Review: We may have reached 'peak zombie' but Maggie – starring Arnold Schwarzenegger – has both depth and humanity

**This review contains spoilers in its final paragraph**

Maggie
Director: Henry Hobson
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Abigail Breslin, Joely Richardson
Running time: 95 mins

Oh dear god, there’s hundreds of them. Don’t look back, just run. So many, so many… overwhelming... no escape from them... they’re bloody everywhere. Yes, I think it is safe to say I’ve had my fill of zombie-related movies, TV shows, comic-books, novels and video games. We have reached peak zombie and the walking dead (and, indeed, The Walking Dead) have delighted me quite enough, thanks.

Unfortunately, while there’s a buck to be earned and a sub-genre to be milked dry, the conveyor belt dedicated to churning out all things undead and Romero-esque continues at full pelt. Hence Maggie, which stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as Wade Vogel, a farmer whose teenage daughter (Abigail Breslin) has a zombie bite and is now slowly, irrevocably turning into one of them. At what point will Arnie say “Hasta La Vista, Maggie” and pump her full of lead as the local coppers are pressuring him to? Or will the big galoot fail in his duty, allowing Mags to have his wife (Joely Richardson) and two younger kids for breakfast, lunch and dinner?

Despite my reservations, Henry Hobson’s film succeeds in doing something a little bit different to the usual ‘survivors band together and are slowly killed off either by the undead or each other’ routine. Maggie is set after Zombageddon and humanity is slowly recovering. Those infected and ‘on the turn’ are quarantined, although, bizarrely, the doctors at the medical facility where Wade finds his daughter hand her over knowing full well she’ll turn into a flesh-munching monster in the coming days. It’s about as naive as returning a member of ISIS to his family on the off-chance he might see the error of his ways and set up a splinter faction called NICESIS dedicated to popping to the shops for old ladies and feeding stray kittens.

Because the fight against the zombie hordes has been largely won, we don’t see many of them and that’s a very good thing. When the undead do pop up it makes their appearance that much more impactful and chilling. In fact, one of the strongest scenes comes fairly early on when a zombified father and daughter stray onto the Vogels’ land. It turns out Wade knew these people – now human-shaped necrotic meat – and you really feel his horror and sorrow. It isn’t the fact they are now wretchedly degraded killing machines that we first notice but the fact they were once just a dad and his little kid. In its desire to make everything bigger, scarier and crazier, the zombie genre has lost those small and personal moments but Maggie is full of them.

Whilst admirable, Hobson’s low-key approach does mean his film is slow at times. Perhaps not Walking Dead season two slow but certainly in the same ball park. The longueurs are especially noticeable whenever Richardson’s character Caroline is on screen, an underwritten part (this is the Arnie and Abi show!) and one with which the British actress clearly struggles. The kindest thing you could say about her accent is that it is recognisably American. From precisely where in America is another matter though.

In place of Richardson, I’d like to have seen more of Maggie interacting with her friends – at least one of whom has also been bitten. There’s a powerful scene late in the film in which she shares a kiss with the boy and it’s a perfectly-judged melancholy moment full of ‘what might have been’. This is the life Maggie should have had; this is the life the zombie plague has now stolen from her.

Demonstrably, Maggie is a zombie film but you won’t find a single mention of the z-word anywhere in its 95-minute running time. You see, these aren’t zombies; they are victims of the Necroambulist virus (it’s so clumsy, even typing it made me wince). I’ll never know why creators do this. Look, you know they’re zombies, your cast and crew know they’re zombies, your audience knows they’re zombies, critics and bloggers like me know they’re zombies, my cat and next door’s goldfish know their zombies. So why not just call them zombies, eh? Is it merely a screenwriter trying to be clever (and failing), or is there still a variation on the old ‘cultural cringe’ at play here – despite the rise and rise of nerd culture, it seems copping to the fact you’re making a zombie flick is still a bit embarrassing to some.

It’s refreshing to see Schwarzenegger for once playing a human being rather than a cartoonish facsimile of one. He’s pretty good here, actually – still a badass (what were you expecting, flower arranging and Reiki?) but a vulnerable, sympathetic one. He conveys a palpable sense of loss as he sees his daughter slipping away from him piece by piece. And that’s the most notable part of the film – it’s rare to see the ‘zombism as terminal illness’ analogy explored this deftly.

Hobson brings a forensic quality to Maggie’s deterioration – we see her mind, body and humanity surrendering itself to the affliction in small, heartbreaking increments. One of the strongest scenes sees her freak out when she discovers a maggot feasting on her rotting flesh, in another she cuts off one of her fingers after accidentally breaking it. Her shift away from humanity takes a while, and it’s painful and it’s ugly but Breslin – her character battling every inch of the way – sells it all very convincingly. 

Considering he has the most prominent and celebrated movie action hero of the last 40 years as his main star, Hobson sidesteps the obvious fighting ’n’ shooting ending. Forget Arnie, Maggie is all about a brave young woman taking control of a terrible situation and refusing to surrender to it without a fight. Ultimately, though, she loses, accepts her fate and leaves this life entirely on her own terms. The film is all the stronger for it.

