Pick of the week

KRAMPUS (97 minutes, 15A) Directed by Michael Dougherty. Starring Adam Scott, Toni Collette, David Koechner.

Krampus opens with a nice little montage of store security tasering a mob of feral Black Friday shoppers with Bing Crosby’s “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” playing over the top. This gleefully dyspeptic attitude towards the festive season runs through writer/director Michael Dougherty’s home invasion monster movie like arsenic icing in a Christmas cake.

The ever so middle-class Engel family are steeling themselves for the annual redneck in-law invasion. The arrival of Howard (David Koechner), Linda (Allison Tolman) and their vulgar kids brings bickering and bullying, and these bad vibes are sufficient to summon the demon spirit of Krampus. With a supernatural blizzard outside, the Engels find themselves cut off from the outside world and under siege from anti-Santa and his little helpers.

Krampus never takes itself too seriously. With carnivorous Christmas cookies and an eight-foot hairy goat antagonist, it’s a film that is fully aware of its own absurdity. Dougherty has taken more than a little inspiration from Joe Dante’s classic, Gremlins, with black comedy and cartoon violence occasionally giving way to moments of surprising brutality.

The effects team utilise a commendable amount of puppetry and practical effects. Results are mixed (the Krampus creature itself is noticeably inanimate), but charming nevertheless and it’s a welcome antidote from endless CGI borefests. Of course Krampus is ridiculous, but it’s ridiculous fun.

TLDR: It’s a Not-So-Wonderful Life.

VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN (109 minutes, 12A) Directed by Paul McGuigan. Starring Daniel Radcliffe, James McAvoy, Jessica Brown Findlay.

For this “reimagining,” Chronicle Screenwriter Max Landis takes Mary Shelley’s novel, chops it up and stitches the bodyparts together with a glut of other references and influences.

Daniel Radcliffe starts out as a nameless hunchback working as circus freak. Wee Daniel also happens to be a wiz at anatomy, and is rescued from a life of servitude by mad genius Victor Frankenstein (James McAvoy). After a vomit-inducing bit of boil-lancing and the quickest Queer Eye makeover in cinematic history, he’s given a new name (Igor) and a new job as Frankenstein’s apprentice. Victor’s discovered how to animate things with biological energy and a magical fork, and he needs Igor’s anatomical talents to further his research. Meanwhile, bible-thumping DI Turpin (Andrew Scott) is trying to fit Frankenstein to a murder, and there’s something cooking in the basement.

Radcliffe is slowly overcoming the burden of growing up in front of the camera. As an actor, he gets better with each role and is by far the best element in this unholy mess. His enthusiasm and commitment is hard to resist. On the other hand, McAvoy knows far better than to take any of it seriously and overacts with every fibre in his being (say it, don’t spray it James).

Spotting where the various elements have been lifted from – a taste of Tim Burton here, a slice of Guy Richie there, and a healthy dollop of David Cronenberg body horror over the top – is entertaining for a while but eventually becomes distracting. It is instantly forgettable. Just like the monster, Victor Frankenstein is not built for longevity.

TLDR: IT’S ALIVE! But only just.

THE NIGHT BEFORE (101 minutes, 16) Directed by Jonathan Levine. Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anthony Mackie.

After satisfying his inner thespian in Steve Jobs, Seth Rogen ingests a selection box of narcotics and reverts to type.

The story of The Night Before is basic bromance comedy formula no. 1, involving a night on the town with best buds Ethan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) Isaac (Rogen) and Chris (Anthony Mackie) and their quest to find “The Nutcracker Ball” – the holy grail of Christmas parties. Hijinks ensue, lessons are learned, values are reassessed, and we all grow up just a little bit. Et cetera. But nobody’s watching this stuff for story.

In all fairness to Rogen, most of the laughs on offer are down to his ad-libbed paranoid hophead schtick. Elsewhere, the jokes amount to lazy riffs on other, better movies and crude pop culture references. Most miss the mark – even the actors look mortified trying to sell “Wrecking Ball” like it’s something off Pet Sounds, but the penny drops when Miley Cyrus makes a late appearance. And sings. Hurrah.

In a nutshell, The Night Before is “The Twelve Pubs of Christmas: The Movie.” If bongs, novelty jumpers and al fresco urination crack you up, then you’ll love this.

TLDR: Ho Ho No.

CHRISTMAS WITH THE COOPERS (106 minutes, 12A) Directed by Jessie Nelson. Starring Diane Keaton, Tom Goodman, Alan Arkin.

It’s clear that Christmas with the Coopers started life as a bog standard family melodrama, but at some point the cracks in Steven Rogers’ (P.S.I Love You) flimsy script were papered over with Christmas wrapping and the film is now being sold as this year’s Love Actually (one was more than enough, actually).

