Detective Dee and the Mystery of the
Phantom Flame
The charismatic Andy Lau starts as
Detective Dee in this historical epic by celebrated Hong Kong director Tsui
Hark.
A tale told on a grand scale, we find that Dee is an exiled
investigator brought back to the capital on the behest of the imposing first Empress
of China, to look into the seemingly supernatural sabotage taking place around
the preparations to her crowning celebrations. An immense statue of the Buddha
is being constructed at great expense, but after a couple of officials
spontaneously combust the workers are spooked and building stops.
The action comes in short bursts, with more
emphasis placed on the scale and grandeur of the part real and part CGI sets
depicting the China of 689. The film as a whole is undeniably impressive, but
the drive for the authentic formalities of the time makes the characters seem
cold and hard to relate to. Still, Lau’s charm is undeniable and helps carry
you through a film that could otherwise be a bit dry.
Warm Bodies
The undead are fairly ubiquitous in the 21st
century, whether it’s the continuing sequels to Romero’s Dead films, Hollywood
muscling in with World War Z, or the TV adaptation of the Walking Dead comic
book, but few have told their story from the zombie’s point of view.
In this case, Nicholas Hoult’s zombie falls
in love with a survivor he encounters when the pack he’s part of stumbles on a
raiding party. He saves her life, but takes her back to the airport where many
of his kind serve out their undeath.
His thoughts and feelings are conveyed via
monologue, seeing as talking is a struggle.
Coincidentally the girl of his dreams (Teresa
Palmer as Julie) is the daughter of the leader of the survivors played by John
Malkovich, who has a particularly violent view of zombies after the rest of his
family was eaten by them.
As a zombie here is the good guy, and the
central premise is about the undead regaining their humanity, there needs to be
an antagonist that isn’t your normal zombie horde. So we discover that when the
dead finally give up any shreds of their humanity they shed their skin and
become relentless skeletal monsters. Cue a big old fight at the end where the
dead transformed by the spreading power of love fight against these monsters
gone too far, to save the humans.
With no jokes, this is the romzom to Shaun
of the Dead’s zomromcom, and it suffers a little for it. The whole idea of the
zombie ‘outsider’ trying to win over the object of his affection could be an
allegory for the classic geek trying to win over high school sweetheart story,
except here the male lead basically kidnaps the girl until she comes around,
which is a little troubling unless you just see it as a straight up zombie
movie, but then you’d have to take the ‘power of love’ element seriously.
Rob Corddry is good as Hoult’s zombie
friend and Malkovich is as good as ever in his short snarling role as Julie’s
dad.
Divertingly enjoyable, but no great shakes.
Byzantium
Neil Jordan returns to vampires 8 years
after directing the adaptation of Anne Rice’s Interview With A Vampire, but
Byzantium takes us on a different tack from the more traditional vampire
stories.
Those cursed with vampirism have a lust for
blood, but need to use a talon growing from their thumbnails to get at it.
Daylight isn’t a problem (not an original weakness for vampires, rather it's been adopted
since Nosferatu) and they can’t change into bats or mist or the likes.
Rather than being part of a global
conspiracy or seeking to enlarge their ranks, the vampires seem to comprise of a
few secretive men, jealous of their brotherhood which has been interrupted by
Gemma Arterton. In the 1800s after various run-ins with arsehole officer Johnny
Lee Miller she discovers the secret to vampirism – rowing to a secret island
and going inside a stone hut while blood cascades down the mountain – a
striking sequence whose fairytale quality is at odds with the squalid
present-day setting of a run down seaside town.
The brotherhood is after Arterton for
breaking the rules by making her daughter, Saoirse Ronan, a vampire too. On the
run they shack up with Daniel Mays’ pathetic hotel owner, and Ronan meets an
American boy, Caleb Landry Jones who has a serious illness and works as a
waiter. There’s a big showdown and the occasional burst of violence, but it
feels that there’s something missing that is needed to pull Byzantium together
and avoid the viewer being unsatisfied.
Still, respect to Jordan for trying for a
different take on the vampire myth in a time when many studios are content with
remaking any old horror classic.
Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa
Somehow Alpha Papa manages to overcome the
barriers that often restrict successful sitcoms from being translated to the
big screen.
