Today's News: Crimson pirate inferno

Slow week for news thus far:

Eerste trailer Crimson Peak

Looks... Del Toroesque. Lavish and baroque, but creepy and grotesque at the same time. Eerie, bbrrr. The plot thus far is not wholly clear, and for a teaser trailer like this it's more about the first impressions rather than the overall narrative. Del Toro usually makes a good first impression and he doesn't disappoint here. I got interested seeing this. Ever since the fantastic Pan's Labyrinth, Del Toro and horror feel like they belong together, especially if there's a good story involved. We've had our fair share of haunted houses in movies over the last decade, most of them pretty dismal (not to mention the horror spoofs hurting the subgenre even more), but with a good director and cast involved, another one surely will do more good than harm. Visually at least this will do the trick; as for the story, ask me again when I actually comprehend what the hell is going on. Which probably won't me until I've seen it for myself.

Cast onthuld voor Dan Browns Inferno

So they're making another one of these puzzle flicks, eh? Shouldn't bother on my account. So far both Dan Brown adaptations for film didn't win me over. I heard the books were good (though that's probably the hype talking), but I never bothered to read them. I'm not about to start now. I love a good mystery, but not if it's wasted on a Hollywood semi-spectacle. I doubt Inferno will be much different from its pair of predecessors, but at least the cast looks interesting, mostly because of its diversity. You've only got five names and you're already spanning three continents (and two of these names co-star in Jurassic World, so that piques my interest to some extent). Good names too, notwithstanding the Hollywood stardom of Hanks. That at least will count for something, if at least they are put to good use. But judging from the previous installments, they probably get lost amidst all the puzzling somewhere.

Plot Pirates of the Caribbean 5 onthuld

In this film's case, the plot is more likely to get lost amidst all the actors. Not that it matters much, since it sounds as formulaic a story as they come, not particularly different from that of the previous Pirates of the Caribbean flicks. You've got your basic pirate threat endangering our pirate protagonists, there's a mystical artefact that can prevent their demise so they set on a course for said object, there's a few love birds ensuring a romantic note that doesn't actually involve the pirate protagonists and there's various random jokes, gags and witty rebuttals shared between the pirate protagonists themselves. Though I'm getting kinda tired of Depp's Jack Sparrow, I'm happy to see Rush is still returning as Barbossa, who I deem to be a superior character. As for the rest of them, sure I'm happy to see a grand actor cast as the new ultimate baddie, but that doesn't mean it'll save the movie from sinking from a narrative perspective. Ian McShane made a great Blackbeard, but On Stranger Tides sure wasn't a great movie. I hope Dead Men Tell No Tales proves different, but I severely doubt it. Apparently, PotC Movies Tell the Same Tales, every time.

Today's Mini-Review: Captain Phillips

Captain Phillips: ****/*****, or 7/10

2013 witnessed the release (in the Netherlands at least) of two very different films based on the exact same theme, ship hijacking (both reportedly based on true events, but not the same events). One was the excellent Danish production Kapringen which for a moment largely seemed to revolve on the reuniting of the cast and crew of Borgen but instead proved a psychological horror propelled by the sheer inadequacy of the ship's company to successfully negotiate terms with the Somali pirates for the release of the ship and its hostages. It kept the film devoid of true action for most of the film and caused the movie to keep its audience waiting endlessly for something to happen, which aptly illustrated the reality that such hostage situations usualy result in a deadlock that leads to months of uncertainty for victims, perpetrators and families alike. And when all seemed resolved, Kapringen still ended on a shocking note of unexpected, needless violence to top the agony that came before. Paul Greengrass takes a whole different approach to hijacking in his more action packed yet equally chilling Captain Phillips, starring Tom Hanks as the titular character. Commanding a large freighter and sailing it around the Horn of Africa, Phillips too is confronted by armed marauders out for money by seizing commercial maritime traffic and privateering its personnel in exchange for cash. Whereas that other famous American Tom (whose last name also inspires the thought of boats, though that fun fact is totally irrelevant here) plays the occasional everyman and always fails miserably because of his star status, Hanks yet again proves up for said job despite his own famous persona and portrays a stern but decent regular working Joe, insightful as to his situation and not afraid to back down when his opponent bests him and assumes command of his vessel. The lives of his crew come first, his own by comparison he considers dispensable. Money is the brigands' objective, not mayhem for mayhem's sake, but there are no negotiations with the ship's company. While the situation grows ever more tense and a happy end seems less and less likely to transpire, Phillips plays an increasingly dangerous game of cat-and-mouse with his captors that seems only to be able to end in his own unfortunate demise.

