THE HANGOVER 2- Review

'Four friends go and have a bachelor party ahead of (Name)'s wedding, and wind up having a wild drunken night in (Location). When they wake up the next morning, they have the mother of all hangovers, and find some gangsters are after them, looking for their (Noun). Worse still, they've managed to misplace (Name) and have to find him before the wedding. Oh, and there's a (Animal) in the bathroom.'

The Hangover Part II is, in every respect, mad-lib filmmaking. The structure of this sequel is practically identical to the original film, but this time it's mild-mannered dentist Stu, getting married in Thailand. He reluctantly invites along his best friend Phil and giant man-child Alan, and lives to regret it when they all wake up in Bangkok. Stu's future brother-in-law is missing, and apparently, "Bangkok has him now."

Part of what made The Hangover so enjoyable, for me at least, was how unexpected it was. Some fans are already saying this sequel is better, if the midnight screening crowd at Cineworld in Middlesbrough is anything to go by, and I fully anticipate that those people will say that it's unfair to compare to the original. Worse sequels have had this defence applied, but the similarities are so intrinsic here that it's impossible not to compare.

If this film itself were a hangover, you couldn't have had too much to drink, because prior events in these characters' lives are all too sharp in the viewers' memories. Of course you have to compare this to the original! Expecting otherwise is like expecting someone to like your dog better than any of the other dogs they've ever encountered. If it wags and chases its tail, barks, and has a wet nose, it's still a blimmin' dog. The Hangover Part II is pretty much of the exact same breed as its predecessor, but it's considerably more aggressive.

Director Todd Phillips has been promising that shit gets real when the Wolfpack reaches Bangkok, and that the sequel is wilder, darker and meaner than the original. The middle word there is a particular favourite as abstract concepts go. In all of the things that this one goes further with than The Hangover, it's not really funnier. As mentioned, I enjoyed that film because it was unexpected, but the whole rehash of the original is what lets the comedy down in this one.

The Hangover, in addition to all of its enjoyable performances and quotable dialogue and surreal twists, was a detective story. Our detectives, ably played by Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms, were all hapless and recovering from the biggest night out of their lives, but watching them pull together to solve the mystery worked so well for me because I didn't know where it would go next. Cooper, Galifianakis and Helms are all equally as good here, but in this instalment, I could easily guess where the plot was going.

If your viewing experience is anything like mine, you'll realise this in one of the film's more inventive moments, in which we see a flashback of events up to that point in the film, as re-enacted by young children. It's different, and surreal, and well-executed, but it didn't make me laugh. Some of the best gags are frittered away in the marketing too, like Alan's baldness and Stu's tattoo and the return of Ken Jeong as flamboyant gangster Chow. But the boldness of the film is almost all bravado and no real innovation.

Without the ability to surprise, the film goes in for shock tactics instead. It's harsher, alright, to the point where some will actually be offended. There was no danger of that in Vegas, which is somehow exponentially safer than Bangkok. Also, I know for a fact that a second act twist is lifted wholesale from an early draft of the first film, meaning that the sequel actually mined stuff that wasn't good enough to make it into the original. It's not all bad news though- one of the welcome reprisals of the first film comes in the closing credits montage, and that's easily the funniest part in each film.

The Hangover Part II is remarkably zippy, for a film in which all of the path laid ahead will be predictable to anybody who has seen the first film. I think that comes down to the fact that the performers are still on top form, their camaraderie preserved best of all, alongside just about everything else from two years ago. If Phillips and these guys want to make Part III, more power to them, and I'll see it. But I'd really, sincerely hope that they bring something different along next time. It's More Of The Same, capital M, O, T and S, but if you still really love the first one, I doubt you'll object too strongly to revisiting the Wolfpack.

The Hangover Part II is now showing in cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen The Hangover Part II, why not share your comments below? I'm taking a week off next week, but I'll return on June 6th with my review of X-Men: First Class.

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

WIN WIN- Review

While smaller British movies about family situations seem to range between the televisual and the brand of urban cinema sent up in Attack the Block, American movies somehow seem to make such stories wholly cinematic. Without getting into cultural differences, that cinematic quality is part of why I quite enjoyed the simple story of Win Win.

Maybe simple is the wrong word, because the plot kind of centres around an escalation of circumstances. Paul Giamatti is Mike Flaherty, a private practice attorney who's having financial difficulties and health problems involving stress. To ease the strain on his bank account, Mike takes on paid guardianship of an elderly client, who he promptly deposits into a care home. However, matters are complicated when the man's troubled grandson, Kyle, turns up on his doorstep.

As studios only seem to know one way to market each type of film, Win Win could easily have been edited into a trailer that pitched it as either a sports movie or a legal drama, when its actually something a little more complex than either. Handily, it very much fits into Fox Searchlight's remit, as an undemanding indie dramedy. Giamatti's starring role sees him looking a little more paunchy that I remembered, but the type of schlubby everyman he has perfected is still present and correct.

The film comes to life with the arrival of Alex Shaffer as Kyle. Although the performance is intentionally uninflected or blunt for the most part, the entrance of his character is the catalyst for a great deal of character development, not least with Mike's wife Jackie, played by Amy Ryan. Jackie serves a plot point in insisting upon putting a roof over Kyle's head despite the family's financial bother, but the scenes between Ryan and Shaffer really develop the relationship between them. There's a great sympathetic chemistry that always kept me interested.

The relationship between Mike and Kyle is a little simpler- Mike coaches the woefully bad high school wrestling team, and Kyle happens to have been a runner-up at a previous state championship. Mike snaps up Kyle right away, and so at first, they're uniting through sports in typical male bonding fashion. Where that develops Mike's character is in how we slowly see him realising the error of his ways with Kyle's grandfather, affectingly played by Burt Young.

What's so simple and yet honest about where Mike begins in this story is that he's not exploiting Kyle's grandpa for selfish reasons. He's a father figure, and like so many Hollywood father figures, he's flawed, but Giamatti is always a very involving screen presence. And so the generic aspects of the sports drama and the legal drama, each of which cross into the narrative as Mike heads towards the heats for state wrestling championship and a legal to-do with Kyle's errant mother, serve the drama that they're taking place in rather than tipping the film in one direction or the other.

In Win Win, we have a film as balanced as its title. It's a film that is typical of Tom McCarthy, who previously directed The Station Agent and The Visitor, but there's nothing old-hat or dull about his humanist approach. Its only failing is its readiness to end so hastily, which suggests that the closing point for the character of Mike pre-empted the process of actually getting him there. But the film is nothing if not a warm, forthright and relatable film about a good man doing the wrong thing, and how that affects his relationships.

