I AM NUMBER FOUR- Review

Here's one that's real difficult to write about. It's not a case of hating it for producer and twatbag Michael Bay's involvement, because I recognise that Bay can be said to have a technical aptitude for filmmaking. What makes I Am Number Four such an unsavoury spectacle is that its genesis is entirely what I would previously have imagined the genesis of a Michael Bay project to be- the product of an assembly line.

As to the story, this Twi-lite fantasy flick follows Number Four, one of nine aliens who survived a planetary holocaust in another solar system and fled from the genocidal Mogadorians to Earth. Outright stealing the Doctor's alias, he styles himself as John Smith, a high school student in small-town America. With the Mogadorians on his tail, it emerges that they're killing off the aliens in order, and three have died already, leaving Number Four next in line.

Look, the story behind the book this was based on can be found on other sites, so I'm not going to recap it and overwhelm my review of the film. However, I recommend that you read about the controversy behind this film because it informs the level of suckiness on which it operates. As I've said, it's Twilight-lite, which means that it's something so insubstantial that it's almost ethereal. It more or less flips around the premise 180 degrees- a boy has supernatural powers, a bored small-town girl falls in love, but this time the boy is our hero.

Presumably, the idea is to try and get the insensible target audience for most of Michael Bay's films, 14 year old boys, to go and see a film that is like Twilight, which in turn appeals to Twilight fans, and thus results in huge profit. Whether or not it will work remains to be seen, but it is nevertheless a product of shameless mathematics, rather than anything even resembling imagination. The various elements are not trans-generic, but intertextual- there is literally nothing in here that is not from another text, but names have been changed to protect the unoriginal bastards peddling it.

Bay's gaze is so fixated on sequels, and on box office success, and on replicating the successful formula of other films, that it is impossible to engage with it. I mention Bay and not director DJ Caruso because there was a long period where Bay was attached to direct this thing. It shows, and it's a shame that Caruso, who previously made the noirish and intriguing The Salton Sea, has devolved into a director for hire. There's no room for much of anything creative, because everybody involved is complicit with the formula.

For their part, the cast do alright- there are no casting gaffes as monumentally shit as Shia LaBeouf or Megan Fox, but they're all in stock roles. Alex Pettyfer is the incredibly athletic and dreamy guy who somehow still gets bullied because he's new at school. Dianna Agron is the cute girl who, in this case, is a little bit stalk-y in her amateur photography pursuits. Timothy Olyphant is Henri (Wan Kenobi), a mentor character for whom the only surprise is whether or not he'll turn out to be the traitor behind it all or the guy who sacrifices himself so Number Four can win the day. Kevin Durand is a goddamn skinhead in a trenchcoat. That's what we're dealing with.

And for all of its predictability, it's deceptively difficult to follow. I get that Number Four's goal is to avoid being stabbed up by Mogadorians, but the world building becomes so convoluted, so intent on dangling loose threads for a sequel hook, that it becomes incomprehensible. When it turns into the Transformers patented action clusterfuck in the final act, the only discernible goal remains "don't get killed". Quite an elementary quest in a fantasy film, right?

At least in other franchise non-starters, there was more self-containment. They bothered to tell stories that established the world and left their unrequited sequel hooks to the final shots. I Am Number Four builds a world with its sequel hooks, because it's so bland and forgettable that it's counting on becoming a massive movie series just so it has some continued significance once the credits start rolling. The film is one that's looking forward to its own ending so it can make some money. I was just looking forward to it ending.

I Am Number Four is now showing in cinemas nationwide,
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If you've seen I Am Number Four, why not share your comments below?

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

SEASON OF THE WITCH- Review

After a banner 2010 saw him at his weirdest and best in The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, doing some hilarious crowd-pleasing in Kick-Ass, and even being better than average in his usual Disney live-action outing, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, how does Nicolas Cage choose to start 2011? Naturally, he reverts back to exactly the kind of rubbish we've seen him coast along on before last year's outings got people interested in him again.

His latest betrayal of his fanbase goes by the name of Season of the Witch, and he plays Behmen, a knight who deserts from the Crusades with his comrade and best friend, Felson. They're caught out in a small parish that's troubled by the Black Death, and commanded by church officials to take an accused witch across country to a place where her evil can be put to an end. It's believed her witchcraft is the cause of the plague, and Behmen is less easily convinced that the young woman in his charge is guilty.

