Cinema Review: Unstoppable (2010)

To call Unstoppable a throwback might seem a stretch, but that's exactly what it is - a return to the 1980s/90s when the "High Concept" ruled, before the current obsession with superheroes and CGI excess. They were the years that produced the likes of Die Hard and Speed - crowd-pleasing action films set, superficially, in the real world. Unstoppable belongs to that same ilk, its high concept being as good, and a simple, as any of them: an unmanned freight train carrying deadly chemicals runs out of control and has to be stopped before it derails in a populated area. It's based on a real incident that happened in the US in 2001, albeit with the usual fictionalised embellishments. Behind the reigns is a man no stranger to the 80s era - Tony Scott, director of Top Gun. If in the years since his breakout he has lagged behind brother Ridley in the prestige stakes, he's arguably been more consistent, churning out enjoyable actioners at a commendable rate. That continues here: Unstoppable is clearly the work of a man who knows his craft.

Firstly, the script (by Mark Bomback, who's not done much to write home about before) gets the essentials right. There's sufficient backstory to flesh out our main characters just enough that they don't feel like the cardboard cutouts their descriptions suggest - Denzel Washington's veteran train engineer Frank, and Chris Pine's rookie conductor Will - but not too much to bog down the beginning of the film. Washington's laid-back gravitas meshes well with Pine's eager cockiness; the latter's impressive showing in Star Trek was apparently no fluke. In fact Unstoppable is a very lean film, milking the full potential its perfectly paced 98 minutes. It gets to the point, the runaway train, quickly, before building up the suspense in such a brilliantly sustained way that any longer would have become too exhausting to bear (and it would probably have deflated like an overloaded house of cards at any rate).

The most refreshing part is that Scott has apparently insisted on keeping everything as physical as possible in the effects department. There's either very little CGI used, or, more likely, there's a fair bit of CGI but the placement of it is judged well enough that it is rarely, if ever, noticeable. The stuntmen must have enjoyed their work on the picture as they get more to do here than in most films these days where computers can eliminate safety risks but simultaneously dampen the thrills. There's one stunt that looks real where a character is dangling between two railway carriages on the speeding train; it evokes images of the most famous stunt of them all, in John Ford's Stagecoach.

The director is also clearly well aware that he needs to keep the adrenaline pumping the whole time for the film to reach its potential, and to this end his camera is never stationary, injecting even a simple scene of talking with immediacy and urgency. His unmotivated crash-zooms do sometimes irritate, but it's a minor issue; there's none of the seizure-inducing experimentation seen in his divisive Domino. Scott here has precision-engineered ideal blockbuster fare: not too taxing but not dumb, outlandish but not ridiculous, melodramatic but not overwrought.



Summary
Unstoppable couldn't have been named better - it's unstoppably entertaining.

Cinema Review: The King's Speech (2010)

Through the decades cinema has thrown up a countless stream of intriguing rivalries which are too extensive to list. Who would have thought then that despite the fact The King's Speech, a relatively small British film funded by a host of production companies and with the support of the redundant UK Film Council, would be causing such a storm with critics when it's essentially about one man's phobia of a piece of technology which will connect him to his people? With a stammering monarch as its protagonist in constant battle with a seemingly harmless radio, director Tom Hooper and writer David Seidler have created a masterpiece which is no less intense or memorable than a conventional thriller.

Colin Firth plays Albert (Bertie to friends), the Duke of York and the second in line to the English throne. Albert (George VI as king) is a dutiful royal, but is hampered by a debilitating stammer. He takes some comfort in the knowledge that his glamorous, playboy brother (a delightful Guy Pearce) will be the next king. Sensing his distress and public embarrassment, Albert's wife, Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter plays the young Queen Mother beautifully) seeks out noted speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush). The eccentric Australian may be unorthodox in his methods, but Albert overcomes his initial reluctance, and begins to seek help for what he considers to be his affliction.