Greengrass (of Bloody Sunday and Bourne fame, while also responsible for another factual hijacking of a wholly different kind with United 93) applies his signature handheld 'shaky cam' style to great effect to get up close and personal with both Phillips and the bad guys (and to make spectators with poor stomachs seasick for sure) which delivers both visceral action and intense emotional drama. And though the movie ultimately proceeds into a fairly typical 'good guys versus bad guys' conflict, he inspires more than the slightest bit of sympathy for the perps, who are portrayed alarmingly accurate as people devoid of options. When you spend your life living in excruciating poverty in a rural area that supports no other means of employment or even food than the job of fisherman, and when western fisheries cut deals with your corrupt government to catch all your fish, what else is there to do than to go out to sea and commandeer foreign vessels in the hopes of ransoming their passengers? Somali pirates are desperate people who have no other means of sustaining themselves, Greengrass effectively reveals. The lead pirate, a skinny, intelligent young man (tremendously compelling performance by first time actor Barkhad Abdi, who commendably holds his own next to Hanks) is shown to be a man forced by circumstance to do things he needs to do to survive, but he definitely never enjoys doing them for a second. Both he and Phillips try to contain their crew from letting the explosive situation degenerate into bloodshed, something the pirate surprisingly succeeds in more so than Phillips does, as his crew attempts to regain control of their boat on multiple occasions without his say, further endangering all their lives. When the anti-piracy units of the American Navy arrive, the pirates are forced to make a quick exit in a lifeboat, and drag Phillips along with them as a human shield. It seems obvious that things can only end badly, but the movie delivers a forcibly happy end (of sorts) that does feel bitter for all present parties regardless. Captain Phillips is one-third action, one-third suspense and one-third human drama, but more straightforward in style (it's still Hollywood material after all) than its Danish predecessor, yet making for a fine companion piece to that film in showing a very different way these hostage negotiations tend to conclude.

Today's News: BARRRdem setting sail for Neverland soon?

Here's a little scoop from MovieScene:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/151709/javier_bardem_wordt_mogelijk_blackbeard

Another live-action version of Peter Pan, eh? In fact, there's two in the works at the moment, including this one. If you've got Bardem as your bad guy you've certainly got the upper hand though. His talent for screen villainy has been well documented with both Skyfall and No Country for Old Men, the latter being rewarded with a properly deserved Oscar. So if the deal gets made, poor Peter Pan is in for quite a fight squaring off against Bardem's Blackbeard. Can Bardem beat Ian McShane's Blackbeard - from the haphazardly confusing yet half-decently entertaining Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - in terms of grotesque appearance and evil scheming though? Possibly, but there's a good chance Pan will at least be more consistent and well rounded than that film. What concerns me more in that regard is the writing for this movie, which is currently being scribbled down by Jason Fuchs, who has already displayed an interest for piracy in the dismal Ice Age: Continental Drift. Fuchs hasn't yet shown himself to be a talented writer, so there's still plenty of chances the movie will fall short in that department. If there's any failures involved, it's very likely we won't be able to attribute them to Bardem.