For starters, I think the main problems with Season of the Witch are twofold, but they both relate to juxtaposed elements that never quite mesh. Firstly, I can't tell if it's meant to be a fantasy film or a horror film, and it's not fantastical enough or scary enough to fit into either one of those alone. Second of all, the involvement of Felson, mentioned above, makes Nicolas Cage part of a double act. Unless his opposite number is Chloe Moretz, and the film is Kick-Ass, Cage in a double act doesn't really work, as Jay Baruchel and Justin Bartha can attest. Weirder still, Felson is played by part-time Hellboy and genre stalwart Ron Perlman.

Just try and imagine that combination in your head. Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman. You might as well pair up Batman and Muttley for all the chemistry there is between those two actors. Perlman is clearly the better player in this one because of his experience in this type of film. Cage, for all of his celebrity nerdery, should stick to watching films like this rather than acting in them. His vocal rendition of "14th century knight" sounds an awful lot like "MIT professor" or "sorcerer" or "stage magician". Hell, it just sounds a lot like Nicolas Cage.

And even weirder still, it almost seems like the supporting cast are doing American accents to cover the losses of the leads. The great Stephen Graham's role is an embarrassment to a fine actor, and Robert Sheehan occasionally lapses back into his Irish accent, more familiar to fans of Misfits. There are no rewards for the actors on hand here, as the motley ensemble of characters trudge along on the road to holy ground, with their predictable arcs meeting their peaks and troughs like clockwork.

Claire Foy manages well enough as the seasonal may-or-may-not-be-gribbly of the title, but there's very little ambiguity about her character. Well, there's at least no chance that she might be just a wrongfully accused regular human girl. The turnaround we have instead takes us into much more familiar territory, lifting from horror films as we take a running leap towards a thoroughly uninspired denouement. Season of the Witch isn't that bad- it's just so uninspiring and such a minor effort that it's not worth the corresponding effort required for the audience to go out and see it.

And Season of the Witch, like so many of Cage's minor efforts before it, is a film they shouldn't have bothered with if they couldn't do it well. There's nothing to really chastise or praise about it because it's all so bloody forgettable, just like last year's Solomon Kane. For a similar, but much better film, go and find Black Death, the British horror film that's just recently come out on DVD. There isn't even any of the patented Cage unintentional comedy to stir you from the neutrality of this uninspired guff.

Season of the Witch is now playing in cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen Season of the Witch, why not share your comments below?

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

Voyage of the Dawn Treader- NARNIA 3 Review

Because sometimes, titles are just too damn long to name a film and do a clever pun as well. After being unceremoniously ditched by Disney, 20th Century Fox distributes Walden Media's third C.S. Lewis film, The Chronicles of Narnia- The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. With Peter and Susan all grown up, younger siblings Edmund and Lucy Pevensie take centre stage as they return to the magical world of Narnia.

Along with their odious cousin Eustace Scrubb, Edmund and Lucy are surprised to find they've been summoned to a peaceful Narnia. However, King Caspian soon has a mission for them, seeking out seven swords that must be laid at the mystical Jesus Lion Aslan's table in order to defeat a gathering evil. They travel the seas on the Dawn Treader, with each of our heroes being tested their enemies on the way.

Something about the Christian moralising in C.S. Lewis' stories just puts me off. As a lapsed Catholic and now atheist, I'm sure I'd have loved the books had I actually read them in my childhood. The cinematic adaptations of the story wear the religious connotations like a cassock that's several sizes too big, tripping them up as they stride along. It's not that I'm a Richard Dawkins acolyte, even if I'm irked by lines in magic spells that insinuate there's no truth in theology or in questioning anything about the big guy in the sky. It's simply that the central mission of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader on the page is incredibly fatalistic.

Almost in appeasement to certain widely-held views on the afterlife and God and what not, the film boosts the importance of the seven magic swords, turning the film into a more urgent version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I. The fetch-quest element might seek to make it more secular and accessible, but the main effect is to remind me what it would have looked like if they really had squashed all of the seventh Harry Potter book into one film, as I wrongly suggested they should have in my review.

Additionally, it reaffirms my opinion from the last time Aslan went head to head with the Boy Who Lived at the box office, back in 2005- I don't know why anyone would go and see Narnia when there's a Harry Potter film out as well. The 2005 Potter outing was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and the flaws of that film are echoed slightly in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It all opens up very briskly, taking great pains to reintroduce elements like Lucy's dagger and healing cordial without pausing for breath until 15 minutes in, after the once magical ritual of entering Narnia has been firmly glossed over.