Win Win is now showing in cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen Win Win, why not share your comments below? Paul Giamatti and Jeffrey Tambor will return, in The Hangover Part II...

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

BLITZ- Review

Ali Plumb wrote a blog entry last week on Empire Online, praising Jason Statham. The point that really stuck with me, from that entry, was that "he is his own genre". People know what to expect from a Jason Statham movie, and unless that movie is Gnomeo & Juliet, they're certainly going to get it. Blitz is what happens when the satisfaction of those expectations collides with an adaptation of a Ken Bruen novel.

Statham plays DS Brant, a bullish copper who treats South East London like his very own china shop. His station is currently under scrutiny from the press as a result of Brant's very public displays of police brutality towards criminals. While trying to lay low, a murderer calling himself Blitz begins a killing spree, picking off police officers methodically. Teamed with a strait-laced inspector, Brant seeks to bring Blitz to justice, through fair means or foul.

If regular readers of my reviews are wondering why the name of novelist Ken Bruen sounds so familiar. He's the guy who wrote the novel London Boulevard was based upon, and also serves as executive producer on Blitz. Nathan Parker, who wrote Moon, follows William Monahan in writing a rubbish script that happens to come from one of Bruen's novels, and that's a coincidence I shan't ignore. While I haven't read any of Bruen's work, these two recent films based on his books both have the most threadbare stories, reinforced only by the misplaced talents of the cast and crew.

Here's a Thing, that's happened in superhero movies of late. Back in the days when it was Adam West or even George Clooney playing Batman, it was all very frothy stuff. But now, we have Christian Bale as the Dark Knight. Robert Downey Jr. is Iron Man, Edward Norton was the Hulk, Andrew Garfield is going to be Spider-Man- all properly great actors who up the philosophical quotient of these comic book adventures and open them up as more acceptable guilty pleasures to more snobby audiences. And with the arrival of Blitz, I can't help but wonder if London Boulevard marked the start of a similar trend in low-rent British crime movies.

Not that this is unfamiliar territory for Aidan Gillen, whose character is pretty much represented as a poor man's Batman villain, alias and methodology and all. Gillen acquits himself best, having always quite easily crossed between roles in films like this and 12 Rounds, and lauded television like Queer as Folk and The Wire. His character may be written as a cod-Heath Ledger’s Joker, but his performance is much more. Given the calibre of the rest of the cast, their performances are lesser.

Paddy Considine manfully manages the marginalised role of a homosexual policeman who apparently comes to see Brant's way as the correct way- think “the right way, the wrong way, and the Max Power way” again. Ridiculously named "Porter Nash", it's a waste of a fine actor in a role that effectively stops developing once the film's buddy cop movie strand aborts, to make way for more gritty and violent stuff. The particular talents of the always watchable Statham are put to good use, even if it’s in a pretty unlikeable role.

The idea of the archaic cop who gets the right results isn’t exactly untested, having been refined to a high art form by Phillip Glenister’s portrayal of DCI Gene Hunt, but it’s really old hat in films by now. Plus, everyone we meet from the force seems affably corrupt in one way or another in this film, so what is there for Brant to rebel against? As a result, Brant is such a cartoon grunt that it would be out of character for him to have anything more than grudging acceptance of Nash's sexuality and ideological differences, at a point where the film intends to appear all equal opportunities for about ten seconds. Instead, it backfires, coming across with a condescending and surprised inflection that gay men are apparently just as capable as all other men. The very idea!

So this isn't the more enjoyable vehicle for Statham that I wanted to see when I finished watching The Mechanic. The visceral nature of the violence demands that we take it entirely seriously, which makes all the one-liners and trademark Statham moments quite jarring. The plot hares off all over the place, just like London Boulevard, with many abortive plotlines that pad out the running time to where it feels long at a mere 97 minutes. It feels like a too-faithful adaptation of a book in its construction, which I can't confirm because I never, ever want to read any of Bruen's stuff.

While the idea of a Dirty Harry-style series of British cop movies with Jason Statham in the lead role is quite appealing, Blitz ain’t the start of anything. In fact, it barely ends, limping to an unsatisfying conclusion after what feels like an age. The film is also one of those British crime movies that's too much of a British crime movie, as we know them. The tropes are tired, and only the frequently unfulfilled promise of the actors involved is new. It’s violent, it’s dumb and, if you like it, it's the guiltiest of pleasures- but like the other recent Ken Bruen outing, it's far too ugly a film to really enjoy.

Blitz is now showing in cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen Blitz, why not share your comments below?

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

The Zero Room #8- Trouble and Strife

This time, we've got two episodes juggled out of their original place in the Series 6 running order, and yet still perfectly suitable for the third/fourth episode region of the series. It'll get moodier later on, but for now we have the historical rompage of The Curse of the Black Spot and the gorgeously challenging romance of The Doctor's Wife.

Reviews will contain spoilers, so if you haven't seen the episode yet, toddle over to the iPlayer, or watch BBC Three at some point in the next century's worth of repeats.

Seemingly timed to coincide with the new release of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, The Curse of the Black Spot begins with the TARDIS picking up a distress call from a troubled ship. As it turns out, it's an actual sea-faring boaty kind of ship towards the end of the 17th century. Captain Avery has just taken the biggest pirate haul in history and now his ship is stranded in the middle of a still ocean, beset by an enchanting and deadly siren.

Occasionally, Doctor Who does a "just for fun" kind of episode. Last year, it was The Vampires of Venice, which also seemed to be timed around the release of Eclipse, sort of. Having rewatched the fifth series recently, I found Toby Whithouse's episode to be much better than I had remembered. Perhaps The Curse of the Black Spot will similarly appreciate in value, but as of right now, I can't imagine revisiting the episode unless it's part of a marathon viewing.

It comes down to the fact that it all feels a little rush-released. In 77 episodes of "New Who" up to this point, there hasn't been so glaring a narrative omission as the one that takes place here. Lee Ross is a relatively minor character, as the Boatswain, but he literally disappears. We see him wounded, and the black spot swells on his palm, but we cut away before he's taken. The Doctor and Avery don't ask where he went, Amy and Rory don't tell them what happened- he just drops out of the plot and reappears at the happy ending.

