FILM
The Hunger Games
(12A) 142mins
★★★✩✩
IN A NUTSHELL
Dystopian death games tell us everything we need to know about our modern obsession with dazzle - only without much sparkle.
REVIEW
Little wonder that this film of the cult novel has quickly been tagged the essential film of our times.
It is fairly dripping with the zeitgeist, plucking at every 21st century theme and nightmare to make a dark satire.
Essentially, The Hunger Games are The X-Factor - only with death and glory instead of a raspberry and an "X" for the losers.
It touches on the fatal attraction of celebrity, the Faustian pacts with the masses and the commercial necessity of an emotional back story to land the lucrative sponsorship.
The film itself though is a little more irksome than the trend-spotters would have you believe.
At a hefty 142 minutes there is a lot of agitated set dressing and not enough conflict and connection.
None of this is to fault Jennifer Lawrence as our tomboy heroine Katniss Everdeen who has to fight to death 23 other teenagers for the pride of her district in a future world that resembles North Korea with a touch of Nazi chic.
Lawrence is earnest and solid and wholly convincing in this colourful world of camp and campfires.
If this harmless if muted twaddle had been allowed to run its course it could have been a worthy successor to Lord Of The Flies - but director Gary Ross has other ideas.
The cruel manipulation essential for a ratings-winning death hunt is fair enough but Ross has introduced such cack-handed and convenient get-outs and contrivances that nothing, ultimately, is very threatening or credible.
Saturday, 14 April 2012
Film review: Wild Bill (15)
FILM
Wild Bill
(15) 96mins
★★★★★
IN A NUTSHELL
Touching, funny and fierce, this story of East End lost boys finding each other is an impressive debut from Dexter Fletcher.
Dexter Fletcher has not wandered far in his impressive directorial debut - a tale of mockney gangsters and broken homes.
Instead of exotic travels into a fantastic other-world, the star has dug deep in the familiar and found, within his impressive cast of characters, true heart.
Set in Stratford against the chill winds and steely structures of an Olympic site under construction, he has put together a warm and touching tale of Western-brand redemption.
So easily could he have deviated into the high-camp Guy Ritchie geezer territory - and there is an undoubted nod to the stylish tics of his Lock, Stock director.
But this is so much more - and so much more rewarding - than a drug dealer's dandy dance.
Fletcher's years in the business have not gone to waste - every 30 second cameo is a face and a performance - Marc Warren, Andy Serkis, Olivia Williams, Jason Flemyng, Jaime Winstone, Sean Pertwee - memorably here and gone.
At the fulcrum of the piece is Bill himself, played with a hapless vulnerability by Charlie Creed-Miles.
Out of prison, he seeks his family only to find his two boys fending for themselves and doing quite happily without him thank you very much.
He wants to flee but circumstances force the lost boys together and shoots of tenderness begin to merge and intermingle.
Dean (Will Poulter) resents that his dad is back, taking over the role he adopted when mum did a runner. Jimmy (Sammy Williams) is more amenable to the stranger, which only incurs his sibling's wrath. For his part, artless dodger Bill is more wayward older brother than father figure.
The makeshift family is clueless but not entirely hopeless as they grope around unfamiliar feelings.
Meanwhile, the outside world keeps intruding. Bill's not wanted by his old dealer pals but his youngest is getting caught up. It needs sorting and Bill has to decide if he's prepared to go to war for a kid he barely knows.
Fletcher, who co-wrote with Danny King, balances the tone perfectly allowing for the foolish lie that the inevitable moistness of the eye is born of laughter not sentiment.
Wild Bill
(15) 96mins
★★★★★
IN A NUTSHELL
Touching, funny and fierce, this story of East End lost boys finding each other is an impressive debut from Dexter Fletcher.
Dexter Fletcher has not wandered far in his impressive directorial debut - a tale of mockney gangsters and broken homes.
Instead of exotic travels into a fantastic other-world, the star has dug deep in the familiar and found, within his impressive cast of characters, true heart.
Set in Stratford against the chill winds and steely structures of an Olympic site under construction, he has put together a warm and touching tale of Western-brand redemption.
So easily could he have deviated into the high-camp Guy Ritchie geezer territory - and there is an undoubted nod to the stylish tics of his Lock, Stock director.
But this is so much more - and so much more rewarding - than a drug dealer's dandy dance.
Fletcher's years in the business have not gone to waste - every 30 second cameo is a face and a performance - Marc Warren, Andy Serkis, Olivia Williams, Jason Flemyng, Jaime Winstone, Sean Pertwee - memorably here and gone.
At the fulcrum of the piece is Bill himself, played with a hapless vulnerability by Charlie Creed-Miles.
Out of prison, he seeks his family only to find his two boys fending for themselves and doing quite happily without him thank you very much.
He wants to flee but circumstances force the lost boys together and shoots of tenderness begin to merge and intermingle.
Dean (Will Poulter) resents that his dad is back, taking over the role he adopted when mum did a runner. Jimmy (Sammy Williams) is more amenable to the stranger, which only incurs his sibling's wrath. For his part, artless dodger Bill is more wayward older brother than father figure.