It's odd what with the deviations from the book later on, but this feels episodic and segmented in much the same way as Goblet of Fire does with the benefit of hindsight. I can't quite blame the influence of 20th Century Fox, who are more noteworthy for royally interfering with and ruining their tentpole blockbusters than those at the House of Mouse. Surely if that were the case, it would be under 90 minutes long and Jack Black would be Eustace instead of the really rather excellent Will Poulter from Son of Rambow.

Odder still, some of the segments seem to come out of other films entirely. The climactic action setpiece, for instance, has to be seen to be believed- it's an astonishing hybrid of the endings to the two Pirates of the Caribbean sequels and Ghostbusters. I shit you not- Ghostbusters. This meandering juggernaut now rests on the shoulders of Lucy, Edmund and Caspian, still played by Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes and Ben Barnes. Henley is not above certain cringe-making twee moments and Keynes still seems surprised at where he is, but both have improved. Even Barnes steps up, now that he's abandoned his crap rendition of Inigo Montoya's accent from the last film.

I'm loath to continually compare it to Harry Potter, even if the Harry Potter books are arguably the modern answer to Narnia, but it's in Lucy and Edmund's continuing lack of development that the film really stutters. They're still being led around by expectation, seemingly not really capable of moving their own destinies. Occasionally, they step out of line, but they're slapped down by Aslan, a leonine Liam Neeson in Jesus' clothing. Harry, Ron and Hermione are constantly growing and becoming self-sufficient even from each other. Lucy can't get any further than Aslan's messianic pimp paw.

It is definitely an improvement on the previous film, Prince Caspian, but for me, that's not saying an awful lot. That film was the Temple of Doom to the Raiders that was The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe- it changed things up merely by being excessively violent. I still love Temple of Doom, but the big fight in Prince Caspian was just a big punch-up about things I didn't particularly care about. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader might have the same staples as its predecessors- a role for Tilda Swinton, animals that sound like famous faces and someone bellowing "For Narnia!"- but enough is done differently to patch it all together.

The most valuable player in the film is the aforementioned Will Poulter as Eustace. In reverence for the source material, the film foolishly leaves him off the playing field for much of the film, for reasons of transmogrification. What we do get of him though is brilliant. He's annoying, but he's meant to be playing annoying, as opposed to Lucy, who occasionally lapses into Dora The Explorer dialogue like "We did it! I knew we would!" The stage is set for his return as a leading man in later Narnia instalments, and if for no one else but him, I hope the scripts and direction improve. He deserves the spotlight on the strength of his role here.

The Chronicles of Narnia- The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a serviceable action fantasy for the family in a decidedly weak Christmas season at the cinema, taking a somewhat fatalistic plot thread from the source material and largely translating it with a big fixed friendly expression. Maybe that's more because Fox is taking on what's seen as a risky financial prospect and less because they're updating the story. It's still kind of hamstrung by its obligation to religious audiences, but if it pays off financially, The Silver Chair is next up in production, presumably with Will Poulter in the lead. He's enjoyable enough in this that I hesitantly look forward to Narnia 4, but this sequel could have won over more new fans if it had more of a sense of wonder, or even a sense of humour.

The Chronicles of Narnia- The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is now showing in 2D and 3D, at cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen The Chronicles of Narnia- The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, why not share your comments below? If you didn't know I used to be Catholic, then never fear- I got better.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

Harry Totters- THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE Review

As something of a regular disclaimer, it's only my opinion here- others are available. As ever, mild spoilers may occur in the process of reviewing, but never so far as to spoil any major plot developments.
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Physics geek Dave discovers a greater destiny as he becomes The Sorcerer's Apprentice in Disney's latest live-action fantasy film. He's sought after by two sorcerers who were once students of Merlin. Yeah, that Merlin. Balthazar wants to help Dave to defeat Merlin's deadliest enemy, Morgana. His rival, Horvath, wants to unleash her upon the world using a spell called the Rising. As Dave comes to terms with a world he could never have imagined, Balthazar must teach him everything he knows in order to stage a final battle.

The segment of Fantasia that Disney always seems to reference on DVD covers and posters of the film is of Mickey Mouse dressed as a sorcerer, and it's this little bit of back-catalogue iconography that has given way to The Sorcerer's Apprentice. The Fantasia segment was in turn based on a Goethe ballad, but this film resembles neither very much, simply because Nicolas Cage thought it would be a neat idea do a full film based on Mickey Mouse's magic mopping.

Instead it roots around in Arthurian legend. It seems as good a time as any to refer you back to my review of Percy Jackson, and my musings on how fantasy set in America often ends up somewhat crass. This one didn't impress me for starting out in Britain in 740AD before jumping to New York over a millennium later, but at least we don't have Cage reprising his attempt at a British accent from National Treasure: Book of Secrets as an apparent apprentice to Merlin.

