T2: Trainspotting

I'm going to have to let you into a little secret… Although Trainspotting was released when I was 18, and I loved the music and recognised the iconic poster that was literally everywhere at the time, I actually watched the film for the very first time a couple of weeks ago. Only 20 years after it was first released…

In my defence, drugs were not part of either mine or my friends lifestyles at that time. So there was genuinely no interest for me in a film about four drug addicts in Edinburgh, however cool my peers thought it was.

Having now seen the film, I thoroughly enjoyed it and instantly understood why it was such a cult classic for so many people of both my generation and others.

So the pressure was on Danny Boyle for the sequel...

T2 is set 20 years after the original and begins with Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) in Amsterdam running on a treadmill (an interesting throwback to his running in the original) and then shows Begbie (Robert Carlyle), Simon ‘Sick Boy’ (Jonny Lee Miller) and Spud (Ewen Bremner) in their current situations which are pretty dire.

A mid-life crisis brings Mark back to Edinburgh and he first visits Spud who is still an addict which is pitiful and so so sad to see. He meets with the incredibly embittered and seething Simon who still holds a grudge thanks to the ‘betrayal’ that Mark committed at the end of the original film. To placate him, he agrees to help Simon to apply for funds to build a less-than-legitimate business with his girlfriend Veronika (Anjela Nedyalkova). 

The story also focuses on Begbie’s return to home life and subsequent difficulties in adapting to the modern world. Like Simon, Begbie is keen to settle a score with Mark. 

The film ultimately moves towards a dramatic showdown between Begbie and Mark.

The first thing to note is that it is definitely not like the original, it doesn't have the grit, energy or originality that was such an important part of that film. It feels like there was a very thin story being stretched out too long and there were some outright stupid moments which were just nonsensical.

That said, it was nice seeing all the characters apart from Begbie who has become so unhinged and removed from the real world that it was unpleasant to watch him, brilliantly played as though he was by Carlyle.

Bremner is quite superb at playing the vulnerable, quite desperate and sad Spud who through the course of the film becomes the real heartbeat of the story which as lovely as that it is, doesn’t sit right as the original story was always about Mark.

The music was a disappointment for me, I was fully expecting a cracking soundtrack to match the original, but this wasn’t forthcoming and there was only a few notes of the fantastic Born Slippy by Underworld played in the film, which was a mistake in my opinion.

Verdict: Some films just don’t need sequels, and while this isn’t the worst sequel ever by any stretch, it is unnecessary and doesn’t warrant a second viewing which is such a shame given the hype and expectation.

Jackie

As someone who loves history, especially from a first-person perspective, this film focusing on the aftermath of John F. Kennedy's assassination through the eyes of his widow Jackie was always going to be of interest. 

Possibly the most significant political assassination of the 20th century, the film focuses on the time between JFK’s assassination and state funeral where Jackie Kennedy (Natalie Portman) is struggling to balance private grief with public decorum as the transition to the Johnson administration is hurried along.

The interview that the former First Lady gave Theodore H. White (Billy Crudup) from Life Magazine just a week after her husband's assassination serves as the framing device of the film. This is where the steeliness and control that Jackie Kennedy had to rapidly acquire is first demonstrated. There are flashbacks of the assassination (which is recreated in all of its unflinching horror), the events leading up to the state funeral and of past happier times for the Kennedys. This approach works really well and gives a very rounded view of the events and gives the viewer the ability to see the different facets of Jackie's personality.

For me, I found the interactions with her priest, Father Richard McSorley (John Hurt) the most insightful and interesting as it felt as though the true Jackie was being shown. The relationship with the other Kennedys, particularly Bobby Kennedy (Peter Sarsgaard) could have been more explored as there was clearly more that could have been shown here. 

The cinematography is incredibly intimate and almost intrusive. Portman is in pretty much every frame with frequent lingering close-ups of her face which provides an almost claustrophobic and alienating effect for the viewer and allowed Portman to demonstrate her extraordinary acting skills. 