It shouldn't bother me, but it kind of ruins the whole episode for me. I can take as read that he was snaffled by the Siren for healing purposes off-screen, but that none of the characters ever acknowledge it just feels out of character. Not only for the Doctor, Amy and Rory, but for the programme, which is usually on the ball with even the most fantastical stories. Throw in the fact that it's probably one of the slower episodes of Doctor Who since the series returned, and the joins are all too clear in the process between bumping this one up from ninth to third in the running order and getting it to the screen.

It's not all bad news- it never is in Doctor Who. Hugh Bonneville is happy to be here, even if he seems a little bit harmless for an apparently bloodthirsty pirate. The idea of the Siren is a sound one, and Lily Cole is threatening and bewitching enough that it's convincing to see the Doctor having to second-guess his theories about what she's up to. But when she eventually turns out to be benevolent, the twist doesn't have enough momentum to land with more than a thud. Merlin director Jeremy Webb will be coming back to helm the final episode of Series 6 in the Autumn, and I can't say I'm looking forward to it.

The Curse of the Black Spot brings too little to the table for it to properly stand out. It's by far the most forgettable episode of Matt Smith's run so far, but it's no fault of the actors. In particular, Arthur Darvill does well despite Rory getting yet another death scene. He's dying every single week now- there's just no impact anymore. It's not a poorly conceived episode, but it seems to be have been turned around too quickly. It's textbook MOR Who, but it strives to be a proper swashbuckling adventure. In that much, it goes the way of the first two Pirates of the Caribbean sequels- it's disappointing, but not a total loss. 

The Doctor's Wife was bumped from the episode 3 slot and, before that, from the back end of last year's series. So Neil Gaiman's long-awaited script for the series has the Doctor receive a message that suggests there might be Time Lords, and friendly ones at that, hiding out in a bubble universe. The moment the TARDIS touches down in an impossible scrapyard, it's enfolded in a trap that brings the Doctor face to face with his oldest travelling companion, while Amy and Rory are imperilled in her corridors.

I think it's fair to say that most Doctor Who fans are unabashedly conservative in their outlook on the series, especially those fans who've been watching it since the original run. Those fans waited 16 long years, wanting a new TV series, but more importantly, most of them wanted the series to be the same as it always was. Doctor Who occasionally has to make change, especially in the new era. And Gaiman has given us an episode that could change the way you look at the last 40+ years of adventures in time and space.

Of course, the title is about as apt as The Doctor's Daughter was, being an inventive episode that was hamstrung by its high concept. Figuratively speaking, Matt Smith's Doctor and Suranne Jones, as the human manifestation of his TARDIS, are like an old married couple, hence the TARDIS being The Doctor's Wife. Some will argue that the relationship between the pilot and the motor has always been more complex than we see here, but with such grand performances and writing, I'm finding it hard to complain.

Only Smith and Jones can properly carry off the flirty dynamic between the Doctor and Idris, who's carrying the TARDIS' matrix, or personality if you will, around in her head. It was enjoyable in Day of the Moon a couple of weeks ago with the Doctor and River Song, and Smith sparks off of Jones nicely too. Jones channels Helena Bonham Carter, on whom your mileage may vary, again, as a TARDIS bamboozled by her suddenly acquired humanity. Ever since Ian Chesterton touched the door in An Unearthly Child, she's always been described as alive, and now she gets a chance to bite back after being blamed for the Doctor's directional difficulties for decades.

Inside the police box, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill get a proper subplot for a change, and it's one that only indulges in the minimal amount of Rory being killed off. There must be some kind of quota. Never mind though, because it gives them room to breathe without being upstaged by the Doctor, and they're terrorised in their expedition through the corridors by House, voiced by an oddly incognito Michael Sheen. The episode strikes a nice balance between the Doctor and his companions, but the emotional core remains apparent throughout.

As a self-contained episode, it's a very welcome reprieve from the narrative building antics of Day of the Moon, with a very small cast and some very memorable performances. Even Adrian Shiller and Elizabeth Berrington are better on-screen than their characters as written. Richard Clarke, who previously directed the sublime Gridlock, delivers another grand-scale episode that isn't a series opener, a ratings-grabber or a finale. And better, the budget put into this long anticipated story is all up there on-screen, even with the presence of an Ood and the RTD-era console room being visible cost-cutting measures.

The Doctor's Wife canonises a fan interpretation of the Doctor's relationship with the TARDIS- that the latter chose the former and not the other way around- and it would be a shame if that's not acknowledged after the credits roll. Even if the events of this episode are only mentioned one more time, it would be better than entirely forgetting this episode in the more complicated arcing story of the series. It should please the fans with its copious Who literacy, and intrigue the new audience in equal measure- please, Neil Gaiman, may we have another?

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We'll return to The Zero Room in three weeks' time with reviews of the remaining episodes before the series takes a break for the summer. Until then, why not share your comments below?

The next episode of Doctor Who, The Rebel Flesh, airs on BBC One and BBC HD on Saturday 21st May at 6.45pm.

ON STRANGER TIDES- Pirates 4 Review

There's a strong argument, mostly being made by myself, that Pirates of the Caribbean- On Stranger Tides is the sequel we always should have had to the 2003 swashbuckler that started it all. I don't mean that it's the best sequel possible, but that it's following the formula of the Indiana Jones films by bringing back one or two characters from previous instalments and telling a new adventure, rather than going for cod-epic storytelling.

It's not completely without ties to the impenetrable mush of At World's End, as it picks up with Captain Jack Sparrow having seemingly given up on his search for the Fountain of Youth, on which we left him sailing into the sunset. As he arrives in England, it's revealed that an impostor is posing as Jack, with plans to recruit a crew and mount a search for the Fountain themselves. Jack is soon drawn into a race for eternal life, between a Spanish Armada, his old foe Captain Barbossa and the legendary Captain Blackbeard.

It's after watching this latest instalment that I realise I have a strange affinity with the series. The first one is unabashedly enjoyable, but there tends to be more debate on the quality of the two sequels, and with good reason. Heard of "Six Characters in Search of an Author"? The first three Pirates of the Caribbean films serve as "Three Films in Search of a Trilogy", with the convoluted ties to the first film and over-plotted action outright ruining the series for some point.

As for my own affinity, I don't dislike the series as certain other reviewers do. I recognise that At World's End is a load of bullshit, concerned with such contrived devices as "the ninth Piece of Eight" or whatever the hell that film was about, and that Dead Man's Chest didn't so much end as trail the third instalment. But on their own merits, I found things to enjoy in each of those movies. And so I suspect that while the consensus will be against On Stranger Tides, I found more to enjoy here than in the previous sequels.