Diane Keaton and John Goodman play Charlotte and Sam Cooper. After 40 years of marriage, the couple have decided to go their separate ways, but Charlotte wants to spend one last Christmas with their family before dropping the bombshell. So we jump from one member of the extended Cooper clan to another as they make their way home on Christmas Eve.

What was intended as an anthology of character studies amounts to no more than thumbnail sketches, without any organic flow or connection between the individual parts. Alan Arkin’s melancholy grandfather is the film’s sole redeeming factor, but the rest of the characters are either underdeveloped (Marisa Tomei’s flaky sister) or utterly charmless (Olivia Wilde’s immature, needy daughter).

By the time they arrive at the nonsensical, happy-clappy resolution, every member of the (admittedly impressive) cast is covered in the stink of mediocrity. The festive setting is a blatant excuse to corral a collection of half-cooked, mismatched ideas into a cohesive whole. It doesn’t come close to working. Like sticking antlers and a Rudolph costume on a dog, it’s still a dog underneath.

TLDR: A real turkey.

Also on release from Friday 4^th December: SUNSET SONG, THE LESSON, 11 MINUTES

It’s Thursday, 3.37pm.

Time for a review of this weekend’s cinema releases from ‘sheet movie critic Mark Ryall.

*popcorn*

THE GOOD DINOSAUR (100 minutes, PG) Directed by Peter Sohn. Starring Raymond Ochoa, Jack Bright, Sam Elliott.

Perhaps it was too much to expect two classics from Pixar in one year. So it’s not entirely unexpected that The Good Dinosaur seems mundane in comparison to the wonderful Inside Out. Peter Sohn’s movie is sadly lacking in the humour, charm and the big ideas we have come to expect from the studio.

It’s a relatively small story. A young dinosaur, Arlo (voiced by Raymond Ochoa) is separated from his family and tries to find his way back home. The world he wanders through is practically deserted, with only the occasional supporting character popping up to break the monotony. Arlo carries the movie, but the voice acting is sub-par and the character design is ugly – too clumsy and angular in all the wrong places.

This is Pixar-lite. Younger viewers will be entertained, but it doesn’t hold the all-ages appeal of future classics like Wall-E (2008) or Up (2009). It also lacks any emotional heft, with a by-the-numbers resolution that feels inorganic and tacked on. It’s hard to come away without feeling a little disappointed, but at least there’s no singing.

TLDR: Underwhelming

CAROL (118 minutes, 15A) Directed by Todd Haynes. Starring Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson.

Todd Haynes returns to the classic melodrama of Far From Heaven (2002) for his adaption of “The Price of Salt,” Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 novel.

Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara) is a shy New York shopgirl with a dull job and a fiancé she doesn’t really like. Therese is practically invisible to the outside world, but when she meets sophisticated housewife Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett) she senses a deep connection. Companionship eventually develops into love, but the affair – and Carol’s pattern of “aberrant behaviour” – could result in her losing custody of her daughter.

The film manages to reproduce the confusion and woozy excitement of first love. Mara plays Therese as a sort of cipher swept along in Carol’s slipstream. It’s an appropriate choice given the inherent risk of conducting a lesbian relationship in a repressive society, but it does leave the restrained character as rather hard to read. Blanchett is the opposite, an expressive combination of strength, poise and elegance.

Haynes’ meticulous replication of 1950s Hollywood is truly remarkable. Every detail – from the costumes and sets down to the expressions of the extras in the background – captures the mood of the era.

Carol addresses themes that Douglas Sirk might have tackled were it not for the repressive Hay’s code. It calls attention to the rarity of a mainstream Hollywood movie carried by two strong female leads. The result is profoundly beautiful.

TLDR: Affecting

Pick of the week

BRIDGE OF SPIES (141 minutes, 12A) Directed by Steven Spielberg. Starring Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Amy Ryan.

The release of a new Steven Spielberg movie is quite rightly seen as an event. The tedium of his recent historical awards bonanza Lincoln (2012) notwithstanding, what the director has achieved in a remarkable 45-year career is more than enough to warrant the anticipation.

This Cold War thriller, set during the “Duck and Cover” Red scare paranoia of 1957, is a masterclass in suspense executed by one of the finest visual storytellers of our time.

James B. Donovan (Tom Hanks) is an insurance claims lawyer handed the poisoned chalice of defending Soviet spy Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance). The Government and the Court want to hand Abel a quick death sentence, but Donovan’s by-the-book tenacity sees the spy’s life spared. When the pilot of an American U-2 spy plane is captured by the Soviets, Abel becomes a handy bargaining chip, and Donovan is entrusted with the task of facilitating a prisoner swap in Berlin just as the GDR have started building the wall.

Bridge of Spies is a proper old school spy thriller, with microfilms, tense border crossings, bluffs and double bluffs. It’s a film of two halves, and they’re both fantastic. The two strands of narrative fit together like a jigsaw, and Spielberg knows exactly where to find the substance in the story.

