Tag: fantasy

The Golden Compass

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★★★½
“While feeling incomplete, still a good primer for young action heroine fans.”

There aren’t that many decent action heroine films for kids: much as I love Bloody Mallory or Kill Bill, they aren’t really child-appropriate. At the other end, films like the Harry Potter or the Narnia series, while containing female characters of some importance, sideline them in favor of the boys. That makes this a refreshing breath of fresh air, in that the heroine is firmly front and center as she goes through her adventures. It’s set in an alternate universe where people’s souls take the form of animals that accompany them everywhere, known as daemons. Childrens’ daemons shapeshift, but adults’ ones are static in form. Things are run by an authoritative group called The Magisterium, but Lord Asriel (Craig) who has found “dust” in a far Northern land, that could challenge the established order – the Magisterium have been kidnapping children for use in human experiments to counter dust. Into this is dropped Asriel’s niece, Lyra Belacqua (Richards), who is given the last golden compass, a device able to answer any question in the right hands. she is about to head North with Mrs. Coulter (Kidman), only to find she has a central role in the kidnapping – as Lyra’s best friend has now vanished, she bravely heads off, initially on her own, to rescue him.

It’s a pretty cool adventure tale, with some stirring sequences and memorable characters – not least the armoured polar-bear (voiced by McKellen), who becomes Lyra’s protector. He doesn’t just sit around drinking Coke, let’s say, though the entirely bloodless nature of the battle sequences lessen the impact significantly, though is likely an inevitable result of the PG-13 certificate. It is satisfyingly full of strong female characters, on both sides: as well as Lyra and Mrs. Coulter, the witch queen Serafina Pekkala kicks almost as much ass as the polar-bear. But the film fails badly to tie up the ends, particularly Lord Asriel, who is kidnapped in the middle and then vanishes, almost without further mention, until a quick reference at the end. Admittedly, while there are decent reasons why – it was intended as the first in a trilogy – we are less concerned here with excuses than actuality. And in actuality, it peters out.

I have to say, I haven’t read the book on which this is based, but opinion generally finds the movie to be ‘dumbed-down’, not least for removing the book’s far greater criticism of religion [the Magisterium is a thinly-disguised version of the Catholic Church]. This is likely inevitable, given the film’s $180m budget, but didn’t stop a campaign to boycott the film – which worked rather better in the US than abroad. It took more than four times its US gross overseas – compare, say, the first Narnia film, where the foreign multiplier was only about 1.5. Its relative failure in America has thrown the sequels into doubt, especially in the current economic climate, and that’s a shame: the world could always use some more heroines, and what you get here is painfully and obviously unfinished. Maybe I’ll go read the books instead.

Dir: Chris Weitz
Star: Dakota Blue Richards, Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Ian McKellen

Angel-A

  By

★★★½
“Emotional Battle Angel.”

Andre (Debbouse) is at the end of his tether, owing large amounts of money to at least three separate gangs. He decides to end it all by leaping off a Parisian bridge into the Seine below, but is beaten to it by the tall, leggy blonde, Angela (Rasmussen, who you may remember in a bathroom stall with Rebecca Romijn-Stamos in the opening of Femme Fatale). His suicide forgotten, he jumps in to save her, and as they sit, dripping on the river-bank she vows that she will repay his selfless act by taking care of him. This may not be quite the way he expects; for example, she hijacks a negotiation with one of the mobsters to whom Andre owes money, marches upstairs and emerges not long afterwards, the debt apparently forgiven and with tens of thousands in bonus cash. Just as important as resolving his pecuniary problems are the emotional ones which plague Andre, and Angela is perhaps even more adept at addressing those: his lack of self-confidence, trust issues, an inability to give or receive love and so on. She sees the good person who is buried very deeply, and slowly teases it out. For her name is almost literal: she’s an angel, sent down to save Andre from himself.

After six years where he was involved in writing a dozen film and producing even more, this was Besson’s first film as director since The Messenger. Nice to see him back, and the decision to shoot the entire film in black-and-white adds to the fairytale feel, though sometimes it feels more like a Calvin Klein commercial than anything else. The contrast between the 5’10” Rasmussen, towering over the 5’5″ Debbouse like an Amazon, is also unique, and it’s the former’s attitude that makes it qualify here, in a way reminiscent of Run Lola Run. Angela is as relentless as a force of nature, and will let nothing and no-one get in the way of her mission; in this way, she also reminds me of Leeloo in The Fifth Element, or even Mathilda from Leon.