That said, it still doesn't hold itself very well. It's a good half an hour shorter than the previous instalment, but that still makes it 137 minutes, when there's a much more enjoyable 100 minute film sitting within, waiting for an editor to piece it together. The action takes about 45 minutes to get going, and when it does, there's no real drive or thrust to the plot. My earlier comparison to Indy earlier on works here, as the hunt for the Fountain of Youth resembles the plot of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade at times, but while that film has one group of characters to root for, screenwriters Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio plump for a sprawling cast. Again.

Another of the problems carried over from its immediate predecessors in the series is the lack of a villain. Geoffrey Rush is the best thing in this one, but his Captain Barbossa, so brilliant an antagonist on the first outing, has long since become more of an anti-hero. In this one, he's even a privateer for the English, albeit with ulterior motives. I suppose the de facto antagonist here is Blackbeard, played by an underused Ian McShane. As usual then, it resorts to having the characters argue a lot and double-cross one another.

Rob Marshall replaces Gore Verbinski in the director's chair, but it's Elliot and Rossio who need to be ushered out, because they just never seem to get to the point. For instance, there's a scene in which a character is forced to jump off a cliff, to an uncertain fate. Before that character eventually jumps, we have a refusal, some argument, emotional blackmail, a ridiculously redundant Russian Roulette set-up and a bit of hoodoo, before the character just jumps anyway. And don't get me started on Keith Richards.

They also seem to have no sense of timing, as writers. If you pay attention to the dialogue, you realise that the plot takes place over a fortnight. After a great opening sequence set in London, the progression of time is thus- one scene in daylight, and then an extended setpiece at night. Most of this movie takes place in the dark, which not only makes the sunny Caribbean settings pointless, but also probably makes for great viewing in super-dim 3D. I stuck with 2D, personally, though I concede I was sort of impressed by the 3D in the trailers for the film.

I enjoyed On Stranger Tides enough that I really want to say good things about it, so I shall. Johnny Depp shows no signs of getting bored in the lead role, and if you're not bored of him playing it either, he's still a lot of fun to watch as Captain Jack. Some of the action is a little repetitive, four films in, but there are two really good setpieces at the beginning and at the midpoint. I think I'd personally have opened the film on the latter, which is an excellently constructed scene that establishes the film's take on mermaids. Then again, I'd also have got it done in 100 minutes.

Pirates of the Caribbean- On Stranger Tides marks a partial return to the entertaining form of The Curse of the Black Pearl, but as with latter instalments, it is still slightly discordant. To refer to Pirandello again, it's like Six Subplots in Search of a Movie, because there's not much to the McGuffin that's supposed to actually unite the strands. I found it enjoyable, but it did string out my enjoyment across the laborious running time. For some, it will be a step too far, if your enjoyment has been strung out since the first film, but it's still a step in the right direction. Let's have a change in the writing department next time though.

Pirates of the Caribbean- On Stranger Tides is now showing in 2D and 3D at cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen Pirates of the Caribbean- On Stranger Tides, why not share your comments below?

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

JULIA'S EYES- Review

The thing about appreciating foreign films like Julia's Eyes is that my enthusiasm is immediately tempered by the dread of a boneheaded American-language remake if it becomes any kind of box office success. We're fortunate that Pan's Labyrinth and The Orphanage, which also had Guillermo del Toro involved in some capacity, haven't yet been dumbed down for the PG-13 crowd, but I can't help but wonder if his latest production will be pillaged.

Perhaps the rubbish Jessica Alba flick The Eye will put them off, as this one also gets under the eyelids of sight-related horror. Twin sisters Julia and Sara share a degenerative sight disorder, which has already made Sara 100% blind. At the opening of the film, Sara hangs herself in her basement. Julia isn't convinced it was suicide, as Sara was optimistic about an eye transplant operation, and much to the chagrin of her doting husband, she needs to find answers.

Relatively early on in the film, it becomes apparent that it could go in one of two ways. As per usual, that means Sara's suicide could have been influenced by supernatural forces or simply by worldly bastards. The film is a little overlong at 112 minutes, but refreshingly, Julia's Eyes refuses to rely on that ambiguity of nature for too long, and it's a film that constantly shifts its terms slightly with each subsequent twist, to keep you intrigued throughout.

In all honesty, it would be quite a typical horror film, but writer-director Guillem Morales never quite lets it settle that way. For one thing, it's wonderfully shot, with some excellent use of POV shots as Julia's sight begins to deteriorate in the second act. Morales gets to the core of the loss of control that comes with the loss of Julia's sight, spending a number of scenes that introduce new characters showing only Julia's face. She can't see them, nor can we, and somewhere out there, a monster is prowling.

I can't pretend that I didn't second-guess that particular revelation, even with the impressive seclusion of the viewer to heighten the tension. It's clumsily foreshadowed at one point, in a way from which lesser films would have difficulty in recovering. But when that revelation comes to pass, the tension goes right through the ceiling five seconds later. The offending twist becomes almost like a non-event in the new disequilibrium that we're confronted with- you might have seen it coming, but move on, now this is happening.

This is what supports the film past the potentially more concise 90 minute running time, and I can't say I was ever bored with the film. Its principal strength is in its loving development of characters. Belén Rueda really makes Julia a character worth caring about, because she's experienced and expressive in her performance. There's none of the leering misanthropy that Hollywood horror cinema has towards much younger heroines, and subsequently, you're just as invested in the character's fate as you should be.

I was also impressed by Lluís Homar's turn as Julia's husband Isaac, a carefully constructed character who's well established early on so that his arc with Julia packs the most profound emotional punch later on. It's a film that prizes the emotional value of fear rather than the adrenaline rush that accompanies a jump scare. Compared to the one-note jump-scares of Platinum Dunes' output, Julia's Eyes is a symphony of terror. Somehow, everyone in the world seems to understand that, except Hollywood.

Julia's Eyes isn't going to shock more jaded horror fans into acclaim, but it is classy, beautifully assembled and never, even for a moment, any less than intriguing. It could probably use a good edit, to take out some of the running time, but it's always taking care to build the characters and build the story in a way that's all too rare in the genre these days. Its devices may be those you have seen before, but it ticks so many of the right boxes in its execution that it's hard to begrudge its excellence.

Julia's Eyes is released on Friday, in selected cinemas nationwide.
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When you see Julia's Eyes, why not share your comments below?

