Haywire

In true Popcorn Bucket fashion, the film world is buzzing about awards and y'know- films that actually matter and I toddled off to see an action film with lots of punching, kicking and the occasional sexy chokehold.

Haywire (2012) 

You can just never predict what Steven Soderbergh is going to do next. From gritty biopics like the Che films to the crowd-pleasing frippery of the Ocean's trilogy, the guy chops and changes track more often than a particularly indecisive iPod Shuffle. So, fresh from last year's disease epic Contagion, Soderbergh has chosen to helm an action film made to showcase MMA star Gina Carano's arse-kicking abilities and backing her up with an impressive cast list of famous faces. Like him or not, you can't criticise the man for being a one trick pony.

"You shouldn't think of her as being a woman. That would be your first mistake."

Haywire centres on Mallory Kane (Gina Carano, best described as a lantern-jawed, cage-fighting version of Rebecca Black), a black ops agent who is betrayed by her organisation. Kane then goes rogue in order to track down the people responsible. That is really about it. I'll forgive you for yawning. The plot is as uninspired as they come.It's something we've seen a hundred times before and done better elsewhere. I get the feeling that the plot isn't the point of the film however. This is basically a B movie (well, that specific kind of recent Hollywood B movie that imitates everything but the tiny budget) and as such, some schlock is to be expected. It's almost a parody of the genre, but doesn't quite tip the balance. I was really impressed with Gina Carano though. Considering this is her first film, she's great. Granted, she's playing a nigh-on emotionless unstoppable badass, but she definitely has a screen presence. As I said above, the supporting cast is terrific, especially Michael Fassbender and Ewan McGregor. Also human gerund Channing Tatum is here, lending his muscular blandness and strangely smooth face to proceedings. 

Sod the plot though, action is why (disappointingly few) people are sitting down to watch this. I must say, the action's great. Stevey Sodas strips current Hollywood fight conventions back down to the wire. There is no shaky-cam bullshit, no up-tempo music and no wire-fu. All you hear during the brutal fights are grunts and dull thuds. Each hit sounds like a heftily swung baseball bat hitting a sack of wet steaks. It's refreshing to actually see the impressive choreography rather than try and make it out from frenetic editing and spastic camerawork. Carano's fight with Fassbender in a Dublin hotel room is especially well done. There's also a rooftop chase, which aims for realism, rather than hyper-excitement. The film can be quite minimalist at times, which can be very effective. There's a scene where Mallory is walking down a Dublin street, expecting danger to come from any angle. The camera tracks her for a good 3/4 minutes, just walking on the pavement, with all the sounds of city life around her. This ain't your typical action affair.

Whilst the plot can be forgiven to an extent, the rest of the film didn't quite hang together for me. I really wanted to love this film, but there were too many things getting in the way. For one, I found the score to be truly obnoxious, with David Holmes, the man behind the slick Oceans' soundtracks, basically doing the same jazzy, cool schtick with added annoying blaring brass bits. It's repetitive and doesn't sit well with the movie at all. The film can really drag too, with characters endlessly spouting expository dialogue to pad out the weak-as-fuck plot.

"You can tell me right now why you sold me out- or you can tell me in ten minutes when I have my hands around your throat"

In Mallory Kane, we finally have a proper female equal to Jason Bourne. Screw Angelina Jolie's Salt or even Saoirse Ronan's Hanna, Kane is the real deal. Haywire is a mixed bag. As an audition tape for Carano's action chops, it works fantastically well. As a film, it falters, despite a stylish presentation and bloody decent fighting. Hopefully Carano will get the vehicle she's crying out for soon.

War Horse

Yup, a review of a current film you won't struggle to find showings of. This means you can consider this consumer advice if you wanted to. I could actually save you money. Well, unless I end up giving this film a rather schizophrenic review and award it an average three stars or summat.

War Horse (2012)

If the insane amount of marketing is to be believed, Spielberg is "back and better than ever" and War Horse promises to jerk more tears than a (insert thing that jerks a lot of tears in a semi-comedic situation). The glowing reviews also seemed to confirm that yes, this is a film that harkens back to the good ol' days of moviemaking and moved captive audiences to floods of tears. Maybe my X79 Emotion Simulator Chip is loose, but I sat down and two and a half hours later I stood up again, no more moved than when I went in. I was baffled to see people, their faces shining with fresh sad juice walking past me, pulling those weird faces that people do when they're embarrassed about crying and trying to laugh it off by exaggerating things like dabbing their eyes. Once again, the emotional disconnect between the general public and myself grows ever deeper. 

