Film Reviews by Alphaville

This is the kind of Euro arthouse movie that wins prizes at festivals from people for whom theme is everything. The kind that loves to show us people talking to one another, placing soapy conversation above drama. The kind that would never use anything but snippets of classical music on the soundtrack. The kind that, out of nowhere, suddenly ends. You know the kind. It's slow, dull and conspicuously devoid of any cinematic imagination.

You may find the story, about an ageing actress (it was specifically written by director Olivier Assayas for Juliette Binoche) interesting or not, but it has all the screen life squeezed out of it. Some critics have compared it to 8½ but Assayas is no Fellini. Eric Rohmer could wring cinematic magic out of the most ordinary of dialogue exchanges but Assayas is no Rohmer.

Chloe Grace Moretz plays a starlet who is to play the role that made Juliette's name as a young actress, but it takes an hour and a half just for them to meet, and that turns out to be not very interesting either. Meanwhile the underrated Kristen Stewart is wasted in a large role as Juliette's P.A. The actors are poorly served in general. Because of the poor dialogue, absence of drama and lack of visual interest the concentration on acting merely highlights the artifice of the whole affair. Just watch them act! Thanks to cinemaphotographer Yorick Le Saux there's occasionally some pretty Alpine scenery but not enough to merit giving the whole enterprise a single star. Such a waste.

Well, it's a cheap and fast way of making a film. Shoot two hours of footage in a single handheld take and don't edit it. Sure, it's a technical tour de force. So what? Improvisation rarely works with actors and even more rarely with the camera. For half an hour Victoria wanders the streets of Berlin with a bunch of losers. Yawn, yawn. Best of luck sticking with it this far before any plot sets in. It's impossible to care about any of the characters, even the photogenic but gullible and irritatingly stupid Victoria.

After a whole hour she joins the losers in a heist Some frenetic home-movie wobble-cam (the worst since Blair Witch) is used to mimic tension but this only increases the arbitrariness of the image and makes the screen even harder to watch. Call it cinema verite, call it guerrilla filmmaking, it's still like watching the home movie of someone who can't hold a camera steady. And there's still another hour to sit through. All-in-all, 132 minutes you'll never get back.

Ignore the unaccountably good reviews this style-free so-called film somehow garnered. Some critics would probably see the emperor's clothes. It is simply one terrible home movie, like a talentless version of Run Lola Run. Watch that again instead.

This lo-key ‘thriller’ concentrates on painstaking detail to build up tension, but director Jeremy Saunier is no Hitchcock and his best friend Macon Blair, cast as the lead, is charisma-free. His diffident screen presence brings an air of lethargy to the whole enterprise. He sets out to avenge a murder and we follow the ramifications of his decision, but would-be tense scenes are merely flat and the few flashes of action lack clarity and pass without much ado.

Kudos to Jeremy and his mate for cobbling together the money to make the film and see it achieve success at indie fests such as Sundance, but it’s a sluggish affair. Like most films that are a slow burn, if you wait for fire you’ll be disappointed. As lo-tempo thrillers go, it’s just about watchable but it cries out for some Wow factor. The punchy edits and exciting score of the trailer simply mislead. To see how it should be done, watch top-drawer thriller Cold in July.

An intermittently compelling film about the efforts of photographer Dennis Stock to get those iconic Life magazine photos of James Dean. No film about James Dean and his starry 1950s circle could be without interest, but this is a leisurely, meandering piece that won’t suit anyone looking for action or plot. Indeed, the film almost grinds to a halt after an hour when Jimmy takes Dennis home to his Indiana ranch for some family time. There’s also a boring subplot about Dennis’s inability to relate to his young son. It’s Jimmy we want to see, and bigger cameos for Natalie Wood, Elia Kazan, Eartha Kitt etc.

But the main problem is simply that Dane DeHaan is miscast as Jimmy. Not only does he not look or sound like him, he comes over as mumbling, whiny and eventually irritating. Dean’s charisma and nervous energy are conspicuous by their absence. The problem is exacerbated by the casting of Robert Pattinson as Dennis Stock. As he showed in his riveting portrayal in Remember Me, he’s the modern actor who most closely reincarnates Jimmy.

Transferred to the sticks for an undisclosed misdeed, police chief Doona Bae finds backwater law enforcement difficult to deal with, especially when she gets landed with Kim Sae-ron, a troubled 14yo whose father beats her. Sounds like the kind of soapy lo-key bore that gets lottery funding in the UK but you can expect something infinitely more beautiful, more imaginative, more progressive and more exciting from modern South Korean cinema.