Rating: WWW

Maggie is in UK cinemas from July 24

Ratings

WWWW = Wonderful
WWW = Worthwhile
WW = Watchable
W = Woeful

If you only watch one TV movie this week, make it 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days

I’ve decided to slim down this regular weekly section of the blog so I have more time to concentrate on reviewing new films and a couple of other ideas I’ve had for regular-ish features which I'll be introducing soon...

IF YOU ONLY WATCH ONE TV MOVIE THIS WEEK...

(Monday June 29-Sunday July 5)

Heartbreaking and bleak, I can certainly see why 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (22:00, Thursday, Sky Arts) is a hard sell even to those who usually enjoy foreign language cinema. Set in communist Romania in the 1980s, a couple of years before the fall of dictator Nikolai Ceaușescu, this Palme d'Or winner tells the story of students and best friends, Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) and Găbița (Laura Vasiliu). The latter is pregnant and elects to have an illegal termination, Otilia helps her make the arrangements and find the money to pay for it. However, it transpires Găbița has misled abortionist Mr Bebe (Vlad Ivanov) about how far along she is (something which affects the price of the procedure) and matters go sickeningly awry from there. 

Cristian Mungiu's film certainly isn't a barrel of laughs but the strength of the performances, a perfectly realised sense of time and place, a scathingly satirical digression to a dinner party about two-thirds of the way through, and a powerful ending make this something very special indeed. Despite everything that befalls the two women, the strength of their friendship and Otilia's sacrifice and extraordinary loyalty shine through the fog of misery. One of the finest movies of the last 10 years, I have no hesitation at all in calling it a modern masterpiece.

Rating: WWWW

Cable & Satellite highlights...
Do the Right Thing (Midnight, Tonight, Sky Select) Spike Lee’s tale of a Brooklyn race riot remains a very powerful piece of work 26 years after its release. Scarily prescient, too. 
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (21:00, Friday, Movie Mix) Mike Myers was at the height of his powers for this silly and still funny spy spoof.

The Riot Club (11:45 and 22:15, Friday, Sky Movies Premiere) Laura Wade adapts her own stage play about an all-male dining club (clearly based on the infamous Bullingdon) at Oxford University.  
Fury (15:45 and 20:00, Friday, Sky Movies Premiere) Brad Pitt never quite convinces as a hard-bitten tank commander mopping up Nazis at the end of WWII. 
Far From the Madding Crowd (22:00, Sunday, BBC4) The original and best adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s novel, starring Julie Christie, Peter Finch and Alan Bates.

Streaming/View on Demand highlights…

The Guest (Netflix UK) Downtown Abbey’s Dan Stevens excels as a soldier with a dark secret in this entertaining “stranger danger” thriller.

Force Majeure (VSS) Bleak Norwegian comedy-drama exploring masculinity, family and cowardice.
It Follows (VSS) Critically-acclaimed horror every bit as smart as it is scary.
Hyena (VSS) Brutal British corrupt cop drama.

Arena: It's About Time (BBC iPlayer for next 29 days) Profile of British film director Nicolas Roeg, examining his personal vision of cinema. One of his most celebrated films - Walkabout - is available until Saturday.

Terrestrial highlights…
Flatliners (23:55, Friday, BBC1) Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Bacon and Julia Roberts are the medical students investigating near-death experiences in a decent supernatural thriller.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (23:10, Saturday, Channel 4) Forget Genisys, this is the quintessential Terminator movie. Big Arnie has never been better. 

John Carter (18:00, Sunday, BBC2) Unfairly-maligned Mars-set sci-fi based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' famous novels.

The Grey (22:00, Sunday, Channel 4) Oil worker Liam Neeson on the run from a pack of wolves (I'm guessing they'd just seen Taken 3). 
The Talented Mr Ripley (01:10, Sunday, Channel 4) Matt Damon excels as the titular sociopath. 

Please note: Films starting after midnight are always considered part of the previous day's schedule, e.g. The Talented Mr Ripley begins at 01:10 - technically Monday morning - but is still part of Sunday's listings. All times in 24-hour clock.

Ratings

WWWW = Wonderful
WWW = Worthwhile
WW = Watchable
W = Woeful

Review: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night – Ana Lily Amirpour’s ‘Iranian vampire western’ – might just be my favourite film of the year so far

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

Director: Ana Lily Amirpour
Starring: Sheila Vand, Arash Mirandi, Marshall Manesh
Running time: 101mins
Disappointingly, Skateboarding Iranian Vampire isn’t a horror spin-off from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. It does, however, describe the main character in an utterly beguiling first full-length feature from writer/director Ana Lily Amirpour.

Set in Bad City, a windblown, oddly-deserted industrial town somewhere in Iran (Taft, California in reality), this most peculiar of love stories centres on The Girl (Sheila Vand), a lonely, chador-clad blood-sucker who prowls the streets looking for wrongs to right and evil men to punish. One such night-time patrol brings her into contact with troubled Arash (Arash Marandi) – one part James Dean, one part major doofus – and they enjoy an immediate mutual attraction.