The educated know what happens next - brother Edward abdicates the thrown to shack up with American divorcee Wallis Simpson and Albert finds himself as King of England. 2011 is surely the year for Colin 'Mr Darcy' Firth to follow in the footsteps of Dame Helen Mirren and win the big golden statuette for portraying a royal - incidentally, George VI is Elizabeth II's father. With such a flawless performance, the audience is front and centre with Bertie and sympathizing with him for each and every second of the drama as he battles with various microphones, desperately seeking a normal voice for his country to hear. Already the Oscar frontrunner, potential nominees such as James Franco (127 Hours) and Mark Wahlberg (The Fighter) can only hope for a sniff of recognition during awards season as Firth is clearing up. Even Jeff Bridges' excellent turn in the Coens' True Grit may go unrewarded and not make it two in a row for him after last year's Crazy Heart.

The King's Speech works on two levels. It's an intimate portrait of the relationship between two very different men; the pampered royal figure who's terrified of the responsibility that looms in front of him, and the downtrodden working-class man who dreams of making an impact on the world. Firth and Rush give such nuanced, passionate and heart-breaking performances. But this is also an historical drama, and director Hooper, who's had acclaim with television dramas on Elizabeth I and American President John Adams, understands the weight of this material perfectly, littering the narrative with historical incidents but never straying from the sensitive main point of the film, the speech impediment which could have easily destroyed Albert's regal aura.

The film comments on so many things, such as the inaction of the British Government to deal with the Nazi threat, the scandal caused by the abdication, and the way the media (particularly radio) was beginning to change the way the public perceived important figures such as the royal family. While Firth and Rush lead the charge in the dramatic stakes, they are supported by such acting luminaries as Derek Jacobi, Timothy Spall, Michael Gambon and the aforementioned Pearce in a scene-stealing role. One of the most startling performances though is by Helena Bonham Carter as the future Queen Mother. She is warm and tender, while exuding an effortless royal presence. After years of scenery chewing in husband Tim Burton's works, it's nice to see a more delicately shaded performance from her.

Regardless of how Hooper's 1930s sets look extremely authentic and the perfect dialogue never misses a theatrical beat with its equal measure of low self-esteemed drama (from Firth) and cheeky comedy (from Rush), one can never escape how this is pure and simply an awards-friendly outing undertaken exceptionally well. Firth, the Englishman typecast for so long by romantic comedies until last year's A Single Man, looks a shoe-in for Academy recognition and it would be a crime if Rush was not at least nominated for Best Supporting Actor.



Summary
The King's Speech may focus on a stammer as its central theme, but Tom Hooper's exquisite film cannot help but hammer home in a crystal clear manner how it's an exercise in pure class. Brilliant.

Cinema Review: Morning Glory (2010)

As soon as Harrison Ford shows up in Morning Glory, you're left in no doubt that this is the most engaged and entertaining he's been in years - perhaps dating back to The Fugitive. Amusingly, his best role in ages sees him playing a curmudgeonly grouch with a giant chip on his shoulder who seems to hate everyone and everything. He's Mike Pomeroy, one-time respected news anchor, now relegated to the little leagues. Worse, he's forced into presenting a struggling breakfast TV show called Daybreak (the unintended irony of which will not be lost on most UK viewers) by an upstart young producer intent on turning its - and his - fortunes around. But before Ford threatens to hog most of the words in this review, let's get one thing straight: he's a supporting player. The aforementioned young producer is the film's central character, Becky Fuller (Rachel McAdams), hired on a hunch by Jeff Goldblum's bastard exec.

McAdams is practically heroic in this movie, and not just in the usual protagonist sense. She carries it along on her shoulders, investing the part with masses of energy and likeability - not a scene goes by (and she's in nearly every one) in which she isn't working like a mad thing. It could be exhausting to watch, but instead it's hugely engaging and engrossing. At the start of the film, she's fired from her previous producing job; a subsequent montage shows her being rejected multiple times by prospective employers. She only manages to get the Daybreak job through sheer desperate begging, and it's thought of as a poisoned chalice anyway, as its ratings are in an apparently terminal nosedive. Cue a typical underdog-comes-good story told very well indeed, with a lively tempo and an enjoyable sense of humour that stems from the characters rather than being forced in like a bad sitcom. You do have to feel for weathermen though, who always seem the butt of the joke.