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

BlogalongaBond- YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE Review

This is at least as funny as looks.

After the soggy escapades of Thunderball, this fifth outing for James Bond goes back to basics. This would be a good thing, if it weren't for the fact that it goes back to basics by lifting plot points out of From Russia With Love wholesale. And so You Only Live Twice is where the Connery era finally slumps into an unyielding formula.

As in From Russia With Love, we open with the sight of Bond being assassinated. Once again, he's not really dead, but this time, it's in order to restore Bond's effectiveness as a secret agent by faking his death and convincing his enemies that he's no longer a threat. This allows him to operate with the Japanese secret service as they investigate the inflammatory actions of SPECTRE that has led to a diplomatic crisis between America and Russia.

More than most of the James Bond films I've watched so far, You Only Live Twice is a film that is entirely of its time. It's infused with both the technological optimism of the 1960s, and the general anxiety that came out of the Cuban missile crisis. The film presents a battle bolstered by the progress of technology, and simultaneously made into a political minefield as SPECTRE makes efforts to escalate the space race into an outright conflict.

Without vivid memories of the subsequent instalments, I'm also going to guess that this is the last time the filmmakers could really get away with representing Great Britain as a superpower in the way they do this time around. With no signs of the nation's post-war decline in sight, the United Kingdom is portrayed as the rational mediator in a petulant feud between America and Russia, America being more prepared to push the button and go for all-out war than the UK was in From Russia With Love.

Also privileged on the political side of things is Japan, in which the film's interest is more than enough to match Thunderball's fervour for all things aquatic. It's Japanese intelligence agents who are Bond's main allies, but unknowingly, a rogue Japanese element serve as SPECTRE's clients, engineering the war between the rival superpowers for reasons that are only inferred. Largely though, it's more of a fascination with Japan's heritage and culture that plays out in the gorgeous aerial establishing shots and loving cinematography.

There's a less savoury part of privileging the rationality of the UK over Japan's division of loyalties within the narrative, and it naturally involves some cringeworthy and outdated racial attitudes. Bond's very first line in the film has him muse over why Chinese girls taste different to all other girls. What a charmer, eh? Although the quintessentially British 007 appears to take on the best part of Japanese values later on in the film, the best part as portrayed here is the men's values. But then all the women are under-developed in this one, even by the standards of the series so far.

That's quite enough political analysis for this review- it's a James Bond film, fer cryin' out loud. That does mean that there is nothing uniquely Roald Dahl in the Roald Dahl-penned screenplay, with the producers preaching the tried-and-tested formula as a guideline. Dahl had already written a Bond villain by that point, in the guise of Willy Wonka. In the elaborate death trap stakes, "accidentally" disposing of unspeakably bratty children on a tour of an eccentrically designed chocolate factory is second only to Blofeld's collapsing bridge over a pool of ravenous piranha.

Speaking of whom, You Only Live Twice is arguably best remembered for the moment in which the face of SPECTRE's Number One is finally revealed. Granted, it's Donald Pleasence's only outing in the role of Bond's arch-nemesis, who then regenerated in every single film thereafter, and he's only in it for about ten minutes overall. And for those ten minutes, there's no real banter between him and Connery- Bond just seems bored. Still, it's worth it for the stunning hero shot Pleasence gets as ninjas bust through the roof of his headquarters to wreck his shit. It's an expression that subtly screams "Ninjas. Damn!", which was nice, given how that was approximately how I reacted too.

The silliness of the Ninjacademy, which Bond attends for about a week before emerging as an apparently valmorphanised Japanese ninja, is just par for the course in this series by now. The film feels surprisingly padded out, with the entire turning Japanese sequence being eminently cuttable. This is mostly because it's stressed that ninjas are masters of stealth and subterfuge, and that's why Bond needs to learn their ways too. At right about the time we cut to Pleasence's great reaction shot, Bond and the ninja army have crashed into the complex with all the stealth of a drunk coming home from a night out.

You Only Live Twice is better than Thunderball, by the virtue of being more interesting and having some truly outstanding action sequences. But across the first five films alone, the basis for every joke in the Austin Powers series has already been entirely laid out. No matter how repetitive you think Mike Myers got by the time of Goldmember, the series was already repeating bits from its second film at this early point. It has an appreciable affection for all things Japanese and an inherently whistle-able title tune, but at this stage in the 007 marathon, I think some kind of change is needed...

#5- A valmorphanised "Japanese" Sean Connery looks awfully like a Vulcan Sean Connery. Live long and proshper!

For a full list of everyone's work on BlogalongaBond so far, click here.

The Mad Prophet Will Return, With On Her Majesty's Secret Service... in June.

ATTACK THE BLOCK- Review

Nestled into a cushy niche in the hectic release schedule of summer 2011, Attack the Block arrives in cinemas and immediately announces itself as the film to beat, between now and September. I've made no secret of the fact that I've really been looking forward to this feature debut from Joe Cornish, of Adam and Joe fame, and happily it measures up to expectations.

The bones of the story are essentially like the basis for a Battle: Brixton movie, as an alien spore containing a vicious man-eating beast plummets into the midst of a South London council estate, interrupting a mugging. The muggers, five teenagers who live on the block, are attacked by the beast, but are able to overpower and kill it. As the kids celebrate their trophy, they don't realise that more spores are on the way- much bigger spores.

The immediate problem that some will have with Attack the Block is that we're expected to sympathise with chavs. There's more to them than that, but the characters are still chavs. Nevertheless, there's a case to be made that both the film's detractors and Cornish's script are guilty of simplifying the character types. To those who are too easily reminded of Eden Lake, and of course the yobs they've encountered in real life, the parallel is set up very early on through a middle aged woman calling the kids "fucking monsters". And then the real monsters turn up.

That concept of "inner city vs. outer space" is innovative and interesting enough that the hero yobs never irked me when they weren't supposed to. On the other hand, we do first meet them as they mug the supposed audience identification figure, a nurse called Sam, played by Jodie Whittaker. This is so harsh an introduction that the film spends a lot of time trying to reconcile the muggers and the victim when they're forced to unite, and these are the only times in which the film rings slightly false.

That's really the full extent of the potentially problematic stuff in Attack the Block, which is as bold and accomplished a debut as Richard Ayoade's Submarine, with all the ambition and technical aptitude of Duncan Jones' Moon. Cornish blends easily with that new wave of British filmmakers dedicated to ambitious and commercial projects that don't forsake storytelling, or that British sense of humour. His brilliant work re-enacting popular blockbusters using only toys in his bedroom on The Adam and Joe Show has somehow translated into a live-action visual sense that outdoes most of the film's relevant contenders in the very first shot.