In terms of action, it’s more understated than I’d like: Angela could certainly kick the ass of everyone else in the film, but never needs to get out of second gear. However, the emotional content of the film is considerable, never more than in a single shot that seems endless, where Angela makes Andre stare into a bathroom mirror and look at himself for, probably, the first time in his life. It’s a beautiful moment of impressive heartfelt exposure, laying bare Andre’s soul and exposing the human heart beating inside the scam artist. If not quite the badass-oriented remake of Wings of Desire I was hoping for, it proves very satisfactory and a unique romantic fantasy. I hope Besson doesn’t forget to showcase his own talents as a director more often in the future.

Dir: Luc Besson
Star: Jamel Debbouze, Rie Rasmussen, Gilbert Melki, Serge Riaboukine

Forbidden Warrior

  By

★½
“Eminently forgettable. And I’ve now watched it twice, just to prove that.”

Though I couldn’t put my finger on why, large chunks of this seemed very familiar when I was watching it last night. Maybe it was just the story, cut from a template [mystical book, blah, chosen one, blah-blah, key to all power, etc.] we’ve seen a million times before. But then, when I Googled the film’s title, I realised why: at #6 was my review on our other, non-GWG site, from back in October 2005 when this came out on DVD [which I’ve just seen contains basically the same ‘blah’ line as above. Hey, if I had to watch this twice, you can read it twice. It’s the least you can do]. It made little impact on me then, and it hasn’t improved with time. The main problem is its absolute failure to stand on its own: the movie ends just as the heroine heads off towards the evil emperor who holds said mystical book, which only she can read. The aim was, apparently, to make a trilogy, but three years later, we’re still waiting for any word of the sequel. The moral is, if you’re going to make a series, either get your cash lined up in advance (as in Lord of the Rings), or make your first film capable of working by itself (see The Matrix) – otherwise, you’ll be left with something that looks utterly unfinished.

That aside, this is also not exactly enthralling. While the fight sequences are not bad, they are nowhere near frequent enough, and the first hour in particular is turgidly-paced. Seki (Matiko) is sent into exile for her own protection, as the only person standing between the emperor and world domination. There, her blind sifu (Amendola) teaches her magic and self-defense, while the emperor eventually sends out his sons to look for her – albeit after first waiting a couple of decades for her to grow up. It’s nice to see a good number of Asian-American actors getting decent roles, even if there there is a random mix of ethnicity that detracts from any real sense of time or place. It seems to be trying for some kind of Princess Bride-like vibe, yet the clunky set-up approach taken here would likely tax the patience of even a moderately-impatient eight-year old. Maybe they should have started in the middle, like Star Wars: the second episode has to be better than the first, largely because it can’t be much worse.

Dir: Jimmy Nickerson
Star: Marie Matiko, Sung Yang, Karl Yune, Tony Amendola

6 Angels

  By

★★★
“Like The Prophecy, made for 75 cents and without Christopher Walken.”

Poverty-row production though this might be, I can’t bring myself to hate this as much as it perhaps deserves. While it’s ambitions are far beyond its means [the DVD sleeve promises ‘female warriors in awesome fights’ – let’s just say, it was probably a mistake for me to rewatch Crouching Tiger the same day!], writer-director Almeida does, at least, have an imagination. After 12 years in a coma, Taileen (Fabre) finds herself reborn as one of The Circle, a group of six angels, three good and three evil, who keep the balance of the world. However, Ezekiel (Mazzola), the leader of the devil’s team, plans to wipe out the holy trinity, in order for his master to reign, and Taileen soon finds herself the only thing standing between the forces of darkness and their goal.

Really, if you’re going to offer religious apocalypse, you’d probably better have a budget that could not be described as ‘loose change’. The action is often teetering on the edge of laughable, and the film doesn’t even play by its own rules. In an early scene, Taileen learns she can only be killed by a “profane blade”, but the devil’s advocates still blaze away at her with mundane guns, even after they’ve learned she can stop bullets with her mind. Despite this, there are enough elements that worked to keep me interested: Stiga (Kastel, menacing the heroine in the pic at lower right) comes over nicely, both dressing and acting like a slutty version of Carrie-Anne Moss in The Matrix. I also have to credit Scott Buckley’s excellent, sweeping and orchestral score, which appears to have strayed in from a far bigger movie. That really yanks the film up by its boot-straps.

