Today's Review: Logan

Weinig filmsterren zullen hun doorbraakrollen zo trouw zijn gebleven als Hugh Jackman. De acteur kruipt in Logan voor de negende keer in de huid van de mutante mannetjesputter Wolverine. Hij heeft deze rol zo'n zeventien jaar lang gedragen, te beginnen met X-Men, de film die de aftrap vormde voor het niet meer uit de bioscoop weg te denken superheldengenre. Sindsdien hebben we zo veel superheldenfilms voorbij zien komen dat de beperkingen van het genre zich opdrongen. Logan bevestigt die beperkingen maar haalt ze eveneens hard onderuit, in een film die het 'super' uit haar superheld haalt, maar daarmee paradoxaal genoeg een nieuw hoogtepunt vormt voor de superheldenfilm. Hugh Jackman speelt de onsterfelijke mutant voor de allerlaatste keer, als nooit tevoren. Hij bewijst daarmee dat we Wolverine zullen missen.

Anno 2029 is de maatschappij er niet al te best aan toe. Postapocalyptisch is het nog net niet, maar fijn is anders. In deze naargeestige wereld slentert een gebroken Logan door het Texaanse landschap. Hij zuipt, hij vloekt en heeft weinig op met de wereld om hem heen. Hij slijt zijn dagen met een lullig baantje en het zorgen voor een stokoude, dementerende Charles Xavier (die andere grote X-veteraan, Patrick Stewart). Zelf is hij fysiek niet veel beter af: zijn genezingsgave geeft langzaam de geest, de ouderdom haalt hem rap in. Vechten voor de goede zaak is niet meer aan de orde, de andere X-Men zijn dood en het mutantenras is vrijwel verdwenen. Als het mysterieuze meisje Laura zijn hulp nodig heeft, wijst hij haar nors de deur. Wanneer Logan geconfronteerd wordt met de Reavers, een groep cyborghuurlingen onder regie van een schimmig geneticaconcern, blijkt dat het kind behept is met bovenmenselijke krachten die beangstigend veel op de zijne lijken. Vervolgens slaat het trio op de vlucht met de onvermurwbare schurken in hun kielzog, die vastberaden zijn ook deze laatste mutanten uit de weg te ruimen.

Wolverine was altijd al een ruige kerel, maar in Logan is hij lomper en asocialer dan ooit. Hugh Jackman speelt diens laatste aria met meer bezieling dan ooit. Al die jaren heeft hij zich feitelijk moeten inhouden, maar nu mag hij helemaal los gaan dankzij een voor de X-franchise ongekende leeftijdskeuring. Die 'R rating' (tot en met zestien jaar uitsluitend toegang onder begeleiding van een volwassene) is volkomen terecht. Liefhebbers van het explicietere hak-en-snijwerk komen ruim aan hun trekken; de ledematen vliegen ons om de oren en het taalgebruik is grover dan ooit. Zelfs de altijd zo correcte Xavier maalt niet om een krachtterm meer of minder (tot zichtbaar plezier van Stewart). Logan lijkt wat dat betreft geïnspireerd door het vorig jaar verschenen anarchistische Deadpool, met het verschil dat hier een serieuzere toon wordt gehanteerd. Ouderdom is immers niet om te lachen en in deze grauwe toekomst is sowieso weinig ruimte voor relativerende humor. Laat staan voor superhelden.

Regisseur James Mangold heeft weinig op met de stereotiepe superheld. Ook in voorganger The Wolverine toonde hij meer affiniteit met de menselijke kant van Logan dan met diens krachten. Als Laura hoop put uit X-Men comics - een originele sneer naar het bronmateriaal - spot Logan hiermee door te beweren dat het allemaal een verzinsel is, geen realiteit. Superhelden bestaan niet. Toch werpt hij zich op als haar beschermer, in een parallel met de meermaals geciteerde klassieker Shane. Logan voelt inderdaad meer als een western dan als een superheldenspektakel, wat nog onderstreept wordt door de zuidelijk-Amerikaanse setting vol stof en kogels. De twee genres laten zich onder Mangold treffend kruisen. Uiteraard kent Logan de nodige shootouts met de bad guys, hoewel de eenzame strijder gewapend is met klauwen in plaats van een revolver. Die booswichten laten zich overigens erg makkelijk in stukjes hakken. De Reavers zijn dan ook bijzaak voor Mangold, die niets opheeft met clichématige malle schurken zoals cyborgs.

Logan is bovenal zijn eigen ergste vijand. Zijn haperende genezingsfactor zorgt voor een langzame adamantiumvergiftiging en zijn eigen bloed wordt tegen hem gebruikt door hem te klonen. Het is dit diep persoonlijke conflict met zichzelf dat Logan zijn meerwaarde geeft, want de film weet met haar plotlijn over een bedrijf dat gekloonde mutanten als supersoldaten wil inzetten een gevoel van déjà vu niet te vermijden. Dat gegeven zagen we alleen al in de X-films tig keer voorbijkomen. Logan teert niet op het wat voorspelbare plot, maar vooral op de menselijke personages. Beide generaties gooien hier hoge ogen, want de jonge Dafne Keen geeft formidabel tegengas aan Jackmans heerlijk onsympathieke ouwe knar. De verwantschap tussen Laura en Logan is onmiskenbaar, het stokje mag gelijk aan het jonkie doorgegeven worden. Toch is het Jackman die de meeste indruk achterlaat, voor het laatst in de rol die hem groot maakte, maar hier zo anders gespeeld dan gebruikelijk. Schrijnend, dat we juist dankzij diens zwanenzang toch meer van Wolverine willen zien.

Today's Review: Quand on a 17 Ans

I've fallen a little bit behind on updating my blog with my latest reviews. Let's see whether I can undo some of the damage.

Quand on a 17 ans - recensie

This film, which in English speaking territories is released under the title Being 17, at first has all the hallmarks of your typical teenage drama. There's two seventeen year old boys and a fair bit of animosity between them. However, where usually there's girls or social status involved in explaining said strife, that is not the case here. In fact, there's no particular cause for their mutual dislike at all, it's just there. So we can imagine the horror on the one boy's face when his mother invites the other to come live with them. It's a generous but odd decision, considering their rivalry is there for everybody to see. It's not the oddest choice Quand on a 17 ans makes, since the intention of this film is showing the start of a homosexual relationship. You'll have a tough time believing this film, which takes place over a period of about 18 months, will see the relation between the boys change from mutual hatred and the occasional bit of violence to underscore that feeling, to genuine, physical affection between the pair.

Director André Téchiné - himself a gay man - is no stranger to both gay drama and teen angst. However, he felt the subject material needed the aid of writer Céline Sciamma to flesh the characters out to their best extent. Sciamma recently came off the teen drama Girlhood, which also showed rough relationships between youngsters (though all of them girls in that particular case), but despite the 37 year difference in age between herself and her director, she proves a right addition to make the teen dialogue that much more snappy and convincing. Aided by strong, not to mention daring, performances from both the young actors and their more experienced counterparts, the script goes a long way to make the unlikely transformation from one state of affairs to the other feel that much more real. Cinematography and editing do their bit as the movie moves from a snowy, cold opening to a warm and colourful close in summer, as a perfect (but rather obvious) metaphor for the change in teen moods.

Nevertheless, for the audience it's still a far cry from hate to love (especially a type of love this deeply felt) in just under two hours time. All the ingredients are there to make us convince this is transpiring, but it just moves too fast to make us feel it with the two main characters. It has the pretention, conscious or unconscious, of an emotional epic the likes of La Vie D'Adele (better known as Blue is the Warmest Colour in many regions), but unlike that wonderful film, it just cuts the time necessary to make it equally emotionally compelling for us by a third. We cannot help but feel things are rushed, even though the movie cannot be accused of being fast paced. A change in teen nature of this magnitude simply begs more illustration for full emotional immersion, it seems.

Today's Review: American Ultra

Time for another review. Long overdue in fact.

American Ultra - recensie

You'd think the shady but historically true Project MK-Ultra would make for a smashing political thriller, with its detestable CIA experiments of mind control via drugs and careful conditioning on the unsuspecting American population. Instead, Hollywood loosely appropriated it for a stoner comedy. And sadly, not the funniest imaginable. American Ultra fires more bullets than jokes.