As usual, avoid all reviews with spoilers about theme and plot. As our heroine is increasingly trapped by circumstances beyond her control, the film develops into a thrilling roller-coaster of plot and emotion that will have you glued to your seat. As danger closes in on the delicate but determined police chief, you’ll be rooting for her to win through. Can she save the girl? Can she save herself?

A beautifully crafted, startling film by first-time director July Jung that goes where no UK or Hollywood film would dare to tread. Typical of the ground-breaking South Korean New Wave, this is engrossing, thought-provoking cinema that will stay with you.

This is a film in the tradition of Douglas Sirk. It oozes class, from the sets to the acting, but it’s painstakingly one-paced. Todd Haynes has previous with his 2003 film Far From Heaven. If you liked that, you’ll like this, otherwise you’ll be shouting ‘Get a move on’ at the screen. Everyone sounds as though they’re half-asleep and if you’re not in the mood to wallow in the slow burn you may well soon be feeling a tad somnolent yourself.

You’d hope a story about same-sex love and homophobia in the 1950s would pack a punch and have something relevant to say about modern mores, but sadly no. It takes soooo long to get anywhere.

Critics loved it, but they are forced to watch so much trash that any movie with impeccable production values must warrant superlatives. The more discerning filmgoer may wonder what all the fuss is about. You know where this movie is going right from the start so don’t expect any surprises, plot-wise or visually. Even the ending seems arbitrary.

Also, why do so many characters in films vomit to show they’re upset? Aren’t there more subtle ways for filmmakers to show emotion?

After the wonder of Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity comes the procedural plod of The Martian. Matt Damon is stranded on Mars. Will he get off alive? What do you think? The trailer gives nearly all the plot away anyway. It’s hardly a spoiler to say there’s an excruciating happy-clappy ending.

The film of course looks great but, weighing in at over two hours, it’s literally brought down to earth by tons of boring expository dialogue back at NASA and endless painstaking references to mission time constraints. Damon’s efforts to eke out his supplies also begin to pall. It turns out that DIY in space is no more interesting than it is on earth. Who’d have thought? (Anyone who saw Ron Howard’s Apollo 13, that’s who.) For marketing reasons there are also some blatant pro-Chinese scenes that stick in the craw like product placement. And to make things worse, it all plays out to a soundtrack of old disco muzak.

Ridley Scott has made some great films but is due a return to form. This isn’t it, but cut out 30 minutes of boffin speak and there might be an interesting film trying to get out here.

After a brilliantly-sustained gravity-defying opening shot we’re into by-the-numbers fisticuffs in a helicopter and Sam Smith’s nails-on-chalkboard falsetto credits song (even worse than Adele’s in Skyfall). Then it gets worse. Didn’t Bond used to be fun? It plods along efficiently enough but it’s all so relentlessly dour.

Sam Mendes was apparently induced back to the director’s chair because of some backstory about Bond and Blofeld, but it’s of zero interest. Mendes comes from a theatrical background and can’t direct action, which is surely a prerequisite of a Bond helmsman. Daniel Craig is painfully po-faced throughout. Come back Roger Moore, all is forgiven.

Shorn of sexuality to assuage feminist sensitivity, Lea Seydoux’s damsel-in-distress Bond girl role seems even more sexist than Pussy Galore’s. All dialogue is instantly forgettable. Chris Walz, such a good baddie in Inglorious Basterds, is seriously underwritten as the villain. He has nothing to do but talk. In a lightbulb moment, the screenwriter even has Bond tell him to get on with it: ‘Nothing can be as painful as listening to you talk.’ Unfortunately, this is true of everyone. Never has a Bond movie had so much banal, instantly forgettable dialogue.

You’ll soon be ignoring whatever plot there is and waiting for a bit of action. The only action of any interest is a fight on train, but even this only make one pine for a rerun of From Russia With Love. If you want to know how a Bond movie should be done, watch Kingsman.

A slow, deliberate, TV-like drama about a man living in a shack in the woods in a post-apocalyptic Ireland. One of those supposedly realistic character studies with no soundtrack music to highlight drama or emotion. There’s a spot of nudity for titillation and a few baddies turn up to excite then disappoint. There’s also some gardening.

Disparate scenes are patched together with no sense of continuity while a hand-held camera alienates the audience by staying too close to the ‘action’ to allow any spatial orientation. In a moment of awareness in the DVD extras, even the writer-director describes the film as ‘a pot boiler in a small space.’ The producer says: ‘The story’s the star.’ Not here, it isn’t. Compare Slow West, a similarly simple-concept film but one that oozes drama and excitement.