On a sidenote, this is another example of me posting a bit of 'unfinished news'. After all, Bardem hasn't been confirmed for Pan yet, he's still in talks to assume the mantle of the notorious pirate captain. You get this a lot when you're looking for news to post. Rumours, uncomfirmed casting, etc., it's all part of the business but can feel frustrating for readers and writers alike when a deal does not get struck, or projects get scrapped entirely. You often wonder what the result was about certain bits of old news you remember hearing about once and when you look them up again, there's just no additional information because much has changed about the project in question and it's now another project entirely. Recent examples include the casting of the second Avengers film, where certain actors were rumoured for a role months before actually signing on (in which case you have to post both the rumour and the actual confirmation, at the risk of introducing a sense of déja vu for your readers), or the increasing and decreasing cast levels for Jurassic World, which recently witnessed several fairly high profile casting rumours that ended up debunked as quickly as they popped up (including such names as Josh Brolin and Idris Elba, and now Jason Schwartzmann). Such irritating elements all come with the territory of posting film news, though I myself at least try to wait for studio confirmation instead of responding solely to rumours. Sometimes that means I miss news as others beat me to it, but on other occasions it means I don't post anything that eventually ends up going nowhere.

Today's Mini-Review: Kapringen

Kapringen: ****/*****, or 7/10

Harrowing tale of a hijacked ship's crew on one side and the ship's company negotiators on the other. A Danish cargo ship is commandeered by Somali pirates who demand 15 million euros ransom. The company's CEO (Søren Malling), against sound advice from a hired expert in hijacking, decides to engage in negotiations with the pirates himself and soon finds himself in too deep where his personal emotions are concerned, which increasingly causes escalations in this dire situation. Meanwhile, the crew of the ship, including the cook Mikkel (Pilou Asbæk), must cope with psychological and violent abuse by the Somalis, while also suffering months of boredom and unhygienic living conditions, including a severe lack of food. However, they form an unlikely bond with their captors, who don't prove to be so inhuman at all (and rather hungry too), just poor, uneducated people driven to extreme action for the most part. Tense scenes of Mikkel being forced to cook for the pirates at gunpoint are interspersed with surprisingly uplifting scenes of the hostages and the Somalis engaging in boisterous song and dance to celebrate the capture and cooking of a fish. However, director Tobias Lindholm makes it perfectly clear that every act of sympathy and generosity the captives receive can be taken from them just as swiftly by their captors due to the ever prolonged negotiation procedures the CEO makes them live through, as he is stalling for time in an effort to bring down the amount of money demanded by the pirates to a more affordable level. Of course the uncertainty suffered by the hostages' families and his decreasing levels of success soon make even him hesitant about a happy outcome, as negotiations seem to rapidly spiral towards a boiling point. Kapringen is a terrific and terrifying movie, executed very realistically. Despite the solid performances this distills from the lead actors, at times realism does hinder the movie's pace since little happens, as it would over the course of four months sitting on a ship that goes nowhere while negotiations have turned so sour that both parties hardly communicate anymore. Nevertheless, the ever more critical situation onboard ship, where the crew has to deal with bored and impatient pirates, does result in many a suspenseful scene, made all the more disturbing by Asbæk's compelling acting. This film is made by the creators of the Danish hit series Borgen and, apart from the good writing of course, it shows: half the cast was featured on that TV-series, so occasionally you start asking yourself, why isn't Danish prime minister Birgitte Nyborg getting herself involved in this affair to save the day?

Pirate of the Year, Scientist of the Year, Animated Movie of the Year

Rating: ****/*****, or 8/10

If Aardman Animation's most recent triumph The Pirates!: Band of Misfits in any way set out to make a point, its release couldn't have come at a more opportune moment. The current scandal involving the Spanish king Juan Carlos hunting African Elephants purely for the fun of it, despite his position as vice-president of the Spanish branch of the World Wildlife Fund, bears a striking resemblance to certain events portrayed in the film, namely the way the British Queen Victoria uses her influence with the London Royal Society to procure dinner in the shape of the most exotic animals possible for the annual meeting of a dining club of heads of state that simply exists for the sake of eating its way through the animal kingdom. Victoria's particular meal of choice this year (that is, 1837) is a dodo, the last of its kind. Problem is, this bird is the mascotte of a Pirate Captain and his merry crew of oddball pirates, and they're not gonna let their beloved pet get eaten without a fight. Add to this mix pirate and scientist competitions, Charles Darwin and his “talking” chimpanzee, and a vast array of increasingly colourful pirates and here you have yet another wonderful recipe for Aardman's traditional claymation (moving clay puppets a tiny little bit for each frame to achieve the illusion of motion) family entertainment, that will indeed manage to successfully entertain every age group of any family.

