Film Reviews by Alphaville

This is an okay remake of the superior French film Nuit Blanche. It’s a good story that will keep you interested, but by Hollywood-ising it for an American audience it comes over as silly and contrived. Why aren’t baddies with guns ever taught how to shoot straight in Hollywood? The French original is much more real, intense and in-your-face, with a great set-piece fight in a chef’s kitchen that is so much more exciting than in the remake. Watch Nuit Blanche before seeing Sleepless to see how the French do some things better.

Eight years after the excellent original, this disappointing sequel does little but go through the motions. The plot is minimal, the baddies are uninteresting and indestructible star Tony Jaa proves he can’t act. There’s lots of biff-&-bash in the Jackie Chan style but the set pieces lack the visual panache that the same director brought to the original. Even the girl-power moves of pint-sized JiJa from Raising Phoenix add little to proceedings.

This was the first Thai actioner to be filmed in 3D and maybe that accounts for the flatness of some of the shots in 2D, such as a fist thrust towards the camera. There are a few good stunts but that’s all. Only worth watching for completeness after the superior first film.

If you’re into martial arts films, this is a must-see. Athletic Star Tony Jaa famously does all his own stunts without cgi or wirework. Even if martial arts aren’t your thing, this is still a beautiful film to watch. For the first colourful fifteen minutes in the Thai jungle you’ll believe elephants can act. The plot then moves to the urban jungle of Australia and the real action kicks in.

Some of it is just biff-&-bash, but there are two glorious set-pieces. One uses a long single take to follow the fighting up several storeys of a building, the tension mounting as you wonder how much longer the superbly-choreographed shot can be sustained. The second is an almost balletic scene in a shallow pool of water where our Tony tries his moves on another gymnastic fighter. Martial arts films aren’t supposed to be this artfully directed or beautiful to behold. If you like this, check out the equally good-looking Thai actioner Raging Phoenix.

This is a complete mess of a film, mostly featuring poorly directed Portuguese actors failing to breathe life into a series of static interior scenes. Although the DVD blurb fails to mention it, most of the dialogue is in Portuguese and French. The setting is the war against Napoleon but there are zero action scenes. Wellington appears only fleetingly as a grumpy man in a tent, giving John Malkovich no chance of giving the man any character. It’s hard to believe how bad this is. It’s dull, it’s dour, it’s a pain to watch.

The film’s actual title is Lines of Wellington. No, me neither. Surely the whole miserable project falls foul of the Trades Description Act.

This is a family film complete with mawkish sentimentality, slapstick and bloodless battle scenes, so don’t expect a Kurasawa-type adult epic. Everything in it, from interiors to skin tones has had the life airbrushed out of it to look like a child’s picture book. The theme of female empowerment is lathered on but seems somewhat at odds with the Chinese government-friendly message of bringing honour to the family.

With bland dialogue and disappointing action scenes, it nevertheless remains surprisingly watchable. Reasons for staying awake include the lovingly photographed Chinese landscape, supporting characters played by action stalwarts such as Donnie Yen and Jet Li and, above all, the gobsmacking incongruity of the whole project. There’s even a warbling pop song over the end credits to send you away bemused.

Tsui Hark’s first film The Butterfly Murders (1979) is worth seeking out. Since then his prolific output has been, to be kind, hit and miss. This 2000 effort is a complete mess. His in-yer-face scattergun direction, waving the camera around like a child, leaves actors and viewers to fend for themselves, making this Hong Kong actioner virtually unwatchable.

The film begins with an intriguing plot that is subtly developed… until you realise that it’s going nowhere. The more you watch the more you’ll want to put your foot through the screen for letting it waste your time. It’s billed as a comedy thriller but there are no thrills and no laughs. Disconnected scenes promise a set-piece climax but the eventual shootout is both brief and dismal. The trailer tries to add zest to proceedings by adding an exciting score, but the film plays out to no score except an intermittent opera.

Why is it called The Whistlers? Because a group of poorly-characterised thieves can talk to each other without the police knowing by using the La Gomera whistling language. It’s a neat selling point, except for the fact that they never have to use it! Maybe that’s a comment on the pointlessness of the whole exercise. Slow, deliberately paced and staidly directed in Romania, this is the kind of film that sounds interesting enough to watch only to leave a bad taste in the mouth for having duped you into sitting through it. If only film festivals would stop championing this kind of arthouse bore. The two stars are only for glimpses of the beautiful La Gomera scenery. A documentary on that would have been more interesting.

This Zhang Yimou epic is a curious hybrid of the bad and the beautiful. For the first hour it’s such a hammy melodrama that you wonder why no-one’s had a word with him. It’s beautiful to look at, if course. He’s a master of composition and movement. But the palace-intrigue plot is uninteresting and there’s nothing to look at but interiors with talking heads. It’s filmed in striking monochrome with odd flashes of muted colour, such as flesh tones, but this can’t sustain interest on its own.