Things build to a final showdown in a warehouse, where the makers finally locate their supply of fake blood, which has been largely notable by its absence for the first hour, and it is quite effective. I do wonder why the angels, on both sides, don’t make better uses of their powers, though must also say, said powers are also somewhat crap: if I was responsible for holding the balance between good and evil, I’d want something better than the ability to turn into a fat guy. Overall, one would quite like to see this remade as a big-budget work, because the ideas here are good; with a good effects studio – and significantly better fight choreography – this has a lot of potential. However, Hollywood appears too busy remaking mostly-mediocre Asian horror to notice. We are therefore stuck with a cheap version, whose flaws likely distract too much from its merits for this to find a wide audience.

Dir: Luis Almeida
Star: Allison Fabre, Greg Mazzola, Jasmine Kastel, Rolando Millet

Burial of the Rats

  By

★★★
“That whirring sound you hear, is Bram Stoker spinning in his grave.”

This can only be described as utterly mad. Bram Stoker is kidnapped by a group of bikini-clad female vigilantes, ruled over by “the Pied Piper’s twisted sister” (Barbeau), who can control rats with her flute (when not decapitating them in her rodent-sized guillotine, I kid you not). He is coerced into becoming one of them because the Queen decided his writing skills could aid their PR skills, striking fear into their targets with his eye-witness accounts of the raids where the extract vengeance on evil men. Of course, one of the clan (Ford) falls for him, but when she is captured by the authorities, her colleague must mount a raid to rescue her. Meanwhile, Stoker’s father is trying to find his son. Oh, and I did I mention the topless ballet which is apparently the women’s chief source of entertainment? No wonder Barbeau permanently wears a pained expression. [Though she now looks back and says, “It was great fun but even at the time I was able to stand back and think, this is bizarre.”]

Obviously, it’s stupid as all get out: I didn’t realise Bram Stoker had a heavy American accent, while these rats apparently have piranha DNA, judging by the speed they turn their victims into skeletons – actually, I think they’re all the same skeleton… Still, as a lurid B-movie, it’s entertaining nonsense. Might have benefited from more OTT direction, to lift it up into the realm of something like The Perils of Gwendoline – I can’t help wondering what someone like Ken Russell might have done with this. As is, it boasts good production values [Corman was among the first to take advantage of cheap Eastern bloc labour and materials] and a couple of half-decent swordfights – especially when you consider most of the cast were likely chosen for their physical attributes more than their physical ability. There’s cameo appearances from B-movie icons Nikki Fritz and Linnea Quigley, but I didn’t notice them until the end credits. Taking it seriously would be a huge mistake: taking it with some beers and a pizza makes much more sense.

Dir: Dan Golden
Stars: Kevin Alber, Maria Ford, Olga Kabo, Adrienne Barbeau

My Super Ex-Girlfriend

  By

★★★
“Moderately entertaining. No less, but certainly no more.”

There’s certainly plenty of potential in the idea: how do you break up with your girlfriend, when she’s not just needy and possessive, but also has superhuman strength, the ability to fly and can boil your fishtank with her gaze? And the casting is, in general, excellent, too. Matt (Wilson) is an endearing everyman, and Thurman is perfect for capturing the mix of neuroses and power in G-Girl – her sequence where she pouts and refuses to save New York from a rogue missile is great. Izzard, naturally, steals almost every scene as supervillain Professor Bedlam [or “Barry”, as G-Girl knows him], though Riann Wilson matches him as Matt’s best friend, who talks a far better sexual game than he actually plays.

However, despite the sum of these parts, the results rarely get beyond the wry smile of recognition. I suspects the results would have been a great deal better if the script had abandoned all pretense at “reality”, and taken things to their logical, if excessive, conclusion. The best sequence, for example, has G-Girl lobbing a live and understandably very upset shark, into Matt’s high-rise apartment – more of that level of excess could have been helpful. Similarly, the super-powered cat-fight at the finale is more a wasted opportunity than anything, and the film plays more as mean-spirited: most of the characters come over as suffering from one kind of personality disorder or another, and you tend to find yourself laughing at the characters, rather than with them. Not that this is necessarily bad, but it seems at odds with the gentle, romantic comedy being aimed at here.