The makeshift family is clueless but not entirely hopeless as they grope around unfamiliar feelings.
Meanwhile, the outside world keeps intruding. Bill's not wanted by his old dealer pals but his youngest is getting caught up. It needs sorting and Bill has to decide if he's prepared to go to war for a kid he barely knows.
Fletcher, who co-wrote with Danny King, balances the tone perfectly allowing for the foolish lie that the inevitable moistness of the eye is born of laughter not sentiment.
Stage review: Sweeney Todd, Adelphi
STAGE
Sweeney Todd
Adelphi Theatre
★★★★✩
IN A NUTSHELL
Blood flows, stomachs churn but hearts swell in this intelligent, witty, gripping and grim musical.
REVIEW
Darkness swamps old London town. Darkness shades the characters and shapes the humour too in Stephen Sondheim's dextrous re-telling of the tale of the blood-thirsty barber and his pie-making pal.
Director Jonathan Kent is equally dextrous in his staging of this marvellous musical - putting the grisly crime scenes up high and the lives down low.
The setting is like an abandoned East End warehouse and the light arrives sliced and diced by thick lattices and the swirl of fog never truly clears, either from the stage or the gin-addled assembly.
But this is not the old London town of Fagin, nor even Sondheim's setting of 1849. The London of the beadle and Bedlam is, curiously, the 1930s but this temporal dissonance is only marginally irritating and does not deflect from the hellish vision plumped on the sombre Adelphi stage.
Michael Ball is sombre too. He is a creature of twisted hatreds. Gone is the Sunday teatime beaming cherub to be replaced with a charcoal black gnarled gargoyle, satanic in appearance and intent.
Barber Todd is back from the colonies, dispatched there by the evil Judge Turpin who had his lascivious eye on Todd's daughter Joanna.
Now Joanna is full grown but still a bird in a cage and Todd wants reunion and revenge, although not necessarily in that order.
Chicken-fleshed John Bowe plays the flagellating judge who wants to turn ward into wife, bellowing his self-serving justifications while his sidekick Beadle (Peter Polycarpou) wheedles.
As Todd waits for his trap to close he practises his cut-throat technique on random strangers, at one point singing a jaunty love song as he slices. Blood spurts and dribbles reminding us that, at heart, this is a gory and stomach-churning piece.
What the music lacks in melody it remakes with melodrama. Refrains may be brutal but some of the dark lyrics are rich with clever comedy and an absolute feast of wit and wordplay.
Star of the show is Imelda Staunton who takes full advantage of the pie-based puns. Her magnificent creation of Mrs Lovett is touching, tender, brutal, murderous. She is wicked and wickedly funny turning customers into pies and pies into profit.
She manages to convey - in short stabs of dialogue - devotion, comedy, variation and a wonderful glint of demonic energy.
Although the score lacks a rousing climax and the story - like Todd's customers - sputters somewhat to its end, the rich concoction - and Staunton's breathtaking turn - brought the crowd to its feet knowing they are in the presence of a masterpiece fully realised.
Until September 22, adelphitheatrelondon.com
Sweeney Todd
Adelphi Theatre
★★★★✩
IN A NUTSHELL
Blood flows, stomachs churn but hearts swell in this intelligent, witty, gripping and grim musical.
REVIEW
Darkness swamps old London town. Darkness shades the characters and shapes the humour too in Stephen Sondheim's dextrous re-telling of the tale of the blood-thirsty barber and his pie-making pal.
Director Jonathan Kent is equally dextrous in his staging of this marvellous musical - putting the grisly crime scenes up high and the lives down low.
The setting is like an abandoned East End warehouse and the light arrives sliced and diced by thick lattices and the swirl of fog never truly clears, either from the stage or the gin-addled assembly.
But this is not the old London town of Fagin, nor even Sondheim's setting of 1849. The London of the beadle and Bedlam is, curiously, the 1930s but this temporal dissonance is only marginally irritating and does not deflect from the hellish vision plumped on the sombre Adelphi stage.
Michael Ball is sombre too. He is a creature of twisted hatreds. Gone is the Sunday teatime beaming cherub to be replaced with a charcoal black gnarled gargoyle, satanic in appearance and intent.
Barber Todd is back from the colonies, dispatched there by the evil Judge Turpin who had his lascivious eye on Todd's daughter Joanna.
Now Joanna is full grown but still a bird in a cage and Todd wants reunion and revenge, although not necessarily in that order.
Chicken-fleshed John Bowe plays the flagellating judge who wants to turn ward into wife, bellowing his self-serving justifications while his sidekick Beadle (Peter Polycarpou) wheedles.
As Todd waits for his trap to close he practises his cut-throat technique on random strangers, at one point singing a jaunty love song as he slices. Blood spurts and dribbles reminding us that, at heart, this is a gory and stomach-churning piece.
What the music lacks in melody it remakes with melodrama. Refrains may be brutal but some of the dark lyrics are rich with clever comedy and an absolute feast of wit and wordplay.