You could do worse than while away a couple of hours with Robert Redford and Nick Nolte as they attempt to walk the Appalachian Trail. Nothing dramatic or hilarious happens but the scenery’s nice, the camaraderie is amiable and the witty banter is straight out of Bill Bryson’s book.

The film rattles along pleasurably with infinitely more feel for the American wilderness than the over-rated Wild with its overwrought backstory. In this film, hiking is actually fun! Three stars, even four if you’re in the mood for some undemanding escapism.

This is one irritating film. Reese Witherspoon sets out to hike the Pacific Crest Trail without even having practised setting up a tent. She’s meant to be ignorant, but surely no-one’s THAT stupid? Any bona fide hiker will find her a cringeworthy screen presence.

Storywise, the film is fatally hampered by incessant flashbacks to her druggy backstory. It’s all based on a true story, and one wishes our real-life heroine well, but it makes for dismal viewing. What is intended to turn the film into a spiritual journey of female empowerment merely turns it into a borefest.

The film doesn’t even capture the magnificent scenery of the PCT because the filmmakers weren’t allowed to film the most jaw-dropping sections. Pedestrian (sic) direction doesn’t help. A Walk in the Woods, about Bill Bryson’s attempt to walk the Appalachian Trail, captures the joys of hiking the American wilderness much better. In A Walk in the Woods everything is an adventure. In Wild everything is an irritating obstacle to be overcome. American critics loved it. They need to get out more.

It seems silly to say that this absurdist comedy doesn’t make sense, but if a film doesn’t stay true to its internal logic it loses its audience. It requires you to buy into so many ridiculous scenarios that you may well lose patience. It might work as a book, but the particular realism of cinema demands a more thought-through scenario.

Given that you accept the basic premise of a hotel where guests have 45 days to find a mate or be turned into an animal, it’s difficult to believe that no one seems that interested in finding that mate. Characters behave more like Monty Python characters than recognisable humans. Main man Colin Farrell seems at times to be channelling the ghost of Dougal from Father Ted. If only. The acting is so relentlessly deadpan that there are few if any laughs. Some critics unaccountably described it as hilarious. It isn’t. There’s also an intrusive, pointless voiceover and an incessant classical music soundtrack, presumably intended as ironic, that doesn’t half grate.

As a piece the film just about holds the attention and the director certainly has an eye for composition that deserves a better film. Unfortunately he also wrote this one.

If you like your cinema to show some style, give this a body swerve. Grainy, hand-held, fly-on-the-wall, documentary-style filming with no soundtrack music makes this portentously-titled film hard to like. Some enthusiastic reviewers have mistaken its lack of style for intensity. Don’t trust them.

The action switches between soldiering in Afghanistan and a soapy family back home in Sweden before spending the second half of the film in Sweden after the soldiers come home. It’s all very heartfelt and well-intentioned and tackles serious issues about the morality of modern warfare, but the in-your-face approach has been done many times before and alienates rather than involves the viewer, making it difficult to empathise with the characters and their situation.

Morality-of-war films have been around a long time and the excellent Good Kill shows how it can still be done. Judged purely as a movie, A War is dour anti-cinema. The trailer tells the whole story, but watch it first to avoid disappointment.

Director Terence Malick began his career brilliantly with Badlands then swapped filmmaking for navel-gazing. Watching this is like being forced to sit through a stranger’s home movie. It would be unbearable even on fast-forward. What happens? Good question. Mostly a boring couple and their two boring kids wander around boringly to a soundtrack of orchestra and heavenly choir. Oh dear.

For pre-teenies and retarded fanboys only. If you like Star Wars, this is the sort of film you’ll like. If you’re new to Star Wars, it’s nonsense. Anyone looking for sci-fi thrills, humour, dialogue, plot and drama of an adult nature, look elsewhere. After showing such early promise in his career, director J J Abrams seems to be going down the George Lucas route into juvenilia.

It’s a shame. The cgi is faultless and the sets are imaginative. Keira Knightly clone Daisy Ridley shows verve as the heroine and Adam Driver (once he’s allowed to ditch that ridiculous helmet) adds some much-needed charisma. As for the rest… All clichés are present and correct.

There’s an anthropomorphic R2D2 update for the pre-pre-teenies. Those silly stormtroopers, like Dr Who cybermen, kill and get killed as boringly as orcs in a Lord of the Rings movie. There are the requisite number of explosions and cartoon-like spaceship fights to zap through on the DVD player. There’s the standard Mickey-Mouse rent-a-soundtrack to bludgeon home every single beat.

Naturally there’s no real ending, because there’s still money to be made out of the next sleep-inducing instalment in this interminable saga.