Certain Women, Doctor Strange, and Hell Comes To Frogtown: Your week in film (March 6-12)

The Doctor is in: Strange is the latest addition to Marvel's superhero ranks 

This week's highlights on DVD, Blu-ray, VOD, and in cinemas...

I don't know whether it's a backlash against bigger, brasher, faster blockbusters but movies that are low-key and slow-burning are definitely all the rage right now. Moonlight and Spotlight - the last two Best Picture winners at the Oscars - are both subdued, leisurely-paced affairs, while films such as Loving, Arrival, and Manchester By The Sea have racked up plenty of awards, nominations and critical plaudits, too. Even Logan, the latest instalment in the long-running X-Men saga, eschews super-powered pyrotechnics for a darker, deeper, altogether more brooding tone.

Kelly Reichardt (Meek's Cutoff) has been making small, intricate, thoughtful films for years and her latest, Certain Women (in cinemas now) WWW, is therefore very timely. Set in Montana and based on Maile Meloy's short stories, it features three loosely linked tales of four women. Laura (Laura Dern) is a lawyer trying to rid herself of Fuller (Jared Harris), an unstable client obsessed with his unfair dismissal case, while Michelle Williams plays Gina, a hard-nosed business owner more interested in building her "authentic" Montana dream home than saving her failing marriage. Finally, there's Beth (Kristin Stewart), an overworked lawyer (yes, another one) making an eight-hour round trip twice a week to teach an adult-education class she really doesn't have time for. A young Native American rancher - brilliant newcomer Lily Gladstone - develops a crush on her.

These aren't character studies as much as warts-and-all snapshots of the women's lives. The stories are all very different but, if there is one thing these people share, it's a certain disaffection; Laura is frustrated that, after badgering her for eight months, Fuller wants the second opinion of a male lawyer, Gina's relationships with her husband and daughter are in turmoil, harried Beth barely has time to think straight while Gladstone's character (known only as 'The Rancher') exudes awkwardness and loneliness in equal measure. With the exception of Gladstone, they aren't always the most sympathetic bunch either. Dern is conducting an affair with a married man, Gina is trying to finagle a pile of sandstone out of a vulnerable elderly man, and Beth lives in her own head so much she doesn't see, or perhaps even care, about The Rancher's obvious feelings towards her.

The first two segments are compelling in their own ways (especially when Laura becomes involved in a hostage situation that Reichardt plays for laughs) but it isn't until we get to the Stewart/Gladstone story that the film really fizzes into life. Unrequited love is, of course, a staple of all kinds of fiction but I haven't seen its resultant longing and heartache articulated on screen quite so winningly in a while. Reichardt's preference for slow pacing and long takes is perfect for Gladstone's clumsy attempted courtship of the young lawyer, especially in the film's most perfect scene as the pair ride one of The Rancher's horses together. Conducted at night, in silence, it's a lovely moment that the director gives all the time and space it needs to breathe. Elsewhere, particularly in Gina's segments, proceedings and relationships feel a little less perfectly cooked but this is a real return to form for Reichardt after 2013's clumsy eco-terrorist drama, Night Moves.

Wonder Women: Kelly Reichardt is back on form 

When it comes to those aforementioned "bigger, brasher, faster blockbusters" few do it better than Marvel. But Doctor Strange (DVD, Blu-ray and VOD) WW isn't up there with the company's best efforts (Iron Man, Guardians Of The Galaxy). It boasts a great cast (including Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Tilda Swinton) and some truly mind-boggling effects (of which more in a moment). But, frustratingly often, Scott Derrickson's film is little more than a bunch of smart set-pieces in need of a better script, and a real hotchpotch of different influences (everything from Doctor Who to Harry Potter via Inception). Worse still, some of that great cast are either given little to do (Rachel McAdams) or straddled with lifeless characters (Mads Mikkelsen).

Doctor Stephen Strange (Cumberbatch) is a rich, successful, brilliant and arrogant New York neurosurgeon whose career is destroyed when a car accident leaves his hands shattered. Desperate to get his old life back but beyond the help of regular surgery, Strange travels to Kathmandu, in hopes of discovering a miracle cure. There he encounters a powerful being called The Ancient One (Swinton), who inducts him into a head-spinning world of magic and alternative dimensions. He soon finds himself pitted against Kaecilius (Mikkelsen) - a former student of The Ancient One's - who has turned bad and plans to conquer the planet in the name of an immensely powerful creature.