At least the lead casting is a shot in the right direction. Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart have worked together before and it shows, as they have the right amount of chemistry to make a likeable couple of losers. From Eisenberg, we've come to expect a certain level of quality, especially when it concerns this type of character. Stewart's performance thus leaves more of an impression, since we still needed some convincing of her talents as a true actress. With her much praised serious role in Camp X-Ray recently behind her, we can safely say 2015 is the year she finally came into her own and left her Twilight stigma behind her. Still, it takes more than two good leads to make for a solid movie. A decent plot and the right balance between action and comedy, for instance. American Ultra doesn't have either.

Where the fun is concerned, the movie starts at least promising, and a few good laughs are to be had in the first act. However, the film increasingly opts for action over comedy, which makes for a rather dull and unfunny finale, where both the jokes and the necessary emotional investment in the main characters is lost in all the gun fights, knife fights, and fist fights. There's simply too much fighting as the movie progresses and most of it is excessively violent, but not in any ironic or tongue-in-cheek manner. It's just a bloody mess, as is the story, which also involves rival CIA agents fighting it out in a manner totally devoid of the intelligence the I in their agency is supposed to stand for. There's also room made for a few stereotype drug dealers and deranged super assassins, but none of it works on the levels the writers probably intended. Director Nima Nourizadeh, fresh off the allegedly culturally notable teen flick Project X, shows a little too clearly he has more affinity with destroying things and blowing stuff up than in making us care about it all.

Fortunately we still have RED to show us how a fun time can be had with CIA assassins being hunted by their own employer. However, a definitive movie about Project MK-Ultra is still very much lacking. If Hollywood does tackle the touchy subject again, I hope they make a more serious movie  out of it. Mind control simply isn't funny, as American Ultra shows.

Today's Review: Snowpiercer

Snowpiercer: ****/*****, or 8/10

Blame it on the economic crisis or some such, but it continues to be a good time for post-apocalyptic cinema. Hollywood jumps on the-end-of-the-world bandwagon multiple times a year it appears, and there's no excuse for other countries not to also try their hand at exploring dystopian societies where human rights are nonexistant. A striking example from last year includes the big budget Elysium, wherein the majority of mankind is left to suffer on an overpopulated and heavily polluted Earth while the rich live a life of luscious luxury up in space. Directed by native South-African Neill Blomkamp, he utilized his home land settings and talent to great effect, though ultimately the Hollywood approach in terms of story and marketing prevailed (though it didn't much harm the film overall). Not so with Snowpiercer, which dabbles in very similar themes, but proves to be enriched as a viewing experience by a rather un-American sensibility, courtesy of South-Korean director Joon-ho Bong.

It cannot be denied that Snowpiercer's premise – based off the French comic Le Transperceneige – has to be taken with a grain of salt, at the risk of sounding utterly ludicrous. Set in the year 2031, seventeen years after a worldwide attempt to halt global warming by dispersing cooling gasses into the atmosphere went mercilessly awry, our planet suffers under an extreme ice age that covers the globe in snow and ice. Humanity's last few survivors live aboard a huge train, where a rigid class system has developed. The poor masses are relegated to the back compartments of the train, while the wealthy live in the front in relative comfort. Powered by a perpetuum mobile, the train rages over the frozen planet's surface, seemingly ad infinitum. While the haves play and party to their leisure, the have-nots suffer endlessly, huddled together in uninterrupted squalor and near-starvation. The rich are only interested in their kids, which they take away at random for undisclosed but doubtlessly sinister purposes. But biding their time under the command of the calculating Curtis (Chris Evans), the dispossessed plot their revolution, hellbent on overthrowing the repressive system and taking over the train for themselves. Such a plot line seems thirteen-a-dozen stuff when it comes to dystopian cinema, but the unusual element of the train makes all the difference, if you're willing to accept this rather bizarre concept.

'Bizarre' is exactly right to describe Bong's approach to Snowpiercer, if not to his whole oeuvre. With The Host, the Korean director delivered a monster-on-a-rampage movie unlike any other, while his celebrated but twisted thriller Memories of Murder firmly rooted him as a student of and a commentator on the human capacity for violence. Snowpiercer fits right into his resumé and stylistically reveals him to have auteur tendencies. The cruel and the weird go hand in hand in his clash of classes. Bong takes his time to explore the train and its hierarchy, where the mysterious designer and machinist of the vehicle,Wilford, is given divine status by those he keeps alive. As the desperate rebels who want to put an end to this dictatorship slowly but surely work their way to the front of the train, Bong keeps surprising us as much as his protagonists with each new compartment they enter. But, applying a certain video game logic to the narrative, each discovery also comes with new dangers, both physically and in terms of resolve of standing united against a common foe, as Curtis moves ever closer to the 'end boss' Wilford, and upon meeting him finds out the true machinations of the powers-that-be.

Bong tells his strange tale of revolution through an international ensemble of actors, which underscores the thought that humanity has collectively 'taken the same train' in the destruction of their habitat and must deal with it accordingly or perish as a whole. You'd be inclined to think of Evans as a typical all-American hero leading the quest for freedom, but you'd be much mistaken, as the character carries a particularly sordid past that would definitely write him off as such. The same is true for Jamie Bell, apparently his hotheaded sidekick, whose relationship with his older brother-in-arms is much more disturbing than you would at first glance suspect. Bong surprises you as much with the twisted interrelations between his protagonists as with the various situations they encounter. John Hurt seemingly plays an archetypal wise old man as he has done on many prior occasions, but what we come to know about him in the course of the film again subverts expectations, as do the motives of the apparently unstable demolitions expert/drug addict Kang-ho Song (a Bong regular) and his clairvoyant daughter. The audience is being toyed with in their mental perception of “the good guys” on a similar note as it is in regards to the physical appearance of the leading baddie, minister Mason, played by an unrecognizable Tilda Swinton in an outrageous costume and false teeth. Nevertheless, the cast succeeds in relaying the fact this class conflict isn't as black and white as you would initially believe, although with such morally colourful characters, it makes you wonder with whom Bong wants you to identify (if anyone): the line between good and bad characters is indeed as thin as the rails that keep their train going.

Even more colourful is Bong's sense of style. Clearly a confined space, Bong makes good use of that fact to show off his train in delightfully flexible cinematography and a colour scheme to match. Starting off with the plight of the tormented oppressed, he sticks with an abundance of brown tones – supplying a nearly monochromatic touch – and cramped, crowded spaces for the first hour, before he lets in the light and dazzles both the revolutionaries and the audience with the rich and vibrant world of the oppressors, filled with all kinds of unexpected wonders. A huge vegetable garden, a giant aquarium walkthrough (complete with manta rays), a classroom car; we're confronted with whatever we expect the least, and Bong has it all make appropriate sense. Which is not to say that he doesn't throw us off-guard at times, also in terms of the flow of the narrative. Bong makes use of the occasional off-beat, even absurdist moment that only adds to his wonderfully weird train, but continues to suggest the director's dark predilections. A brutal showdown between the tyranny's minions and the insurgents is postponed by a New Year celebration before the carnage ensues, while an overly cheerful classroom scene explodes in a bloody shootout, the presence of children notwithstanding. Not the type of thing you'd find in the more generic American dystopian flicks, nor is the movie's big revelation near the end (think The Matrix Reloaded, but without sequel aspirations). The climax however does leave some room for hope, which feels out of place and hints at studio interference, most likely from the American investors (as the film is a Korean/American/French/Czech co-production). As for the action scenes, Snowpiercer contains many and they are all sufficiently choreographed to make you bite into their mayhem, despite the oddities Bong throws at you along the way. Unfortunately many visual effects shots of the white world outside prove less than stellar and more than a little bit digital, making you wish Bong would stick more to the train, which is where nearly all of the excitement happens anyway.