Star of the show is Imelda Staunton who takes full advantage of the pie-based puns. Her magnificent creation of Mrs Lovett is touching, tender, brutal, murderous. She is wicked and wickedly funny turning customers into pies and pies into profit.
She manages to convey - in short stabs of dialogue - devotion, comedy, variation and a wonderful glint of demonic energy.
Although the score lacks a rousing climax and the story - like Todd's customers - sputters somewhat to its end, the rich concoction - and Staunton's breathtaking turn - brought the crowd to its feet knowing they are in the presence of a masterpiece fully realised.
Until September 22, adelphitheatrelondon.com
Sunday, 11 March 2012
Film review: John Carter (12A)
FILM
John Carter
(12A) 131mins
★★★✩✩
IN A NUTSHELL
The right people will learn to love this ambitious but flawed epic based on the daddy of many sci fi tropes.
REVIEW
A lot of bad things will be said about Disney's $250million epic sci fi adventure.
Most of the bad things will be true but they don't necessarily add up to a bad movie.
The bad elements are frontloaded, like a sampler dish, so you can follow their horribleness through the rest of the film.
They are: the bad acting (oh, Dominic West - why?), the ghastly post production 3D, the convoluted geopolitics, the confused motivations, and the lack of charm and magic.
The story is taken from a series of early 20th century novels from Edgar Rice Burroughs (who makes a fictional appearance). He also created Tarzan so is adept at the monosyllabic hero (and what a thundering dunce is John Carter).
But let's not escape the fact that, from inauspicious beginnings, this film has legs and, in the case of the Tharks, many, many arms.
It is lovingly crafted with immense attention to detail by director Andrew Stanton (Wall.E), the visuals are superb and the story somewhere along its 131 minute length, starts to have traction - generally when superstition gives way to spectacle.
This Boy's Own tale (filmed in stereoscope by the looks of the 3D) sees the Civil War veteran sent hurtling to Mars where he lands in the middle of multiple conflicts between the Tharks, Zodangans, Heliumites and Therns.
His super strength makes him something of a trophy and the beautiful princess Dejah Thoris - pledged to Sab Than (West) for political purposes - sees the grizzled Earthman as a useful ally in her one-woman rebellion.
There is something of a drinking game to be had in spotting the derivations from classic screen sci fi.
Star Wars, obviously. Cowboys And Aliens, conceptually. Superman for the jumping, Indiana Jones for the dusty relics and glyphs, Star Trek for the dry, rocky planet stuff, Avatar for the tall CGI aliens, Dune for the politics, Lord Of The Rings for the battles. All a tad ungrateful, perhaps, considering Burroughs' series was arguably the daddy to many of them.
The one that sticks with me is Flash Gordon because of the portentous camp and boyish galumping. That John Carter is played by someone called Taylor Kitsch seems deliciously appropriate.
John Carter
(12A) 131mins
★★★✩✩
IN A NUTSHELL
The right people will learn to love this ambitious but flawed epic based on the daddy of many sci fi tropes.
REVIEW
A lot of bad things will be said about Disney's $250million epic sci fi adventure.
Most of the bad things will be true but they don't necessarily add up to a bad movie.
The bad elements are frontloaded, like a sampler dish, so you can follow their horribleness through the rest of the film.
They are: the bad acting (oh, Dominic West - why?), the ghastly post production 3D, the convoluted geopolitics, the confused motivations, and the lack of charm and magic.
The story is taken from a series of early 20th century novels from Edgar Rice Burroughs (who makes a fictional appearance). He also created Tarzan so is adept at the monosyllabic hero (and what a thundering dunce is John Carter).
But let's not escape the fact that, from inauspicious beginnings, this film has legs and, in the case of the Tharks, many, many arms.
It is lovingly crafted with immense attention to detail by director Andrew Stanton (Wall.E), the visuals are superb and the story somewhere along its 131 minute length, starts to have traction - generally when superstition gives way to spectacle.
This Boy's Own tale (filmed in stereoscope by the looks of the 3D) sees the Civil War veteran sent hurtling to Mars where he lands in the middle of multiple conflicts between the Tharks, Zodangans, Heliumites and Therns.
His super strength makes him something of a trophy and the beautiful princess Dejah Thoris - pledged to Sab Than (West) for political purposes - sees the grizzled Earthman as a useful ally in her one-woman rebellion.
There is something of a drinking game to be had in spotting the derivations from classic screen sci fi.
Star Wars, obviously. Cowboys And Aliens, conceptually. Superman for the jumping, Indiana Jones for the dusty relics and glyphs, Star Trek for the dry, rocky planet stuff, Avatar for the tall CGI aliens, Dune for the politics, Lord Of The Rings for the battles. All a tad ungrateful, perhaps, considering Burroughs' series was arguably the daddy to many of them.
The one that sticks with me is Flash Gordon because of the portentous camp and boyish galumping. That John Carter is played by someone called Taylor Kitsch seems deliciously appropriate.
Stage review: All New People, Duke Of York's
STAGE
All New People
Duke Of York's
★★✩✩✩
IN A NUTSHELL
A quirky and promising set-up quickly loses its way in Zach Braff's brash but unfocussed tale of anguish, drugs and death.