In the first half of the Nineteenth Century, a nameless Pirate Captain (voiced with audible pleasure by Hugh Grant) and his band of equally nameless scoundrels – ironically, the dodo is the only crew member with a real name: considering the fairly naive pirates think she's just a big boned parrot, it's Polly – , sail the Seven Seas in search of ships to plunder and shiny booty to collect. Unfortunately, this crew, which consists of characters like the Albino Pirate, the Pirate with Gout and the Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate (i.e., a woman with a fake beard lowering her voice), is not particularly good at it, which their pesky pirate colleagues continue to remind them in many a tavern ashore. When the poor Captain makes his entry into the Pirate of the Year competition publicly known, he's met with ridicule by his fellow rogues, including a trio of dastardly successful pirates, that first appear in the movie with ever more absurd grand entrances, which climaxes when a huge sperm whale jumps out of the ocean, landing on a pier with its face against the local bar front door, opening his giant mouth to release a wave of golden booty with the third and final captain surfing down his tongue. With this kind of hilarious gags this early in the film, the audience knows it's never seen funnier pirates than the likes only Aardman could conceive.

His spirit untempered by the roaring laughter of his fellow criminal commanders, the Pirate Captain sets out on a wonderfully bizarre quest for anything of value to win him the Award, but fails to find rich merchant ships at sea, instead stumbling on increasingly silly vessels, such as naturist cruises, ghost ships and plague boats (the latter was called a 'leper boat' in the film's trailer, but this was apparently thought to be politically incorrect: the resulting joke is still the same, so the damage is luckily minimal when the leper's arm falls off). Just when all hope seems lost, the brigands run into Charles Darwin's ship, freshly returned from the Galapagos Isles with a cargo hold full of animal body parts (like Baboon's kidneys) and exotic live specimens (including a sad Baboon). For a pirate, such a collection is useless, but Darwin, portrayed as a wonderfully nerdy posh scientist with the typical condition of not being able to get a girlfriend (and voiced by David Tennant, who also sounds like he enjoys this role quite a lot), takes an unusual scientific interest in Polly, and in a funny plot parallel, convinces the Captain to co-attend the London Royal Society Scientist of the Year award ceremony (sneaking into the city disguised as a girl scout), under the pretense of winning a handsome fortune which would help his stature as a successful pirate. Unfortunately, this gets him under the radar of every pirate's nemesis, Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton adding yet another total bitch character to her repertoire, and obviously loving it all the way), who, for reasons mentioned above, also proves really fascinated by the poor dodo.

All the typical whacky ingredients of a good Aardman film, certain to appeal to almost every potential demographic in the audience, are present. As was the case with Chicken Run and the various Wallace & Gromit films (both long and short), only the most grumpy, tired and worn out negative nincompoops will not enjoy this flick with its full barrage of witty jokes, zany characters and silly situations. As a bonus, we get a fantastically detailed overall look to the film. Almost every scene is cramped with little details, all the way to the closing of the end credits, adding not only an authentic feel to the period part of the story (the film after all makes use of actual historical settings and characters, though bending them to its own comedic purposes), but making the movie seem that much more alive: it almost makes Aardman's previous movies look fairly bland by comparison. The trouble is, there's just so much to see it's impossible to take it all in, thus making a second viewing (preferably at home with the option of freeze framing the picture to facilitate a closer inspection) nigh obligatory, not that we would mind. The movie's 3D-effects, in themselves compulsory too for today's animated movies, never take away from the vast level of detailing, but even help making the whole setting feel that much more realistic (as they should, considering the actual use of three-dimensional puppets requires such realism more than computer animated environments do, since they're not really there to begin with). With regard to the look of the film, The Pirates!: Band of Misfits proves to be Aardman's most ambitious project yet, and the studio fully succeeds into making this film's world feel vibrant and compelling.