Snowpiercer's premise and the logistics of its world might be hard to accept at first, but Bong makes it work. Plus, he keeps surprising you, confronting you with your own expectations, fed by having seen mostly American takes on the conflict between good and evil in dystopian societies. If you accept Bong's craziness and unwillingness to adhere to orthodox storytelling, Snowpiercer proves quite an intriguing ride, though admittedly not everyone will be able to stay on board for this one, violent, disturbing and thoroughly messed up as it deservedly can be called.

Today's Double News: Game of Gotham, a Foreshadowing

This just in from MS, by me:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/153685/nieuwe_lange_preview_game_of_thrones_seizoen_4

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/153660/ben_mckenzie_gecast_voor_gotham-serie

15 minutes of previewing GoT, can it get any better? Sure, watching the actual new season itself instead of being hyped to death. Unlike most other (shorter) teasers for the upcoming season, this one proves really worthwhile. Sure, you got the cast and crew joking around a bit, showing they're just people too, but considering all the death, dismay, dismemberment, decapitation, dicks and dragons these folks deal with each year while working on this magnificent show, it's obvious they are in need of such simple diversions to stay sane. Plus, it's always a blast to see the actors, whose performances you utterly love (yes, you do! Even if they're evil people!), had a great time filming this. Of course HBO wouldn't dare show the bad days - and I reckon there are some, up in the frozen wastes of Iceland and the soaring heat of Croatia - but at least nobody is actually losing any body parts. And even if silly shenanigans and zany dance routines are not your thing, there's plenty of actual new footage to get that mouth of yours watering for more sword & sorcery & sex. There's an epic new dragon shot (my, those beasties are growing rather large!) as well as a first Meereen cityscape, which looks splendid and distinct from the Slaver's Bay cities we witnessed so far. Too bad it makes its throne room look somewhat underwhelming (small for a throne rooom really), but with such compelling performances and terrific drama (and loads of naughty bit cleverly intermixed) we won't even begin to notice such trivial trifles. Winter may still be coming after three seasons, but Seven Hells be damned if this show doesn't stay as formidable as ever.

And now for something completely different. Or not really actually. Just a different setting in a different universe. But a similar game of thrones will soon be played on the small screen in Gotham City, as cops and crooks struggle for power of this metropolis. Not to mention a certain Caped Crusader, though since he's still a kid here I wouldn't bet on seeing much of him anytime soon. Which means Gotham's Finest have to make a stand against crime running rampant on its own. Fortunately James Gordon is on the job, and this week news broke that Ben McKenzie has been cast in that role. I have never heard of him, as I haven't watched anything he's in. Not on purpose of course, it just never popped up in my path. I'll be sure to watch a bit of Gotham though, even if just to see whether that town is anywhere near as interesting without Batman as it is with. Considering many ingredients that make the Dark Knight so enduring are present here, and the story unfolds around many of the same characters, except younger, chances are good it'll prove compelling material. Then again, it wouldn't be the first time revamping a franchise completely with a younger cast severely backfired (at least in my opinion, though not necessarily in those of others). But at least J.J. Abrams is not involved with this one. Good thing too, since there's someone I'd really liked to see Batman beat up.

Today's Mini-Review: Death Race 2000

Rating: ***/*****, or 7/10

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, David Carradine, Simone Griffeth

Directed by Paul Bartel

USA: New World Pictures, 1975

Ah, dystopian societies... If they're not engaged in brutalizing their own population, they're exploring new avenues of keeping the crowd in line by trite but true methods of 'panem et circenses', also guaranteeing their own existence is kept in check by ruling through that most potent combination of fear and wonder. Some form of gladiatorial event is ever a popular choice, appealing to the inhabitants of the totalitarian regime (or simply intimidating them) as well as to cinemagoers around the globe who cannot help but be mesmerized by the ruthless spectacle that ever delivers a paradoxical sense of blatant abjection and undeniable attraction. While these days the rage consists of teenagers battling each other to the death in fancy arenas, far more colourful and bizarre forms of contest have been portrayed at the movies in earlier decades. In 1975 Rollerball introduced spectators to the sport of the same name, an odd combination between hockey and boxing, that helped set new standards of onscreen violence. Capitalizing on the advance press publicity for this film, producer Roger Corman wasn't afraid to cannibalize the notion of 'blood sports' in order to produce an exploitation film making use of similar themes, thereby taking advantage of the media interest in the topic and subsequently beating Rollerball's theatrical release by a mere two months. And so a cult hit was born with Death Race 2000.

As the title successfully indicates, the premise of the movie revolves around a lethal race set in the then futuristic sounding year 2000. After the merger of the two major American political parties when the economy collapsed, a dictatorship runs the country and the titular contest is used to keep the populace satiated, bound to their television screens instead of giving them the opportunity to go out and start plotting the government's downfall. Contestants drive across the continent and win the race not only by driving faster than their opponents but also by the number of accidental bystanders they purposefully run down. Throwing out all morality, killing kids and old folk scores you more points than hitting people in their prime, as it's the utter depravity of the kill that determines the number of points awarded. To make matters even more interesting (and weird), each driver has a theme applied to their car, so we witness zany cars in Roman, Western and gangster style designs. Commentary on the race is given by the most obnoxious sportscasters imaginable to enhance the viewer's general sense of 'what-the'f**k'. The most popular participants of the 2000 race are Frankenstein (David Carradine, the world's most (in)famous autoerotic asphyxiation victim) and Machine Gun Joe Viterbo (a pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone), both very able killer car drivers with little to no compunctions about hitting pedestrians hard. Frankenstein however finds himself caught in a ploy from a resistance movement to sabotage the race and assassinate the president, but he holds his private motives and political convictions (if any) as well. As the deplorable race progresses, Frankenstein must both survive his race rivals and outwit political insurgents who would abuse him as a puppet for their own shady agenda.

As you may have gathered, unlike Rollerball, Death Race 2000 has no pretensions of being a serious film, as it's more occupied with satirizing the social mores and the role of the media than with exploring the changing nature of violence in present day society; a major theme in the Seventies, as movies got increasingly more bloody and gory and actual violent incidents were allegedly inspired by such audiovisual fare, making society fear civilization was rapidly spiralling out of control. Though a fair amount of blood and gore (and nudity to top it off) is present in Death Race 2000, the movie mostly feels like a comedy and wants to do just that, making ample fun of people's projections of the future debasement of political standards and the mental deterioration caused by the media dumbing people down by pushing mindless drivel down their throats. It's easy to read social commentary in this film, even though Corman and the film's director Paul Bartel have no desire to come off as overly political, instead opting only to make a simple fun and ridiculous movie appealing to bored teenagers, appropriating themes and trends of the day just to ensure the movie makes more money than it cost (always a specialty of Corman's). Their intentions are adequately underscored by cheap production design, cheesy oneliners and completely over-the-top performances throughout the picture. With such ingredients and lack of willful message, it's no surprise Death Race 2000 became a smash cult hit, generating quite a profit from its obvious low budget (only around 300,000 bucks). A remake (and two sequels to that) starring Jason Statham would eventually follow, which traded in the good humour for a much grittier and convincing look and cars and stuntsto match that actually delivered the spectacle dystopian society already promised its audience three decades earlier.

Today's Mini-Review: Machete Kills

Machete Kills: ***/*****, or 6/10

Robert Rodriguez continues telling the strange and ever over-the-top chronicles of his delightfully violent character Machete (Danny Trejo), who once starred in a fake trailer attached to his original Grindhouse segment Planet Terror and suddenly embarked on a life of his own. Though no faux trailer for this second installment was ever attached to other similar themed films (maybe there just were none), Machete Kills itself opens with a trailer for the alleged third movie, the dubiously titled Machete Kills Again... In Space! It's both a stroke of genius – as this 'prevue' perfectly sets the tone for what's to come, as well as pokes fun to the whole B-movie style Rodriguez embraces so vigorously more aptly in two minutes than the following film does in two hours – but also rather frustrating, as we know exactly how the movie we're about to see ends and what characters survive to fight another day (in space, yes). As such, Machete Kills is largely rendered devoid of any large narrative surprises. As we'll find out soon enough, the film doesn't rely on story structure at all, as in this regard it's kind of a mess, bloated with characters and motivations, many which change over the course of the movie. We're just supposed to roll with it as we did in the case of the first film, but it's obvious the paying-hommage-to-grindhouse-cinema is getting stale. This time, Machete is hired by the President of the USA (Charlie Sheen, humorously billed under his birth name Carlos Estevez and given an 'introducing' credit accordingly) to stop an arms dealer with a bad case of schizophrenia (Demian Bichir) from launching a nuclear assault upon Washington D.C. Why Machete cares about America at all, being an exploited Mexican alien and so forth, is only briefly addressed as we're not supposed to care to much for it is his simple duty to 'go kick some ass', and we like to see him do just that (we do!). Of course the situation is not nearly as simple as it seems and the bad guy's trail leads to an even bigger villain, a big shot industrialist named Voz (Mel Gibson) who harbors even deadlier threats to mankind's health. Along the road, Machete must dodge various well armed, colourful hitmen and legions of mindless minions, survive plots by double agents and also make love to beautiful women from time to time. A lot to do in only two hours, and what's more, a lot of characters to introduce and successively kill off in new and interesting ways.