The plot is deliberately slight and the subtitled dialogue (the film is in Farsi) pretty sparse. Neither of those things matters, though, because Amirpour is more interested in what The Girl represents and making sure everything around her looks fabulous while that is explored.

Shot in gorgeous, high-contrast black and white with cinematographer Lyle Vincent, Bad City is the kind of place that only exists in movies or comic-books. It’s a noirish modern wasteland full of empty car parks and desolate boulevards in which deep shadow and shimmering street lights engage in a perennial war for supremacy. In other words, it’s the perfect setting for criminality, horror and a forbidden romance between two forsaken outsiders.

Stylistically, the film is a mash-up of all sorts of seemingly random elements and influences (David Lynch, Rebel Without a Cause, spaghetti westerns, German expressionism, fairy tales, Tarantino, Springsteen) from a host of different eras, and is therefore possessed of a certain timeless quality. It looks old and new at exactly the same time – very now but just as likely to have been made at any time during the last 50 years. Or even the next 50.

Playing ‘spot the influence’ with Girl is easy and fun but shouldn’t detract from the fact Amirpour’s film quickly transcends the notion that it’s just a conveyor belt of hip references. If she isn’t creating something startlingly new here then it’s the next best thing. It is never just an exercise in vampiric angst either, and some of the film’s finest moments are also its funniest (like the scene in which The Girl encounters Arash wandering the streets off his head on ecstasy, wearing a home-made Dracula costume).

The Girl of the title – for whom we are offered no back story – is an avenging angel, on a mission to exact revenge upon men who hurt or exploit women. Almost every adult male character here is some kind of misogynist; from the TV talking head warning “dearest ladies” of what might happen if their husband “leaves you and finds himself another wife”, to the violent pimp Saeed (Dominic Rains) and Arash’s addict father Houssein (Marshall Manesh). Women are conquests and chattel, to be patronised and controlled, used for sex, shot full of heroin or knocked about. The Girl might not be able to take her mission to the very top of Iranian society (from where such attitudes emanate) but these lowly, bottom-feeding males are fair game… and one she relishes. At one point she even interrogates a terrified young boy – stealing his skateboard and hissing into his ear, “I can take your eyes out of your skull and give them to dogs to eat”. She might be easier on the eye, but our protagonist is every bit as much a creature of blood and violence as Nosferatu or Dracula.

Her attraction to pretty-boy Arash is therefore an interesting one and an argument could be made that it dents the film’s otherwise impeccable feminist credentials. But he is the victim of mephitic men, too; specifically Saeed, who snatches his prized car to pay off Houssein’s debts. Arash might fashion himself a bad boy – dealing ecstasy and trying to kiss spoiled local rich-girl Shaydah – but it’s his gentler side The Girl is clearly most attracted to. The side that tries to look after his deadbeat dad, gives her (stolen) earrings in the film’s most perfect scene, and cares for a cat he steals to keep him company. 

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night’s soundtrack is glorious too. There’s no composed score but rather a collection of perfectly chosen songs by a host of diverse acts. Federale (featuring the Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Collin Hegna) do a lot of the heavy lifting, their Ennio Morricone-inspired tracks fitting the film’s western vibe like a snug cowboy boot. Elsewhere, Amirpour demonstrates an eclectic ear as she serves up a smorgasbord of delights – dazzling pop, Iranian rock and folk, lush ambient dance. So strong is the soundtrack it actually makes you forget that many of the film’s stand-out moments feature no musical accompaniment at all. Silence – or what passes for it in Bad City – is just as effective.

On the strength of Girl, Amirpour – an Iranian/American actually born in Margate – clearly has the potential to be a stellar new talent and I can’t wait to see The Bad Batch, her next project starring Jason Momoa, Keanu Reeves and Jim Carrey. Billed as a “post-apocalyptic cannibal love story”, it sounds like something well worth sinking your fangs into.

Rating: WWWW

If you’re quick, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is still showing in some cinemas. It is released on Blu-ray and DVD on July 27. Its soundtrack is available on CD and digital download now.

Ratings

WWWW = Wonderful
WWW = Worthwhile
WW = Watchable
W = Woeful

5 for Friday (June 26): Trailers, new releases and box office

This week's five most intriguing films...

1. Slow West

Michael Fassbender stars as a mysterious traveler, called Silas, in first-time director John A Maclean's stylish and atmospheric western. 

2. Going Clear: Scientology And The Prison Of Belief
Alex Gibney's excoriating take down of the sinister "religion" founded by sci-fi writer L Ron Hubbard. Originally shown on HBO in the States, it gets a cinema release here. Tom Cruise fans should probably stay at home.  

3. The Overnight
Superior sex comedy featuring a terrific cast - Taylor Schilling (Orange is the New Black), Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation) and the great Jason Schwartzman (who I last saw in the bizarrely misanthropic Listen Up Philip).

4. Hippocrates
Dark comedy set in an ailing French hospital about the travails of an ambitious young intern (Vincent Lacoste) and his immigrant co-worker (Reda Kateb). Director Thomas Lilti was a practising MD before turning his hand to filmmaking so knows a thing or two about his subject.