"Gentlemen, it is an honour to ride beside you. Make the Kaiser rue the day he crossed swords with us. Let every man do himself, his King, his country, and his fallen comrades proud. Be brave."

Set in Dartmoor in 1914, War Horse is the story of a bond between farmer's boy Albert Narracott (Jeremy Irvine) and Joey the horse. After his drunken father (Peter Mullan) sells the horse to the British Army to pay  the rent on his struggling farm, the heartbroken Albert vows to find Joey again, no matter what. The story is that horse story i.e. a child/teenager forms an unlikely bond with an unruly horse and the pair soon reach a mutual understanding. Which is fine, I guess. A bit girly though. Good thing we have a socking great war in the middle though, for us barrel-chested lads. What sets War Horse apart from other "horsey" films is that we see the different perspectives of war through Joey's ever-changing owners. For instance, in one scene we have a grandfather and granddaughter taking care of the horse and in another we see Joey being put to work as a literal war horse, lugging a massive cannon up a muddy hill for Ze Germans. The film is almost episodic and plays like a parallel universe Tarantino film, where characters exchange loving looks and sentimentality instead of f-words and bullets. Obviously the acting is up to scratch- newcomer Jeremy Irvine impressed the fuck out of me, whereas seasoned actors like Peter Mullan, Emily Watson and David Thewlis all gave an air of class to proceedings. 

Before I start working the ribs, let me just say, I didn't hate War Horse. It's impressive filmmaking. The fine acting on display, the golden cinematography and the unapologetically melodramatic John Williams score all add up to a fantastically well made film. There are elements I loved, it's just the plot didn't really work for me. Having said that, there's a sequence in No Man's Land which was brilliant and moving, without being mawkish. I also love that War Horse has a response to Rise of the Planet of the Apes' "Gorilla Vs. Helicopter" awesomeness. New for 2012, it's "Horse Vs. Tank"! The war sequences are effective and surprisingly harrowing considering we never see any bloodshed on screen. I also liked the fact that the film keeps the Devon setting, despite the downside that everyone in the first half hour talks like Samwise fucking Gamgee.

I'm not made of stone. I have cried at films before and I'm only semi-ashamed to say that the last film I remember crying at was Wall-E. My final line in the first paragraph about "the emotional disconnect" between Joe Public and I may read like a smug bellend typing down unjustified reason #7002 on why he thinks he's better than everyone else. I assure you, this is not the case. There's nothing better than having a collective audience response in a film, be it laughing at the same bits or even applauding at the end. I like feeling like part of a group. Thing is, War Horse was too obvious to illicit tears from me, if that makes sense. There were no surprise emotional gut-punches or sudden tragic turns. Yeah, the horse goes through some hardship, but it didn't make me bawl like a bitch. I empathised, sure, but that's where it stopped.

 "I could love you no less, but I could hate you more."

War Horse is good, but I felt it took too long to tell a simple, rather hackneyed story. Despite doing a good job giving Joey a personality, I just wasn't invested enough to have a lump in my throat at any point. It's a masterclass in the technical side of making films, it just left me feeling underwhelmed after reports of people sobbing out their spleens in preview screenings. I was going to make a joke about much rather seeing a film called War Whores, but they effectively did that and it wasn't much fun either.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Back with my first post of 2012. May as well start the year as I mean to go on, which means I have a pile of films to talk about like anyone wants to hear another nerd's justification for why he doesn't go out and meet someone nice.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

2012 has an abundance of films I'd put off my own grandmother's funeral to see. 2011 didn't. There were films that interested me, but nothing that made me leap off my seat and start scratching at the door like a dog wanting to go walkies. The only film that came close was David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Why? Well, I liked the Swedish original, my perpetual man-crush Daniel Craig stars and it's directed by David Fincher, a man who could direct a film called Ben Browne Loves Scrotum and I would still be clamouring for a ticket on opening day.

"You will be investigating thieves, misers, bullies, the most detestable collection of people you will ever meet – my family."