But fast forward to 63 minutes and you reach a dynamic battle sequence set in a walled city on the edge of a deep gorge. The main weapons of choice are umbrellas made of sharp blades. There are some jaw-dropping scenes here that are like nothing you’ve ever seen before, even in a Kurasawa film. It even reminds you of Kurasawa’s Seven Samurai because the whole battle is filmed in torrential rain. It’s a spectacular cinematic vision. If only the remainder of the film could match this it would be a masterpiece, but after the battle it’s back to interior melodrama. If you have any interest in film at all, however, it’s worth watching for that central 20min sequence.

Better than most disposable Marvel films. The scientific gobbledegook gets a bit wearing at times but the novel special effects, involving miniaturisation and enlargement of people and material are a visual feast. Paul Rudd makes an appealing hero and it’s good to see Michael Douglas still strutting his stuff as the tech guy. Add to that some good jokes about quantum physics (yes, really), a Bullitt-style car chase through San Francisco and bad girl Ghost, who can quantum phase between different realities, and you have a superhero film that’s above average. Not a patch on 1957’s The Incredible Shrinking Man, but much better than you might expect from a ‘Marvel universe’ Film.

It’s the 17th century and Holland is at war with the dastardly English, who call them cheeseheads and have bigger ships. Charles II (a roguish Charles Dance) can even afford to spend his time cavorting with his topless French mistress. If he does lose a battle he can always call on his French mate Louis XIV to lend a hand (in the war, that is).

The plot is entirely predictable, even though Dutch political in-fighting and the sea battles themselves are sometimes hard to follow. The use of models and matte paintings also shows sometimes, making the fighting less visceral than the battles in the superior South Korean sea epic Roaring Currents.

Nevertheless it’s a gorgeous film to watch, with a palette of warm colours straight out of a Rembrandt painting. Our portly hero’s even a bit Rembrandt-esque himself, although true to historical depictions of the actual Dutch admiral.

As a whole it’s a well-mounted film that’s fascinating to watch, recreating a world we haven’t seen before. Although basically an Errol Flynn-type romp, it has poignant moments and even one gruesome sequence that will have you squirming. Who knew that it was the Dutch who invented the ‘sea soldiers’ called marines? And how often do you get to see an enemy fleet sailing up the Medway to burn Chatham?

This gritty LA cop drama partners a cynical old-timer with a rookie and lets us follow them in their squad car through a single night while they deal with a series of unconnected incidents. We’ve seen it many times before, with loads of cop jargon you may well need subtitles to understand (the DVD has none). Their boring cross-talk soon palls and you may begin to wonder what the point of the film is beyond mimicking a documentary that highlights what a tough job LA cops have.

As a drama it completely fails to engage. The direction is smooth enough, but the plot is a dud that goes nowhere. The blurb calls it a ‘riveting crime thriller’. Er no, it isn’t. Even the title is meaningless. In the States it’s called Crown Vic (the model of the car), which is equally bad.

Jean Reno plays a grizzled hitman (what else?) holed up in a cabin in the snowy wastes of Washington state (filmed in Ukraine). A mysterious woman has a snowmobile accident and gate-crashes his solitude. Meanwhile a clichéd cop is on his tail. The various strands don’t hang together, the plot treads water and the slow pace leads only to a brief and unconvincing action ending. Still, if you’re in an unforgiving mood, the snowy scenery may just about be enough to keep you watching.

Two years after Upgrade, writer/director Leigh Whannell returns with another stonking sci-fi-based thriller that’s wrongly and off-puttingly promoted as horror. The set-up? Imagine if the horrible husband of Julia Roberts in Sleeping With the Enemy was an optics genius who could make himself invisible. Instead of resorting to boring horror-film tropes (OTT gore, baddie jumping in from side of screen etc.), Whannell plays with the notion of what is visible/invisible in-frame. What if the baddie might be in shot but neither the heroine nor the audience can see him?

This makes for some intense scenes given extra heft by extensive use of smooth steadicam shots (no irritating jerky hand-helds here). There are some nice creepy moments as the stakes become higher and our suffering heroine becomes a resourceful action woman fighting great special effects. In an immaculately directed film, Whannell never puts a foot wrong.

Worth watching also are a great set of DVD Xtras, including a director commentary. Shame the imaginative hand-overs he attempted in the car chase never made the final cut.

If you enjoy Donnie Yen’s IP Man franchise you’ll really enjoy this well-written and beautifully directed spin-off, which if anything is even better. The flying fists this time belong to Jin (Max) Zhang, who makes an engaging hero even in the dramatic scenes. Muscling in on the action are also Michelle Yeoh and gentle giant Dave Bautista, who make formidable foes. Even Tony Jaa puts in a guest appearance to strut his stuff. The plot and acting are more involving than in most Hong Kong martial arts films and the action doesn’t disappoint. There’s an eye-popping balletic fight on the side of a building and a series of explosive confrontations between the principal characters. Watch and wonder.

On a tropical island a group of annoying guests have their fantasies magically come true… but be careful what you wish for. It’s complete nonsense but it does get better as it bowls along, with dollops of thriller, action, humour and light horror. If you’re in an undemanding mood, it’s silly enough to be watchable with picturesque Fiji locations and unexpected plot twists to keep things entertaining.