REVIEW
Zach Braff is not John "JD" Dorian, zany doctor of Scrubs fame.
This much we know from his thoughtful indie hit Garden State in which he showed a propensity, not for pratfalls and antics, but introspection and self-destruction.
Such themes have not evaporated between that debut film and this Broadway transfer - and if that were in doubt the opening scene (the best of the lot actually) provides evidence.
We find the introspective and brooding Charlie hanging by the neck from an electric flex in a Long Island beach house, only saved from a ghastly fate by a fast-talking Brit estate agent (Eve Myles).
From this promising opening, matters descend somewhat into a humdrum and routine to-and-fro between the embittered Charlie, Myles's estate agent, a druggie firefighter called Mylon (Paul Hilton) and a hooker (Susannah Fielding) whose back stories are briefly but ineffectively told on film.
Lots of themes are raised and then dropped (religion etc) and everyone bellows their pain when faced with some catalyst or other but nothing really hangs together to form any kind of narrative and none of the characters is particularly likeable.
Braff, it seems, jotted down some ideas and then attempted, rather feebly, to link them together.
There are decadent laughs, fine performances and gruesome bits but this black comedy fades to grey and is quickly forgotten.
Until April 28. Go to atgtickets.com
All New People
Duke Of York's
★★✩✩✩
IN A NUTSHELL
A quirky and promising set-up quickly loses its way in Zach Braff's brash but unfocussed tale of anguish, drugs and death.
REVIEW
Zach Braff is not John "JD" Dorian, zany doctor of Scrubs fame.
This much we know from his thoughtful indie hit Garden State in which he showed a propensity, not for pratfalls and antics, but introspection and self-destruction.
Such themes have not evaporated between that debut film and this Broadway transfer - and if that were in doubt the opening scene (the best of the lot actually) provides evidence.
We find the introspective and brooding Charlie hanging by the neck from an electric flex in a Long Island beach house, only saved from a ghastly fate by a fast-talking Brit estate agent (Eve Myles).
From this promising opening, matters descend somewhat into a humdrum and routine to-and-fro between the embittered Charlie, Myles's estate agent, a druggie firefighter called Mylon (Paul Hilton) and a hooker (Susannah Fielding) whose back stories are briefly but ineffectively told on film.
Lots of themes are raised and then dropped (religion etc) and everyone bellows their pain when faced with some catalyst or other but nothing really hangs together to form any kind of narrative and none of the characters is particularly likeable.
Braff, it seems, jotted down some ideas and then attempted, rather feebly, to link them together.
There are decadent laughs, fine performances and gruesome bits but this black comedy fades to grey and is quickly forgotten.
Until April 28. Go to atgtickets.com
Saturday, 3 March 2012
Stage review: Bingo, Young Vic
STAGE
Bingo
Young Vic
★★✩✩✩
IN A NUTSHELL
Emmerdale meets King Lear as an ageing and bitter Shakespeare ponders divided lands.
REVIEW
There is much meat and merriment, surely, in creating a character out of that hidden myth of a man William Shakespeare.
Such opportunities are passed up by Edward Bond whose 1970s play about the playwright in his Stratford dotage arrives at the Young Vic.
Instead he tells a reductionist story of an old misery guts who has plenty of anguish but very little life.
Bond, a hardline left-winger, was keen to muse wantonly on the theme of the artist in society and his Shakespeare worries and frets, head in hands that he was outside the society that is cruel and unyielding.
Shakespeare signs a deal with land owner William Combe (Matthew Marsh) that sees his own finances secured but those of his peasant neighbours upended.
Among the froth and insurrection that enclosure brings, Shakespeare is a passive figure, rarely roused from his introspection and his repeated question: "Was anything done?"
The charismatic Patrick Stewart makes the most of the meagre pickings as the playwright, railing against inhumanity and his wordless old age but mostly he is a distracted observer of the bothered locals.
He quarrels heartlessly with daughter Judith (Catherine Cusack) and shows only glimpses of the humanity that brimmed in his plays. He casually helps one impoverished young woman but injustices elsewhere make no impact. The quality of his mercy is not trained.
A strong cast - which included excellent performances from Ellie Haddington as an old maid and Tom Godwin as clownish Wally - relish the language, all delivered in an Old English drawl - but the politics is heavy-handed and ponderous.
A show-stealing turn by Richard McCabe as mad cherub Ben Jonson enlivens proceedings for all too brief a time, offering hints of a crowd-pleaser left unwritten but Bond is determined to keep wealth in his crosshairs.
Bingo
Young Vic
★★✩✩✩
IN A NUTSHELL
Emmerdale meets King Lear as an ageing and bitter Shakespeare ponders divided lands.
REVIEW
There is much meat and merriment, surely, in creating a character out of that hidden myth of a man William Shakespeare.
Such opportunities are passed up by Edward Bond whose 1970s play about the playwright in his Stratford dotage arrives at the Young Vic.
Instead he tells a reductionist story of an old misery guts who has plenty of anguish but very little life.
