Adventures in Babyshitting

Douglas Adams famously posited the number 42 as the answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Regrettably, there's nothing so profound in the two films the 42nd Mad Prophet review post covers. Instead, we have two fairly lamentable family films, with the downright awesome Jackie Chan having another jab at the English language market in The Spy Next Door and Seth Green being embraced by a gorilla in Old Dogs. 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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Although you'd never know it from the advertising, there's more of a story to Old Dogs than just Seth Green serenading a gorilla after it grabs him and cradles him like a baby. Robin Williams and John Travolta play two life-long friends, Dan and Charlie, who are about to enter into a huge sports-marketing deal with some Japanese businessmen. A chance meeting with an old flame of Dan's throws up the surprise revelation that he once fathered two twins, Zach and Emily. With their political activist mother about to spend two weeks in jail, the impractical bachelors have to babysit the twins, learning about family along the way. Yes, I actually gagged typing that last bit.

Even though it's the hackneyed family-centric hi-jinks that Disney's live-action arm is known for when there isn't a Pirates of the Caribbean film on screens, it's baffling to think this came out of the House of Mouse. Besides being homophobic, xenophobic, ageist and generally not funny, it's about a corporate back-and-forth! You know, for kids! There is little that approaches any recognisable level of entertainment value, with the exception of that Green-gorilla gag, which you've seen a million times if you've seen any trailers or posters, and a nice cameo from Justin Long. He plays a creepy and intense Scoutmaster, and I'm not really doing him justice to describe it that way. He provides welcome titters in the wasteland that is Old Dogs, and acquits himself fairly well.

The rest of the cast? Well, they can do better. The most galling thing is that they all know they can do better. Robin Williams was in Good Will Hunting and Jumanji, exhibiting a great versatility for different target audiences- here he's spray-tanned to the extent that he's mistaken for an Asian guy. Matt Dillon was one of the better parts of the racial tensions potboiler Crash- here he's the less funny foil to Long's psychotic outdoors man. John Travolta... no, fuck him. I'm not a fan, and he's one of the only actors working who I genuinely think needs to stop. The last halfway passable performance he gave was voicing the title character in Bolt, not to mention the fact that he's largely to blame for Battlefield Earth. So between this and From Paris With Love, fuck John Travolta!

Put simply, Old Dogs is garbage. Director Walt Becker seems to be daring reviewers to make the obvious "get it put down" pun with the title, but as I'm showing more ingenuity than anyone in that film, here is a short list of other bits of dog rhetoric that can be attributed this film.

1. It's less fun than rabies.
2. It leaves the taste of balls in your mouth.
3. An old, blind, deaf specimen that's loping around cinemas pissing on the carpet and smiling dopily at the audience as it does.

And I could go on. But this is not worth your time, not worth your money, barely even worth its existence. It doesn't quite count as one of the five 2010 films worse than Valentine's Day that would have me stop going to the cinema, but it comes very damn close.
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Elsewhere, Jackie Chan once again capably demonstrates why he's the best action/comedy star in the world in The Spy Next Door, a demonstration that in no part has anything to do with the lamentable script. But here's the story anyway- Chan plays special agent Bob Ho, who retires from his life of international espionage in order to try and build a normal life with his neigbour and girlfriend, Gillian. As is par for the course in these films, she has three children- Farren, Ian and Nora- who don't like Bob much. Bob's left holding the kids while Gillian's away, but Ian's inadvertent download of a deadly computer program puts all of them in danger.

Have you noticed how, when Jackie Chan is surrounded by dumb Americans in a film, he usually inflicts hilarious violence upon them and gets on with whatever he's doing? Doesn't happen in real life, as evidenced by the utter fail on show from this film's actors, writers and director. But besides all of this, Chan is excellent. He's Jackie fucking Chan, of course he's excellent. Chan has much better comic timing than he seems to be given credit for, and one of the films I'd really love to see in my lifetime would be a Jackie Chan silent comedy. He already has the right sensibilities for it in all of his work, and Hollywood would finally learn how to utilise that talent. In the meantime, my head movies aren't real, and we just have to make do with The Spy Next Door.

