PROMETHEUS - all that sound and fury....

...signifying nothing.  

PROMETHEUS is a visually stunning, beautifully acted film that makes absolutely  no sense. Apart from a couple of obligatory gore-fest alien-parasite-attack scenes, there's no sense of creeping menace. No fear that in space no-one hears you scream.  Instead, we get two hours of an attempt at a deep philosophical discussion of faith versus science, creators versus created. Tragically, the writers simply do not have the intellectual chops, or the focus, or the respect for the audience to see it through. The result is a movie that plays more like a drama than a thriller, and certainly doesn't play like horror.  A film that frustrates far more than it entertains.  I didn't watch LOST myself, but  I know enough frustrated fanboys to suggest that the blame for this missed opportunity sits firmly on the shoulders of Damon Lindelof, the script-writing genius who also messed up with COWBOYS & ALIENS last year.

The movie kicks off in the not too distant future, around 200 years before the events in ALIEN.  A private corporation has sponsored a scientific mission to a planet who's co-ordinates have been painted in prehistoric caves. The scientists Shaw and Holloway (Noomi Rapace and Charlie Holloway) believe they are going to discover the creators of humanity.  The crew, helmed by Vickers (Charlize Theron) just want to get in and out quickly. All but the slippery cylon, David (Michael Fassbender) who has an agenda that is never really explained  in the course of the film.  Naturally the crew land on a planet which was once apparently peopled by a race of creators, or "engineers", who have since been wiped out by the aliens we all know and fear. All of which begs several questions.  Do the engineers mean humanity well?  Does David mean humanity well? Were the aliens a messed up experiment that got out of hand? Who created the aliens? And who created the engineers?  All of these questions will apparently be answered in a sequel, but frankly, do we care?

This movie, with its superb performances (particularly from Rapace and Fassbender) and beautiful landscapes (Darius Wolszki) could've been astoundingly good, if only it had been more focussed in exploring its themes.  For instance, if David is inspired by Lawrence of Arabia, then let's take that further.  Lawrence is a fascinating character with very specific notions of the interaction between the rulers and ruled, which could've been used here.  If Shaw is a scientist exploring creation who refuses to give up her faith, let's really explore the provocative inconsistencies there.  If David is going all HAL, let's explore that,  And if Vickers is really going to have a relationship revelation near the end, let's explore that rather than just tossing it into the mix for a nanosecond. 

So, basically, worth seeing for the visuals and the acting, but utterly, utterly frustrating.

PROMETHEUS is on release in the UK, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Chile, Denmark, Israel, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Finland, Norway, Ireland, Sweden and Turkey. It opens on June 7th in the USA, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, Indonesia, Serbia, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Croatia, Hungary, Kuwait, New Zealand, Portugal, Singapore, Slovenia, Canada, Egypt, Estonia, India, Lithuania and Romania. It opens on June 15th in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. It opens on June 22nd in Vietnam, on June 28th in Cambodia, on July 20th in Poland, on August 9th in Germany and Spain, and on October 19th in Italy.

SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN

There's a lot to love and a lot that doesn't work in this radical new adaptation of the Snow White fairy-tale from debut feature director Rupert Sanders.  

The stuff to love centres around the characterisation of the wicked stepmother, Ravenna.  She's written and played as a deeply insecure, emotionally scarred woman who has had to use her beauty to survive in a misogynistic patriarchy where women are sold as chattel and discarded when their looks fade.  There's a superb scene early on, when she's addressing the mirror on the wall, where we move to the perspective of her brother, and we're not sure if the Queen is just imagining it all.  Charlize Theron is absolutely stunning in the role - both in terms of the costume design and her performance. And fans of Games of Thrones will forever regret that she wasn't given the role of Cersei Lannister, more of which later. I was so involved in the story of Ravenna, that in the movie's final battle scene, I was willing her to win. She reminded me of Edmund in Lear, with his radical, demonic argument for meritocracy against the old established order.

Other things to love in this movie? As one might expect given Sanders background in commercials, the visuals are beautifully shot.  Indeed, one of the strengths and weaknesses of the film is that the narrative often feels like a weak excuse to get us from one beautifully imagined background to another.  The motivations for the moves, the narrative drive, seems secondary to the indulgently imagined costumes and scenery.

The tragedy is that all this beauty and Theron's wonderful performance is wasted upon a movie that is poorly paced, and plays like a second-class echo of better imagined fantasy worlds, created by George R R Martin, C S Lewis and Tolkien.  The character of Ravenna, complete with her incestuous relationship with her brother Finn (a marvellously creepy Sam Spruell) is straight out of House Lannister. As is the visual use of sigils and banner-men.  Snow White's long journey through different worlds before she finally faces off against Ravenna is straight out of the Lord of the Rings, with the dwarves recast as hobbits and Bob Hoskins' blind seer as Gandalf. And finally, Snow White (Kristen Stewart) has been recast as an Aslan like figure, reciting the Lord's Prayer in full (surely a first for modern teen cinema?), exhibiting healing powers over man and nature, and finally not even sealing the denouement with a kiss - rather standing alone, in power, neuter, a Virgin Queen.

This, of course, brings us to the weakest aspect of the film - its romantic core. Stewart's resentful mopey screen persona is ill-fitted to an active, action heroine who must imspire a people to revolt.  Chris Hemsworth as the Huntsman is more charismatic but suffers from an unhappy attempt at a Scottish (?) accent.  It's not as bad as Russell Crowe's attempt at regional English in ROBIN HOOD, but it's still unfortunately reminiscent of Mike Myers in SHREK. Still, the two young actors have a convincing rapport, which is more than can be said for Snow White and her aristocratic childhood sweetheart William (Sam Claflin).Claflin's character is so thinly written - his performance so uninspired - the potential love triangle so quickly dismissed - that what should be a powerful love story is reduced to a whimper.