Even more star studded than Machete's previous venture, this movie features appearances by an overly large score of popular actors including the likes of Jessica Alba, Amber Heard, Lady Gaga, Antonio Banderas, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Vanessa Hudgens. With so many celebrities present, it's obvious a lot of them don't get the screen time they deserve. Another, more serious result is that Trejo himself feels somewhat overwhelmed by it all (or maybe it's just his age, as he's pushing 70) and delivers a less than stellar performance than we're used to, not nearly exuberating the same type of invincibility and 'badassery' as he did before. Fortunately we still have the scantily clad tough girl Michelle Rodriguez (no relation), reprising her role as secret revolutionary Luz, to make up for Trejo's lack of bravura. In all other respects, Machete Kills is equally enjoyable as its predecessor, containing the maximum amount of scenes of idiotic ultraviolence, sweaty sensuality (though surprisingly no actual nudity this time) and a plethora of insanely funny genre self-referencing that have proven hallmarks of Rodriguez' grindhouse flicks. My favorite, apart from the opening trailer for Part 3, is the sex scene which out of the blue has the film stock distorted and blurred just when it got saucy, with an overlaying text asking us to put on our 3D-glasses. At least in terms of sheer simple fun Machete once again gives us what we expect, which does still make you want to see him kill again in space: like the trailer says, because 'it's all galactic and shit'.

Today's Mini-Review: 2 Guns

2 Guns: ****/*****, or 7/10

Now this is a buddy movie if ever I saw one. The one buddy is Denzel Washington starring as an undercover DEA-agent aiming to bring down a drug lord, the other is Mark Wahlberg starring as an equally undercover Navy intel officer attempting to secure the same kingpin's cash to fund covert Naval operations. Naturally, neither is aware of the other's actual identity – if you think different government situations could adequately work together for a change, think again! – and they know they'll have to kill their partner somewhere down the road, but not before said road screws them both and they can't trust their own employers no more, which leads them to forge an uneasy alliance to get through their common misery alive. It's basically the 'why so serious' version of The Departed, except here the moles have to dig themselves out together. Of course 2 Guns never reaches that film's level of quality, but it surpasses most other recent action movies, mostly thanks to excellent chemistry between Washington and Wahlberg (giving the latter another chance to prove he can actually act, which is still a matter of debate in some circles). The successful and catchy interplay between Washington's relaxed and calculating thinking man and Wahlberg's charming but obnoxiously loudmouth man of action is the result of an admittedly fairly solid script containing plenty of witticisms, absurd but surprising narrative situations and, as expected, a decent amount of gunfights. The movie betrays its comic book roots in an overall over-the-top attitude, with delightfully ridiculous action scenes, the use of politically incorrect stereotyping here and there (the vile and racist border patrol cops for one) and an excessively eerie and villainous bad guy with a routine for sadistic interrogation techniques (Bill Paxton!). Coupled with an abundance of snappy dialogue throughout, as well as a fairly intelligent, though at times a little convoluted, plot for this type of high octane action flick, it makes 2 Guns one of the more pleasant and enjoyable of this year's thrill rides. Ideologically speaking, the movie suggests there's nobody you can trust but your gun. You certainly can't trust government institutions, since they use you and abuse you at their convenience (which makes it all the more ironic I saw this film on the same day US government services throughout the country shut down due to the inability of American politicians to agree on budget measures, leaving the States in chaos). The DEA is corrupt, the Navy is a tool that only cares about its own prestige and turns a blind eye to injustice amongst its ranks for the greater good, and the CIA is nothing but an out of control private army for its top brass who utilize it to get filthy rich by smuggling drugs into the country in cahoots with the Mexican drug lords that only serve as their stooges. Heck, the Mexican drug lord in this movie (an unconvincingly Hispanic but convincingly scary Edward James 'Adama' Olmos) has more scruples and honourable sensibilities than any of the goverment's top dogs! When it comes down to mutual self-preservation you can rely on your best buddy, but once the dust has cleared you can only trust him as far as you can spit, as illustrated by the protagonists' continuing eagerness to plant a bullet into each other even up till the end of the film. It's a dog-eat-dog world, 2 Guns states, but with a good gun you can make sure you're the canine doing the eating, while getting away with a load of cash while you're at it.

Today's Column: the Dredd-incident (again)

It seems my first true column regarding Jurassic Park 3D and its peculiar revised age rating proved of enough public interest and stylistic talent on my part for the guys at MovieScene to ask me to keep writing similar pieces at a ratio of one per month. I was only to happy to comply, making my second column a fact as of today:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/147768/column_het_dredd-incident

Avid readers of this blog might experience a sense of deja vu when reading it. Not surprisingly, considering I have reported on this particular experience before when writing my review of Dredd 3D last year. So I apologize to my loyal followers for getting repetitive, but I had to come up with an interesting story on fairly short notice so I just picked a topic which I knew I could fashion in a good column (since I had basically done so already). This also means there's little more to add to all this. It's now officially the stuff of 'been there, done that'. Except now I've done it better, for a wider audience. And in two different languages even. It seems I have a great subconscious urge to get some kind of recognition for my heroic deeds in this matter. So far the positive reader comments at MovieScene appear to acknowledge that, which is certainly okay with me. And only stimulatingme  to write more columns. But I suppose I should come up with new topics now... Oh well, I have a whole moth to come up with some fascinating angle. Or I could write something shitty and rapidly see those positive attitudes of the MS readers swing the other way. That would also be interesting!

Movies gone by: when will it end...

Here's some more mini-reviews of movies I failed to review before due to technical difficulties. Meanwhile, I still see more films every week so it's piling up fast. Hopefully, I can still find time to finish this catching-up and get back to regular reviewing. Next week will be busy for me though (regular work, press viewing, dentist appointment, shipping out many parcels full of sold Jurassic Park figures, etc.), so that remains to be seen. Fingers crossed, no promises.

Hyde Park on Hudson: ***/*****, or 6/10.

The historic first visit of English royalty to the United States in 1939 immortalized on film, seen through the eyes of President Roosevelt's distant cousin Margaret (played by Laura Linney), with whom he had an uneasy semi-secret affair. Equally uneasy is the first meeting between Mr. President (a formidable Bill Murray) and the King and Queen of Britain (a sympathetic and convincingly 'just crowned' Samuel West and Olivia Colman), the latter pair being completely uncomfortable with the American way of life, but in need of winning over the American public to support the Brits in the apparently unavoidable upcoming war with Germany. The ultimate message: they're all normal human beings with their own failings and strengths so why not be friends? Putting human faces on historical characters of such stature is what this film does best, resulting in both hilarious confrontations – my favorite: the King waving at American farmers in the distance for lack of other people to wave at, only to be completely ignored – and genuinely compelling emotional moments, but it's also a weakness: these people behave all too human, thus making for a fair share of dull moments that compromise the film's progress as the characters engage in routine human behavior. The plot regarding FDR and his hidden mistress also gets in the way as it gears towards a predictable clash between both personalities over the exact nature of their affiliation that lacks full audience engagement. Overall, this is a real 'hit and miss' movie, but the thrill of seeing historical characters bicker and argue about whether or not to eat hot dogs due to their political nature demands at least one watch. My ex-history teacher, who was sitting in the audience when I was running the film at the local arthouse theatre, seemed to agree with this assessment: glad to know I learned some things from him back in my high school days.