Now, I've never hit a kid. I suspect utterly drubbing the work of a child actor would have a similarly upsetting effect if said child read said drubbing, but my word, this film has the worst child actors I can remember seeing in a film. Emo girl is whiny, adorable kid is adorable, and nerdy kid is nebbish until Bob transforms him into... the Fonz? When the hell was this script written?! I'd assumed sometime after the success of The Pacifier, to which this film owes a debt that the Vin Diesel film really didn't warrant. The adult cast don't fare any better than the kids, particularly Katherine Boecher and Lazytown creator Magnús Scheving, who both adopt Russian accents that are sub-Ensign Chekov. Also, Billy Ray Cyrus and George Lopez are in need of a firm kick. Yknow, just for being Billy Ray Cyrus and George Lopez. Chan outshines every single one of them, and very much makes the whole thing worthwhile.

God love Jackie Chan, he keeps making bad films whenever he forays into the English language these days. That makes his part in The Spy Next Door all the more exceptional, drawing laughs out of a mirthless script like blood from a stone. At 55 years old, he's still at the top of his game in the martial-arts stakes, and he really gets comedy too. His next is a remake of The Karate Kid, starring Will Smith's kid. I can but dream of a Jackie Chan silent comedy, because it's the kind of thing that would just complete my life. In the meantime, don't go and see this one unless you're a big fan of Chan or your kids want to know how not to act.
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If you've seen Old Dogs, may God have mercy on your soul. But if you're similarly enthused by Jackie Chan even in spite of his utter misuse by Hollywood, why not share your comments below? If you wanna know what's next up, I imagine it'll be a much-delayed review of Green Zone in the run-up to the anticipated tantric explosion that'll come after I see Kick-Ass on Friday.

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

Travolting

Films like The Exorcist and The Evil Dead have been appalling and entertaining audiences for decades, and in cinemas this week are two films that are similarly revolting, albeit in entirely different ways- the harrowing awards darling, Precious, and a big dumb Travolta vehicle, From Paris With Love.

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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Taken director Pierre Morel collaborates with Luc Besson once again to bring us From Paris With Love, which matches James Reece, a US ambassador's assistant who's complicit with the CIA, with a brash twatbag of an American spy called Charlie Wax. Reece has to keep an eye on Wax's methods while carrying a vase full of coke and trying to stop the bad guys. Who are the bad guys? Why, terrorists, of course! Terrorists who plan to do very bad things to America, a country it's entirely easy to stop caring about when their top man in this film is played by John Travolta.

John Travolta isn't funny. Hell, I'm pretty sure he's barely capable of actually acting these days, but "John Travolta isn't funny" is a much more potent synopsis of From Paris With Love. To expand on his not being funny, you'll find he's once again in Taking of Pelham 123 mode, saying "motherfucker" as much as he can, because someone somewhere obviously thinks that's funny. It's not, and the in-jokes about the Royale with cheese are pretty soul-destroying too. It's like he's constantly nostalgic for times when he was in better films than this, or Old Dogs, or Battlefield Earth. He must be REALLY missing Quentin Tarantino.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers is as obscured by Travolta's hammy acting and sheer volume as many of his recent co-stars have been. But he gamely trundles from shootout to shootout, and is embroiled in the most token love-interest story you'll see in an action film this year. This isn't dumb fun, it's just dumb, and hateful to boot. For instance, one typically bullet-riddled scene has a shootout with a gang of Asian bodyguards in an apartment block, with a nervous Reece following a wave of destruction left by Travolta's accomplished douchebag, Wax. "How many more of them?", Rhys Meyers enquires. "By the last census, around a billion", Travolta replies. Doesn't a little bit of joking about racial cleansing go a long way?
Wax is seen in one scene to leave litter on a park bench even though there's a bin not two feet away. The shot lingers even after Wax has gone out of it, and for a moment I wondered if it was a clever admonition of American wastefulness. In fact, between this and Taken, I have to wonder if Morel isn't actually executing some massive feat of irony and parodying American action cinema in his films by centring them around Americans and making them as xenophobic as possible without incurring charges of racial hatred. I'd actually be intrigued if I could stomach another viewing of this tripe. Any intended irony fails here because Taken was at least entertaining in its daftness, but this is just dumb and hateful, as opposed to just dumb fun.

