MIRROR MIRROR

Once upon a time, a long time ago, a visionary called Tarsem Singh made a movie of such beauty and pathos that it broke my heart. Ever since THE FALL, I've been hoping for him to create something as simultaneously whimsical and powerful, but in vain. IMMORTALS was quite simply unwatchable - dull narrative, bad acting, absurd casting - but worst of all, Singh traded in his singular visual style for a cheap rip-off of Zach Snyder's 300. 

MIRROR MIRROR isn't as bad as IMMORTALS, but it's still very, very disappointing. The good news is that the movie looks wonderful and has a visual wit that was entirely absent in IMMORTALS. I simply adored Eiko Ishioka's stunning costumes (sadly her last film before she died), and I loved the imaginative touches of dwarves using expandable legs, and a mirror that leads to an alternate dream reality. I even loved the casting of the gamine Lily Collins as Snow White, the not unattractive Armie Hammer as the Prince, and was intrigued to see how Julia Roberts would interpret The Queen.

The problem with the movie is, however, a fatal one. The script simply doesn't match the production design. I think the problem is that Jason Keller (MACHINE GUN PREACHER) and Marc Klein (A GOOD YEAR) wanted to write a SHREK-like post-modern post-feminist fairy-tale, where ageing queens go for extreme Hollywood makeovers and the dialogue is full of attempts at wry wit. But this stands in sharp contrast to the design of the film, which takes a childish delight in all things magical and wondrous and beautiful. The result is a film that is tonally all over the place, sparse on laughs and awkward in its romance. A tremendous waste of a beautiful production and yet another disappointment from the man who gave us one of the best films of the last decade. 

MIRROR MIRROR is on release everywhere except Japan where it opens on September 14th.

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.