoy, whose surprisingly macho presence suggests that you’re watching something else entirely, something of considerably better quality to boot.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here. A quick recap: McAvoy plays hapless loser Wesley, an office drone like any other who’s living on less than a shoestring budget, while dealing with an evil boss and a girlfriend who’s cheating on him with his best friend. His life, it appears, is fated to end as boringly as it has progressed to date: except not. Suddenly, unexpectedly, he is recruited into a super-secret society of assassins, led by the mysterious Sloan (Morgan Freeman) and boasting among its ranks the smoulderingly sexy Fox (Jolie) and a host of other cut-throats specialising in knives, guns, and pure hard fisticuffs. There, he discovers that he is the son of Cross (Thomas Kretschmann), one of the world’s best professional assassins who has gone rogue and no longer accepts killing directives from the Loom of Fate. (Yes, the Loom of Fate – it is as silly as it sounds; we must accept this and move on!) His nervous tics and lifelong reliance on anti-anxiety medication, as it turns out, mask his true inherited ability to… well, defy the laws of physics to take the lives of others. But is everything as it appears, and can Wesley trust a gang of professional killers above what his heart tells him?

It’s clear, if nothing else, that Wanted is helmed by Russian director Timur Bekmambetov of Night Watch fame – the action scenes in this film boast the same raucous kinetic energy, whether it’s Wesley and Fox chasing each other across the roof of a speeding train, or Wesley hunting down Cross through a derailed train spinning dizzily over a yawning chasm. Bekmambetov’s incredibly visual approach to bringing ideas lush with fantastical possibility to the screen is present and accounted for as well: from the very first moment when Wesley imagines clobbering his best friend in the face with a keyboard and having letters fly off and form the curse words he himself is surely thinking. Stylistically, the movie is a thrill to watch.

Fortunately, Wanted‘s aesthetics aren’t all that the film has got going for it. The ideas – vaguely appropriated from its source material, a comic book by Mark Millar boasting the same title – are surprisingly smart for a brainless blow-’em-up movie, touching on ideas of destiny and choice. Of course, this is all filtered through a ridiculously pulpy, gleefully hyper-real filter, so what you get isn’t so much pop psychology as pop psychology on speed. Yes, the plot is flimsy and rubbish if you squint (come on, a LOOM OF FATE? what?!), but unlike a trilogy to which this film has been oft compared (read: The Matrix), Wanted knows that its premise is faintly ridiculous – and goes all out to embellish action and emotion so you know that the film-makers know this. It’s this winking at itself that makes the film’s flights of fancy more digestible, allowing you to just sink into its universe, with its own laws that extend to bending those laid down by Newton.

Returning to what sets this film apart from the rest of its ilk: McAvoy has probably been praised far too much and far too often as one of cinema’s new shining lights. In his case, however, the plaudits are deserved: for while his acting skills are hardly stretched here beyond the physical need to bulk up to make a convincing assassin, he proves that he can cross over into the blockbuster genre – and instead of being dragged down to its level, he elevates the film around him. McAvoy plays tortured butt-kicking anti-hero as well as he does put-upon schlub, so he very nicely straddles the shift in Wesley’s character and fortunes when he discovers what his true destiny is. Jolie is more electric and formidably sexy in this film than she’s been in a while, and she clearly revels in being the film’s main selling point – she struts through scenes in which she shoots around corners with the confidence of someone who knows she is one of the few people in the world who can probably do something quite that ludicrous and yet make you believe she’s doing it.

So yes, when it comes down to it, the movie’s plot is awful. If you look hard enough – actually you hardly have to look at all – the holes in the script are laid quickly bare. But that’s not the point of watching a film like this, which has from the outset asked you to deposit your disbelief at the door. If you buy into the entire enterprise, and allow the film to wash over you as it intends to do with little care for logic or plausibility, then you will enjoy Wanted. It practically pulses with a raw power and heart that far too often never make it into such singlemindedly commercial blockbuster films. If you want to critique the film for a lack of sense, feel free – although it would probably still be more rewarding to direct such frustrations in the direction of The Matrix Revolutions…

Becoming Jane (2007)

Becoming Jane was a movie I was very excited to see – I’m a Jane Austen fan, more or less (well, less so than some other girls I know, but fan enough), and I’m personally of the opinion that the young leads Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy are two of the leading lights of their generation of actors. So having the two of them star in a sort-of romantic comedy based on Austen’s life and the man she loved and lost? This definitely sounded like a film that was right up my alley, especially since reviews for the film were generally positive. What I find interesting, about a month after I’ve seen the film (yes, I’m running a massive backlog of film reviews, if you can’t tell!), is that while I remember thoroughly enjoying the film at the time, though I certainly didn’t think it was a classic, is that I barely remember much about it now. Which says something about my memory, sure, but also something about the film’s inability to connect entirely with its heroine and her story, rather than the stories she has to tell.