5. Everyone's Going to Die
The ghost of Lost in Translation looms large in this whimsical British film about a young German, Melanie (Nora Tschirner), going nowhere fast in a dour seaside town. Her blossoming friendship with a much older man, Ray (Rob Knighton), starts to give her life meaning. Thing is, Ray has a big secret...

Also out this week...

Blood Cells (from Tuesday)

Concrete Clouds
Everly

Everyone's Going To Die

Faberge: A life Of It's Own (from Monday)
Hustlers Convention

Knock, Knock
Minions

Sardarji
She's Funny That Way 
Station To Station
That Sugar Film
The Third Man (reissue)
The Wrecking Crew

UK box office top 10

1. Jurassic World
2. Take That Live
3. Spy
4. Mr Holmes
5. Entourage
6. San Andreas
7. The Longest Ride
8. Insidious Chapter 3
9. The Empire Strikes Back
10. Mad Max: Fury Road 

US box office top 10
1. Jurassic World
2. Inside Out
3. Spy
4. San Andreas
5. Dope
6. Insidious: Chapter 3
7. Pitch Perfect 2
8. Mad Max: Fury Road
9. Avengers: Age of Ultron
10. Tomorrowland: A World Beyond

TV Movie Picks (UK): Monday, June 22 - Sunday, June 28

CABLE & SATELLITE: I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything quite like Holy Motors (23:50, Tuesday, Film4). More than that, I’m not sure I even have the words to properly describe it. French writer/director Leos Carax’s 2012 film is enigmatic to the point of being utterly unknowable; even with a gun to my head I doubt I could tell you what it was actually about. The facts are these: a man named Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant) is driven around Paris by Celine (Edith Scob), his chauffeur, in a white limousine to a series of appointments. He adopts a different persona – often requiring extensive make-up, props and costumes – for each engagement he keeps, including that of an old beggar woman, an actor simulating sex while dressed in a motion capture suit, and a violent red-haired man who kidnaps a beautiful young model from a photo shoot. It continues in this vein for some time, occasionally perhaps giving us the odd glimpse of Oscar’s real life as he flits from assignation to assignation, each one stranger than the last. To call Holy Motors surreal or perverse simply doesn’t do it justice, it’s a gloriously entertaining puzzle that isn’t meant to be solved. So don’t try – just enjoy the madcap journey.

Five more...
Avatar (21:00, tonight, Film4) James Cameron’s earnest but enjoyable lanky blue alien spectacular starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana and Sigourney Weaver. 

Revolution (13:45, Tuesday, Movie Mix) Al Pacino fights for the freedom of the American colonies in a British film that was a critical and box office flop upon its release in 1985. 
Masque of Red Death (21:00, Wednesday, Horror Channel) Edgar Allan Poe! Roger Corman! Vincent Price! Worshipping Satan! What’s not to like?
The Wicker Man (23:30, Saturday, ITV4) Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee are both terrific in a film for which the term “cult classic” could have been invented.
Super (23:15, Saturday, Film4) Writer/director James Gunn’s first run at making a superhero film is every bit as entertaining as his Guardians of the Galaxy. Rainn Wilson is the Crimson Bolt ("Shut up crime!"), Ellen Page his unstable sidekick Boltie.

STREAMING/VIEW ON DEMAND: Blind (Various Streaming Services) is an astonishingly assured debut from Norwegian writer/director Eskil Vogt. Set in Oslo, it tells the story of Ingrid (Ellen Dorrit Petersen), who has recently lost her sight. She retreats into herself – never leaving the apartment she shares with husband Morten, and slowly but surely surrendering to paranoia and fantasy as her loneliness and isolation start to take their inevitable toll. She convinces herself that Morten remains home when he’s supposed to be at work, so he can silently watch her. Not only that, but she believes he’s having an affair with pretty single mum Elin (Vera Vitali) who lives close by. Ingrid’s descent into this imaginary world becomes more and more elaborate as the story proceeds; she conjures more characters and situations to create a sort of film within a film. At first, you aren’t quite sure what is real and what is being shaken loose from Ingrid’s fevered mind. (There’s a great scene early on when Morten sees old friend Einar (Marius Kolbenstvedt), a porn addict with a crush on Elin. Their meeting takes place in a busy café but, because it’s part of Ingrid’s fantasy, the location morphs between that, a moving bus and sometimes a weird combination of both). Vogt reveals his hand earlier than he might have, though, because it isn’t really the artful blurring of fantasy and reality that is the issue here; he’s more interested in exploring the effect of a sudden and hugely debilitating disability on a vulnerable young woman. How it impacts her marriage, her identity and self-worth. He does so cleverly and, at times, shockingly, avoiding many of the clichés that have come to define portrayals of the disabled in movies. Frankly, it’s a triumph, and one of the finest foreign language films I’ve seen all year.

I couldn't find a decent trailer on YouTube with English subtitles so try this one from Vimeo.