The Pirates!: Band of Misfits is only Aardman's fifth foray into the motion picture business, and the third to apply its trademark use of claymation. Most importantly, it's a return to form, and to Aardman's roots, since its previous two films, Flushed Away (2006) and last year's Arthur Christmas, used computer animation, the currently dominant style of animation. Though neither film was bad, both of them failed to really feel like Aardman productions, even though the computer generated characters much resembled the clay puppets that came before in overall look. Aardman now returns to their original style, which rightfully won the studio an Academy Award for the brilliant Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit in 2005. It proved the right choice, since the studio now clearly sets itself off against the other animation studios like Pixar and DreamWorks, which in recent years competed ever more aggressively for audience and critics' attention (Pixar still ruling supreme, certainly if the number of Oscars is taken into account) with their fully digitally animated movies, by maintaining a more traditional “old school” style of bringing life to inanimate characters (the use of digital backgrounds notwithstanding, since it's still the puppets that make the film come to life). It may very well win Aardman a second Academy Award, which at the moment certainly seems earned, though of course, in terms of animated films, the year has only just begun. However, it fully feels like a dinner starting with the tastiest course first. To stay in this metaphorical sense, let's hope this wonderful claymation piece doesn't prove a dodo itself: we could really use more ingenious alternatively animated movies like this one, instead of seeing it swallowed by the more standardly animated fare.

And watch the trailer here:

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/thepiratesbandofmisfits/

Stardust

Rating: ****/*****, or 8/10

Een sprookje zonder franchise-ambities

Dankzij het succes van de Lord of the Rings en Harry Potter reeksen is de interesse voor het fantasy-genre weer helemaal terug van weggeweest, na in de jaren negentig grotendeels afwezig te zijn gebleven. Aangezien het wapengekletter en getover van beide grootse franchises vele miljoenen oplevert dicteert de hebzuchtige marktstrategie van Hollywood dat er meer van hetzelfde stramien gemaakt moet worden om maar zoveel mogelijk winst uit het genre te persen. Tot dusverre heeft deze tactiek echter nog geen boeiende films opgeleverd, met het beschamend slechte Eragon als voorlopig dieptepunt. Die film had studio Fox een nieuwe blockbuster-reeks moeten opleveren, maar na deze flop valt dat (gelukkig!) te vergeten. Over een paar maanden is het de beurt aan The Golden Compass om het op fantasie beluste publiek opnieuw te bekoren en hopelijk een kassucces te worden, of Eragon te volgen in de bodemloze put der vergetelheid.

Te midden van alle beslissende slagen tussen Goed en Kwaad in verbluffend mooi vormgegeven fantastische landschappen vol merkwaardige digitale wezens die de recente golf aan fantasy-films ons voorschotelt vergeten we bijna dat het ook anders kan. Gelukkig is er nu Stardust om ons hieraan te herinneren. Dit keer geen overdreven episch verhaal of overdaad aan peperdure effecten, maar een bescheiden relaas over een verlegen jongeman die, om het hart van zijn geliefde te winnen, in een magische wereld terechtkomt en daar zijn ware aard ontdekt. Het geheel is voorzien van een aanstekelijk humoristische toon die in het merendeel van het fantasy-genre ontbreekt en impliceert dat dit sprookje, ondanks enkele wijze levenslessen die het behelst, niet al te serieus genomen hoeft te worden.