One can only conclude that the movie is irredeemably let down by a poor script from Evan Daugherty, John Lee Hancock - THE BLIND SIDE, and Hossein Amini - DRIVE. It's just too derivative, too thinly developed, too lacking in narrative drive.  And worst of all, they try to include an emotionally manipulative death scene that's utterly unearned. 

P.S. Why does no-one wear helmets in battle?  Stannis Baratheon I'm looking at you.

SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN is on release everywhere except: Cambodia, Denmark, the Netherlands, Ukraine, Finland, India, Norway and Sweden, where it opens on June 8th; Belgium, France, Switzerland, Russia and Japan where it opens on June 13th; in Australia, New Caledonia and New Zealand where it opens on June 21st and in Italy where it opens on July 11th.

ASTRO BOY - clever but lacking wit

I can't say I'd ever heard of ASTROBOY before watching this film but apparently he is an insanely famous Manga character created by Tezuka Osamu in the 1950s. Apparently the original stories have already inspired a 1960s TV series. In that series, Astroboy started life as the young son of a famous scientist, Dr Tenma. When young Toby is killed in a car accident, Dr Tenma resurrects his memory in a robot, CAPRICA stylee. But tragically, Tenma is revolted by his creation and sells him to a vicious circus-owner called Hamegg (shades of ELEPHANT MAN) whence he is rescued by Tenma's kind-hearted boss, Ochanomizu. Tenma may occasionally help Astroboy, but he never truly accepts him.

In this new film, ASTROBOY has been yanked into our contemporary political tensions. The whole narrative takes place in a world that has been ruined by litter-bug exploitative humans (shades of WALL-E) and the elite of the world have relocated to a shiny Metro City in the clouds. Metro City is being run by a politician who wants to start a war to win an election. Rather than being killed in a car crash, Astroboy is killed when the evil politician tries to put evil red energy into a military robot. His father still rejects him, but in order to make Tenma more palatable to modern audiences, he doesn't actually sell him to the circus owner. Rather, Toby runs away, and ends up with Hamegg by chance. And Hamegg is a more equivocal character - he truly loves robots, but at the end of the day, doesn't think AI makes you worthy of human rights. (A good debate for BSG fans!)

The resulting film is pretty complex for a kids film, and like Miyazaki films, is concerned with environmental degradation and consumption run amok. It also has shades of the best science fiction, making explicit reference to Asimov. The CGI animation is interesting in its design and the voice work is particularly good. I especially liked Freddie Highmore as Astroboy, Nic Cage as Tenma, and a modulated Bill Nighy as the heart-breakingly kind Elefun. But somehow, the diffuse plotting made for a rather plodding film, especially in the middle portion where Astroboy falls to Earth and side-steps into a film that seems to be half Oliver Twist and half Gladiator. I rather missed the wit, charm and old-fashioned simplicity of David Bowers previous directorial effort, FLUSHED AWAY.

ASTRO BOY played London 2009 was released last year in the US, Canada and Asia, It is now on global release.

London Film Fest Day 3 - THE ROAD

Re-uniting the team behind the brutal, brilliant Aussie Western, THE PROPOSITION, director John Hillcoat has created a devastating and faithful adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize winning novel about The Man and his son, The Boy, journeying South, trying to stay alive, in a post-apocalyptic world.

A terrible natural disaster has occurred - no-one explains why or how - and the world is left covered in ash, perpetually fogged and growing colder by the day. The animals have died, the trees are falling, and the canned food and fuel are fast running out. With a bleak future, many families have chosen to commit suicide. This is the view of The Wife - she thinks survival is not living, and that it's cruel to bring a child into this world. Her husband, The Man, disagrees. He sees survival, "carrying the fire", as the only choice of "the good guys". His wife suspects that deep down, this might be because he just doesn't have the courage to kill himself and his family. And so, a

few years later, The Man and his beloved son travel south. They are tired, hungry, and the young child has seen things no-one should see. The Man wants to train The Boy to be hardened - to survive - even when The Man has died. The Boy wants to share food with starving passers-by. And even though The Man lives in fear and disgust of the cannibals - and wants to preserve his humanity and avoid such degradation - slowly, slightly, he becomes as cruel, culminating in an horrific humiliation scene.

THE ROAD is a stark, brutal, provocative and deeply affecting film. Not as unbearable as the book, but maybe having read the book I was prepared better. Viggo Mortensen gives a career-best performance as The Man and Kodi Smit-McPhee is heart-breaking as The Boy. We utterly believe in and care about their relationship. Charlize Theron is convincing as the nihilistic Wife. John Hillcoat creates a savage wasteland in which they travel but best of all, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis create a wonderful score.

My only criticism of the film is that the ending is less ambiguous than the novel. But I shan't say more for fear or ruining the outcome for people who have read the book. It's the only thing that prevents this from being one of my films of the year.

THE ROAD played Venice, Toronto and London 2009. It goes on release in South Korea next week. It opens in the USA in November 25th; in Belgium and France on December 2nd; in Russia on December 10th; in December 25th in Finland; in Norway and the UK on January 8th; in Argentina on January 21st; in Australia on January 28th; in the Netherlands and Brazil on February 4th; and in New Zealand on March 18th.

Eventual tags: charlize theron, cormac mccarthy, drama, guy pearce, javier aguirresarobe, joe penhall, john hillcoat, kodi smit-mcphee, nick cave, robert duvall, warren ellis, viggo mortensen