The film score (Mica Levi) deserves a special mention and is an absolutely sensational symphony of grief which carries the film beautifully.

Verdict: A stunning film with a wonderful film score and an almost certain second Oscar in the bag for Portman's poised, elegant and intelligent performance.

Manchester By the Sea

Casey Affleck is a bit of an unknown quantity for me, I can't recall seeing him in anything significant in recent times so was looking forward to seeing him in this award-nominated performance in Manchester By the Sea.

Affleck plays Lee Chandler, a janitor in suburban Boston who lives a reserved, almost monotonous life with stresses at work and a tendency to get involved with fights in bars. He finds himself unexpectedly responsible for his teenage nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges) back in his home town of Manchester By the Sea. The film charts the grieving process for both the current situation and previous heartbreaks involving his ex-wife Randi (Michelle Williams) who still has strong ties with the wider family.

The film is almost choking with grief, emptiness and sadness. It is a character in its own right and is demonstrated beautifully by Affleck who has made the haunting lost look, that is so difficult to achieve, his own. The story feels very genuine with a clearly overwhelmed Lee who wants to do the right thing by his nephew but really has no clue if he's doing the right thing at all. I loved that Patrick was prepared to milk the grief to get what he wanted which most teenagers would in that situation. The relationship between uncle and nephew was beautifully portrayed and felt exactly as an adult and adolescent would normally interact.

I have two main criticisms of this film; the first is that there is far too much music. Normally film music is a joy and can really help dictate the pace of a film. However in this case, it was far too much of a distraction and it didn't added anything to the film. The cinematography and natural flow was good enough that it didn't require any additional music.

My second criticism was that there was not enough of Randi in this this film. I really wanted to know more about what had happened to her in the period that Lee was away and felt that she was sidelined when there was clearly more of a story to be told.

Verdict: A really good film about grief, families and trying to do the right thing. Affleck thoroughly deserves the accolades and nominations that he's currently receiving, however the music is an unwelcome distraction from an otherwise very well made film.

Split

M. Night Shyamalan and I have a tricky relationship... Like most people I thoroughly enjoyed The Sixth Sense, despaired of Signs and vowed never to watch another of his films after the truly awful The Village.

Having seen and been quite impressed by the trailer for Split, I decided to give Shyamalan one final, final chance and I was not disappointed.

The story begins with a birthday party and focuses on three girls, popular best friends Claire (Haley Lu Richardson) and Marcia (Jessica Sula), and introverted outsider Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy). Waiting for Claire's father to give them a lift home, they are abducted by Kevin (James McAvoy) where they are held hostage in a labyrinth-type underground lair.

After a while we meet the OCD-afflicted Dennis and the very prim, English accented Miss Patricia who are two of Kevin's 23 separate personalities. We then meet Hedwig, who is a nine-year old precocious Kanye West fan. This is where Casey sees an opportunity to find out more about what is going on and is the only person who tries to connect with one of the personalities. Through this, she finds out about 'The Beast' who is a 24th personality that requires 'untouched flesh' to feast upon and this is who the three girls are being offered up as a sacrifice to.

In the midst of all this are the daily therapy sessions that Barry (another personality), a New York fashionista has with psychologist Dr Fletcher (Betty Buckley). A leading researcher in the field of dissociative identity disorder, she believes that the disorder is a reflection of the brain’s vast superhuman potential rather than a disability. Although she raises some concerns about the more dominant personalities overtaking the 'good' personalities, she chooses to believe Barry when he says that everything is fine. 

There are regular flashbacks to a very young Casey that help explain why she is such an introverted outsider involving her relationship with her uncle which links in very well to the appearance of 'The Beast'.

I appreciate that I'm not giving too much away here, but the twists are good and I would hate to ruin it for anybody.