When attempting to fill 90 minutes of
screen time most shows tend to put the characters into an unrealistic situation
that keeps the characters contained but give them a reason to be away from
their usual setting – many opting for a holiday scenario (the Inbetweeners is a
notably successful exception).
A siege scenario is both totally unlikely
for North Norfolk Digital Radio and Alan, but the details of the story ring
true, with corporate takeovers and layoffs, and the drama coming off on a
distinctly small scale as Alan finds himself in the position of hostage
negotiator and the opportunity of rekindling some of his lost fame.
Colm Meaney is great as Pat Farell, the
sacked DJ who takes things for a violent turn, and Partridge regulars crop up
including Lynn (Felicity Montagu), Michael (Simon Greenall) and Side Kick Simon
(Tim Key).
If you like Coogan’s Partridge character at
all you won’t be disappointed by Alpha Papa, continuing the mix of acutely
observed character comedy (there’s a little of Patrick Bateman in Partridge’s
obsession with detail) and sharp lines (‘honesty sporran’).
Dark Skies
Heavily influenced by the amateur camera/CCTV
horror of the Paranormal Activity series, Dark Skies sees some weird things
start to affect a young, suburban, middle class American family – something is
getting in the house without tripping the alarm, rearranging the kitchen,
causing their youngest son to sleep walk and then eventually influencing the
rest of the family. The mother does some research and thinks she knows what’s
going on – her husband is more cynical and finds a paranormal explanation hard
to swallow, until presented with firsthand evidence. He sets up cameras around
the house; they visit a world-weary expert.
This kind of thing has been done many times
before, only it’s aliens rather than ghost or demons that are bothering this
family. Retreading old ground is a common tactic in the horror genre, but
unfortunately here the film fails to build up any decent tension, the family
fail to stand up above their archetypal roles and the threat when it’s finally
revealed looks and feels more like something out of a 1990s straight to video
effort.
Dull.
Excision
Self consciously kooky without being twee,
Excision focuses on the daydreams and delusions of high school student Pauline
(AnnaLynne McCord) as she fantasises about performing various surgeries and having sex with corpses.
McCord is well used as her model
proportions (very tall, skinny) help make for a gangly, ungainly teen with
overwrought cheekbones and bad skin and hair. She is a typical geek, shunned at
school but loved by her sister Grace (Ariel Winter) who is very much a girly
girl, but suffers from cystic fibrosis.
Also, their mother Phyllis (Traci Lords) is
overbearing and controlling, desperate for Pauline to just be a ‘normal’ teen.
Alongside a twisted version of the usual
American high school tensions and stresses of an uptight family life, Excision
is liberally sprinkled with evocative dream sequences where Pauline sees
herself as a sexy, lithe version of herself, performing various bloodletting
acts from surgery to abortion (on herself).
John Waters pops up in a cameo, and it’s
his work that informs the tone here, one of a queasy, small-town Americana and
the ugliness under the surface.
A neat little twist at the end breaks the day dream quality and lets the horror into the waking world.
Sabotage
Ridiculous OTT gung-ho action thriller with
Arnie as the head of a misfit DEA unit. The unit robs some cash from a cartel,
only the money goes missing and then the members of the unit keep turning up
dead.
Stupidly macho in an un-ironic way that
feels out of place decades after the 80s were over, Sabotage’s DEA crew are all
grizzled dudebros with wild hair and tats, drinking gallons of whiskey and
taking all the drugs.
Their tight knit ‘family’ swiftly unravels
due to infighting over the missing money, and everything’s all a bit fishy.
Sam Worthington’s the only one of the cast
who tries to do any acting besides grunts and hoo-rahs, but unfortunately
doesn’t quite have the skills to pull it off, losing out to Arnie’s
knuckleheaded charm.
Olivia Williams is one of the only good
things in the film, as a cynical cop investigating the murders of these agents,
but other than her character the film feels largely misogynistic with a miscast
Mireille Enos (The
Killing; World War Z) playing an addict and party girl who is singled out for
vitriolic anger and bloody vengeance due to her betrayal of the group, despite Terrence Howard’s
‘Sugar’ also being involved.
The
action is violent and gory but there is no one to root for here, the film’s
tone is as beaten and cynical as the characters of Arnie’s John ‘Breacher’
Wharton and William’s Detective Caroline and the whole thing just leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
