In Bruges

Marvellous film.

Clever little film, indeed. If you've seen the trailers, you'll have seen that
it's a jet-black comedy about two hitmen exiled to Bruges after a botched job.
And that much is true. Half the time. The other half, it's this desperately sad
study of guilt, loneliness, depression, loyalty, consequences, and I don't know
what else. And quite cleverly, it turns the comedy on and off, so one moment
you're chuckling, the next you're really quite melancholy. I had no idea that
Colin Farrell was *any* good, never mind this good. Brendan Gleeson's also a
lot better than his Harry Potter panto turns suggest, and the two of them play
off each other brilliantly. Fellow Potter-alumnus Ralph Fiennes turns up at the
end and has a go at stealing the show as their demented East-end gangster boss,
and very nearly pulls it off, switching neatly between a scary-as-you-like
villain, and a parody of same.

Go see it, you'll laugh, you'll cry.

Iron Man

I've always loved Iron Man. He has a purity of design about him. Whereas Bruce
Wayne decided he needed to teach criminals a lesson, and spent years training
himself to physical perfection, then seeking a method to strike fear into the
hearts of the superstitious, dresses as a bat, Tony Stark sees a shortcut.
Instead, he just builds himself a humanoid engine of carnage and destruction,
which takes care of both the beating people up angle, and the fear angle. Thus,
he can do all that cool superhero stuff, and still drink martinis and date
supermodels. You've got to hand it to him.

So, I was pretty damned pleased when I heard Jon Favereau was in charge, and
Robert Downey Jr was starring. These are men who know their martinis and
supermodels.

So, the plot.

Tony Stark is captured by evil Middle-Eastern types and forced to make WMDs.
Instead, he makes a suit of powered armor, kicks their asses, and escapes.
Later, having learned the hard way that being an arms dealer is wrong, he seeks
to improve the suit, become a hero, and help out the people who he's been
putting in harm's way.

Meanwhile, unrepentantly bad elements in his company get hold of his Mark I
suit, design a competing one for military use, and generally try to screw him
over. Eventually, it comes down to a duel between the super-suits.

It's good. I very much enjoyed it. Cool effects, nice performances, and in
general, satisfying for a fan to see up on the big screen, and enough
explosions and mayhem to wow the newcomer.

Downsides... well, there are three as far as I can see. First, Tony Stark is a
loner. So while he's with his supporting cast, he's a fun guy, and the
dialogue's great. He spends a lot of time in his basement talking to himself,
though. Hence, it can seem a bit sterile at times. Second, it's First
Installment Of A Superhero Franchise time. We're barely out of the genesis of
the character, and it's That's All Folks! Same problem as with X-Men 1. X-Men 2
was a much better film because the players were in place. Third - well, it
sticks its oar into the murky waters of international arms trade, and trouble
in the Middle East, but really, the whole thing seems a bit trite. Our middle
Eastern warlord is all "muhahaha, with this I can take over the world, like
Alexander the Great before me", and you kind of feel that it's all a bit cheap.
This kind of crap was getting old back in the eighties.

But taking into account that this is a) a superhero movie intended for kids and
b) we've really not got more time, then these shortcomings are forgivable.
Hopefully, we'll be getting a sequel real soon now that'll be as good as X-Men
2. The groundwork is certainly there.

7.5/10, but please, have another go.

Shoot Em Up

Precious little worth watching at the cinema, so I thought I'd watch something
I didn't get round to watching last year.

This is an offensively stupid film. By which I mean, it's frickin' awesome. The
plot, such as it is, is that some bad guys want to kill a baby, and a down-on-
his-luck good guy happens to be in the way, and decides he's not going to let
them. But that's by the by. It's an excuse for an extended sequence of
gunfights, each more implausible than the last. And that's ok, because they're
plainly meant to be implausible.

So, this film is aimed at people who find stupid, bloody gunfights funny.
That'd be me then. And they are stupid, they are bloody, and they are very
funny.

Interspersed between the gunfights, the good guy and the bad guy crack bad
jokes at each other, and there's a romantic plot involving Monica Belluci.
That's mostly an excuse to have a gunfight that's also a sex scene, though,
which is funny.

I don't know who this Michael Davis guy is who wrote and directed it is, but
he's obviously a huge fan of Robert Rodriguez, and a lot of it owes obvious
debts to both Sin City and Desperado. He obviously had a real fun time making
it, and good luck to him on that. I had a lot of fun watching it too.