McAvoy is superb in this tricky role; a less talented and engaging actor would have really struggled with the many distinct personalities required and he performs the task with great aplomb. Taylor-Joy also deserves a lot of credit for her performance where she held her own against McAvoy and demonstrated a quiet strength that is gratifying to see in a lead female role. Buckley was excellent as sympathetic and understanding Dr Fletcher, which gave some balance to the film. 

Unfortunately Richardson and Sula were only there as token shrieking teens which is a real shame as I'm sure there could have been more done with their roles. 

The film has lots of twists, including one at the very end, which the more devoted and knowledgeable Shyamalan fans will enjoy and zips along very nicely with a near constant level of suspense throughout. There were some clunky moments here and there, but they are quickly forgiven. 

Verdict: An excellent return to form by Shyamalan aided by a tight script and a brilliant, brilliant performance by McAvoy. If you like a quick-paced, head-scratching thriller, then you will not be disappointed at all with Split.

Star Trek Into Darkness

As many readers will know, I am by no means a sci-fi fan. I can watch Star Wars quite happily (obviously the original versions), but usually anything involving science fiction makes my eyes glaze over...

About two years ago, I was talked into watching the first re-booted Star Trek and I thoroughly enjoyed it, the film was fast-paced and engaging. The characters were interesting and 'real'. It was a great popcorn film.

Fast forward to 2013 and the long-awaited sequel is here... Will it be any good...?

Fortunately, it is more of the same. The story is somewhat formulaic, good guy goes bad to prevent disaster, creates bad guy, bad guy goes rogue and the other good guys make everything OK.

So while the story is predictable (and contains lots of references to previous Star Trek films and episodes which I was not aware of, but my Trekkie companion was very pleased to see), the action is brilliantly done and keeps you on the edge of your seats, the genuinely funny and touching relationship between James Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) will make you smile and the 'good vs bad' battle makes the 133 minutes of this film zip along nicely.

Add to this, the unexpectedly excellent performance of Benedict Cumberbatch as John Harrison/Khan and the film is onto a winner. I say unexpectedly as I've never considered Cumberbatch to be a particularly physical performer (most of the roles that he plays tends to focus on intellectual strength), but my goodness, he can play a bad action man role with aplomb... And I hope he considers other roles of this nature in the future.

Anything that I didn't like? I didn't like the way some action scenes were cut away to another, unrelated scene. I'm not sure if this was deliberate, but it did effect the flow of the film at times. But this is really nit-picking as the film was lots of fun and would appeal to Trekkies and non-trekkies alike.

Verdict: Excellent performances from all main characters, particularly Cumberbatch. A formulaic storyline, but the action scenes and the genuinely lovely relationship between Spock and Kirk more than made up for it. A fantastic popcorn film.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2

So here we are again. Back in the land of bloodless vampires and shiny waxed werewolves. Yes, we are back in the world of Twilight…

The story continues with Bella (Kristen Stewart) embracing her transformation from human to vampire and watching proudly as her daughter Renesmee grows at an accelerated rate. Because of this, she is mistaken for an ‘immortal’ or vampire child, which had been outlawed by the ruling Volturi.

Aware that their lives and the life of the Renesmee are in danger, Edward (Robert Pattinson) and the rest of the Cullen family appeal to other vampire clans to confirm that Renesmee is not an immortal and to act as witnesses and allies in their plight.

The Volturi arrive to destroy the child (as well as the Cullens) and a battle commences…

As you can see, not much of a plot and they managed to make that last a whole one hundred and sixteen minutes. 

I shall start with the one good thing in this film. 

Michael Sheen. 

Michael Sheen is AMAZING as Aro, the leader of the Volturi. He acted everyone off screen just by raising his one eyebrow. His performance veered from Kenneth Williams when he meets the child (the child’s name is unbelievably stupid, so I am refusing to use it anymore) to Tony Blair’s fake sincerity when he reads the mind of Alice Cullen. The man was brilliant, he was the only one not taking it seriously and the only time this film was bearable was when he was on screen.