Despite my misgivings, and the fact they won't look nearly so grand on the small screen, director Derrickson nevertheless serves up a couple of visual moments to treasure. The climactic battle between Strange and his monstrous foe, Dormammu, is a time-twisting treat but even better is an earlier scene in which Swinton's Ancient One blows the Doctor's mind with a gloriously trippy whistle-stop tour of the universe and its many dimensions - an experience so overwhelming even Timothy Leary might have baulked at it.

Stranger things: Cumberbatch casts his spell

Hell Comes To Frogtown (DVD) WWW is a long-lost classic of the Italian neorealist movement, which has been recently rediscovered and restored by... no, I'm kidding, it's a gloriously silly post-apocalyptic slice of low-budget sci-fi from 1988 (the Blu-ray came out back in December but the DVD has only been made available from today). Donald G Jackson and RJ Kizer's film is noteworthy for two reasons - the fact it stars They Live's cult wrestler/action hero 'Rowdy' Roddy Piper (who passed away in 2015) and also because it was so clearly the inspiration for last year's magnificent Mad Max: Fury Road.

Piper is Sam Hell (brother of 'Shia' and 'Evan', I sincerely hope), one of only a few fertile men left after nuclear Armageddon has wiped out two thirds of America's male population. He is captured by Med-Tech (a team of female scientists who seem to hold sway in this bleak new world), made to wear an explosive electronic codpiece and press-ganged into a mission to liberate a group of young women from their kidnappers in the mutant wasteland. (The idea is that Hell rescues these ladies, then gets them pregnant to help with the repopulation effort). Cue a race of frog people, gratuitous nudity, punch-ups, a surprising amount of dancing, explosions, and a script with its tongue wedged so firmly in its cheek, you'd need some sort of special tongue/cheek wrench to pry them apart again.

The film is daft in a way that is actually quite hard to pull off. Silly and camp, yes, but also rather knowing and, at times, quite clever. There's a great bit near the beginning featuring the Statue of Liberty that I won't spoil but perfectly illustrates what I mean. And Frogtown is full of such playful, pleasing moments - some visual, some spoken - that suggest everybody involved was not only in on the joke but also having the time of their lives, including Piper, a charismatic screen presence, for sure, but one barely on nodding terms with anything you'd call 'acting'.

It's amusingly odd that a film so obviously intended as a Mad Max spoof/homage/cash-in should end up inspiring Fury Road, director George Miller's finest and most successful instalment of the Road Warrior saga, whose adventures he kicked off in 1979. There's one particular sequence here that really gives the game away, when, having rescued the kidnapped women, Hell and his companions (including Cec Verrell's Centinella, a badass proto-Furiosa) are pursued by Frogtown's Commander Toty (Brian Frank). The resultant car chase may lack the ambitious acrobatics, unfettered imagination and bludgeoning violence of Fury Road's best moments but its influence on the multiple Oscar winner is as plain as the mullet on Piper's head.

Let's get Rowdy: Piper invades Frogtown

What I shall be watching this week: I haven't seen a good, old-fashioned monster movie in a while, so I'm hoping Kong: Skull Island will sate my creature feature needs... at least until someone finally gets around to releasing Shin Godzilla over here.

Ratings

WWWW - Wonderful

WWW - Worthwhile

WW - Watchable

W - Woeful

Doctor Strange: The Rough and The Smooth

Doctor Strange

Director: Scott Derrickson

Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton, Chiwetel Ejiofor

Running time: 115mins

Could it be magic? Um, no, not quite...

This review contains spoilers

Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a rich, successful, brilliant and arrogant New York neurosurgeon whose career is destroyed when a car accident leaves his hands shattered. Desperate to get his old life back but beyond the help of regular surgery, Strange spends his last dollar on a quest to Kathmandu, in hopes of discovering a miracle cure. There he encounters a powerful being called The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), who inducts him into a head-spinning world of magic and alternative dimensions.

Under her tutelage - and with the companionship of The Ancient One's assistants Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Wong (Benedict Wong) - Strange soon starts to master the mystical arts. Instead of using his newly-acquired skills to heal his broken body and resume his medical career, however, he finds himself pressed into action against the forces of darkness. And that's just as well because Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) - a former student of The Ancient One's - has turned bad and plans to conquer the planet in the name of his master, Dormammu, an immensely powerful creature from the Dark Dimension.