Son Of Rambow

So, you wait years for a slightly surreal film about amateur film-making then
a bunch come along at once. And it its way, this is sort of a British Be Kind
Rewind.

It's the eighties, rural Hertfordshire. There's a kid, who's a bit of a
tearaway, who's got his hands on his brother's video camera, and has decided
he's going to make a film and submit it to Screen Test's Young Filmmaker of the
Year award. He also uses it to sneak into cinemas and pirate films. He ropes
this other unworldly kid whose family are Plymouth Bretheren, into being his
stuntman. Over time, after the pair of them watch First Blood, the project
evolves into a sort of sequel, which is surprising similar in plot to Rambo,
given that neither kid has seen the film, and it hasn't even been made yet. But
hey.

Meanwhile, their school is host to a bunch of French exchange students, and
everyone is in awe of this (allegedly) cool French kid. This kid finds out
about the film, decides it's cool, and wants to be in it, and because he thinks
it's cool, the whole rest of the school does too. Power struggles for control
of the creative process ensue.

It's an amusing take on film-making and Hollywood, with the whole struggle
serving as an allegory for creative control and integrity being compromised
when stars and the studio system get involved.

It's not perfect, and some of the children's acting is pretty stagey, in a
"early Harry Potter movie" kind of way. It is highly amusing, if not laugh out
loud funny, and if you grew up in the eighties, and ever watched a dodgy pirate
copy of First Blood, the film will spark off a lot of happy memories.

Vantage Point

Basically, take In The Line Of Fire. Add Groundhog Day.

US President is making a speech in Spain. He's assassinated. A bomb goes off.
Cue investigation.

We see this from a range of viewpoints, all of which show us a little more of
what happened, from a different angle, which finally builds into the big reveal
of what *really* happened.

It's not bad, but I wouldn't go further than that. Its major flaw is that the
plot, once revealed, isn't actually that good. The first few viewpoints are
really well done, and leave you wanting more answers, but inevitably, those
answers come, and they're silly. Eventually, the viewpoint structure sort of
breaks down towards the end, and we're in carchase and climactic faceoff with
guns kind of territory.

Ultimately, the structure's quite interesting, and make the film worth watching
- told linearly, this wouldn't be worth anyone's time. I'd give it 7/10, but
it's really a pretty average thriller overall.

Juno

Now, this was a lovely film. Basic synopsis: Teen Girl gets pregnant, decides
to keep it and put it up for adoption, and we go from there. It's a comedy
drama in the best sense of the term. In that it's a drama, funny things happen,
and the characters are well written and witty. Lots of "it's funny because its
true" stuff.

If the film has flaws, and I don't see why it has to have, but if it does, it's
these: First, everyone in it is about 200% wittier than their real life
counterpart. This makes it entertaining to watch, but somewhat unbelievable.
Second, there's not that much dramatic tension here. Will her parents hit the
roof? No, they're really lovely and supportive. Will she get a hard time at
school about it? No, not really. I genuinely spent one section of the film
dreading the arrival of some hideous and horrific occurrence, because everything
was going so well, and my inner dramatist started anticipating that the
dramatic twist was round the corner. And it wasn't, really.

So, it's gentle, it's funny, there's no nasty surprises, Essentially, an
eminently enjoyable film. Just don't expect to be on the edge of your seat at
any point. Unless like me you have a tendency to slouch.

The Bank Job

Of all the films I've seen this year, this was certainly among them.

Plot: An underworld miscreant has some naughty photos of one of the royals,
presumably Princess Anne. These would be very embarassing, and he's using them
as blackmail material in order to get out of jail free. MI5 would quite like
them back, so they recruit some amateurs to rob the bank the photos are being
held in. Which they do.

Said robbers having got away with the photos and a few equally hot pieces of
blackmail material, and everyone involved basically knowing all about it, they
are then trapped in a dangerous situation of several serious and ruthless
people willing to kill them all to get their hands on it.

It runs along quite entertainingly, without really making any great claims to
being great cinema, which is good, because it's not. It's the kind of thing
that if you found yourself at a loose end you could watch and be entertained,
but needn't feel you missed out on anything.

Most amusing is a scene near the end where Jason Statham apparentlysuddenly
realises "Hang on, why am I putting up with this crap? I'm The Transporter!"
and kicks the shit out of a bunch of guys, having apparently been a mild-
mannered car mechanic and amateur villain up until that point.

7/10. Amusing and fun, but not *that* amusing or fun.