The bad things? I shall start with the actors. Other than Michael Sheen, they were all dreadful, utterly, utterly dreadful. Wooden and totally lacking in any real ability to act. Meaningful glances do not make a good actor. Neither does sighing. Nor does pouting. The screenplay? Dreadful. There’s no point giving your actors meaningful glances to do if there’s no dialogue to back them up. And where’s the story in beautiful people just standing around in beautiful houses? The direction? No real sense of proper direction, so dreadful. The cinematography? Actually not too bad. The battle scenes were very well done and were the only moments when I actually felt any kind engagement with the film. Imagine my disappointment when it turns out to be only an apparition. How I would have loved for all the characters to have died (except for Aro, of course). They also resolved the werewolf to human transition problem that has plagued them in the last few films. Hurrah!

I know that Twilight is an easy target for non-teenagers like myself but there is a more serious issue here. Teenagers, particularly girls, are being exposed to films which perpetuate the myths that as long as you have a boyfriend then its OK, that the idea of having men rule your life should be embraced, that every aspect of your life should be controlled and that you should be prepared to sacrifice everything for your one true love. Is this really what we want our young girls to be seeing? 

It also raises the question that should films (particularly those aimed at young girls) have more responsibility in ensuring that there are more positive female role models? There are very few films with proper female leads that any young girl can aspire to and it is very depressing to think that this could be the only film that a 13/14 year old girl could and would want to see. The values and ideals presented in the Twilight films are not values or ideals that I would want impressed upon any young girl today.

Verdict: Aside from all the points made in my review, the films in this franchise are incredibly dull. A fact that was demonstrated at the packed midnight screening that I attended where a couple of people tried to start an applause at the end… 

The applause didn’t catch on.

Argo

One area of American society that always interests me is the work of the FBI and CIA. So on hearing about this film and the fact that it was based on a true story my appetite was whetted.

The film is based on the aftermath of an attack on the American embassy in Tehran in 1979. The vast majority of the embassy staff were taken as hostages, but six escaped and took refuge in the Canadian ambassador’s home. The ambassador, Ken Taylor (Victor Garber) then tried to devise a plan to enable the Americans to leave the country without being captured by the Iranians.

In the US, CIA operative Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck), has been asked to help secure the release of the Americans. Mendez comes up with the plan to create a fake movie, so that he can pose as a Canadian producer, go to Iran on a film location scout and bring back the Americans who are to be seen as part of his film crew.

Despite Mendez’s boss’s reservations, it is obvious that this is the only viable option. Mendez gets in touch with a make-up artist John Chambers (John Goodman) and convinces him to help him with the mission by creating the buzz around Hollywood press about this film. Chambers advises that in order to make everything look as authentic as possible, Mendez needs to have a script and a director. Chambers introduces him to Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin) who agrees to be a part of the charade.

The story moves on to show how Mendez gets into Iran and how he convinces the both the Americans and his manager to go along with his audacious plan.

The film is really interesting as it was about an event that I was not aware of and it is the type of story that I really like. The attention to detail is impressive in terms of everything looking like it came from the time of the story. I was particularly struck when the credits were rolling, how uncannily similar the Americans and their actor counterparts were made to look. 

The film was really gripping and tense right up until the last few frames, testament to the subject and  that the film never went down the ‘worthy’ route which so frequently happens. My only reservation is that in some scenes the Americans were outright rude to Mendez, I find it very difficult to believe that this would actually have happened in real life. If someone is risking their own life in order to save yours, I think little more gratitude would have been displayed.

Verdict: A really tense film which shows an audacious, and in places, ludicrous plan in action. Gripping, well acted and directed, this is a very entertaining film that proves that Affleck is developing into quite the actor and director. And the little catchphrase involving the word Argo will stay with you for a while.