Bond, a hardline left-winger, was keen to muse wantonly on the theme of the artist in society and his Shakespeare worries and frets, head in hands that he was outside the society that is cruel and unyielding.
Shakespeare signs a deal with land owner William Combe (Matthew Marsh) that sees his own finances secured but those of his peasant neighbours upended.
Among the froth and insurrection that enclosure brings, Shakespeare is a passive figure, rarely roused from his introspection and his repeated question: "Was anything done?"
The charismatic Patrick Stewart makes the most of the meagre pickings as the playwright, railing against inhumanity and his wordless old age but mostly he is a distracted observer of the bothered locals.
He quarrels heartlessly with daughter Judith (Catherine Cusack) and shows only glimpses of the humanity that brimmed in his plays. He casually helps one impoverished young woman but injustices elsewhere make no impact. The quality of his mercy is not trained.
A strong cast - which included excellent performances from Ellie Haddington as an old maid and Tom Godwin as clownish Wally - relish the language, all delivered in an Old English drawl - but the politics is heavy-handed and ponderous.
A show-stealing turn by Richard McCabe as mad cherub Ben Jonson enlivens proceedings for all too brief a time, offering hints of a crowd-pleaser left unwritten but Bond is determined to keep wealth in his crosshairs.
Film review: Rampart (15)
SCREEN
Rampart (15)
(15) 108mins
★★★✩✩
IN A NUTSHELL
Woody Harrelson is captivating and charismatic as the corrupt cop sinking beneath the weight of his own moral degradation.
REVIEW
In a wired and mesmeric performance, Woody Harrelson creates a colossal character that occupies director Oren Moverman's hovering lens for the length of the film.
So sprawling is Harrelson's self-destructive cop Dave "Date-Rape" Brown that the impressive roster of support acts can barely entice the fidgety camera their way.
Which is a staggering accomplishment considering the roster of A-listers lined up to appear in this edgy, raw study of man trying to maintain his balance in a world built on soft rot and mushy degradation.
The smokily dissolute attorney Robin Wright (in shattering form), Sigourney Weaver, Ice Cube, Ned Beatty, barely-there Steve Buscemi as well as his former wives Anne Heche and Cynthia Nixon become mere buttress for the grand crumbling edifice of Harrelson's cigarette-chomping charmer as he stares oblivion in the face with a bull-headed confidence in his own longevity.
Oren Moverman took a script from James Ellroy about the Rampart corruption scandal in late '90s LA and found a man who seemed to encapsulate the good, the bad and the ugly of power gone wrong.
When he gets caught on tape beating on a suspect, Brown becomes the focus for the city-wide fury. Rough, tough and with his own code of conduct the politics begin to take their toll and Brown's increasingly wild thrashing only serves to sink him further.
He can quote the law, win the lady and strike a canny deal but he has survived beyond his time and the tar pits, you sense, are a-calling.
That Harrelson has us rooting for this foul-mouthed bully at the same time as we want to hose off his slime is some achievement.
Ultimately, though, Moverman provides no answers and no resolution and the fate of Dave Brown, natural born killer, is just another scrap caught in the swirl of a busy, careless city.
Rampart (15)
(15) 108mins
★★★✩✩
IN A NUTSHELL
Woody Harrelson is captivating and charismatic as the corrupt cop sinking beneath the weight of his own moral degradation.
REVIEW
In a wired and mesmeric performance, Woody Harrelson creates a colossal character that occupies director Oren Moverman's hovering lens for the length of the film.
So sprawling is Harrelson's self-destructive cop Dave "Date-Rape" Brown that the impressive roster of support acts can barely entice the fidgety camera their way.
Which is a staggering accomplishment considering the roster of A-listers lined up to appear in this edgy, raw study of man trying to maintain his balance in a world built on soft rot and mushy degradation.
The smokily dissolute attorney Robin Wright (in shattering form), Sigourney Weaver, Ice Cube, Ned Beatty, barely-there Steve Buscemi as well as his former wives Anne Heche and Cynthia Nixon become mere buttress for the grand crumbling edifice of Harrelson's cigarette-chomping charmer as he stares oblivion in the face with a bull-headed confidence in his own longevity.
Oren Moverman took a script from James Ellroy about the Rampart corruption scandal in late '90s LA and found a man who seemed to encapsulate the good, the bad and the ugly of power gone wrong.
When he gets caught on tape beating on a suspect, Brown becomes the focus for the city-wide fury. Rough, tough and with his own code of conduct the politics begin to take their toll and Brown's increasingly wild thrashing only serves to sink him further.
He can quote the law, win the lady and strike a canny deal but he has survived beyond his time and the tar pits, you sense, are a-calling.
That Harrelson has us rooting for this foul-mouthed bully at the same time as we want to hose off his slime is some achievement.
Ultimately, though, Moverman provides no answers and no resolution and the fate of Dave Brown, natural born killer, is just another scrap caught in the swirl of a busy, careless city.