Life of Pi: ****/*****, or 8/10.

Grand tale of survival, man “versus” beast, the importance of hope and the personal nature of religious beliefs, which won Ang Lee the 'Best Director' Academy Award. A man from India named Pi (Irrfan Khan) tells his life's tale: growing up in a zoo, ultimately moving the whole animal circus to America as a boy, only to lose everything (including his family) in a tropical storm at sea. Stranded on a life boat, the young man (now played by Suraj Sharma) has to contend with the only other survivor, an adult tiger named Richard Parker (created by a fabulous mix between CGI and the real deal, the two blending in so seemlessly that few people can tell the difference: a VFX Oscar well earned!). Stuck with each other for months on end on the ocean desert, Pi recalls their various encounters, the good, the bad and the bizarre, with the message that no matter how bleak things seem, there's always something to enjoy about the circumstances life has in store for you. Lee serves this viewpoint from an atypical religious angle that celebrates the good in religion by allowing Pi to take the best elements of various religious belief systems and appropriating it to form his own feel-good personal religion. The surprising result (for hardcore atheists like myself at least) is that, despite the fact Pi opens his story with the line 'I will tell you a story that will make you believe in God', the movie is never to be considered a pamphlet to convert anyone to any organized faith, but a call for total individualist religious freedom, to belief in whatever you want to belief to make the world work better for yourself. And so, despite having lost his family at sea and having to take care not to be eaten every day, Pi cannot help but marvel at life's grandeur, as he witnesses splendid sights seen by few, including a whale feasting on phosphorescent plankton at night, a carnivorous island populated only by meercats and eventual mutual survival for Richard and himself against all odds. As is expected from Ang Lee, such a colourful tale comes with his typical ingeniously rich visual imagery, leading to many breathtaking and haunting shots ('Best Cinematography' too), made all the more effective by its grandiose use of 3D technology: hence, watching this film in 2D is like listening to music with your ears closed.

Gangster Squad: ***/*****, or 6/10.

Period crime flick set in late Fourties' Los Angeles, loosely based on historical events. When the city suffers under the regime of ruthless crime boss Mickey Cohen (unusual but effective role for Sean Penn), who rules through intimidation and corruption, a few clean cops form an equally uncompromising (i.e., violent) 'gangster squad' to rid the town of Cohen and his consorts by any means necessary. Under the command of Josh Brolin, these badgeless law enforcers hit Cohen as hard as they can in any which way they can think of, showing no mercy at all. An all-out war between both parties is the predictable result, while a rather forced love relationship is established between cop Ryan Gosling and Cohen's mistress Emma Stone, to complicate matters romantically (and needlessly too). All in all, a solid action flick devoid of surprises, but delivering everything you would expect (which is both meant positively and negatively). Originally scheduled to be released a good six months earlier, a shootout scene in a movie theater needed to be altered due to the Aurora 'Dark Knight Rises' incident: some footage of the original scene can still be found in trailers all over the Internet though. The most interesting thing about this film is the fact it's a direct prequel to the far superior period thriller/'film noir' LA Confidential (1997), which details what happened after Cohen's historical downfall and outmatches Gangster Squad in almost every respect (except for the explicit violence).

Django Unchained: ****/*****, or 8/10.

Hailed as 'Tarantino's latest masterpiece' well in advance of its actual release, this movie reaffirms Tarantino excels in taking an established film genre and dipping it in his usual sauce of violence, a catching soundtrack and memorable oneliners. Though it's safe to say the man ought to resort to other tactics soon before it backfires on him, it cannot be denied Django Unchained is a great, thoroughly entertaining film. Chronicling the rise to freedom of former slave Django (a stern Jamie Foxx) by the grace of bounty hunter Dr. Schultz (Christoph Waltz, who won his second Oscar by repeating himself for a Tarantino film, except playing a good guy this time around), the movie witnesses Django, striking a deal with the man, becoming his sidekick as the two track down his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), who is now in the service of the wealthy southern slaver Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio, both surprisingly charming and wickedly discomforting). Figuring out an elaborate scheme to get his wife back, Django soon finds out more violent solutions are in order to reach his goal. The no-no word 'nigger' can be heard a whopping 107 times, to the acknowledgment of its historical use but to the predictable shock of conservative America: accordingly, action figures of characters from this film were promptly taken off shelves to avoid controversy in stores, but the ridiculous debate about the use of such sensitivewords rages on. Apparently quality television shows like Deadwood get away with it, but a much anticipated flick like this gets marred in political debate for applying the same tactics. A wonderfully intertextual neo-western, the film is laced with references to past westerns, both the undying classics and the more obscure fare, as is Tarantino's forte. The (this time hidden) movie babbling fortunately doesn't get in the way of plot and character development, as it did in Death Proof and tended to do in Inglourious Basterds. Tarantino gets away with his proven routine again, for now: it would be nice to see him tackle something wholly new for a change though.

Review - Silent Hill: Revelation 3D

Happy New Year everybody!

Still offline unfortunately. My own computer continues to undergo attempts at repair (or so I hope) at the store where I bought it from, a process that isn't going as smoothly as it might have gone because of the interruptions caused by the Holidays. Hopefully I'll be able to pick it up tomorrow so I can return to update my blog as often as it ought to be updated, instead of by the low frequency of late. Of course, I haven't fully idled my time away (though that is one of the reasons we have holidays, if I understand correctly) and I managed to be present at yet another press screening, particularly of the horror flick Silent Hill: Revelation 3D, my (not all too positive) thoughts on which can be found here:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/142990/silent_hill:_revelation_3d_-_recensie



Hope to be back soon. After all, the excellent (in terms of movies) year 2012 has made way for 2013, which also looks to witness its fair share of good - and not so good - films over which I hope to share my feelings. Plus, there's all the usual year-gone-by backlash, as we can finally settle the score on which 2012 movies rocked abs and which sucked ass. There's plenty of both as we have seen, and I hope to be able to discuss it all in the not too distant future. If technology will allow me...

Hardcore violence: Indonesian style

The Raid: Redemption: ****/*****, or 7/10

At the last Dutch Imagine Film Festival (the former Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival) the Indonesian action film The Raid: Redemption (original title Serbuan Maut) recently won the Silver Scream Award with an audience score of 9.3. Despite not being a “fantastic” film, i.e. not containing any particular horror, fantasy or science fiction scenes, the presence of the film on the festival was well justified: it's utterly fantastic in the way it portrays the human body being able to take continuous extravagant beatings and stomping without the person taking this kind of extreme punishment dying an agonizing death, or in fact dying at all. The situation the protagonists of The Raid find themselves in can easily be classified as 'being in agony' though: they just fucked with the wrong crime lord, and have to fight their way out of a 30-storey apartment building in the slums of Jakarta, which unfortunately for them is swarming with violent, bloodthirsty thugs.

So far the simple premise of Gareth Evans' new action film which took film festivals and movie blogs around the globe by storm. The reason? It's just a damn fine action flick, delivering one excessively dynamic action scene after another, hardly giving the viewer a moment to recover his/her breath. It's an impressive accomplishment by Evans, whose resumé as a director is about as short as the longest pause in-between the abundance of excellently choreographed fights. His best card here is his use of the Indonesian martial art of Pencak Silat, plus the presence of some of the finest practitioners of this fighting style in the world, including Iko Uwais who Evans previously directed in his first Indonesian film (and second overall film of his career), Merantau (2009). Apparently both of them weren't quite done with applying Uwais' skill at martial arts to film and figured there's plenty more where that came from. And judging from the success of The Raid, they were absolutely correct in their assumption.