Five more...
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (Amazon Prime) Beautiful animated Japanese fairy tale from Studio Ghibli.
Appropriate Behaviour (VSS) Desiree Akhavan writes, directs and stars in a likeable comedy-drama about a bisexual Iranian woman struggling with family and relationships in New York.
Blackhat (VSS) Michael Mann's much-maligned techie thriller starring Thor's Chris Hemsworth as an expert hacker trying to bring down a cybercrime network.
Fifty Shades of Grey (VSS) No idea what this is. Something to do with working on the paint counter at B&Q, perhaps?
Everly (VSS, from Friday) Gun-toting Salma Hayek takes on the Yakuza without ever leaving her apartment in a stylish but absurdly violent action thriller.

TERRESTRIAL: There was a period, roughly between 1985 and 1994, when it seemed director Tim Burton could do no wrong. Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Batman and its extraordinary sequel Batman Returns – by anyone’s standards, it was a hell of a run. My favourite film from Burton’s purple patch, though, is probably 1988’s Beetlejuice (17:10, Sunday, Channel 5). Weird, funny, scary, charming, surreal, eccentric, inventive, profane, visually stunning and gloriously gothic, it tells the story of Adam and Barbara Maitland (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis), a recently-deceased ghostly couple who hire a crazed “bio-exorcist” (the titular Beetlejuice) to rid them of the Deetz – an objectionable family that has recently purchased their house. However, the Maitlands get cold feet when they become friends with the Deetz’s daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder) and attempt to call off the “hit” – much to Beetlejuice’s fury. The entire film is an unalloyed joy – from Michael Keaton’s hilarious, gross and generally jaw-dropping turn as the bio-exorcist himself, to the horror and dark humour of the afterlife waiting room scene, to a dinner party dance sequence featuring Harry Belafonte’s Banana Boat Song that Catherine O’Hara (as Delia Deetz) completely owns. It’s just a pity we never got a glimpse of Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian, an abandoned sequel that would have seen Keaton’s ghost with the most win a surfing contest. 

Five more...
Zaytoun (00:25, Wednesday, Channel 4) A young Palestinian refugee forms a close bond with a downed Israeli fighter pilot (Stephen Dorff).
Bloody Sunday (23:10, Friday, ITV) Paul Greengrass’ powerful drama based on the killing of 14 civilian protestors by British soldiers in Derry, Northern Ireland in 1972. James Nesbitt – as SDLP MP Ivan Cooper – has never been better.

Babylon AD (22:55, Saturday, Channel 4) Post-apocalyptic sci-fi adventure starring Vin Diesel as a mercenary escorting a girl with strange powers from Russia to New York.

The Infidel (01:00, Saturday, BBC2) Identity crisis comedy starring Omid Djalili as a successful Muslim businessman who discovers he’s adopted and Jewish.
Blue Valentine (00:50, Sunday, Channel 4) Fine relationship drama featuring Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling as a couple struggling to keep their disintegrating marriage intact.

Please note: Films starting after midnight are always considered part of the previous day's schedule, e.g. The Infidel begins at 01:00 - technically Sunday morning - but is still part of Saturday's listings. All times in 24-hour clock.

5 for Friday (June 19): Trailers, new releases and box office

This week's five most intriguing new movies...

1. Les Combattants
Unconventional romantic comedy from France. When gloomy survivalist Madeleine (Adèle Haenel) heads off to an army boot camp to prepare for the coming apocalypse, love-struck Arnaud (Kévin Azaïs) can't help but follow her. Also available on Curzon Home Cinema.

2. Mr. Holmes
Classy drama which sees Ian McKellen's ageing consulting detective return to the fray to tackle an unsolved case from his distant past.

3. The Long Good Friday 

A welcome reissue for this classic London gangster yarn from 1980, starring the late Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren.

4. Legacy
Feelgood British party movie starring Franz Drameh (Attack the Block, Edge of Tomorrow), from the producers of 4.3.2.1. If it contains half the energy of that film it won't go far wrong.

5. Accidental Love
Seven years in the making (original director David O Russell quit in 2010), this political satire has had shocking reviews and currently sits at only 5 per cent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Jessica Biel and Jake Gyllenhaal must regret ever signing up for it but connoisseurs of bad movies are surely in for a treat.

Also on release from today...
ABCD 2
The Burning
Eli
Entourage
The Longest Ride 
Natural Resistance

UK box office top 10
1. Jurassic World 
2. Spy 
3. San Andreas 
4. Insidious Chapter 3 
5. Pitch Perfect 2 
6. Mad Max: Fury Road 
7. The Empire Strikes Back 
8. London Road 
9. Avengers: Age of Ultron
10. Tomorrowland: A World Beyond

US box office top 10
1. Jurassic World 
2. Spy 
3. San Andreas 
4. Insidious: Chapter 3 
5. Pitch Perfect 2 
6. Entourage 
7. Mad Max: Fury Road 
8. Avengers: Age of Ultron 
9. Tomorrowland: A World Beyond
10. Love & Mercy 

Review: Jurassic World has thrills aplenty but lacks charm

Jurassic World

Director: Colin Trevorrow
Starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D'Onofrio
Running time: 124mins
As much a remake of Jurassic Park as it is a direct sequel, Jurassic World cannot help but suffer by comparison with the original film. Park had warmth and wonder, a bevy of intriguing and likeable characters, plus it all felt so new (that “Welcome… to Jurassic Park” scene (below) still takes the breath away). Twenty-two years on and a couple of unfairly maligned follow-ups later and it’s like we’ve come full circle. Unfortunately, this time, too much seems second hand and worn around the edges.