However, virtually nobody else out there is making British films as ambitious as Cornish has. And under the Spielbergian touches, such as that sumptuous establishing shot that opens the film, there's the entirely valid current of social commentary. John Boyega, Simon Howard, Leeon Jones, Alex Esmail and Franz Drameh may not play hoodies you can hug, but they're all rounded and distinctive characters, equally capable of being despicable, as in the beginning of their journey, and heroic. It's only a shame that the portrayal of yobs on screen will conflict so wildly with the cinema behaviour of the audience it will attract.

It comes in at a lean, mean 88 minutes, and it's all muscle. Nothing's gratuitous, as we zip from the streets to the 19th floor of the block at the break-neck pace of a modern Doctor Who episode, while keeping the stakes high and the characters in mortal peril. The 15 certificate isn't merely for strong language and drug references- the violence of these gloriously designed creatures is faithfully represented, blood and guts and all. The film gets away with not probing the aliens too deeply on the strength of that eccentric character design and the sheer brilliance of the action choreography. 

Attack the Block is a curiously difficult film to define. It's not a ribald comedy, but it is funny. It's not a sci-fi film, but it does have aliens in it. It's not an outright horror, but it consistently jolts you out of your seat. Dismissing issues of genre, it's simpler to say that it's a stupefying success from a director who wastes no time proving that he's enormously talented and refreshingly optimistic. Cornish is also a good enough writer to ensure that the characters are accessible to anyone who's willing to take a chance on some unconventional movie heroes, in a film that's as cinematic as British cinema gets. Your move, Super 8.

Attack the Block is now showing in cinemas nationwide.
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 I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

SOMETHING BORROWED- Review

Not since Vampires Suck has there been such a momentously shit film as to prompt a Lolcats style banner to the effect of "FUCK THIS MOVIE". This is a film that slightly deviates from the predictable romantic comedy formula but in all of the wrong directions. A film that is a torturous and toxic viewing experience. A film that happens to star Kate Hudson. This is the neutron bomb, folks- this is Something Borrowed.

The premise itself is not entirely uninteresting. Two best friends, Rachel and Darcy, are in love with the same bloke, Dex. Dex and Rachel were study buds, and had a painfully shy mutual affection for one another all through law school. He ended up engaged to Darcy, and after a drunken surprise birthday party, Rachel winds up sleeping with Dex. Interested? Here's where they go wrong.

The principal character trait in this one, often despicably brought forward as a virtue rather than a foible, is cowardice. Dex is too cowardly to break off his engagement and go for Rachel, and Rachel is cowardly to a cartoonish degree, to the point where the entire message of the film is that she should think about herself rather than thinking of others. Isn't that almost like a Russian reversal of most romantic comedy plots?

If you haven't gathered from my strident hatred for the film so far, it's another of those romantic comedies that's neither romantic nor funny. Best typified by the recent oeuvre of Allan Loeb, the principal flaw in the mainstream genre is that characters won't communicate with one another. Nobody simply comes out and suggests that talking like grown-ups might be a more desirable course of action. Something Borrowed represents a film in which that problem is lampshaded and yet still never addressed.

That, to me, is even worse. The film is not simply being inept- it revels in its ineptitude and the immaturity of its characters. It's also a film that has even less faith in its own central conceit than the audience will. By Rachel's inaction, you might think her best friend would be the more sympathetic character, but the film goes to pains to practically portray Darcy as a supervillain. She's obnoxious, boorish and twatty, and in its own way, that makes Kate Hudson's performance quite a success.

Ginnifer Goodwin is a likeable enough actress, but there's only so much you can do with a heroine of such inaction, and she fails to even do much of that. Many fans of the perpetually vanilla John Krasinski have this down on their to-watch list. He's similarly afflicted as the Gay Best Friend, mired in further inaction by the fact that his character is heterosexual. Furthermore, he's another unlikeable bumbag who represses everything rather than putting it out where it might be less painful to watch. At one point he tells an old flame, who is demonised for weak comic effect, that he's gay rather than simply say he's not into her.

None of this is funny. None of it is clever. Some of it is just insanely offensive, actually. It spends so much of its 111 minutes consoling itself that it's not a film about unlikeable characters prolonging their own agony that it doesn't notice how it's a film about unlikeable characters prolonging their own agony, and the audience's agony. It's another film in which moneyed arseholes superficially hash out their problems as though they're insecure teenagers. In a film that principally features moneyed fucknuts hashing out their problems in a state of utter self-absorption, and the supposedly sympathetic Rachel's whole character arc is to make her more selfish, what the hell is there to care about?

Does anybody actually like Kate Hudson? Her fanbase must be concealed and I fear they may strike at any moment like stupid ninjas, because it's on her name that Something Borrowed is sold. So I spit on her name, for inflicting any part of this emotionally infantile, self-absorbed, self-consolatory twatastrophe upon the planet. It is, finally, a romantic comedy that doesn't end the way you'd expect, but at what cost? The actual ending is not surprising so much as unbelievably crass and unconsidered, just like the rest of it. If cinema sinks lower this year, I'm quitting.

Something Borrowed is now showing in cinemas nationwide- don't you give it a fucking penny.
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If you've seen Something Borrowed, why not share your comments below? Oh, and speaking of Vampires Suck, guess what? As if this week couldn't get any worse, this happens...

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

13 ASSASSINS- Review

It was announced last week that the director of The Tournament, Scott Mann, who hails from my hometown, has signed up to direct a modern remake of Seven Samurai. Yeah, that Seven Samurai. It's not to say it won't turn out perfectly fine, but it's difficult to discount that we've already had The Magnificent Seven and even A Bug's Life, as well as a period piece set in Japan that owes a debt to Kurosawa's original, 13 Assassins.

Young Lord Naritsugu enjoys a position of privilege above practically everyone else, because he is the younger brother of the Shogun, and so his life is sacred. Unfortunately, he's also a sadistic monster who murders and destroys at will. As the age of the samurai is on the way out, an old samurai named Shinzaemon is hired to assassinate Naritsugu. He discreetly recruits 12 more assassins to his suicide mission and prepare for a confrontation.