Dir: Ivan Reitman
Stars: Luke Wilson, Uma Thurman, Anna Faris, Eddie Izzard

Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior

  By

★★★
“Into every third generation, a slay..ah, warrior is born.”

It’s kinda sad to say, but the action in this Disney TV movie kicks the ass of, not only most TV shows, but a credible number of Hollywood films. Then again, behind the fights here is Koichi Sakamoto, who is also responsible for Drive, among the best American martial-arts films of all time. And while obviously “Disneyfied”, this is still sprightly and engaging, with a couple of very decent fight sequences. It is, however, extremely influenced by Buffy: an unwilling heroine (Song) destined to face down evil on the night of a major school event, under the care and tuition of a mysterious guardian? Joss Whedon should have a word with his lawyers. However, the Chinese cultural twist is nice, not least the Shaolin Soccer riffs, though neither lead actually is Chinese.

This does pose problems, the film trying hard to be culturally “sensitive”; Wendy struggles between wanting to be a “normal” American girl, and her Chinese heritage. This is clunkily handled and does drag the middle of the film down, as the whole Homecoming Queen plot-thread is simply not very interesting, and adds nothing of significance to the film. Things do perk up again, when her teachers get taken over by monk spirits, to assist with her training. It then heads to the finale in a deserted museum where Wendy and her “watcher”, Shen (Koyamada), must face an possessed-schoolmate and a host of terracotta warriors. I stumbled on this by accident, in an advert break during a baseball game on a neighbouring channel, and enjoyed it, despite being about three times the target audience’s age. Some more action would certainly have been preferred, but between this and Kim Possible, Disney have as good a claim to being the home of action heroine TV as any channel.

Dir: John Laing
Stars: Brenda Song, Shin Koyamada, Justin Chon, Andy Fischer-Price

Guardian of the Realm

  By

★★★

“Why do villainesses get all the best clothes?”

They may be good girls or bad…

Despite a male hero, this qualifies since the very significant second lead and the villain are both female, with the former, in particular, worthy of our attention here. It’s set in the near-future where the group CORE, including agents Josh Griffin (Levy) and Alex Marlowe (Dempsey), keep humanity safe by executing demons that pop through portals from the dark side. However, an occult sect have unleashed a higher-level demon, Virago (Piryan) into this world, and she must be stopped before an upcoming total eclipse will allow her to blow the portals between the realms wide-open, and take the world down, Titanic-style.

Director/co-writer Smith appeared in both Guyver movies, and you sense that’s the kind of feel he’s going for here, combining martial-arts and rubber suits, in a world running just below the surface of ours. But according to his bio, he’s also done special effects on everything from Contact to Xena, and perhaps the latter’s influence can be seen in the statuesque Piryan, who would certainly have given Lucy Lawless a run for her money. The result is a mix of the highly-effective and the less-impressive. The moment where Alex’s true nature is revealed is just fabulous: among my favourite moments in any film this year. There is also a nice sense of ongoing history, though this is not developed as much as in, say, Witchblade. I got the sense of this being a fragmentary corner of a universe much larger than the film, perhaps due to budgetary limitations, could portray – a TV series would be very welcome.

…but the thong remains the same!

On the other hand the CGI, especially at the finale, is not up to the tasks demanded of it; the world-threatening apocalypse looks too often like a bad video-game. I wasn’t really impressed with Levy either, who lacked the required presence for a lead. The main problem, however, is a first half that drags horribly. After Virago is freed, she basically vanishes, and it’s almost sixty minutes before she does anything of significance. The film doesn’t really develop the back story, or do much with the characters during this time either, and it’s pretty tedious, with little action to keep you interested.

Things do perk up significantly later on and, must say, Virago is definitely a nominee for the Best Costume of 2006, while Alex’s thong gets almost as much screen-time as she does. The action is well-staged with Dempsey kicking ass in a manner befitting a grown-up Buffy. However, and a minor spoiler, it’s Griffin that ends up taking on Virago – sadly, not in the cool costume – even though it’s clear that Marlowe is the better fighter. If the makers cut 25 minutes out (the current running-time is 110), this would be a much tighter, more effective work with a claim at cult status. As is, it’s still an interesting rental, but one whose potential isn’t quite realised.