Speaking of National Treasure, this one comes from director Jon Turteltaub, and he holds it all together considerably better than he did in that History Channel Indiana Jones knock-off of a franchise. It's a little long, and could have lost a scene referring back to the mop scene in Fantasia. Subsequently it could have been titled as something else entirely. Nevertheless, Turteltaub holds back on the running time and focuses on entertainment value.

Cage, on the other hand, doesn't seem to be having as much fun as you'd expect given how all of this was his idea, almost as if he got bored with the thought before it came into production. He still cuts loose a lot more than in National Treasure, and plays nicely against the terrific Alfred Molina. His Horvath is delightfully nasty and he chews the scenery very enjoyably throughout- while the gold standard is still his turn as Otto Octavius in Spider-Man 2, Molina is always worth watching in these otherwise disposable Hollywood actioners.

Less enjoyable is Jay Baruchel, whose grating nasal voice and face-slapping astonishment at the plot is like an ultra annoying mix of Jerry Lewis and Daniel Radcliffe's Harry Potter, circa 2001. He's likeable enough, sure, but he's there only to ply the stock Hollywood maxim of nerd empowerment. It's taken to extremes here too- take a shot of some alcoholic beverage every time you're told he's a geek. And then there's Toby Kebbell, who I hope will fall back through whatever magic portal he stumbled through to get from small but acclaimed roles in British stuff to this and his minor role in Prince of Persia. He's wasted here as Horvath's sidekick, acted and written as the kind of role Russell Brand would've got two years ago.

In general, the film walks a fine line between enjoyable summer fare and disposable assembly-line blockbuster. The bits removed are certainly visible, as the narrative flows like a dream. Not in a good way, or in the way of Inception, but in the way that scenes cut short and suddenly pick up elsewhere jarringly. I'm sure that'll be great for deleted scenes on the DVD, but it's not desirable in the cinema. Never fear though, this isn't quite the inevitable bad Nicolas Cage film after his recent good run, but let's see if he can fit any more good ones in before National Treasure 3 (one of many films that wouldn't benefit from a D on the end of that title) looms large in multiplexes in two years' time.

It's mostly enjoyable, but without any of the charm of a Harry Potter or a Nanny McPhee. What both of those films have that this doesn't is a sense of wonder. We're repeatedly told how cool all the CGI is, but it never properly feels magical. The Sorcerer's Apprentice may just make you yearn for the days when Disney's particular brand of artificial magic was more spellbinding, but it's a fairly harmless family film that probably offers more to kids than adults.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice is now showing at cinemas nationwide.
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If and when you see The Sorcerer's Apprentice, why not leave a comment on the film and/or my review? Don't worry- I've duly noted that the remaining Harry Potter outings will be a bit heavy-going, so if you're looking for something lighter, this is probably it, really.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

The Philosopher's Clone?

With Warner Bros having split the last Harry Potter book into two films, a move that has cynics decrying their money grubbing, the search for the series' successor is very much on. Arguably, it's been on ever since Philosopher's Stone grossed $974m worldwide, but the likes of Eragon and Cirque du Freak have failed to launch audience grabbing franchises just the same as more worthy efforts like The Golden Compass or Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. Enter Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, a film based, as ever, on "the best-selling books".

As something of a regular disclaimer, it's only my opinion here- others are available. As ever, mild spoilers may occur in the process of reviewing, but never so far as to spoil any major plot developments.

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Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief finds the eponymous teenager discovering he's the son of Poseidon, an uncomfortable and transcendental truth that his mother never really mentioned before. Percy's also thrown by the sudden revelation that his best friend Grover is a satyr appointed to protect him, his paralysed history teacher is a centaur, and that everyone from Mount Olympus to the Underworld thinks he's stolen Zeus' lightning bolt, the most powerful weapon ever created. With Zeus on the warpath and Hades wanting the bolt's power for himself, Percy and his friends must find the real Lightning Thief in order to rescue his mother from the Underworld and prevent a war that would consume the Earth.

Way before Harry Potter, Chris Columbus wrote a film called Young Sherlock Holmes, wherein two boys and a girl investigated a mystery at the boarding school they attended, befriending a beardy bloke and fighting off an enemy that threatens to destabilise the balance of their world. Of course Percy Jackson isn't Young Sherlock Holmes, but you can't help but notice that between these two films and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Chris Columbus is making a killing off of the same film over and over again. As much as I love Harry Potter, I'd never claim that it has the most original story structure ever, because if this is mining anything, it's Greek mythology. We're due a decent Greek mythology film, and for some that will be next month's remake of Clash of the Titans, but for the family audience, it's Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief.