Jane (Hathaway) is an independent-minded young girl, insistent on making her own way in a world that doesn’t think kindly on young women doing that. She has to grapple with pressure from her loving mother (Julie Walters), who can personally attest to the tragedy of marrying someone you love – the Reverend Mr Austen (James Cromwell) – but still living to regret it when circumstances and class and other social constructs rear their ugly heads. Jane meets, by chance, the apparently flighty aspiring lawyer Tom Lefroy (McAvoy), and against her own counsel and his seemingly arrogant behaviour, falls for him. Unfortunately, as with the characters in Jane’s own novels, her social position is in no way commensurate to his – and their attempts to stay in love come up hard against the very real-world concerns of family and fortune.

What I do remember about the film, I remember liking very much – in many respects, it was properly in the vein of the other films that have been made of Austen’s own works, except that the distinctions of class and money that she layers into her characters’ relationships always turn into so much gloss in her novels. In BJ, however, you don’t have that same guarantee, that the happy ending is waiting after the trials, tribulation, pride and prejudice that went before. Which is a nice touch. It’s fun also to watch Jane and Tom meet cute, her reading a story that he is, frankly, bored by, and then their strangely abrasive, surprisingly touching courtship as it unfolds amidst a gaggle of people urging Jane to marry the earnestly ardent, but decidely stuffy, Mr Wisley (Laurence Fox). As she wards them off, from her mom to Wisley’s rich, sour aunt Lady Gresham (Maggie Smith), the societal pressure that cuts into her ability and desire to be happy is practically palpable, and this is wonderfully portrayed in the film.

The film is also well-cast. There was some skepticism about bringing on board the very American star of such Disney fare as The Princess Diaries, but Hathaway proves here that she can hold down a more mature role (and a credible English accent!), and her Jane is a believable, full-blooded creation. Snappy and intelligent, she bristles with fire but also vulnerability when, at the end, she has a difficult decision to make about her happiness and Tom’s. McAvoy, meanwhile, acquits himself well – as always – as Tom, who doesn’t so much grow up before the audience’s eyes, but peels away the layers of fuss and arrogance that shroud him, until you become aware of the problems he has to deal with in life. Hathaway and McAvoy have a nice chemistry, and are buoyed by an excellent supporting cast: Walters, Cromwell and Smith are, as you would expect, all brilliant. And even the relative unknown Fox gets a few nice moments in, as he morphs from a stilted gentleman to a desperate suitor and finally, something akin to a real friend.

All that being said, however, there has to be something explaining why the film has left me cold after a month, and it’s really that the relationship between Jane and Tom, though credibly brought to life by the actors, falls a little short of being genuinely engaging. The ending is a punch in the gut, emotionally, and yet it still feels – hollow, as does much of the rest of BJ. Unfortunately, this is a problem that the film can’t quite seem to shake off, though not for want of trying… which, ultimately, means that the film lacks that certain spark that would make it great rather than good, fantastic rather than fun.

Atonement (2007)

How often have you read a book, loved it, and then had a minor crisis of faith when news broke that Hollywood had optioned it for a film? The possibility that the resulting movie might not adequately bring to life the bookverse – that justice would not be done, that subtleties would be lost – is always a fear, and far too frequently does happen because books, by nature, lend themselves so much more to deep, soulful character development that might prove far too boring for a movie to attempt and still have hopes of making a profit at the box office. Imagine the trepidation, then, that must have filled the hearts of many an Ian McEwan fan, when they realised that his intensely deep and soulful Atonement – a look at how one young girl’s folly and imagination could ruin lives beyond her own – was due to be adapted as a movie starring the tween-friendly Keira Knightley.

While I’m not personally a huge fan of the book – which was a little too deep and a little too obtuse for me – I’d say that fans of the book can probably rest assured that director Joe Wright and screenwriter Christopher Hampton have not ruined the book: instead, they might have produced one of the most faithful page-to-screen adaptations in recent memory. The film perfectly matches the claustrophobic mood of the novel, tied up as it is with the concerns and fevered imaginings of one child in a delightfully cloistered upper-class setting. The only problem is that the film stumbles exactly where the book falters in terms of engaging its audience beyond the simple visceral need to find out how it ends, but getting increasingly frustrated by the process. But more on this later.

Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan, to be played at later stages of her life by Romola Garai and Vanessa Redgrave) is the young girl at the heart of the story: an aspiring writer who can’t get her stubborn house-guests to do her play the way she wants it, she’s caught up also – without quite understanding her role or just exactly what’s going on – in the relationship between her apparently haughty sister Cecilia (Knightley) and landlady’s son Robbie (James McAvoy). There is love there, between Cecilia and Robbie, but a complicated one, entangled in issues of class and bearing, that Briony doesn’t understand. But in the course of one tragic night, she blames Robbie for a crime he didn’t commit, and must spend the rest of her life atoning for this mistake… even as England, her sister and Robbie are plunged into a World War none of them is going to emerge from unscathed.

There’s a lot more to be said about the nature of Briony’s choices, and the way these affect not only herself but all those around her – but that’s presumably what you’re watching this film for, no? These complexities, as portrayed in the book, are wonderfully brought to life in the film. In fact, Atonement does a great job of bringing a sense of genuine immediacy to that one fateful night – taking up as large a chunk of the film as it did in the novel, Wright nevertheless makes the entire day pulse with moments of sizzling tension: for instance, when Cecilia confronts Robbie after he sends (through Briony) the wrong note; the look on Briony’s face when she tries to put together everything she thinks she has seen in the night-shrouded brush, by the dim glow of a flashlight.

Much of the film is also masterfully executed, as the war comes and Robbie leaves for the ravaged plains and beaches of France (including a jaw-dropping tracking shot that has been much lauded by critics since – an examination of the effect of battle on a broken troop of young men, life caught in twists of smoke and pain and death), and Cecilia, estranged from her family, becomes a nurse… just like Briony, who has now realised the error of her ways and tries desperately to make it all up to Cecilia.

The extent to which you’ll enjoy the entire film depends greatly on how much you bought into the lyrically stilted nature of McEwan’s prose, and the not-quite plot he weaves in Atonement. I’d personally argue that, in distilling the movie’s weighty themes and ideas – of storytelling being about lies and obfuscation as well as weaving magic through fiction – Atonement might drastically simplify the novel, but certainly also clarifies it a great deal. There are points in the novel that bored and frustrated me, or simply left me puzzled: the movie is a far simpler beast. If the lack of clarity was an issue for you in the novel, you’ll be pleased that it isn’t in the film, which simplifies a little of the mystery and woe that comes later in the plot. The flip side to this, of course, is that the movie – unlike the novel – doesn’t allow for ambiguity, or for differences in interpretation. It makes very clear indeed Briony’s mistake, rather than suggesting that maybe she wasn’t wrong (the book is far less definite on this, at least in the beginning).

Whatever the case, there’s still a distance between the film and the audience – a kind of distance, a detachment, that is just as present in the novel. (This sense of slight estrangement is perhaps facilitated by the rather innovative incorporation of rat-a-tat typing, by which I mean the sound of old-school typewriter keys, into the sweep of the movie’s score.) Again, it’s a matter of whether you are intrigued or annoyed by this – in my case, I found it wearying after a while, and although Redgrave does a marvellous job of tying the movie up in a bow that could have been but wasn’t too sentimental, by the end of the film, my patience was tried as it had been by the book.

Ah well. At least the performances turned in by all the actors concerned were superlative. The three Brionys – all bound by the same tragically severe haircut, clearly Briony’s cross to bear for her transgressions – are excellent, with Ronan the standout as her Briony stumbles through the night with her misplaced convictions. Knightley continues to prove that there is an actress beneath all that starry gloss: she takes what is initially a tightly wound-up, mysterious character and peels away the layers of breeding and arrogance to reveal the girl beneath. She is matched just as ably by McAvoy, possibly the most promising and intriguing actor of his generation. Far from matinee-idol good-looking, he has an everyman charm that’s incredibly appealing – helped also, of course, by the fact that he is an excellent actor, capable of commanding a room whether Robbie is cheekily typing up a dirty note to Cecilia, or when he explodes at Briony for all she’s done wrong. He is particularly impressive in this scene, anger exploding from his every pore in what is otherwise a contained, nicely restrained turn.

What makes Atonement work is where it departs from the novel in being more upfront about the twists and turns of the plot (what plot there is), until the final reveal. What works less well is what also bogged down the novel: a tendency to look inward, a film that’s so knowingly, archly introspective that it becomes tiring after a while to remain engaged with characters so tied up in their own lives and problems, even with a war sprawling loose around them. Most of the characters in both book and film were from a very specific milieu, born into the upper crust of society, and while this element of class strife effectively underpins the film – especially its earlier scenes – it lends much to the air of stiflement that permeates the script… and which, unfortunately, makes it difficult for the audience to truly warm up to the characters.