Film review: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (12A)
SCREEN
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
(12A) 124mins
★★★✩✩
IN A NUTSHELL
Heavy-handed and predictable, but this tale of grey-haired grouches "on a gap year" possesses a matchless ensemble of British talent.
REVIEW
Crumbling ruins seeking a new lease of life - such is the story of both the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and its inhabitants in this genteel comedy drama with the cream of British acting talent showing the whipper-snappers how it's done.
The eponymous hotel is not as the seven retirees saw in the brochure but the chutzpah of naive owner Sonny (a joyous Dev Patel - "let me through, my brother is a doctor") and the vibrancy of the lifestyle of Jaipur is sufficient to persuade our magnificent seven to give it a go.
Each have left something behind, each is looking for answers and escape and, in a rather clod-hopping and formulaic fashion, they each get what they want or, at least, what they need.
The fact that the epiphanies come by rote and fall into place like a lock mechanism is down to the sheer practicality of events - seven people, seven journeys, seven moments of truth - make that eight if you include Sonny's soapy love story.
It necessarily means that everything is hurried, life-long prejudices vanish in an instant, everyone talks in urgent home-spun truths, the natives are poor but happy and culture clashes become culture cliches.
But if the story, unlike the cast, doesn't go anywhere unexpected, what better companions than these with whom to stand and stare at the dizzying joys of Jaipur.
Relish these names sharing the screen - Judi Dench, Maggie Smith ("I can't plan that far ahead. I don't even buy green bananas"), Tom Wilkinson, feuding couple Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton, Ronald Pickup, Celia Imrie.
If anyone can go deeper than an easy-going script will allow it is these folk who scoop out crumbs of melancholy and hope and regret from unpromising cracks.
Director John Madden presumably sat back and watched these craftsmen and women go to work, safe in the knowledge that no-one would misfire.
And with a host of unselfish performances in the bag, he could concentrate on capturing the teeming riot of colour and noise that so frightens and charms the dry Brits.
From a land of call centres, health and safety and rain to this - a spice market of spirit and optimism where, as Wilkinson's Graham puts it "life is a privilege not a right".
Expect all your neighbourhood Shirley Valentines and Calendar Girls to be booking tickets east this year.
Yes, the film would have been better as a longform TV series. Yes, it meanders wildly and re-states the obvious as something insightful. Yes, everything gets too easy too quickly and sorted too smartly but there is no escaping the genial charm of this life-affirming story that sees gap year grouches discover that, yes, there is a chance of new life before death.
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
(12A) 124mins
★★★✩✩
IN A NUTSHELL
Heavy-handed and predictable, but this tale of grey-haired grouches "on a gap year" possesses a matchless ensemble of British talent.
REVIEW
Crumbling ruins seeking a new lease of life - such is the story of both the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and its inhabitants in this genteel comedy drama with the cream of British acting talent showing the whipper-snappers how it's done.
The eponymous hotel is not as the seven retirees saw in the brochure but the chutzpah of naive owner Sonny (a joyous Dev Patel - "let me through, my brother is a doctor") and the vibrancy of the lifestyle of Jaipur is sufficient to persuade our magnificent seven to give it a go.
Each have left something behind, each is looking for answers and escape and, in a rather clod-hopping and formulaic fashion, they each get what they want or, at least, what they need.
The fact that the epiphanies come by rote and fall into place like a lock mechanism is down to the sheer practicality of events - seven people, seven journeys, seven moments of truth - make that eight if you include Sonny's soapy love story.
It necessarily means that everything is hurried, life-long prejudices vanish in an instant, everyone talks in urgent home-spun truths, the natives are poor but happy and culture clashes become culture cliches.
But if the story, unlike the cast, doesn't go anywhere unexpected, what better companions than these with whom to stand and stare at the dizzying joys of Jaipur.
Relish these names sharing the screen - Judi Dench, Maggie Smith ("I can't plan that far ahead. I don't even buy green bananas"), Tom Wilkinson, feuding couple Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton, Ronald Pickup, Celia Imrie.
If anyone can go deeper than an easy-going script will allow it is these folk who scoop out crumbs of melancholy and hope and regret from unpromising cracks.
Director John Madden presumably sat back and watched these craftsmen and women go to work, safe in the knowledge that no-one would misfire.
And with a host of unselfish performances in the bag, he could concentrate on capturing the teeming riot of colour and noise that so frightens and charms the dry Brits.
From a land of call centres, health and safety and rain to this - a spice market of spirit and optimism where, as Wilkinson's Graham puts it "life is a privilege not a right".
Expect all your neighbourhood Shirley Valentines and Calendar Girls to be booking tickets east this year.
Yes, the film would have been better as a longform TV series. Yes, it meanders wildly and re-states the obvious as something insightful. Yes, everything gets too easy too quickly and sorted too smartly but there is no escaping the genial charm of this life-affirming story that sees gap year grouches discover that, yes, there is a chance of new life before death.
Stage review: Singin' In The Rain, Palace Theatre
STAGE
Singin' In The Rain
Palace Theatre
4/5
IN A NUTSHELL
Jonathan Church's faithful adaptation of the Hollywood hoofin' classic brings sunshine on a rainy day.