In terms of the narrative, I suspect something has been lost from the books. While I generally have no problem with a film carving out its own structure to make it a different beast from the source material, and indeed I usually prefer that, the film suffers for the same stumbling reverence that Columbus brought to the first two Harry Potter films. Big idea-laden sequences unfold around every ten minutes, invariably with big action beats, but it's the bits in between where the film suffers. For instance, Percy's mother is kidnapped very early on, but for a good ten minutes after that sequence, Percy believes that she's dead. Not that you'd know it, given the utter lack of emotion he expresses at this bereavement. It's not that the reasonably likable Logan Lerman is poor in the central role, it's that the script doesn't really seem to provide any real grief for Percy.

As predictable as it is that Percy's mother isn't actually dead, you'll also be able to tell who the Lightning Thief is about five minutes after that character makes his debut. This makes the third act plod along rather than throw up anything of real interest, with the exception of some scenery chewing by Rosario Dawson's Persephone and Steve Coogan's Hades. These two in particular are the standouts amongst the adult cast, with Pierce Brosnan making a fairly thankless appearance and Sean Bean just snarling every now and then but not really conveying any threat. Brandon T. Jackson and Alexandra Daddario make pretty undeveloped Ron and Hermione substitutes, and the calibre of Logan Lerman's performance doesn't really stand up to scrutiny. This film dissuaded me from the notion that he should be the new Spider-Man, as rumoured, though I maintain new Spider-Man is a shit idea anyway.

Oh, and the product placement in this film is awful. An iPhone is used to defeat a monster. Percy wears flying hi-top All Star Converses. A trip to the Underworld is accompanied by AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" and a trip to Vegas by Lady GaGa's "Pokerface". And I think that's symptomatic of the problem with Percy Jackson. Did the young Sherlock Holmes wear Adidas while fighting Moriarty? Did Harry Potter pour Coca Cola on the flaming tail of a Blast-Ended Skrewt? No, because they were both quintessentially British, and somehow a transplant to America fills a film like Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief with brash sequences set in Vegas, or shameless advertising. The fantasy genre does work best when set against normality, but somehow there's a heightened sense of things when you make an American film that draws you out of it. Yes, I'm really saying that Medusa is less believable when she's ogling Apple products, because she is.

You know, I'm complaining about the crass stuff a lot- who produced this anyhow? Ah yes, 20th Century Fox. I mentioned The Golden Compass as a worthy fantasy adaptation above, but one which never went beyond the first of the three planned films because it didn't make enough money at the box office. This was due in no small part to the broad campaign against the atheistic content of the source material in America, spearheaded by Fox News. Fox, who coincidentally had another big family flick called Shit Chipmunk Film in cinemas at the same time, accused the film makers' December 2007 release as "a war on Christmas", a phrase coined by the network's arch-twatbag and pundit from hell, Bill O'Reilly. If The Golden Compass was anti-Christian, then why is Rupert Murdoch's company releasing a film that presents polytheism and ancient religion, except to cash in on the trend they think is so evil?

Fox is currently riding high off the astronomical gross of Avatar, which probably recouped their losses on all the shite they've put out in the last few years. But all of this is quite separate from the film at hand, and I apologise, but their bullshit is not considered often enough. On balance, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief is more than the bastion of Darth Murdoch's evil empire. It's not nearly as derivative or pointless as it's being painted and actually zips along for the most part. And the film has its merits too- there are some interesting ideas about old, and I mean very very old concepts, there's another nice performance by Catherine Keener, and there's a decent music score from the usually uninspired and hackneyed Christophe Beck. Moreover, the production design is very strong and the film looks more unique than it probably is.

The kids in the screening I attended seemed to love it, so it has to get a pass. It drags a bit on account of Chris Columbus' erratic pacing and close adherence to set pieces from the book, but the kids in the screening enjoyed it. If you want to watch "the next Harry Potter", you'll be waiting until November, when the first Deathly Hallows film comes out. If you want to see an entertaining family film, you could really do worse than Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, because brashness aside, it's actually quite diverting fantasy fun for half-term. And it's not as bad as Eragon, which was a relief, so you can probably expect to see the next film, The Sea of Monsters in cinemas sometime next year.

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Hand-drawn animation is making a bit of a comeback on the big-screen this half-term, between Disney's The Princess and the Frog and Studio Ghibli's Ponyo. Both will be reviewed in the next post, but in the meantime, if you see Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, why not share your comments below?

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.