The park of Steven Spielberg’s movie is now a massive Disneyworld-style enterprise situated on John Hammond’s original Isla Nublar, off Costa Rica. Dino-fatigue has long since set in amongst the public, so, to keep visitor numbers high, hybrid creatures have been created using the DNA of a variety of dinosaurs and other animals. One such beast – the Indominus Rex (a kind of T-Rex on steroids) – is the movie’s big bad. Two boys (both irritating) arrive on the island to spend quality time with their aunt (Bryce Dallas Howard as the theme park’s underwritten operations manager) just as the Indominus escapes and Velociraptor-wrangler Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) steps in to try and save the day (and, unfortunately, the kids).

Pratt’s transformation from amusing sitcom schlub to A-list movie star has been enormous fun to witness, and even though he now has abs of steel and fights galactic super villains and dinosaurs, there’s a part of him that will always be out-of-shape moocher Andy Dwyer from Parks and Recreation. Indeed, it’s that everyman side to him that makes Pratt so watchable. Here, his relationship with the team of raptors he’s forged a bond with provides many of the film’s best moments, including a genuinely exciting night-time hunt for the Indominus towards the end, and an earlier scene in which he attempts to save one of the park’s workers who has fallen into his scaly pals’ enclosure.

The climactic final battle is also a cracker, producing in me the same giddy rush I felt as a child seeing King Kong’s punch up with the T-Rex (below) for the first time. Additionally, there’s an intriguing subplot about the military wanting to weaponise the raptors for use on the battlefield and I really hope that’s something they properly explore in one of the inevitable sequels. Jurassic War does have a nice ring to it.

Alas, the film’s flaws are simply too big to ignore. Outside of Grady, the other characters are dull and one-dimensional (hubristic billionaire, nasty military man, tedious career woman, sulky teen), which might be more forgivable had not the original film given us the more fully realised Alan Grant (Sam Neill), Ellie Satler (Laura Dern) and Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), as well as Hammond himself (the late Sir Richard Attenborough). I understand why the makers of Jurassic World wanted a clean slate but the replacements simply aren’t up to the job. Director Trevorrow’s first feature – the wonderfully quirky indie comedy Safety Not Guaranteed – was very character-focused so it’s a surprise he hasn’t brought more of that sensibility to bear here.

Elsewhere, many of the thrills feel awfully familiar (we’re off to save the kids… again), while constant references to the original film only serve to highlight this one's shortcomings. Jurassic Park had genuine charm to accompany its thrills and spills, Jurassic World has only noise and spectacle. Even the Indominus itself is surprisingly unimaginative. With a whole world of fictional monsters to draw upon for inspiration (Godzilla, Cloverfield, Pacific Rim), surely they could have come up with something a bit more interesting than a slightly bigger and meaner tyrannosaur.

Rating: WW

Jurassic World is in cinemas now

Ratings

WWWW = Wonderful
WWW = Worthwhile
WW = Watchable
W = Woeful

TV Movie Picks (UK): Monday, June 15 - Sunday, June 21

CABLE & SATELLITE: After the Evil Dead debacle, I tend to steer clear of remakes – especially remakes of films I loved growing up. Poltergeist (21:00, Wednesday, 5*) –  a winning collaboration between Tobe Hooper and Steven Spielberg – is firmly in that category too and wild horses wouldn’t have got me to the cinema to see the recent Gil Kenan-directed regurgitation... even if it did star the great Sam Rockwell. I know why remakes exist (money) and accept they can occasionally be pretty wonderful (The Fly, John Carpenter’s The Thing) but, for the most part, I just don’t want a bar of them. Besides, remakes work best when the original film lacked quality and that certainly isn’t something you could ever say about 1982’s Poltergeist. As much a Spielbergian adventure film as it is a horror picture, Poltergeist is nevertheless incredibly spooky (“They’re he-e-e-ere”) and one of the finest haunted house movies of the last 30+ years. The story is simple – supernatural forces invade the home of a typical American family and make off with their youngest daughter Carol Anne (tragic child actress Heather O’Rourke). She remains inside the house but on a different plane of existence so the family call in a spiritual medium (the fantastic Zelda Rubenstein as Tangina Barrons) to retrieve her. It builds slowly and deliberately but when the spectral madness really kicks in (including some terrific special effects) the film moves through the gears to deliver a breathless, thrill-a-minute ghost-train ride.

Five more...
Jaws (18:50, Tuesday, Sky Sci-Fi/Horror) The great white shark Spielberg nicknamed "Bruce" celebrates its 40th anniversary. Terrific, still.
Margot at the Wedding (01:55, Tuesday, Film4) Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh star in Noah Baumbach’s bruising dysfunctional family drama.
White Heat (18:50, Thursday, TCM) Jimmy Cagney shines in his finest role; as psychopathic criminal Cody Jarrett. “Made it, Ma! Top of the world!”
The Sea Inside (22:00, Thursday, Sky Arts) Javier Bardem is remarkable as a bedridden quadriplegic seeking to end his own life in this Spanish drama.
Boyhood (15:15 and 21:35, from Friday, Sky Movies Premiere) Richard Linklater's superb family drama starring Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette finally arrives on Sky.