The Rough

1. Mads Mikkelsen and Rachel McAdams (who plays Strange's love interest) aren't given nearly enough to do. The former is a typical Marvel movie bad guy, full of expository dialogue and zero personality, whose really only there to guide our protagonist to the movie's 'boss level'. It's a criminal waste of a terrific actor. The latter does little apart from simper after Strange, despite being a capable doctor in her own right. 

2. Unusually for a Marvel film, the humour feels a bit laboured. Cumberbatch isn't a natural when it comes to reeling off the supposedly snappy banter, and some of the jokes - including one about Beyoncé - are just plain clunky and unfunny.

3. The movie struggles to find its own identity and often comes across as little more than a hot-potch of influences. Batman Begins, Doctor Who, Star Wars, Inception, Harry Potter, and even a certain scene in the first Christopher Reeve Superman film are all visible in its DNA. Consequently, there's a 'seen it all before' vibe to parts of the movie.
4. The film's biggest problem is its use of the tired old 'light side versus dark side' trope that was fine 40 years ago in Star Wars but is looking decidedly threadbare these days. The script - an exposition-heavy cornucopia of nerd gobbledegook about alternate dimensions, mystical talismans and spells - doesn't help a whole lot.
5. Doctor Strange does not run anywhere - ever. He's the master of the mystic arts, not Usain bleedin' Bolt.
6. At no point does Strange use any of his comic-book catchphrases. There's no 'Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth' nor 'Crimson Bands of Cyttorak'. This really will not do.

Spellbound: Doctor Strange boasts eye-popping effects

The Smooth

1. Not all of them are given much to do (see #1, above) but Doctor Strange boasts perhaps the most impressive cast of any superhero film to date. Just check out this lot: Oscar winner Swinton, Oscar nominee Cumberbatch, Oscar nominee McAdams, Oscar nominee Ejiofor, Cannes Best Actor winner Mikkelsen, and Primetime Emmy nominee Benjamin Bratt (okay, I may be reaching a bit with the last one). That's the kind of heavyweight acting talent Christopher Nolan or Alejandro G. Iñárritu would sacrifice a puppy for. Doctor Strange helmer Scott Derrickson (Sinister) must have thought all his Christmases had come at once.

2. The special effects are just that - special. Yes, some of the reality-folding stuff you'll recognise from the trailer owes a bit too much to Inception (not to mention MC Escher), but there's a scene just after Strange meets The Ancient One for the first time that is both spectacular and psychedelic. The good doctor's final confrontation with Dormammu is a treat, too, as is a punch-up his 'astral form' has with one of Kaecilius's goons. For once, I wish I'd forked out the extra to see it all in 3D.

3. I almost cheered when Dormammu turned up in the film's final act - finally, a proper old-school Marvel villain, even if he wasn't around nearly long enough and Strange's means of defeating him was straight out of a Stephen Moffat-scripted episode of Doctor Who. 

4. Despite the understandable controversy created by Swinton's involvement (The Ancient One is an elderly Asian man in the comics), the cast is impressively diverse, with big roles for Ejiofor (comic-book Mordo is white) and Wong, whose namesake character is given a lot more to do here than he was ever granted in the comics as Strange's valet. 
5. I'm a sucker for a story of redemption and Doctor Strange delivers a pretty good one as our protagonist goes from selfish arsehole to selfless hero. I also liked the fact Strange isn't some special 'Chosen One foretold in the book of blah blah' and actually has to master magic the hard way - blood, sweat and a ton of practise.
6. Stan Lee's cameo is mercifully brief and, for once, actually amusing (he's reading Aldous Huxley's mescaline-fuelled The Doors Of Perception).

7. I really hate post-credits scenes and resent having to wait all the way to the bitter, bloody end of a movie. BUT the mid-credits and post-credits sequences here do set things up very nicely for Thor: Ragnarok and, presumably, Doctor Strange 2. 

Result: Rough 6 Smooth 7 - Doctor Strange nicks a narrow victory. It isn't a patch on Marvel's best movies (Iron Man, Guardians Of The Galaxy), but some eye-popping special effects and a cast to die for just about paper over a weak script and hackneyed storyline.