Dir: Ted Smith
Stars: Glen Levy, Tanya Dempster, Lana Piryan, Ronald Quigley

Sky High

  By

★★★★
“Life’s a bitch, then you die…then life’s a bitch again.”

Combining elements from Dead Like Me and Ghost, this still manages to come up with something unique, especially given its origins as a prequel to a popular TV series. It is designed to explain how Mina (Shaku) got the job as Keeper of the Gate, where murder victims must decide whether to forgo revenge and pass on, return to Earth as a ghost, or seek vengeance at the price of eternal torment. She ends up there after having her heart torn out on her wedding day by insane billionaire serial killer Kudo (Osawa) who will stop at nothing to save his one true love, currently lying in a coma. Trust me – it all makes perfect sense, and it’s a particularly nice touch that Mina’s fiance, Detective Kohei (Shosuke) is equally driven in his actions by love.

What’s of particular note is the continuous parade of strong female characters. As well as Mina, who starts off cowed and shy, but ends up wielding a sword with enthusiasm in her new role, there’s the existing Keeper (Eihi Shiina, the piano-wire wielder in Audition); Kudo’s secretary-come-hit woman (Uotani Kanae), who kills for him so that his soul remains pure; and medium Shuho Kamiina (Yumi Kikuchi), Keeper in a former life, who remembered her previous existence and retained the fighting skills. Any one of these would make the film worth watching; put them all together, and it’s a shame the film is only two hours long.

The resulting swordfights are longer on style than substance, with much posing before and during the battles, while the plot does rely too much on convenient coincidence, such as the photographer who just happens to be able to take ghost snapshots. It also seems that every other person has been a Keeper in a previous life. However, the longer the film goes on, the more engrossed you get in the characters, and the ending is genuinely quite touching. I really doubt the TV series could live up to this, but I’d certainly be prepared to give it a shot.

Dir: Ryuhei Kitamura + Norio Tsuruta
Star: Yumiko Shaku, Shoshuke Tanihara, Takao Osawa, Toda Naho

Silverhawk

  By

★★½
“Comic-book stuff – unfortunately, in the bad sense of the phrase.”

There’s no doubt about the aesthetic they’re aiming for here; heroine with secret identity, sneering evil nemesis, gadgets, etc. Take a Marvel comic from the 60’s, transplant it to the modern Far East, and there you are. Indeed, this period is apparently where SilverHawk originated; unfortunately, the makers failed to learn from similar failures such as The Avengers, The Mod Squad and Wild Wild West, and the results are lacklustre.

The problem here is mostly a script with no idea how to fill the gaps between the fight scenes, succumbing to the nemesis of so many HK films: juvenile humour. Jen is the worst offender, playing a cop out to track down Lulu Wong (Yeoh), a.k.a. SilverHawk, who is so incompetent we’re given no credible reason to believe he’d be put in charge of tea-making, never mind a high-profile investigation. They were in the same orphanage as kids: yes, it’s that kind of script. Inevitably, they team up to go against bad guy Alexander Wolfe (Goss) who wants to control people’s minds using mobile phones – the satirical potential in this idea is, inevitably, never realised. The potential for product placement, on the other hand…Nokia and BMW are the big winners there.

That’d all be okay, if the action was above average. It’s not. While still the best thing here, we actually fell asleep during the climax, and had to rewind once we woke up. There’s little sense of escalation: once you’ve seen the opening battle, that’s pretty much all the movie has to offer, save various gimmicks. Silverhawk battles thugs on bungee cords! [The producers were clearly hoping we’d all forgotten Tomb Raider, which at least made a thin pretense at explaining itself there] Thugs on roller-blades! Wolfe is clearly not short of imagination – except when it comes to giving his henchmen firearms, naturally.

It’s great to see Yeoh, now in her forties, still do a motorcycle jump across the Great Wall. However, things like the clunky mix of languages cripple this, and the result definitely won’t help Yeoh’s career. After Tomorrow Never Dies and Crouching Tiger, the world was at her feet, but projects such as The Touch and this one have proved very disappointing. Her talent remains clear; her judgement, on the other hand, is clearly very questionable.

Dir: Jingle Ma
Star: Michelle Yeoh, Richie Jen, Luke Goss, Brandon Chang