STREAMING/VIEW ON DEMAND (VOD): Not a movie but something a little bit different: Danny Leigh’s British Film Mavericks, which is available to watch for the next 20 days on the BBC’s iPlayer. Leigh is one of the UK’s most engaging film critics and certainly the only reason to ever tune in to BBC1’s ailing Film 2015 TV show. His knowledge is vast and his enthusiasm infectious and so it proves again here as he profiles six very different UK filmmakers; namely John Akomfrah (director of the documentary Handsworth Songs), Donald Cammell (co-director of Performance, with Nic Roeg), Alan Clarke (Scum, Made in Britain), Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast, Under the Skin), Samantha Morton (Hollywood actor turned director), and Peter Watkins (The War Game). The profiles all come in at under 10 minutes but act as perfect primers, Leigh offering more than a mere career overview as he takes time to explain what makes each subject’s work special or different. Watch all six and I guarantee you’ll be clamouring to see Glazer’s Birth, Morton’s The Unloved, and Watkins’ Culloden (trailer below) immediately after.

Five more...

Selma (Various Streaming Services) David Oyelowo is astounding as Martin Luther King in Ava DuVernay’s powerful civil rights drama.
Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (Netflix UK) Hard-boiled comic-book sequel with Josh Brolin, Eva Green and Mickey Rourke.
Wild Tales (VSS) Excellent Argentine portmanteau featuring six delightfully disturbing stories. Reviewed here.
Palo Alto (Netflix UK, from Tuesday) Powerful teen drama starring James Franco as a sleazy soccer coach. 
The Purge (Netflix UK, from Sunday) Effective horror/thriller set during the titular Purge – an annual 12-hour period when all law enforcement in the United States is suspended. 

TERRESTRIAL: Summer's here and the five main channel's schedules are looking a bit threadbare when it comes to quality, heavyweight movies. In keeping with the light-hearted sunny vibe, then, let's go for a film that's undemanding but still fun. Something like Anchorman supremo Adam McKay's The Other Guys (22:00, Sunday, Channel 5), in which Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg play amusingly mismatched cops. Allen Gamble (Ferrell) and Terry Hoitz (Wahlberg) are desk-bound officers, a couple of losers who are insanely jealous of their flashy, frontline colleagues, exemplified by Samuel L Jackson and Dwayne Johnson. However, when Jackson and Johnson are suddenly put out of commission, the second stringers are pressed into action on a major case. The mutually-antagonistic cops routine has been done better elsewhere (most recently by Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock in The Heat) but The Other Guys is elevated enormously by two terrific performances from Ferrell and Wahlberg, their characters' contempt for each other providing the lion's share of the laughs. As you'll see from the trailer, there are also a couple of nice jabs directed Hollywood's way and at action movies in particular. It doesn't all work; there's an ongoing gag involving police captain Michael Keaton inadvertently quoting lyrics from TLC songs that should have been excised long before the final draft, but that's a small beer in a movie full of funny moments. 

Five more…
Creation (23:25, Tuesday, BBC1) Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly star in an engaging and thought-provoking biopic of Charles Darwin.
Rush (21:00, Saturday, Channel 4) Hi-octane recreation of the intense Formula One rivalry between Brit James Hunt (Thor’s Chris Hemsworth) and Austria’s Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl).
Hamlet 2 (22:35, Saturday, BBC2) The great Steve Coogan in one of those underwhelming film comedies he used to do (see also The Parole Officer).
Basic Instinct (23:25, Saturday, Channel 4) Glossy, erotic thriller, in which Sharon Stone flashes her lady garden. It all seems rather quaint these days.
Jurassic Park III (15:05, Sunday, ITV) Sam Neill and Laura Dern return for more dinosaur-related hi-jinks (the pterosaurs are the highlight this time). 

Review: San Andreas - Cheesy and ridiculous but hard to dislike

San Andreas

Director: Brad Peyton

Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, Paul Giamatti

Running time: 114mins

Despite its cringe-making dialogue, predictable story arc, massive plot contrivances, and the cheesiest ending in cinema history, I found it impossible to dislike San Andreas. I’m a sucker for disaster movies – everything from Earthquake to Melancholia – but was nevertheless impressed by the sheer scale and intensity of the destruction so artfully rendered here. Unlike many CGI-heavy films, you can see where every single cent of its $110million budget went.

Dwayne Johnson – charismatic and likeable as always – is Ray, a fearless rescue-chopper pilot. The death of daughter Mallory in an accident has led to the collapse of his marriage to Emma (Carla Gugino), who is now shacked up with oily wrong ’un Daniel (Ioan Gruffudd). Meanwhile, professor of earthquake-related stuff Lawrence (Paul Giamatti) too late realises a super-huge mega-quake is due to strike America’s West Coast – right along the infamous San Andreas fault in fact – and that he must stick around to provide exposition and the occasional grave look to camera. When the ‘Big One’ hits, Ray zips off in his chopper to save Emma, as well as Blake (Alexandra Daddario), his other daughter, who is every bit as plucky as her dad and looks considerably better in a bikini.