Then I turned my Media student head off, because From Paris With Love doesn't warrant deserve such consideration. And even if it did, it's not entertaining enough to carry any undercurrent of satire. There's nothing so clever in this crass and xenophobic effort from Morel, and the character of Charlie Wax is simply revolting. Travolting, if you will. Not funny, not entertaining, but at least it's brief. And for the latter at least, merci, Pierre Morel. Now go away.
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A much more subdued film than that is Lee Daniels' Oscar darling, Precious, and sadly its unwieldy full title, (take what you've got already and add Based on the novel Push by Sapphire) gives you a fair idea of the film itself. In Harlem, 1987, an obese and illiterate black girl called Claireece "Precious" Jones is pregnant with her second child by her own father. Her spiteful mother resents her husband's preference for her daughter and constantly abuses her, both verbally and physically. When Precious is drummed out of her old school, she goes to an alternative one where she's brought into contact with the caring Ms. Rain and has the chance to turn her life around.

Early on, the film put me in mind of an episode of Doctor Who from a few years ago, where John Simm's Master snarks about how our fugitive heroes- David Tennant, Freema Agyeman and John Barrowman- are "ticking every demographic box, so well done on that." In tackling issues of race, family, young pregnancy and poverty in a coming-of-age tale, it ostensibly seems like Lee Daniels and screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher were very much on the awards season campaign trail. It's certainly gotten a lot of recognition thus far, with Mo'Nique one of the few absolute locks for an acting win this Sunday at the Academy Awards. I don't disagree that it's worthy of recognition for its performances, but I think it's curious that Mo'Nique and Gabourey Sidibe are the ones who have been marked out as the best.
Mo'Nique is certainly quite good in it, but her character felt like it was drawn in broad strokes to me, and I never really felt Precious' mother was anything but a one-dimensional character, even towards the end of the film. She's too well-performed to be something out of panto, but she's not vile enough to appear as anything more than a particularly riled guest on Jerry Springer. That's not the actress' fault, as she copes rather well with what I feel was a weak script. Elsewhere, Gabourey Sidibe doesn't make the strongest debut here, but then she's not an actress- again, it's not her failing but Hollywood's that there aren't trained actresses working of the build required for Precious. Both are capable with what could easily descend into melodramatic caricatures, but I felt the really great performances came from Paula Patton and Mariah Carey.

Yes, that Mariah Carey. I understand the lack of awards recognition there, as she's only in it for a bit and she's also Mariah Carey, but she makes a surprisingly strong impression in the screentime she has. Patton is instantly endearing as Ms. Rain, and I really felt she elevated each scene she was in. That might seem somewhat incongruous with my criticisms of Sidibe and Mo'Nique, but in the scenes where those two were together I was always very aware I was watching performances rather than people, and there's none of the realism in that stuff that a film like this requires to work. And that's true of a fair bit of Precious. It's not mawkish, but it is cloying, really striving to evoke a reaction from its audience rather than letting it occur naturally. It's all the more jolting when the film lapses into loud and bright fantasy sequences- as bad as her life is, it's as if Daniels felt the audience needed those breaks from bleakness more than Precious.

Even with its overriding bleakness and desperate tugging at your heartstrings, Precious isn't a bad film, but it's not enjoyable either. Is it worthy of Best Picture? I think not, but there have certainly been worse films nominated in previous years. Aside from The Blind Side, which I haven't seen yet but suspect may be worse, I'd say it's the weakest of the ten nominated this year. Oscar glory isn't the only reason you ever go to see anything though, and the film remains an honourable but overwrought endeavour to bring important social issues to greater public awareness. Think Slumdog Millionaire with a more ambiguous ending, or Juno with a fuckton more misery. I don't see why anyone would want to see a film this depressing, but that's not to say that you shouldn't see it, full stop. The extent of performance on show left me feeling unaffected by the bleak stuff. If for whatever reason you want to see a film that Oprah Winfrey heartily endorses, make it The Princess and the Frog.
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If you've stomached either From Paris with Love or Precious, why not share your comments below? For me, a viewing of Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland by Disney is imminent, so that review and some awards-speak will be up as the weekend goes on.

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

The Mad Prophet #1- Two Moons

Yeah, this is about the size of that promised rebrand. Let me fill you in on why I've gone off in a different direction from the "Filmgoat" name I was planning and alluding to. Having gotten catastrophically drunk last week, I wandered outside the club I was in and met an old friend from secondary school. Well, I say a friend... point being he's apparently being reading these reviews and told me they were very funny. This, for me, is a score.