The version of 13 Assassins now playing in UK cinemas is 126 minutes long, and it's comprised of one part historical politics and one part balls-to-the-wall, headsploding, sword-slicing mayhem. Seasoned director Takashi Miike has constructed what some are calling his masterpiece, and not without good reason. The plot, with all of its historical implications and faith to the political entanglements of feudal Japan, is deceptively simple. The first hour serves to develop the characters, and all else is a sustained battle sequence that is just awe-inspiring.

Although I maintain that the film owes a very clear debt to the formula of Seven Samurai, it's also a film that throws in a flaming stampede of cows to prefix its centrepiece action sequence. Just to repeat that- the cows are on fire. Samurai films may be nothing new, and this may repeat elements of previous outings, but it has cows on fire. Its surprisingly funny and always innovative moments of spectacle are what set it apart.

It's unfortunate that the titular assassins are less distinctive from one another. Seven Samurai has almost half as many protagonists and it's a much longer film, so it's far more difficult to fully characterise every single one of Shinzaemon's mates. Naturally, the eccentric loon, as played by Toshirô Mifune in Kurosawa's film and by Yûsuke Iseya in this one, stands out. The rest are less lucky, and it's easy to lose sight of who's dead and who's alive in the final melee. On the plus side, Kôji Yakusho makes Shinzaemon a well-rounded character, particularly in his stand-offs with the baddies.

Almost as if to compensate for the vagaries of all those protagonists, Shinzaemon has a conflicted friendship-cum-rivalry with Hanbei, a former samurai who works as an adviser to Naritsugu that's really quite transfixing. These two men strategise against one another with utterly opposed objectives, and it's their story that really comes to the fore. Gorô Inagaki must also be applauded for his deliciously villainous turn as Naritsugu, a villain you really can't wait to see getting his comeuppance. It only makes that extended climax sweeter.

Although you have more to go on from their motivation than you do from the characters of most of our titular 13 Assassins, Miike has made a triumphant tribute to the samurai epic. It is ludicrously enjoyable, inventively choreographed and just an all-around satisfying movie experience. More importantly, it's a film with all the trappings of a modern classic. For a director as prolific as Miike, that's something very special indeed.

13 Assassins is now playing in select cinemas nationwide. It will also be released on DVD and blu-ray on September 5th.
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I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

HANNA- Review

Hanna may be seen as an unusual outing for director Joe Wright, who has in recent years given us Pride and Prejudice, Atonement and The Soloist. But nevertheless it's an action-packed antithesis to several recent rubbish films that purportedly had themes of female empowerment and independence, like Sucker Punch and Red Riding Hood.

It’s a modern fairytale that sees a young girl rescued from a wicked witch by her kind father. The modern part is that they hide in the North Pole. And the witch is ruthless CIA Agent Marissa Viegler. And the kind father, Erik, has been training Hanna’s body and mind to be the ultimate killing machine, to wreak revenge upon "the witch". When she's unleashed upon the world, and Marissa and her cronies begin to hunt her, she begins to adapt to life outside of her spartan existence to discover culture and companionship.

First and foremost, Hanna is a character-driven drama, which suits Wright's palette a little better than, say, The Expendables would have. But it's also a character-driven drama that happens to have an awful lot of kick-ass action sequences. In a way that is entirely unexpected, Wright announces himself as an action director to be reckoned with, fully capable of developing strong and empathic characters and shooting fight scenes that aren't shot two inches away with a shakycam, a la Bourne.

As we understand the story, Hanna views the world, and her revenge mission, through the prism of the stories of the Brothers Grimm, one of the few indulgences that her father seems to have allowed her as he constantly sneak-attacks the girl to prepare her for the future. The fairytale elements of the story are not always subtle, but they can always be appreciated. Unlike the grand histrionics of Red Riding Hood, it actually does bring an implicit coolness to the modern fairytale approach, with a script that’s strong regardless of how blatant the Grimm references may be.

Hanna also supersedes Sucker Punch by empowering a character who just happens to be female, without sexualising or objectifying her to remind us that she's only a silly woman or anything like that. Saoirse Ronan is an actress I really enjoy watching, and she’s on stunning form here. By turns, she's Hit Girl from Kick-Ass and Daryl Hannah in Splash adjusting to the complexities of the world around her without even having to don burlesque outfits or retreat into some imaginary bordello. Even Hanna’s partial sexual awakening as she encounters her first true friend is remarkably tasteful and heartwarming.

Eric Bana shows off his seldom aired action chops and Cate Blanchett makes for a despicable witch. As Ronan, Bana and Blanchett orbit around one another on their respective missions, the film’s 111 minutes flies by. Its pace is abetted even further by the work of Tom Hollander, who is equally camp and sinister as the tracksuited German henchman, Isaacs. His whistling of his character's leit-motif is both creepy and jaunty at the same time, and he injects some fun into the drama.

There’s also a soundtrack from The Chemical Brothers that stands out as one of the best scores since Daft Punk’s efforts on Tron: Legacy. Like that score, this one has been much discussed in the initial hype around Hanna, to the point where even I had bought the album and listened to it all the way through before seeing the film. Perhaps that's why I noticed how Wright wisely holds back that score until Hanna blazes into civilisation. In early scenes, she professes an interest in music that is meticulously paid off throughout the rest of the film as she discovers the rest of the world that has been kept from her.

Hanna isn’t without minor flaws, but it’s astonishingly well-executed, considering the recent raft of lesser films with similar themes. Hanna's simple interest in music and culture might go over the heads of some popcorn-munchers, but it's a deeply arresting and intelligent action drama in which the character is placed paramount, above the fisticuffs or the spectacle. It's surprising enough that the film got out with a 12A, considering some of the strong violence on show, but it's more surprising as a reinvention of Joe Wright the period drama director, into Joe Wright the action director.

Hanna is now playing in cinemas nationwide.
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I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

WATER FOR ELEPHANTS- Review

Water for Elephants arrives in cinemas with the Robert Pattinson train still rolling along. I hate to ascribe locomotion to a bloke so utterly incapable of motion or emotion in his films, but hey, teenage girls will have their figures of hype. Pattinson is just one of a number of elements that come together to be better than they really should be, but he's easily the weakest link.

The story is framed a la Titanic, with nonagenarian Jacob Jankowski telling the story of the biggest circus disaster in history to the manager of a modern day circus. Then we flash back to 1931, as the fresh faced but recently orphaned Jacob runs away from the final exams of his Ivy League education in veterinary science to hop on board a train that houses the Benzini Brothers' Circus. He's soon recruited by August, the ruthless and charismatic boss, to act as a vet for the menagerie of animals on board.