I make light of the plot, but there’s real jeopardy and proper tension in many of the scenes here. In the opening 10 minutes, before we even get to the earthquake, we see Johnson and his copter crew attempt the rescue of a young woman whose car has skidded off the road and plunged into a narrow ravine. It’s armrest-gripping, nail-biting stuff filled with moments when you seriously wonder if all concerned aren’t going to meet a very messy end indeed. But director Peyton (who teamed up with Johnson for 2012’s Journey 2: The Mysterious Island) is just setting out his stall at this point, as if to say, “You think this is tense, just you wait…”

And, of course, what follows is sequence after sequence packed full of skyscrapers being rent asunder, shattered glass and pulverised concrete raining death and destruction down upon all and sundry, tsunamis as big as houses, the earth splitting open like a burst melon – and a host of beautifully choreographed, nick-of-time escapes for our hero and his family. Peyton really keeps the action moving too, quickly getting Johnson out of his chopper – into a car, into a plane, into a boat – as the story becomes a straight-no-chaser race against time to save his daughter from a watery grave.

I really don’t like 3D – if I wanted to reduce the brightness of something I was watching by 25 per cent, I’d simply wear a veil – so I have no idea how San Andreas looked in that format. In 2D, though, it’s a real feast for the eyes. There’s a scene towards the end of the film when Johnson and Gugino are on a speedboat searching for Blake and it’s like something out of a dystopian sci-fi film in which global warming has melted the polar ice caps and the sea level has risen to engulf even our biggest cities. You really get a sense of the scale and madness of the devastation that has been wrought, and downtown San Francisco – a crumbling, flooded ruin – is the stuff of nightmares. 

San Andreas may be purest hokum and, ultimately, just another paean to the strength of the family (and America) but still I found its appetite for destruction pretty intoxicating.

Rating: WW

San Andreas is in cinemas now

Ratings

WWWW = Wonderful
WWW = Worthwhile
WW = Watchable
W = Woeful

Christopher Lee: A perfect monster

This is my favourite scene featuring Sir Christopher Lee, who passed away at the age of 93 on Thursday. It's the climactic fight from Dracula (1958) between Dr Abraham van Helsing (Peter Cushing) and the titular Count (Lee). 

I'm not sure what impresses me more, the physicality of the two wonderful actors involved, the brilliant-for-the-time special effects as Dracula turns to ash, or James Bernard's breathless musical score. One thing I do know is that no actor played a monster better than Lee – not even Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff. He looks genuinely otherworldly and inhuman here, with the kind of eyes that burrow into your soul, haunt your nightmares and have you believing evil is not only a palpable force but one that is likely to reach through the screen and tear out your heart at any moment.

It's easy to laugh at the fact you can kill off a major villain by, er, opening the curtains, but back when I first saw the film (in the mid-'70s when I was no older than eight or nine) this scene scared the life out of me. If I'm honest, it still gives me chills even now. Rest in peace, sir.

5 for Friday (June 12): Trailers, new releases and box office

Only 10 new releases in cinemas this week - and two of them are reissues. Here are the five most intriguing (I've excluded Jurassic World because it's been hyped quite enough already without me joining in)...

1. The Look Of Silence
Joshua Oppenheimer's follow-up to 2012's The Act of Killing, an astonishing documentary about the Indonesian anti-communist genocide of 1965 told from the point of view of the killers and torturers. This time, Oppenheimer returns to the country to tell the smaller, more personal story of a mother and father whose son was murdered during that turbulent time. Read more here.




2. West
Powerful '70s-set political drama about an East Berlin woman trying to start a new life in the West after the apparent death of her partner. However, she discovers her past isn't easy to shake off.

3. London Road
Adaptation of the stage musical about the serial murder of five women in Ipswich in 2006 and how the local community came to terms with it. Every word spoken and sang is taken from actual interviews conducted with residents at the time. Olivia Colman and Tom Hardy star.




4. Freaks (reissue)
Extraordinary 1932 picture about a travelling "freak show" circus that proved so controversial it effectively ended Tod Browning's successful career as a director. Marilyn Monroe's final film before her death - The Misfits - is also reissued this week.

5. Unhallowed Ground
A bunch of posh kids are menaced by supernatural forces while undertaking military training at an historic boarding school in this British horror flick. Poppy Drayton and Morgane Polanski (Roman's daughter) star.




Also on release from today...
Age Of Kill
Hamari Adhuri Kahaani
Jurassic World
Romeo Juliet

UK box office top 10
1. Spy
2. San Andreas
3. Insidious: Chapter 3
4. Mad Max: Fury Road
5. Pitch Perfect 2
6. Avengers: Age of Ultron
7. Tomorrowland: A World Beyond
8. The Empire Strikes Back
9. Dil Dhadakne Do
10. Man Up 

US box office

1. Spy 
2. San Andreas
3. Insidious: Chapter 3
4. Entourage
5. Mad Max: Fury Road
6. Pitch Perfect 2
7. Tomorrowland: A World Beyond
8. Avengers: Age of Ultron
9. Aloha
10. Poltergeist