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is based on the first novel in the best-selling Millennium trilogy (original title Män som hatar kvinnor- i.e. Men Who Hate Women) by Steig Larsson. In it, we follow disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) as he is drafted in by retired industrialist Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to solve a 40 year old case of the murder of his great-niece. Blomkvist soon finds himself way over his head and hires a research assistant in the form of prickly, motorbiking, Goth, master hacker Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) to help with the case. If you haven't read or seen this story before, there are enough twists and turns on the standard murder mystery formula to keep you guessing. The main strength of the film is the crime solving double act of Blomkvist and Salander, a chalk and cheese pairing that simply works. Daniel Craig is Daniel Craig, but you get the feeling he was hired due to his starpower and the fact that he's the current Bond- a point I'll come back to in a bit. Rooney Mara is undoubtedly the talking point in this film. She manages to nail both the damaged vulnerability and simmering rage elements that make the character work. This is a star-making turn for her and I look forward to seeing her in plenty of films in the near future. Of the supporting cast, Christopher Plummer gives a surprising performance as the frail Henrik Vanger and Stellan Skarsgård uses his big, friendly face to his advantage as Martin Vanger.

You may be asking what the point is in remaking a film that's barely three years old and was perfectly fine to begin with. It's a good point, but there's more to this than simply remaking it to be all American-like. For starters, there's a big debate on whether this film is a remake at all, although some of the shots and performances certainly indicate the production team have at least seen the 2009 film. If you were planning on avoiding this one on the principle that it's an American retelling of a successful foreign film (like The Grudge or The Ring) I implore you not to. A lot of effort has been made to make it true to the original story. The only real difference is that everyone speaks English and the film has bigger name actors. The Swedish locales and everything that made the first one a breath of fresh air (thank Christ this wasn't reworked to be set in Los Angeles or New York) are kept. It's important to remember the original films were made for TV and as such could benefit from a cinematic upgrade, especially handled by David Fincher.

I'm a bit of a meathead when it comes whats I likes. I found 2009's Dragon Tattoo, starring the traffic-stoppingly beautiful Noomi Rapace, to be a very entertaining, if tough, watch. I'm not sure whether it was the sheer number of characters mentioned (the Vanger family and their relationships to each other are central to the plot) or what, but I wasn't completely taken in by it. Fincher's version is more streamlined that the 2009 one, with Steven Zaillian's screenplay chopping and changing certain characters to make the film flow better. I'm not sure whether this is a good thing or not, although I understood the intricacies of the plot more in this 'un. The film is still very similar to the 2009 one but with a different feeling to it. It's certainly better shot and made. There's even a trippy Bond-like title sequence (which you can see here), which whilst awesome, is slightly at odds with the quiet menace of the rest of the film. By the way, if the makers of that don't get the call to do the Skyfall opening titles, I will be shocked.

Actually, talking of Bond, I feel we are meant to take Craig's 007 persona into account in his role as Blomkvist in one way, but disregard it in another. The character of Blomkvist is a womaniser, something that's not really explored in the Fincher film, but we take it as read, because, hey- the dude's James Bond. On the other hand, Blomkvist isn't meant to be accustomed to the danger he finds himself in and is, in a way, the male damsel (mansel?) in distress, which is obviously very un-Bondlike. I have no problem separating characters from actors, it's just that Craig's Blomkvist is a bit of a blank slate, which makes it easy to project onto. Sure, lots of things happen to him, but I'm not sure I could write a quick paragraph outlining his character. I could write a whole sodding book about Mara's Salander though. Whilst I think both Mara and Rapace play the role well, I think Mara has the slight edge. Rapace played her as someone you just wouldn't mess with, whereas Mara's vulnerability is a bit more apparent, which makes it easier to understand why people try and take advantage of her.

"Rape, torture, fire, animals, religion. Am I missing anything?"

Most of the good in the film is also the good in the 2009 version. There's some genuinely disturbing scenes, a fantastic retribution scene which is so unpleasant, yet air-punchingly cathartic it'll be etched on your brain like a sloppily done tattoo. As with previous incarnations, when the mystery starts unravelling, it's all bloody compelling. Still, if you've yet to experience the Millennium trilogy in any of its forms, now's the time. I've got big hopes for the already announced sequel. It's not the most necessary remake/reinterpretation/whatever, but I enjoyed it for what it was- a populist, pulp murder-mystery made by a team of talented filmmakers at the top of their game. Which version is better? I'm not going to get into that argument now, but each have their merits. Recommended.