REVIEW
Turns out beyond the gaudy portals of the Palace Theatre it ain't rainin' so much.
There's pavement gum and grey skies and gurning multitudes with duelling elbows but none of those colourfully clad hoofers eager to impress with their fast feet and 100 watt smiles.
So best stay indoors, with them, with the glamour and escapism and the gee whiz and the joy.
Only a grouch could resist such a carbon-copy homage to the Hollywood classic, delivered with such attention to detail and genial brio that it makes Glee look like Les Miserables.
In this no-expense-spared adaptation, the fiddle-de-dee and tra-la-la coincides with the clippety-clop and splish-splosh to make an unalloyed treat that brings the audience to its feet après le deluge.
So the pantomime of the silent era is passing and the legendary screen idols of Lockwood and Lamonte find themselves behind a mic and behind the times as the talkies expose their technical weaknesses.
Some are better equipped for the revolution than others. Don Lockwood (Mad Man-a-like Adam Cooper) is smooth as a lubricated zoot suit on Broadway but Bronx bird Lina Lamonte (Katherine Kingsley) with a voice like fingernails on a blackboard discovers a "doig eat doig world".
Enter simple songbird Kathy Seldon (a winning Scarlett Strallen) who has the voice - and the heart of Don - but not the billing or the pulling power.
A brainwave from music man Cosmo Brown (a scene-stealing Daniel Crossley) introduces dubbing and double crossing which makes for much of the preppy drama.
The romance is as convincing as a dancing dodo in a field of flattened corn but this is a world where people burst into song when most would chunter into their kebabs so hyper-realism isn't a deficiency that mars proceedings.
And, frankly, who cares. There's a songlist to get through and director Jonathan Church knows why we put our penny in the jukebox.
He tees up the songs with aplomb and then lets rip to a cavalcade of classics - Make Em Laugh, Good Morning, You Were Meant For Me - all delivered with a stylish side order of choreography from Andrew Wright.
Singin' In The Rain is accompanied by screeches from the front rows who got a log flume soaking and Gotta Dance is a dreamy extravaganza that parades the masterful costumes (Bill Butler) and set design (Simon Higlett).
Generally, I am the nut in the nougat, hard-bitten and resistant to all forms of sweetness - but, hey, where'd that soppy grin come from?
Sequins and raindrops, snazz, jazz and romance, flapper girls and slick umbrella action. The forecast predicts a splash hit.
Singin' In The Rain
Palace Theatre
4/5
IN A NUTSHELL
Jonathan Church's faithful adaptation of the Hollywood hoofin' classic brings sunshine on a rainy day.
REVIEW
Turns out beyond the gaudy portals of the Palace Theatre it ain't rainin' so much.
There's pavement gum and grey skies and gurning multitudes with duelling elbows but none of those colourfully clad hoofers eager to impress with their fast feet and 100 watt smiles.
So best stay indoors, with them, with the glamour and escapism and the gee whiz and the joy.
Only a grouch could resist such a carbon-copy homage to the Hollywood classic, delivered with such attention to detail and genial brio that it makes Glee look like Les Miserables.
In this no-expense-spared adaptation, the fiddle-de-dee and tra-la-la coincides with the clippety-clop and splish-splosh to make an unalloyed treat that brings the audience to its feet après le deluge.
So the pantomime of the silent era is passing and the legendary screen idols of Lockwood and Lamonte find themselves behind a mic and behind the times as the talkies expose their technical weaknesses.
Some are better equipped for the revolution than others. Don Lockwood (Mad Man-a-like Adam Cooper) is smooth as a lubricated zoot suit on Broadway but Bronx bird Lina Lamonte (Katherine Kingsley) with a voice like fingernails on a blackboard discovers a "doig eat doig world".
Enter simple songbird Kathy Seldon (a winning Scarlett Strallen) who has the voice - and the heart of Don - but not the billing or the pulling power.
A brainwave from music man Cosmo Brown (a scene-stealing Daniel Crossley) introduces dubbing and double crossing which makes for much of the preppy drama.
The romance is as convincing as a dancing dodo in a field of flattened corn but this is a world where people burst into song when most would chunter into their kebabs so hyper-realism isn't a deficiency that mars proceedings.
And, frankly, who cares. There's a songlist to get through and director Jonathan Church knows why we put our penny in the jukebox.
He tees up the songs with aplomb and then lets rip to a cavalcade of classics - Make Em Laugh, Good Morning, You Were Meant For Me - all delivered with a stylish side order of choreography from Andrew Wright.
Singin' In The Rain is accompanied by screeches from the front rows who got a log flume soaking and Gotta Dance is a dreamy extravaganza that parades the masterful costumes (Bill Butler) and set design (Simon Higlett).
Generally, I am the nut in the nougat, hard-bitten and resistant to all forms of sweetness - but, hey, where'd that soppy grin come from?
Sequins and raindrops, snazz, jazz and romance, flapper girls and slick umbrella action. The forecast predicts a splash hit.