More than anything else, I've hoped I'm not brow-beating people with my opinions. If anything, I'm happier to be Howard Beale, the mad prophet of the airwaves from the film Network. His show in that film is set up by the TV network executives to open with him delivering elaborate and disillusioning rants that he's channeling to the world from some unknown celestial force. At the end of each rant, he'll collapse into a faint in the spotlight, whereupon the studio audience applauds raucously. They're entertained, but they haven't took on a word he's been saying. And when someone reminds me of that in their response to these reviews, I know I'm doing something right. No one likes a critic, so I'm on the backfoot if I'm not entertaining you.

Moving on then- I've seen four new films this week and this post shall cover two of them. One quite literally involves the Moon, and the other is a remake that drops trou and flashes its arse at the superior original. As ever, mild spoilers may crop up here and there but not so far as to reveal any major plot developments.

MOON


Who's in it? Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey are at the forefront in what's largely a two-hander, I was surprised to see homegrown Channel 4 stars like Matt Berry and Kaya Scodelario (of The IT Crowd and Skins fame, respectively) popping up in the background.

What's it all about? Sam Bell (Rockwell) is an astronaut nearing the end of his three-year contract working on the Moon to extract and export an energy resource that has made the Earth clean and efficient. With only a computer (voiced by Spacey) for company, Sam has a quintessentially personal encounter right before he's due to go back to Earth.

Any good? Sci-fi is bandied around like a dirty word sometimes, unless it's followed by the word "blockbuster". Nine times out of ten, such films have more money than ideas, and so the genre in its undiluted form rarely sees wide release. Even the Sci-Fi Channel have rebranded themselves as the mind-killingly banal "Syfy". So a film like Moon is a breath of fresh air if you like intelligent films with ideas. And I'm eager to point out from the off that not all science fiction features Klingons or Daleks, so don't fall into that slightly populist trap of avoiding Moon cos you're expecting something boring and nerdy.

Director Duncan Jones lovingly harkens back to the age when sci-fi films had ideas- films like Silent Running in particular- but it's as a result of that that it's not particularly original. I couldn't pretend that Moon has new ideas, as I even spotted one major part of the plot that's been done in an Arnold Schwarzenegger film, but the execution of these ideas is what makes it a good film- it wasn't half as good with Schwarzenegger. This film is directed and performed with more subtlety than Michael Bay could muster if he spent ten years in the dark trying to make a silent film, and it's just beautiful. As mentioned, it's more or less a two-hander, providing a claustrophobic atmosphere in the moonbase, which Sam Rockwell amplfies brilliantly with his diverse and great performance. I can't sing Rockwell's praises enough in general, but here is one of those performances that should get nominated for an Oscar, and probably would if the nominations and voting procedure weren't so skewed against genre fare. When February rolls around, I doubt the recipient of the Best Actor award will have been half as good as Rockwell is here, in whatever beige "prestige" film he (or she, you never know these days) has starred in.

There's not much of a supporting cast to speak of, but Kevin Spacey lends the film some tension as well as Sam's helper robot, GERTY. As he trundles around with a "Kick Me" post-it stuck to his back, he does his best to keep Sam sane and happy, but his ulterior motives are brought to the fore by the fact that Spacey can't even ask if you'd like something to eat without sounding menacing. But then I'm not planning to eat round Kevin Spacey's house anytime soon, so that's just fine with me. So besides these two, the other stand-out aspect of the film is the effects work. Far from relying on CGI, some beautiful model shots are employed of the vehicles, the base and the surface of the Moon itself. Another aspect of the homage to Silent Running and its low-budget ilk? Perhaps, but Jones was absolutely right to look elsewhere instead of succumbing to CGI shots. I'm talking about anything other than the story because I'm avoiding talking about the crux of the plot in advance- I knew nothing about this aspect of the story when I saw it, and I think I enjoyed it more because of that. So while I'm lavishing more praise than usual on effects (the score is good too, by the way), be assured that the film has more than enough story to keep you thinking and guessing throughout.

Intelligent and thought-provoking, Moon is the best sci-fi film in ages. Possibly since The Matrix. It's not entirely original, but it takes the time to execute the ideas that support the plot with new techniques rather than patronsing the audience by lazily chucking CGI at us. As with most low-budget films, it's sadly not in wide release, but I strongly recommend you catch it when it's released on DVD/Blu-ray.



THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123 (2009)


Who's in it? John Travolta and Denzel Washington sit in for Robert Shaw and Walter Matthau, with James Gandolfini and John Turturro lending ample support.

What's it all about? Walter Garber (Washington) is a New York subway train dispatcher whose life is changed when Ryder (Travolta) hijacks a subway car and demands $10 million in return for the 19 hostages he has on board. The two men form an uneasy relationship over the radio system as the clock ticks towards Ryder's deadline- for every minute he doesn't have the money thereafter, he'll kill a hostage...

Any good? Let me tell you about the 1974 film, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. I saw it recently and found it to be one of the better films I've seen since... well, ever. Well-paced, great action sequences and beautifully acted by Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw. Shaw, he of Jaws fame, is ice-cold and completely dedicated to getting what he wants, while Matthau is an endearing everyman who could easily have gone into his own spin-off series. Hell, I'd have watched another film with Matthau's Garber. Most importantly, the film leads up to one of the best endings ever- played just right and ending in media res. As the credits roll, you'll be smiling. 35 years on, Tony Scott has also adapted the book from which the 1974 film was based, so this isn't a remake in the strictest sense. But that won't stop me tearing it a new one, folks.

First problem, I say, as I pop open the hood of the film to take a look at it, is that Scott has clearly cast the lead roles the wrong way round. Denzel Washington can clearly play baddies well, as his Oscar for Training Day will attest, so while he's as endearing as he is in other films where he's the good guy, he's just too cool to be in the role of Garber. Cool, that's what Robert Shaw was. John Travolta, not so much. He needs to stop playing baddies altogether. Just... stop. People have talked endlessly about his easy charm, the kind of thing that came through in Grease and Pulp Fiction. In this, he's easily the worst possible drop-trou to the 1974 version as he overacts his way through yet another villain role, seemingly only there to demonstrate every possible vocal iteration of the word "motherfucker". Oh, and in an unintentionally hilarious moment, the word "bumhole". On the positive side of things, James Gandolfini captures the ineptitude of the Mayor of New York perfectly, even in spite of the script making him more competent than his predecessor towards the end of the film, and he has some of the best lines in the film.

Second problem, I say, poking at the mechanics of the film with a spanner, is the "updating" of the film. I feel that Pelham One Two Three was a film very much of its time. In the mid-70s, you can have a subway car full of New Yorkers react with derisive laughter when a gunman tells them he's hijacking the train. They have a cynicism and hard edge that only evaporates once they start shooting. Of course, something quite big happened in New York within the last ten years that now has "terrorist" being said almost as often as Travolta spouts "motherfucker". Post-9/11 subtext was one of the many things the film didn't need, and because it's an unfortunate necessity of setting a film like this in New York, it raises the question of whether it was necessary to remake the film in the first place. Additionally, you know you're in trouble when your film has a social networking sub-plot and vague allusions to the financial corruption that's landed us in the current credit crunch.

But the major problem, I yell, as I start smacking the film with a pipe-wrench, is Tony Scott's direction. He sits somewhere just above McG in the pantheon of awful directors, and he's far too content to bring in shaky-cam, aerial shots and rock music wherever he possibly can. He is not one of those directors who does subtlety. One scene in the original has a police car crash into a fire hydrant- understated because the significance of the crash to the plot is more important than the spectacle of it. The equivalent scene in this update has the car fly spectacularly off a bridge and roll several times, causing various other explosions around it as it goes. Don't even get me started on the jump-cuts and the horrible raping of that brilliant 1974 ending I mentioned. But replacing the hood for a moment, I have to grudgingly admit that most people will be entertained by this. It's got a lot going for it with Washington and Gandolfini at the centre, even if the former is miscast, and Scott didn't change enough of the story to make this a bad film.

The Taking of Pelham 123 is due a drubbing from anyone who's seen the 1974 version, and I strongly advise you to see that film instead of this one. Newer isn't better, but I admit that you could do a lot worse in an evening at the cinema than see this. On the other hand, the DVD costs but £2.99 online at its cheapest, and £5 in HMV. The 2009 version is a good film done poorly.



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The next films to be reviewed will be G-Force and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, and I obviously kept those back because I need help with witty subtitles and they have the G thing in common. Um, but also because they're both family films, obviously.

I'm the Mad Prophet of the Airwaves, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.
Mark.