In a way, it serves Water for Elephants best to compare it to a circus itself. The director is Francis Lawrence, more known for his work on Constantine and I Am Legend than for nostalgic romantic dramas like this one. The cast includes the aforementioned Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon as romantic leads, and Christoph Waltz, the Oscar-winning villain from Inglourious Basterds as August. This carnival line-up mostly works very well.

To begin, let's separate this one paragraph from the rest of the film, simply because the film mostly works. And also because this paragraph is about what doesn't work, and that's Robert Pattinson. For starters, he's miscast, in a role that plays like it belongs to an older man than Pattinson. Then again, he can't be totally absolved of blame, because as in Remember Me and the Twilight films, he's incapable of evoking any emotion that doesn't look vaguely like he's trying to remember his lines. The guy is a rubbish actor, simply enough, and whatever the contribution of his star power towards getting the film made, it doesn't counteract how much he pulls the film down.

However, he's also the reason I'm being so positive about the rest of the film, which is so buoyant that even his dead weight cannot sink it. His woodenness does make the forbidden love aspect, between his character and Witherspoon's circus wife and perpetual passenger, Marlena, slightly unbelievable. They're made to look good together by the gorgeous cinematography, but there's nothing beneath the surface- that's probably one of the greatest illusions in this circus.

The star attraction is, as expected, Christoph Waltz. As ringleader August, he is the most charismatic and well-developed villains I can remember since... well, Hans Landa, the Jew Hunter. Apparently, in the book on which the film is based, a plot point is made of the fact that August is a paranoid schizophrenic. This isn't overtly stated in the film, but you can tell Waltz took it on anyway. He's the aggressor in an abusive relationship- not with his wife, at first, but against practically everything with which he comes into contact. By turns, he is charming and gentle and winsome, but he'll stab you in the gut at the tip of a hat.

Waltz gives my favourite performance of the year so far, and you can see him holding the entire big top up all the way through the film, even seeming to try and up Pattinson's game in every scene they share. He's certainly one part of the compelling storyline, which drew me in and urged me onwards. However, the Titanic-style bookends, with the wonderful Hal Holbrook playing the elder Jacob, makes promises about a tragic denouement, and the film can't quite keep those promises in the final event. By that stage, I didn't mind as much- it kept it fresh when it could have been predictable, and the only real loss is in the way that August is short-changed by the end.

On a more thematic level, the film reawakened my interest in prohibition-era America. I wrote an essay on the period in college, and I like to watch films set around that time in American history. What's fresh about this one though is that it's not about prohibition or the Depression, per se. It's not The Untouchables or Cinderella Man, but it is a film set in that time, and is informed by that historical context all the way through.

Water for Elephants is held back by Robert Pattinson's performance in a way that's really sort of sad. He drags my rating of the film to the low end of four stars out of five, just by being there and being terrible. That still makes it a four out of five film though, and I recommend it to anyone who misses the kind of romantic drama Hollywood used to make. The romance may be the lesser part of it, but Christoph Waltz's performance and the rich and visual direction assure that it's more engaging than what first meets the eye. 

Water for Elephants is now playing in selected cinemas nationwide.
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I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

CEDAR RAPIDS- Review

Cedar Rapids is set in 2009, which perhaps indicates that the film has been bounced around in release schedules, or simply held back for a little while, until its recent release. Its limited release in the UK comes accompanied in multiplexes by an unwholesome trailer reel of the summer's upcoming bawdy comedies, most of which look a tiny bit shit. On the other hand, this one ain't so bad.

As the story goes, Tim Lippe is an altruistic insurance salesman who gets booted up to the big time when his company's golden boy passes away in an unfortunate auto-erotic accident. Anyhoo, he's dispatched by his boss to the industry's annual conference and back-slapping jamboree in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He's taken under the wings of three veterans as he's pressured to win the industry gold standard, the prestigious Two Diamonds award.

Not to get stuck on that trailer reel, but it contained a preview for The Hangover Part II, in which leading man Ed Helms reprises his role and (probably) the entire script from the first film in a different location. If Cedar Rapids did take time to get to the screen, its progress was indubitably eased by his success in The Hangover, and so the film has a tenuous link with Zach Galifianakis' recent dramedy, It's Kind of a Funny Story, strengthened by the fact that I found this film just as incidental as the other.

The most interesting thing about the film is its oppositional portrayal of insurance salesmen. You saw Saw VI, right? They're evil, evil people, and in movies, they're painted that way in such broad strokes that it's become a very easy shorthand. In Cedar Rapids, Ed Helms' Tim is far more gentle and altruistic- if you didn't laugh when I said it the first time, then good for you. It could do more to rehabilitate an easy character stereotype, except its strokes in the opposite direction are just as broad and simplistic as the more dominant representation.

For instance, Tim is pretty much mothered by Macy, the woman who taught him in 7th grade, played by Sigourney Weaver. She's also his fuck buddy, which isn't so much an Oedipal thing as the prolonged realisation of his adolescent fantasising. Later, his small-town outlook is reminiscent of James Stewart in... well, a lot of James Stewart movies. He doesn't drink or swear until he gets to the conference. He's such a child-like character- not like Russell Brand's man-child version of Arthur but genuinely regressive- that it ultimately does nothing to swing the pendulum back the other way.

Tim is transparently a character, and although you hopefully like him, it's impossible to connect his humanity with an alternative to the sharky portrayals of insurance men elsewhere in this very film. John C. Reilly has his fingers in many pies here, working on this indie-cred comedy while playing a similar character as in his collaborations with Will Ferrell. As the boorish Dean Ziegler, he's effectively there to deliver the funnies while Helms is the straight man. As with many of Reilly's performances, he's deeper than he appears, but the plot threads of the character's divorce and alcoholism are broached and then forgotten.

Locally, Cedar Rapids is showing just once an evening, until the programme changes on Friday. The screening I attended was reasonably full, and the laughs came haltingly, usually when Reilly's character was saying or doing something the trailers had promised. Certainly, he gets the lion's share of the stuff you see in the trailers- the one-liners and the sex jokes that really aren't what this one is about. At its core, the film is a comedy that wears its indie-cred and its lofty ardour for its characters with pride. But while it's sweet natured and enjoyable, the jokes are a little sparse. All the same, it's better than Something Borrowed looks. Yeesh.

Cedar Rapids is now playing in selected cinemas nationwide.
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I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.