Tristan Thorn (de heerlijk naïeve Charlie Cox) groeit op in het dorpje Wall, dat, zoals de naam al aangeeft, gekenmerkt wordt door een muur; een gat hierin zou een portaal naar een magisch koninkrijk vormen. Om de liefde van het hooghartige verwende kreng Victoria (Sienna Miller) te verkrijgen betreedt Tristan de toverachtige wereld, op zoek naar een gevallen ster om aan haar te doneren in ruil voor haar hand. Echter, de ster blijkt een wonderschone dame genaamd Yvaine (Claire Danes schittert als dit hemels lichaam), die geenszins van sprake is een huwelijkspresentje te worden en veel liever terugkeert naar het firmament waar ze vandaan kwam. Op de vlucht voor de boosaardige heks Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer, die zich zichtbaar kostelijk amuseert als de kwade feeks) die Yvaines hart nodig heeft om haar jeugd terug te krijgen, moet het duo samenwerken, wat uiteraard leidt tot Tristans herziene kijk op liefde en Yvaines inzicht dat een menselijk leven met de juiste persoon zo slecht nog niet is.

De zaak wordt gecompliceerd als de arrogante prins Septimus (een overtuigend sinistere Mark Strong) ook op de ster blijkt te jagen, die hem zal helpen de troon van zijn vader over te nemen, als hij de competitie met zijn broers overleeft. De oude koning (prima kleine rol voor fossiel Peter O'Toole) zag graag dat zijn zoons elkaar afmaakten in hun strijd om de heerschappij, waar Septimus in uitblonk, maar hij moet ook het kroonjuweel zien te bemachtigen dat Yvaine uit de lucht haalde en zij nu om haar nek draagt. Uiteraard belanden Tristan en Yvaine op hun vlucht in de ene na de andere fantastische belevenis, met als hoogtepunt een treffen met de alom gevreesde luchtpiraat kapitein Shakespeare (Robert de Niro, eindelijk weer in een rol die wel in het geheugen blijft hangen, zij het om andere redenen dan we van hem gewend zijn) die er een geheim nichterig leven op nahoudt.

In regie van de talentvolle Matthew Vaughn ontwikkelt Stardust zich tot een heerlijk sprookje dat zich niet bezighoudt met Grote Zaken en epische queestes waarvan het fantasy-genre zich recentelijk al te vaak bedient. Vaughn toont zich een kundig regisseur, wat opmerkelijk is aangezien dit slechts zijn tweede film is. Het is Stardust echter niet aan te zien, want de film kan zich ondanks zijn redelijk lage budget moeiteloos meten met de meeste grote blockbusters van de laatste jaren. Desondanks laat Stardust ook hier en daar een steekje vallen en zijn de visuele effecten niet altijd even vlekkeloos, maar door het amusante verhaal, het prima acteerwerk en de kostelijke humor is dat snel vergeven. Vooral dat laatste aspect is een openbaring, want het werd node gemist in het genre tot dusverre. De humor in Stardust neemt bij vlagen satirische vormen aan, spelend met de bekende weg in het genre door overdreven variaties op de heks, de prins en dergelijke archetypen neer te zetten, zonder de typische glans van een sprookje te verliezen.

Stardust is een bekoorlijke vertelling uit het rijk der fantasie voor jong en oud dat de heden ten dage heersende conventies van het genre op de hak neemt zoals het al even geslaagde The Princess Bride dat twintig jaar eerder deed. De film laat zien dat een grootscheepse, overdadige aanpak niet noodzakelijk is om een fantasy-film die een wijd publiek aan moet spreken te vervaardigen. En waar teveel andere genrefilms (zoals het eerder genoemde Eragon en het al even deplorabele The Chronicles of Narnia) de laatste tijd overduidelijke franchise-aspiraties hebben en slechts dienen als opstapje voor een hele reeks soortgelijke meuk om in te haken op recent succes binnen dit genre, laat Stardust blijken daar geen behoefte aan te hebben door in twee uur tijd een prima afgerond verhaal te vertellen dat duidelijk geen vervolg zal krijgen en dat bovendien niet nodig heeft. Hopelijk neemt Hollywood Vaughns boodschap aan en richt ze zich minder op product-marketing en meer op inhoud, dan volgt dat gewenste succes ongetwijfeld later wel.