The Raid: Redemption starts with one of the film's rare moments of peace and quiet, as Rama (Uwais) wakes up early in the morning, works out, prays, works out again and kisses his pregnant wife goodbye to start another day on the job as a fairly inexperienced officer in a SWAT team. Today's mission: enter an apartment building and arrest drug lord Tama Riyadi (an effectively sinister Ray Sahetapy, balancing carefully between being cunning and cruel). The apartment building itself, a grim, grey block of cement subconsciously shouting 'abandon all hope, ye who enter here' from every angle, serves as a safe house for every criminal who is willing to pay Tama big bucks for it, and is virtually impenetrable for normal cops. Consisting of twenty trained men, some rookies like Rama, some with years of experience, the team sets out to do their job under the command of sergeant Jaka (Joe Taslim) and assisted by lieutenant Wahyu (Pierre Gruno). Though they manage to capture the first few floors without much resistance, things take a turn for the worst as a young spotter succeeds in alarming Tama via the building's intercom. The man obviously didn't get so far, or so feared, as he has without being carefully prepared for potential intruders as well as viciously sadistic – a fact adequately demonstrated by a scene early in the film where he executes four tied up men with a gun, asks the fifth to hold it for a while when out of bullets, then returns with a hammer to beat the man to death instead of taking another bullet from his desk – and he immediately locks down the building, using the intercom to send the general message there's free lodgings available for every man who assists in ridding his building of the current “cockroach” infestation. And so the game for simple survival begins, when the team finds itself surrounded by the world's most brutal and nasty criminal scum imaginable.

Relying on a plot driven by pure video game logic, the handful of team members who survive the initial onslaught wrought by the large number of thugs out for their blood, race from floor to floor to get to their goal, which remains capturing Tama, now the 'end boss' of the film, since their colleagues and car parked outside were among the first to be ruthlessly offed, and the surrounding buildings are loaded with more heavily armed bad guys, so even getting near a window is playing with your life. Around each corner, in every corridor and in any of the many rooms, danger awaits, and the remaining characters, of course including Rama, Jaka and Wahyu, have to move carefully to avoid running into their opponents. To make matters worse, Wahyu himself proves to be far from clean, intent on using the planned capture of Tama for his own career. There's no hope for back-up, since Wahyu never informed anyone back at the office of this SWAT raid because many of his corrupt superiors are in Tama's pockets. Rama however turns out to have more noble motives for participating in this assignment, as he means to snatch his brother Andi (Donny Alamsyah), who broke with his family when entering in underworld affairs and has since moved up to the status of Tama's right hand man, away from the other cops and return him to his family: when Andi learns he's going to be an uncle, he's willing to help get his brother out alive no matter what, thus adding some family love to the overall character development, of which there is more than you would expect from a movie that revolves so much about action and so little about scenes of dialogue. The plot between the brothers is a nice reprieve from the otherwise wholly impersonal killing going around, making the film about more than mere survival, though using Rama's upcoming baby is a bit cheesy. The tension between the few good men alive and their less moral than anticipated lieutenant Wahyu also adds welcome plot, though ultimately The Raid has no pretensions than to be anything more than a well crafted string of gripping action scenes. Think of the characters' plights as a bonus.

And those action scenes are truly worth any lack of storytelling. Starting with the usual gun fights in the first half of the picture, The Raid quickly trades in bullets for fisticuffs, considering the team members run out of bullets soon enough and have to resort to using their bare hands and whatever they can find to withstand the hordes of thugs armed mostly with machetes, which is of course more fun for them than just gunning these cops down. Fortunately the surviving team members prove highly skilled in Pencak Silat, while the same can be said for virtually any assassins they run into. The notion this suggests of everybody knowing Pencak Silat in the Jakartan slums seems a bit farfetched, but the movie won't give most people the time to consider this, showcasing too much physical brutality to concentrate on other matters. Though the amount of violence is both over the top and extreme, it's surprising to see how implicit it is for the most part; despite the various quick close-up bullet hits shown, when it comes down to the 'manual bits' the movie often chooses insinuation over exhibition, implying more than it reveals. This makes a lot of the many hardcore fights bearable to watch, though there's still plenty a shocker to be found.

Next to the abundance of action, also noteworthy is the various scenes of suspense: though there are a few quiet moments, you're not in for a moment of mental recuperation since such stillness is on most occasions even more tense. A perfect example is the scene where a few team members find shelter in the room of what seems like the only good man inside (who indeed feels out of place a little bit) and are forced to hide behind a wall to escape detection, but one particularly clever killer's suspicions arise, after which he uses his machete to prick through the walls. A cop's cheek is cut, at which point he needs to bend himself in a very complicated position to use his hand to wipe the blood off the blade as it is retracted to avoid his blood giving their presence away and getting them all slaughtered. It's impressive to see Evans handles suspense as well as he does action, though he doesn't hide his affinity for the latter.

Overall, the action scenes are a blast to watch and are choreographed to maximum effect, but the truth is they tend to get monotonous towards the end of the film. One corridor filled with bad guys follows after another and the Pencak Silat scenes too feel all too similar the more they are used, suggesting The Raid could have been a bit shorter for its own good, though at 101 minutes it's not exactly running long. Point is, the fights are so fast paced and plentiful, they make the movie feel longer than it actually is. It hurts the climactic end battle. Tama's most creepy agent Mad Dog (Yayan Ruhian), an excellent substitute physical 'end boss' considering Tama doesn't bother himself with martial arts and prefers outwitting his opponents, has just dispatched sergeant Jaka in a elaborate showdown, but Evans feels the need to outdo this a mere ten minutes later by further demonstrating his actors' already established prowess at Pencak Silat by having Mad Dog face not one, but two final opponents, thus making this confrontation feel overly repetitive, though still spectacular enough to keep the audience engaged. Evans sadly proves incapable of moderating himself sufficiently, but The Raid's status as one of the finest 'action pour l'action' films remains standing firmly and deservedly. After only three films, it's no surprise to see there's still plenty of room for improvement. And considering Evans plans to make Redemption the first of a trilogy of The Raid flicks, this can't do his directorial qualities any harm at this point.

It's also refreshing to see a good action film set in a non English speaking country that indeed doesn't rely on English dialogue at all. It adds just that much realism to the piece and means the movie doesn't become cluttered with the usual cheesy oneliners one has come to expect from films in this genre (which doesn't mean there's no Indonesian oneliners present: undoubtedly there are some of those, but it's doubtful we'll be seeing those quoted all over the web any time soon). Not surprisingly, the general American tendency to deny the existence of subtitles, coupled with the overall success of this film worldwide, has already resulted in the announcement of an American remake of The Raid going in production soon. It seems unlikely any movie could ever come close to delivering the amount of (physical) impact this film does, particularly because the martial art of Pencak Silat the movie appropriates for most of its fight scenes is itself Indonesian, and it seems unlikely American SWAT teams specialize in this fighting style, let alone the effort it would take for American actors to master it. It's reasonable to assume The Raid's style of fight choreography will be lost in translation, making the original continue to stand out in the action genre as one of the prime examples that, when done well, action films can indeed run exclusively on action.

And watch the trailer here:

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/sony/theraidredemption/

Convoy of Girls

Rating: **/*****, or 4/10

One of six terrible films included in the Nazi Cult Collection. Original French title: Convoi des Filles. Like any typical 'nazisploitation' flick (i.e., an exploitation film featuring gratuitous sex and violence in a Nazi setting), Convoy of Girls revolves around a group of girls being sent to German soldiers on the front lines for their R&R, resulting in rather softcore nudity and boring orgy scenes, unlike seen in their more hardcore counterparts of the same subgenre, including the likes of the infamous Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS, which feature more expressive sexual activity and scenes of innocent girls being humiliated and tortured by both men and other girls alike (since these films don't discriminate in that regard). This is not the worst film of the bunch, but still a movie that nobody would miss after all copies were lost in a public movie burning rally.