The director’s affinity for sentimental manipulation is averted until the closing scenes, where the beatification of Donovan becomes more than a little cloying. Donovan is the kind of all American boy scout role that Hanks can pull off in his sleep. He doesn’t, but is still outclassed by Mark Rylance in every scene that the two share. With a mix of laid-back serenity and sardonic resignation, Rylance is simply superb.

TLDR: Gripping

Also on release from Friday 27^th November: BLACK MASS, RADIATOR.

Find Mark at WhyBother.ie

BROOKLYN (112 minutes, 12A) Directed by John Crowley. Starring Saoirse Ronan, Domhnall Gleeson, Emory Cohen.

The take-home message from this adaption of Colm Tobin’s emigration narrative is that opportunities for Ireland’s young have not improved in 60 odd years. Beginning in 1951, Ellis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan) leaves her family and friends behind in no-hope rural Ireland in pursuit of the American dream. She spends the first few weeks weeping into her bacon and cabbage; homesick, desperately lonely. But when Ellis falls for twinkly-eyed Italian plumber Antonio (Emory Cohen), life in America doesn’t seem quite so bad after all. A sudden tragedy sends Ellis back to Ireland and into the arms of wealthy, charming Jim Farrell (Domhnall Gleeson). With two lovers in two countries, Ellis is faced with the choice of staying at home or returning to her new life.
Heavily indebted to the work of Douglas Sirk, Brooklyn is a charming homage to a simpler age of filmmaking. John Crowley’s hands-off directional style allows source material to speak for itself. Ronan and Gleeson are two of our finest young actors, and each delivers a performance of understated, subtle dexterity. But the true standout of Brooklyn is Cohen. It’s occasionally prone to cliché (with emerald green coat and red hair, Ellis is the epitome of the stereotypical cailín). The DVD will fly off the shelves at Bunratty Castle gift shop.

 

HE NAMED ME MALALA (88 minutes, PG) Directed by Davis Guggenheim. With Malala Yousafzai, Zaiuddin Yousafzai

A bullet in the head could never be described as a gift. Yet when the Taliban shot 15 year old Malala Yousafzai for having the temerity of wanting an education, she was given an opportunity. Just as she herself chooses not to dwell on this act, Davis Guggenheim’s documentary focusses instead on what Malala has managed to achieve with the global spotlight. Since 2012 she has addressed the UN as an advocate for the 60 million children without access to education and is the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. The documentary also reveals the private aspects of Malala’s personality. Courageous, modest and witty, it is easy to forget that this influential world figure is still a teenager crushing on Brad Pitt. Education is the best defence against ideological fanaticism, and He Named Me Malala is an inspirational lesson in the value of constantly kicking against the pricks.

 

KILL YOUR FRIENDS (103 minutes, 18) Directed by Owen Harris. Starring Nicholas Hoult, Craig Roberts, James Corden.

The makers of this turgid Britflick were probably hoping to ride the current wave of 90s nostalgia, but the novelty wears off quickly. Adapted by John Niven from his own novel, Kill Your Friends is set during the Britpop years when a pre-Napster record industry was hoovering up money and Colombian marching powder in equal measure. Nicholas Hoult plays the preposterously named Steven Stelfox, a talentless A&R man whose only qualification is a prodigious capacity for cocaine and owning his own copy of “The Art of War.” But what he lacks in talent, he makes up for with blind ambition. Stelfox is the type who thinks nothing of (literally) urinating on his colleagues to get ahead. It’s like a “how-to” guide for sociopaths, or an episode of The Apprentice (same thing, I suppose). For all its edgy credentials and satirical aspirations, Kill Your Friends is ultimately quite boring. It has more in common with How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (2008) than with American Psycho (2000). At this stage, to-camera monologues indicate the inability to tell a story, and should be consigned to the past along with Menswear’s second album. Drug-taking isn’t a spectator sport, and the endless scenes of debauchery become wearing. Kill Your Friends feels like being trapped at a stockbrokers Christmas party. Unpleasant.

SCOUTS GUIDE TO THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE (93 minutes, 15A) Directed by Christopher Landon. Starring Tye Sheridan, Logan Miller, Joey Morgan.

If Shaun of the Dead (2004) is the high water mark of zom-rom-coms, then Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse is the sludge at the bottom. Any and all creative development for this project was wrapped up when someone came up with the elevator pitch of “Scouts fighting Zombies.” Because this has nothing else to offer. Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse is like an AC/DC-themed episode of Scooby Doo. With boobs. The three short-pants-and-woggle-wearing leads are far too old for this nonsense, as they point, squeal and bump their way to the 90-minute mark. Director and co-writer Christopher Landon lifts segments from Edgar Wright’s film wholesale, strips them of all wit, and replaces actual set-ups and pay-offs with genital references. This isn’t Scary Movie (2000) bad; it’s Meet the Spartans (2008) bad.