Friday, 10 February 2012
Film review: The Woman In Black (15)
SCREEN
The Woman In Black
(12A) 105mins
★★★✩✩
IN A NUTSHELL
As creaky, traditional and scary as a ghost train, The Woman In Black is watched impassively by its star, Daniel Radcliffe.
REVIEW
Arthur Kipps is having an awfully bad time. His wife has died in childbirth and, if he was looking for sympathy from his boss, forget it.
"This is not a charity," he says dispatching young Kipps off to the chilly North to wind up the Eel Marsh House estate.
And, if that wasn't enough then "this is your final chance" says Roger Allam via Jane Goldman's on the nose script.
No turning back then for fearless Kipps. Not only his boss but the locals are against him as he ventures along the causeway to the spit of land containing a house, a surfeit of graves and staring stone angels.
There is something off about the house. The stiff-collared solicitor sees and hears things and everyone in the village is dead keen that he grab his bags and head back to London before something terr... no, too late.
All those children disappearing, dying, some right in front of his eyes as though his lonely vigils in the house and their foreshortened tenure on earth were connected or something.
And if the children are dying what about his own child, following him up at the weekend?
The Woman In Black is a ghost train in a world full of snuff movies and no harm in that.
It is old school gothic with the thrills coming from the work of the sound engineer rather than the machinations of the blood caster and the offal keeper.
This is Hammer straight out of the '70s with rocking chairs rocking and pale faces at windows and Bagpuss nurseries gone to the dark side.
Daniel Radcliffe spends his time inching his way round sooty corridors with a candle, occasionally an axe but always with that fathomless expression, as though his algebra homework has received a C- when he thought he was a dead cert for a B.
We like Ciaran Hinds and his grief-raddled denial. We love Jane McTeer and her feverish madness. We get Shaun Dooley's fear and Mary Stockley's tears. We love the whole Amazing Mr Blunden vibe.
Not sure if we get Daniel though. Not convinced. He drifts through the ordeal, unperturbed and unmoved. We never fear for him because he never looks vulnerable. Or even involved.
Too harsh? Perhaps. But the point is moot because he plays second fiddle to the tricksy house and the vengeful dame who is, let's face it, stark raving bonkers in a wildly entertaining way.
So what's the hook in this Edwardian ghost fest? Here it is. Slow as a raking fingernail and sure as the gaze of a dead girl's ghoul, the story begins to get to work. To grip and intrigue the impassive heart. It is the story, the unearthing of disturbing histories and deft twists, that wins through.
The tension comes and goes, the shocks are telegraphed like an ascent of Everest but there's no escaping the pull of this well-constructed chiller.
The Woman In Black
(12A) 105mins
★★★✩✩
IN A NUTSHELL
As creaky, traditional and scary as a ghost train, The Woman In Black is watched impassively by its star, Daniel Radcliffe.
REVIEW
Arthur Kipps is having an awfully bad time. His wife has died in childbirth and, if he was looking for sympathy from his boss, forget it.
"This is not a charity," he says dispatching young Kipps off to the chilly North to wind up the Eel Marsh House estate.
And, if that wasn't enough then "this is your final chance" says Roger Allam via Jane Goldman's on the nose script.
No turning back then for fearless Kipps. Not only his boss but the locals are against him as he ventures along the causeway to the spit of land containing a house, a surfeit of graves and staring stone angels.
There is something off about the house. The stiff-collared solicitor sees and hears things and everyone in the village is dead keen that he grab his bags and head back to London before something terr... no, too late.
All those children disappearing, dying, some right in front of his eyes as though his lonely vigils in the house and their foreshortened tenure on earth were connected or something.
And if the children are dying what about his own child, following him up at the weekend?
The Woman In Black is a ghost train in a world full of snuff movies and no harm in that.
It is old school gothic with the thrills coming from the work of the sound engineer rather than the machinations of the blood caster and the offal keeper.
This is Hammer straight out of the '70s with rocking chairs rocking and pale faces at windows and Bagpuss nurseries gone to the dark side.
Daniel Radcliffe spends his time inching his way round sooty corridors with a candle, occasionally an axe but always with that fathomless expression, as though his algebra homework has received a C- when he thought he was a dead cert for a B.
We like Ciaran Hinds and his grief-raddled denial. We love Jane McTeer and her feverish madness. We get Shaun Dooley's fear and Mary Stockley's tears. We love the whole Amazing Mr Blunden vibe.
Not sure if we get Daniel though. Not convinced. He drifts through the ordeal, unperturbed and unmoved. We never fear for him because he never looks vulnerable. Or even involved.
Too harsh? Perhaps. But the point is moot because he plays second fiddle to the tricksy house and the vengeful dame who is, let's face it, stark raving bonkers in a wildly entertaining way.
So what's the hook in this Edwardian ghost fest? Here it is. Slow as a raking fingernail and sure as the gaze of a dead girl's ghoul, the story begins to get to work. To grip and intrigue the impassive heart. It is the story, the unearthing of disturbing histories and deft twists, that wins through.
The tension comes and goes, the shocks are telegraphed like an ascent of Everest but there's no escaping the pull of this well-constructed chiller.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)