Starring: Brigitte Parmentier, Jean-Marie Lemaire, Henri Lambert

Directed by Jesus Franco and Pierre Chevalier

France: Eurociné, 1978

Children of Men

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

Depressing and gritty picture regarding a dystopian world in the not too distant future where women have lost the ability to get pregnant and have babies, after which humanity has abandoned all hope to avoid its own demise and society has degenerated to the verge of total collapse. Clive Owen lends himself perfectly in the role of grim and cynical would-be hero Theo, who is asked by his activist ex-wife (Julianne Moore) to transport a young woman, miraculously pregnant, to a safe haven where she might help scientists to figure out a way to save mankind from its looming extinction. However, other factions, more nefarious in nature, mean to appropriate the girl for their own revolutionary purposes, so Theo has a hell of a job getting her out of England alive, guiding her across the leftovers of the once quaint English country side and through a nightmarish ghetto where human lives mean next to nothing. Taking elements from classic dystopian texts, including Orwell's 1984, as well as referencing to recent actuality (including Abu-Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay), Cuarón portrays a very depraved England in a society close to committing suicide, where the absence of children has seemingly made humanity lose the ability to care about anything, after which it really let itself go and totally messed up the world in a short space of time. Exact explanations as to why women can't get babies anymore and just how the girl got pregnant are notably left out altogether, since Cuarón is only interested in showing the results of such happenstances. However, the shock of seeing a dying mankind that has deteriorated into utter lawlessness and violence hits the viewer hard, underscored by interesting stylistic choices in editing and photography, including several extremely ambitious long takes, single shots (at least, they appear to be) that last for minutes and are filled with dozens of people and all-round chaos. A very intriguing but distressing film, the subject matter clearly not suitable for everybody.

Starring: Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine

Directed by Alfonso Cuarón

USA/UK: Universal Pictures, 2006

Clockwork Orange, A

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

Nightmarish, highly stylized and plain bizarre, this remains one of the most controversial motion pictures of all time. Kubrick adapts Anthony Burgess' original novel with more visual flair than we're used to even from him, painting a ghoulish, depraved world in the not so distant future (at least, in 1971) where youth violence has run rampant. Malcolm McDowell, not one to turn down a shocking movie (like Caligula at the end of the decade), stars as the completely messed up sociopath gang leader Alex DeLarge whose various hobbies include hanging out at the local bar and taking illicit substances, classical music, raping women and just beating people for the fun of it. One night, he goes a little too far, which ends up in a trip to jail, where he volunteers for a scientific project designed to make offenders reject violence. After undergoing the experiments he is released and finds himself back on the streets, having to cope with the aftereffects of his actions when running into his old acquaintances, with not so nice results for his health, physically and mentally. The grotesque and haunting visual imagery aside, the film deals with the philosophical matter of freedom of will, as Alex is robbed of his in society's effort to keep kids like him in line, with dire consequences for the now peaceful subjects: are they really 'them' afterwards, being robbed of their choice to be violent or not? Of course most audiences ignored its thematic value and focused too much on Kubrick's portrayal of ruthless violence, which – despite his outrageous displays of 'Verfremdung' to make it easier on the soul – are still quite disturbing, ultimately leading to this film receiving X ratings around the globe and being withdrawn from UK circulation at Kubrick's insistence because it was said to inspire several violent incidents involving youths. It wasn't until Kubrick's death the film was finally allowed to be shown in British movie theaters.

Starring: Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Michael Bates

Directed by Stanley Kubrick

UK/USA: Warner Bros., 1971

Sin City

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

Stad der Zonde blijkt geslaagd kunstwerk

Wat is de beste manier om een graphic novel succesvol naar het witte doek te vertalen? Waar sommige regisseurs een geheel eigen draai aan het bronmateriaal geven en het eindproduct vervolgens geenszins meer lijkt op het originele werk, ondanks de behouden kwaliteit, is er ook de compleet tegenovergestelde methode: het beeld-voor-beeld omzetten van plaatje naar shot. Robert Rodriguez gebruikte deze drastische methode bij zijn bewerking van Frank Millers klassieke 'Sin City'. En verdomd, het werkt! En dat is nog een understatement...

Nadat hij in de jaren tachtig het respect voor doorsnee comics terugbracht met zijn werk in de 'Daredevil'-reeks en het magistrale 'Batman: The Dark Knight Returns' begaf Miller zich begin jaren negentig definitief op het terrein van de 'graphic novel', getekend literair hoogstaand werk dat absoluut verschilt van de laatdunkende term 'strips' waarmee het nog te vaak in associatie gebracht wordt. Millers Sin City vormt een hommage aan de 'film noir' Hollywoodfilms van de dertiger jaren, en handelt over de stad Basin City, een verdorven Sodom en Gomorra vol met hardhandige vigilantes, 'femme fatales' en moordlustige psychopaten. De diverse verhalen vertellen over enkele stoere rouwdouwers die op hun eigen (gewelddadige) wijze nog een beetje orde en gerechtigheid in het door God verlaten oord handhaven, getoond in een grotendeels zwart/witte tekenstijl met hier en daar een mopje kleur.

Regisseur Rodriguez, die furore maakte met zowel hardcore actiefilms (Desperado, From Dusk Till Dawn) als films voor de hele familie (Spy Kids) toont zich in zijn bewerking een devote liefhebber van Millers magnum opus te zijn, door elke pagina, ieder plaatje, volledig te respecteren en liefdevol naar het grote scherm te verplaatsen, en daarbij zelden af te wijken van hoe Miller het voor ogen had. Dit is niet merkwaardig, aangezien hij Miller zelf als co-regisseur inschakelde om Sin City zoveel mogelijk recht te doen. Alsof twee regisseurs nog niet genoeg is draaft ook Quentin Tarantino, wiens eigen films geheel in het straatje van Sin City passen, op als gastregisseur van een enkele scène. Met dergelijk talent achter de camera is het niet vreemd dat Sin City een op alle fronten geslaagde bioscoop-ervaring is geworden.

Het eindresultaat bestaat uit vier afzonderlijke verhalen die elkaar slechts sporadisch kruisen. De geharde anti-held Marv (een uitstekende comeback van Mickey Rourke die de laatste jaren nauwelijks nog serieus te nemen viel) jaagt op de moordenaar van het hoertje Goldie (Jaime King) dat hem de beste nacht van zijn leven gunde. Een opgejaagde vrouw schakelt een huurmoordenaar (een zwoele Josh Hartnett) in voor haar zelfdoding. De sluwe Dwight (Clive Owen) schiet de prostituees van de Stad der Zonde te hulp als zij uit zelfverdediging een politieagent (een bijzonder hufterige Benicio del Toro) hebben gedood. En de laatste eerlijke agent Hartigan (de altijd betrouwbare actieheld Bruce Willis) verlaat na acht jaar de gevangenis om zijn laatste onopgeloste zaak af te ronden en een jongedame (een wulpse Jessica Alba) uit de klauwen van een gestoorde verkrachter (glansrol voor Nick Stahl) te houden. Vier verhalen die samen één film vormen, een geheel dat nooit saai wordt dankzij het grote aantal markante personages (inclusief het overschot aan bekende namen in de cast), de zinderende actiescènes en vooral de schitterende en ongeëvenaarde stijl die de film een compleet eigen karakter geeft.

Want hoewel de verhaallijnen zelf absoluut niet teleurstellen, maakt Sin City er geen geheim voor presentatie boven inhoud te verkiezen. Zoals de artiest Frank Miller elke bladzijde van de graphic novel tot een stilistisch meesterwerk tekende, zo transformeert diens discipel Rodriguez letterlijk Millers visie trouw naar bewegend beeld. Het ene na het andere fantastisch gecomponeerde shot volgt elkaar in dynamisch tempo op, alsof de camera het bronmateriaal zelf registreert. Het gehalte zwart/wit voelt sterk aan als een typische 'film noir' klassieker, ondanks het steeds terugkerende minimalistisch kleurenspel. De kunst van de graphic novel blijft zodanig intact en zelfs verbeterd in Rodriguez' liefdevolle adaptatie: een blauwe auto in een grauwe stroom verkeer, een rode das in een donker steegje, een gele engerd die zijn zoveelste hulpeloze slachtoffer naar het leven staat... Het kleurenpalet van Sin City leidt een geheel eigen leven, en blijft niet alleen van begin tot eind de sfeer bepalen, maar ook de hele film door fascineren. De filmversie van Sin City blijkt evenzeer geslaagde kunst als Millers originele werk dat destijds was (en nog steeds is).