Also on release from Friday 6th November: BURNT.

(Mark blogs about film, TV and other stuff at WhyBother.ie)

SPECTRE (148 minutes, 12A) Directed by Sam Mendes. Starring Daniel Craig, Christophe Waltz, Léa Seydoux.

Ever since Casino Royale (2006) achieved the impossible feat of making James Bond relevant again, the franchise has never been in ruder health. This eagerly awaited follow-up to the monumentally successful Skyfall (2012) is going to make more money than Microsoft, but it’s a case of two steps forward, one step back.

Picking up immediately after the events of the last film, Spectre sees Bond (Daniel Craig) fighting a war on multiple fronts. First up is the task of hunting the shadowy Franz Oberhauser (Christophe Waltz), head of a multinational criminal organisation with links to the baddies from the previous three chapters. There’s also trouble at home, with oily new MI6 boss Max Denbigh (Andrew Scott) threatening to mothball the Double O program. Business as usual then.

Let’s start with the positives. Four movies in and Craig’s rough diamond has grown into the quintessential Bond. If this is the actor’s last hurrah (and it’s probably not), then Spectre provides a satisfying resolution to his story arc. Returning director Sam Mendes hits all the necessary beats, from kinetic action sequences in exotic locations to a spectacular set-piece every 30 minutes or so. But the realism of the previous movies has been lost in the quest to make the spectacle bigger, and Spectre starts ticking boxes best left as “optional”.

The action is far too slick, and any sense of genuine peril has all but disappeared. Signs of Brosnan-period cheesy humour are beginning to creep back in, along with the clichéd gimmickry of exploding watches and pimped-out supercars with ejector seats and machine guns. Spectre is still a decent popcorn flick that will please fans of “old” Bond, but those of us who have become accustomed to the new, gritty era will come away disappointed.

(Mark blogs about film, TV and other stuff at WhyBother.ie)

THE MARTIAN (12A, 141 Minutes) Directed by Ridley Scott. Starring Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig.

Left for dead on Mars, without any hope of rescue or method of communicating with Earth, botanist astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) gets stuck in to the business of not dying one problem at a time. Worse still, the only playlist available on the laptop is all disco. Bugger indeed.
Alternately titled “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Astronaut” (or “Mars… What is it good for?”) Damon is flawless as the can-do all-American Watney. He carries the bulk of the movie through sheer charisma; there’s a refreshing lack of wacky robots and mawkish communiques to teary Earth-bound relatives (I’m looking at you, Interstellar). Ridley Scott doesn’t try to force his trademark style onto the film, because there’s simply no need. The narrative is compelling enough to sustain the two-plus hours. The Martian is that rare case of a big-budget blockbuster that successfully manages to mix science fiction and science fact. It’s wholly satisfying and, more so than any of Scott’s movies in recent years, it works.

MACBETH (15A, 113 Minutes) Directed by Justin Kurzel. Starring Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Paddy Considine.

Macbeth is essentially a story about a man who kills a king, becomes king then goes off his nut. It’s definitely not for fans of Shakespeare’s early funny ones. Director Justin Kurzel takes an anti-Luhrman approach to this adaption, remaining largely faithful to the source.
Things get off to a very promising start with an intensely kinetic battle sequence rendered in a haunting, balletic slow motion. Thereafter Macbeth adopts a distinctly set-bound quality that leaves us with a creeping suspicion that we’re watching a play, albeit a very good one. It must be said that some familiarity with the source is essential or the plot will be lost amid reams of mumbled iambic pentameter. Macbeth is one of the better Shakespeare adaptions of recent years. The cast are impressive, and Fassbender is utterly mesmerising throughout, but it might leave you with unwelcome memories of a leaving cert English class.

THE WALK (PG, 123 Minutes) Directed by Robert Zemeckis. Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ben Kingsley, Charlotte Le Bon.

This dramatisation of Philippe Petit’s highwire wire walk across the towers of the World Trade Centre in 1974 is part bizarre heist movie, part “Christ, I can’t look” scenes of nausea-inducing vertigo. The third act is undeniably thrilling with some exhilarating heart-in-mouth wire-work sequences, but the problem is getting to it. The back story of Petit (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is fairly unengaging, and attempts to vitalise it with some Jean-Pierre Jeunet-style flourishes come off as cloying instead of charming. As the charsmatic, slightly arrogant Petit, Gordon-Levitt is a disappointment; more Pepé Le Peu than Alain Delon. The Wire isn’t terrible, but it is slightly redundant for anyone already familiar with the sublime Man On Wire (2008).

Also on release from tomorrow (Friday October 2): Ghosthunters: On Icy Trails and The Intern.
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Mark will criticise movies for food. See WhyBother.ie for a closer look at some of this week’s new releases.