Much of the film has echoes of TV show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - one of Aaron Sorkin's rare blips - but where that failed (it was set behind the scenes on a comedy show, but the comedy bits weren't funny), Morning Glory succeeeds (it is funny, despite depicting the world of news reporting rather than comedy). The winning characters - and the unscrupulous slimeballs - are all well written and immaculately performed. The only element that comes across as rather rote and unnecessary is the romantic subplot with Patrick Wilson, which is little more than window dressing - an apparent concession to genre convention. Director Roger Michell has past experience in quality comedy-drama, though (he directed Notting Hill), and he keeps a knowledgeable, sturdy hand on proceedings, ensuring they never dip too far into gushy sentiment.



Summary
Snappily written, tightly directed and very well performed, Morning Glory is a triumph. For Ford it could be the start of a career renaissance, and for McAdams, perhaps a deserved stepping stone to bigger stardom.

Cinema Review: Tangled (2010)

Tangled is the second film in John Lasseter's quest to return Disney animation to its classic roots, the Pixar supremo having previously overseen The Princess and the Frog. Both are fairytales in Walt's grand tradition. Tangled - which lost its original, more familiar, title of Rapunzel after The Princess and the Frog made less money than had been hoped, blamed on the girl-skewing connotations of the "Princess" part - is the first fairytale to be told entirely via the modern wonder of CG animation. It's certainly a triumph of pixel mapping, presenting a lush, glistening, beautiful fantasy land, and with a lead character who owns implausibly long but lovingly rendered hair.

If going the CG route can be seen as an attempt to update the fairy tale for contemporary audiences, so too can the manner in which the story is told. It's a jaunty affair that splits its attention between the tower-bound Rapunzel (Mandy Moore) and dashing outlaw - notably not a prince - Flynn Rider (Zachary Levi), soon to be her unwitting saviour, in an obvious attempt to keep both boys and girls interested. Flynn's scenes are the stronger, adding a good helping of excitement and swashbuckling, while Rapunzel is saddled with some dreary songs that err occasionally towards the sound of a Taylor Swift B-side - hardly the sort of orchestral romanticism that one expects from such subject matter. Indeed, Alan Menken's songs are generally underwhelming, although the composer behind the music of Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid does produce some minor, if unmemorable, gems. Two of the musical highlights are devoid of lyrics, but are certainly lyrical in a different sense: one occurs when Rapunzel, free of her shackles, finally reaches the city with Flynn and engages in an impromptu dance with passers by; the other is a magical scene involving her watching hundreds of floating lanterns being released from the city at night.

Flynn also delivers a knowing, semi-postmodern voiceover narration at the beginning and end which comes off as a little too desperate to be cool, but thankfully the film never opts for DreamWorks-style pop-culture references. Instead, it develops its central story with admirable restraint, featuring a central romance that doesn't seem too forced or cliché. The animal characters steal the show, though - Pascal the chameleon (Rapunzel's shoulder-mounted sidekick), and Maximus the horse that thinks it's a dog - generating the biggest laughs, purely through their movements, gestures and facial expressions, as they remain resolutely mute. The way in which the story has been developed from the very simple original tale is quite ingenious, as unlike, say, Sleeping Beauty, the pacing never feels elongated or devoid of sufficient incident. It's a pleasure to see a film so happy to embrace an old-fashioned story style, setting it apart from the glut of competing CG 'toons that are ten a penny these days.



Summary
Some of the attempts to pander to modern, multi-demographic audiences fall flat, but otherwise Tangled is an enormously endearing update to the Disney fairytale framework of old.