En laten we vooral de vele liters bloed, nu wit, dan weer rood op de kleurloze achtergrond niet vergeten. Want de zondige stad en haar sinistere inwoners bieden ook een keur aan excessief geweld, wat volledig in de sfeer van de film past. Tijdens Marv's wraakactie snijdt hij de ledematen van een man af en voert hem vervolgens aan zijn hond. Hartigan slaat een maniak letterlijk tot pulp na hem met blote handen ontmand te hebben. Het klinkt allemaal extreem gruwelijk, maar is zo stilistisch, soms zelfs cartoonesk, in beeld gebracht dat het de pret niet kan drukken en een geaccepteerd onderdeel van de film vormt. Immers, in de Stad der Zonde zijn zulke praktijken aan de orde van de dag.

Sin City is zonder twijfel één van de meest geslaagde graphic novel verfilmingen tot nu toe, zowel in haar vertaling van boek naar film als in de kwaliteit van de film an sich. Het predicaat 'visuele kunst' misstaat absoluut niet, terwijl de film bovendien een zeer onderhoudende actiefilm is met een dynamisch tempo, een cast van louter grote namen in topvorm en de nodige toepasselijke zwarte humor. Waar collegae als Alan Moore hun werk verminkt zagen worden door de harteloze filmindustrie mag Frank Miller zich gelukkig prijzen met een talentvolle regisseur als Robert Rodriguez die bewijst diens originele werk de volledige eer te bewijzen door dit om te zetten in een film die meer Millers stempel drukt dan zijn eigen. Of een dergelijke situatie zich in de toekomst voor zal doen bij vergelijkbare graphic novel adaptaties valt nog te bezien, maar naar het al aangekondigde Sin City 2 kan, ook door Miller zelf, terecht reikhalzend uitgekeken worden.

Kick-Ass

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

Deze superheld doet zijn naam eer aan

Aangezien de filmstudio's in het afgelopen decennium alle blikken bekende superhelden wel hebben opengetrokken, is het nu de beurt aan minder bekende comics om tot film bewerkt te worden. Immers, de interesse voor superhelden raast al een aantal jaren flink door en lijkt nog lang niet voorbij, dus is het niet merkwaardig dat het meer obscure werk nu ook de volle aandacht van Hollywood krijgt. En terecht, want hiertussen zitten ware juweeltjes die met de juiste mensen en een liefdevolle aanpak voortreffelijke films opleveren. Guillermo del Toro bewees dit ruim vijf jaar geleden al met Hellboy, en nu mag Matthew Vaughn hetzelfde laten zien met Kick-Ass. En daarin slaagt hij met vlag en wimpel.

Dankzij de uitstekende strip van Mark Millar en John Romita Jr. (geen onbekende namen in de stripwereld) waarop de film gebaseerd is heeft Vaughn de wind mee met een even simpel als briljant uitgangspunt: de liefhebber van superhelden die zijn idolen imiteert, ondanks een gebrek aan superkrachten. Dave Lizewski (een perfect gecaste Aaron Johnson, recentelijk nog gezien in Nowhere Boy) is een alledaagse scholier en typische stuntelige nerd; hij heeft geen succes bij de meisjes, uitsluitend andere nerds als vrienden en brengt zijn tijd het liefst door met het lezen van superheldenstrips. Als hij voor de zoveelste keer beroofd wordt door hangjongeren neemt hij het besluit om een superheld te worden: gekleed in een surfpak en gewapend met twee knuppels en een overdosis naïveteit volgt hij zijn voorbeelden en gaat hij 's nachts op pad om mensen te helpen en de misdaad te bestrijden onder de naam Kick-Ass. Uiteraard zijn hier de nodige risico's aan verbonden, zoals hij al snel letterlijk aan den lijve ondervindt. Maar zodra zijn eerste acties op Youtube te zien zijn wordt hij een gevierde held, waarop al snel enkele andere vigilantes opduiken en zijn voorbeeld volgen, ieder met zijn eigen, soms minder loffelijke, redenen.

De film is een feest van herkenbaarheid. Immers, wie heeft er niet eens van gedroomd om in de nachtelijke uren de straat op te gaan in een overdadig kleurrijk kostuum en het onrecht te bestrijden? Vaughn toont ons een normale jongen, met wie iedereen zich moeiteloos kan identificeren, die deze droom volgt en er al snel achter komt waarom zo weinig mensen de daad bij het woord voegen. Ook de reden dat niemand superheld als beroep kiest wordt pijnlijk herkenbaar gemaakt als Dave de ene na de andere keiharde klap te verduren krijgt in zijn strijd met het tuig, waarbij het bloed rijkelijk vloeit, net zoals in de comic. Want Vaughn heeft het wijselijk gelaten om te rommelen met de stijl van de strip, maar vertaalt deze juist liefdevol en glansrijk naar het witte doek. De humor gaat zo niet verloren, evenals het geweld en de hoeveelheid grove taal die gebezigd wordt, die het Vaughn zo moeilijk maakten de financiering van de film rond te krijgen.

Het meest specifieke object van onvrede waar potentiële producenten zich mee geconfronteerd zagen luistert naar de naam Hit Girl. Gespeeld door de engelachtige Chloe Moretz (amper 12 jaar oud ten tijde van het filmen) mag zij, getooid in een koket paars pakje met schattig rokje en voorzien van het meest uiteenlopende wapentuig, hele legers boeven afrossen en genadeloos over de kling jagen, onder het uiten van een keur aan scheldwoorden waar Amerikanen hun kinderen zich normaal liever niet van horen bedienen. Tezamen met haar vader (Nicolas Cage, die hier laat zien dat hij toch echt wel kan acteren als hij er zin in heeft), die de schuilnaam Big Daddy gebruikt en zich kleedt in een zwart pak dat een vette knipoog naar onze favoriete vleermuisman levert, vormt het tweetal een team dat op een veel efficiëntere (en brutere) wijze dan hun voorbeeld Kick-Ass de misdaad te lijf gaat.

En waar Kick-Ass zelf al een zeer geslaagd personage is, vormen zijn nieuwe collegae de overtreffende trap: Hit Girl en Big Daddy stelen de show, zonder tot karikaturen te vervallen. De maffia verwoestte hun normale gezinsleven wat de dood van Hit Girls moeder veroorzaakte, waarop het duo zichzelf tot moordmachines heeft getraind om wraak te nemen op maffiabaas Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong, die evenals in het recente Sherlock Holmes alweer een uitstekende schurk neerzet). Tegelijkertijd moet D'Amico zelf zijn zoon Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Superbad) in bedwang houden, die om zichzelf te bewijzen tegenover zijn vader als Red Mist de vierde gekostumeerde boevenvanger vormt, maar zijn eigen agenda hanteert. De relaties tussen beide vaders en hun kroost geven Kick-Ass de nodige diepgang en succesvolle karakterontwikkeling mee zonder overdadig moralistisch te worden, en met deze geslaagde opzet geeft de film aan het hart op de juiste plaats te hebben en meer te zijn dan de zoveelste standaard actiefilm vol superhelden. Bovendien gaat het niet ten koste van het hoge tempo aan humor: de geslaagde grappen vliegen de toeschouwer nog vaker om de oren dan de kogels.

Kick-Ass is een aanstekelijk onderhoudende toevoeging aan de lange rij superheldenfilms en een prima voorbeeld van het in ere houden van het bronmateriaal zonder het de kijker die hier onbekend mee is ontoegankelijk maken. De film geeft ons een meer geloofwaardige en realistische kijk op de superheld, maar minder duister dan The Dark Knight en niet zo bombastisch als Watchmen: tegelijkertijd vormt het een komischer geheel dan Fantastic Four en heeft het meer vaart dan Spider-Man. Vaughn laat zien een begaafd regisseur te zijn die bijzonder goed uit de voeten kan met het juiste bronmateriaal, ondanks zijn nog beperkte ervaring (hiervoor regisseerde hij slechts twee films, Layer Cake en Stardust), maar hard op weg naar de top. Kick-Ass 2 is al aangekondigd, en zonder twijfel levert Vaughn daarmee opnieuw puik werk af. Tot die tijd is het superheldengenre nog niet uitgeraasd: volgende maand volgt het langverwachte Iron Man 2, maar de kans is groot dat deze film toch echt meer 'kick ass' zal blijken...