Wrath of the Titans ★ ★ ★

Feel the Wrath, Stay for the Creatures

Release Dates
Australia 29th March 2012 USA & UK 30th March 2012

Other Countries Release Dates

 

One of the first movies I ever saw at the cinema was the 1963 ‘Jason and the Argonauts’.  The fight scene with the skeletons is still vividly etched in my mind as one of the highlights of my early movie going days.  Apparently, this one three minute scene took four months to produce in those days before computers.

Thanks to ‘Jason’, I have a soft spot for these Gods versus Mortals films.  They are not popular with the critics, with good cause.  As I watched ‘Wrath of the Titans’, I attempted to remember the plot of its predecessor, the 2010 ‘Clash of the Titans’.  But it had become hopelessly muddled in my mind with ‘Prince of Persia’, the recent ‘The Immortals’, and possibly even a few ‘Mummy’ films. 

These films all have one thing in common, they are a boy's own adventure if a boy were allowed to let his imagination run wild.  An in-depth plot is the last thing we are meant to expect.  They are squarely aimed at those who enjoy big men leaping around with swords and tridents, fighting ancient creatures breathing fire and lava, and battling Gods who are pretty handy with lightening. ‘Wrath of the Titans’ is another episode in this fantasy genre.

A decade after his heroic defeat of the monstrous Kraken, Perseus (Sam Worthington), the demigod son of Zeus (Liam Neeson) is attempting to live quietly as a village fisherman as the sole parent to his 10-year-old son, Helius.

 The Gods, however, are not living peacefully, and are losing their immortality thanks to the mortal’s lack of devotion.  Kronos, the father of the long-ruling brothers Zeus, Hades (Ralph Fiennes) and Poseidon (Danny Huston) is rotting in the dungeon of Tartarus in the cavernous Underworld.

Hades, fearing the loss of his immortality, hatches a plan with Ares (Édgar Ramírez) Zeus’s son—who has a real inferiority complex when it comes to his half-brother Perseus.  Together, they capture Zeus, imprisoning him in Tartarus, in order for Kronos to siphon off his power in order to take over the world again and punish the mortals.

Perseus, determined to rescue Zeus, begins an odyssey, accompanied by warrior Queen Andromeda (Rosamund Pike), Poseidon’s demigod son Agenor (Toby Kebbell), and fallen god Hephaestus (Bill Nighy) searching for way into Tartarus to free Zeus.  Along the way, he must fight some powerful mythological creatures and navigate his way through a dangerous revolving labyrinth.

“There’s truly a smorgasbord of action to be had in this movie,” says visual effects supervisor and second unit director Nick Davis, who also worked on the first film.

As the title indicates, 'Wrath of the Titans' called forth some mammoth and mythical adversaries to pit against Perseus: the multi-headed Chimera, three one-eyed Cyclops, an army of double-bodied Makhai, and one powerful, menacing Minotaur. His most formidable opponent is, of course, Kronos, the gargantuan, father of Zeus, Hades and Poseidon, who is on the verge of breaking free and bringing hell down on the earth.

The first foe Perseus meets is the Chimera, a fire-breathing beast with the heads of a lion and goat, dragon-like wings and a vicious snake’s head at the end of its tail.

The creature was primarily produced via CG, but the damage it created was a combination of visual and special effects. Neil Corbould, special effects supervisor on both this and the prior film, explains, “In order to keep the audience guessing ‘Was that real? Was that CG?’ I find it’s better to marry the computer elements with practical ones, for a more seamless end result. It allows the atmosphere you generate—in this case, bits of ash or other light materials—to interact with the actors as well. So the destruction brought about by the Chimera was achieved on set, and enhanced later by the visual effects team.”

The strength of this film is in its visual effects and full on action, so don’t expect more than average dialogue scenes.  Even if the actors keeping their own accents are a little puzzling, the action is convincing.  If I think back to my first brush with the Gods in “Jason”, it wasn’t the story that I remember; it was the relenting and merciless skeletons advancing on Jason.  Don’t see this for the plot or the acting; see it for the wonderful monsters and creatures. Just like ‘Jason’s’ skeletons, they’re memorable.

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Albert Nobbs ★★ ★

Release Date Australia: 26th December 2012
Other Countries Release Dates

Humorous, my corset

Albert Nobbs is not a fun night out at the cinema. It’s an interesting night out at the cinema, but choose this movie knowing you are going to see Oscar worthy performances strung around a sad, sad story of poverty. If you are a woman, you will come out of it grateful to be living in the twenty-first century.

Glenn Close’s involvement with the character of Albert Nobbs stretches back almost three decades to her 1982 performance in Simone Benmussa’s theatrical interpretation of the short story, “Albert Nobbs” by nineteenth century Irish author, George Moore. ‘I think Albert is one of the truly great characters and the story, for all the basic simplicity, has this strange emotional power,’ says Close, whose portrayal in the Off Broadway production scooped her an Obie Award.

Close plays Albert Nobbs, a woman who from the age of fourteen disguises herself as a man to survive the extreme poverty in Ireland. The divide between the haves and the have nots is extreme in this period and this social commentary is played for all its worth in the movie. After various waiting jobs, Nobbs ends up working as a respected butler in the luxurious Dublin hotel, Morrison’s.

Albert has reached a crossroads in his life, after meticulously saving his pennies and farthings to amass a tidy lump sump. He begins to question his life and believes that he may be able to create a pretend marriage with Helen (Australian Mia Wasikowska), a selfish hotel maid and open a business. But nothing is easy for Albert and as his plan evolves it is clear that his chosen road may not be as simple as he innocently believes.

Just as The Iron Lady is an Oscar© vehicle for Meryl Streep, so too, Albert Nobbs is clearly a carpet ride for Close. When the Golden Globe and Oscar nominations are announced she will be there but I’m not sure if she should be.

Whilst it is a performance created by quality acting and the clever use of prosthetics, I found her portrayal of the sad Albert Nobbs contrived and overplayed. Whereas, Janet McTeer, playing Hubert Page, felt more real in her character who was faced with the same dilemma as Close’s.

Throughout the movie it is a real struggle to see Glenn Close as anything but a woman playing a man. There are many—too many I think—lingering close ups, so we can appreciate Albert’s subservience and position, but, to me she and McTeer just looked weird—freakishly weird—and that really detracts from the story.

And this leads me to the unreconciled plot-hole—that these servants, in this hotel, did not suspect, for even one moment that Albert Nobbs was a man. They lived in each other’s pockets and, yet, nothing, not even a hint of gossip. Its just not possible.

Albert Nobbs is not a terrible movie but I kept thinking if you took out the sad little Mr Nobbs and built a story around the other characters then we would have a more fulfilling upstairs, downstairs drama than what we were fed.

Close has said that she recognised the humour in the story from the very beginning and she believed in it enough, that she actually penned the screenplay and produced the film. ‘Through all these years of working on Albert Nobbs I knew that there was humour in it,’ she says.

For what it's worth, either she failed in her attempt at humour, or Glenn Close and I laugh at very different things.

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The Iron Lady ★★★

How they turned gold into tin

Imagine, if you will, after watching The Iron Lady, the biopic of Margaret Thatcher’s life, Margaret is asked her opinion on said film and its portrayal of what is her memorable and significant life story.  Mrs Thatcher eyes the interviewer, and with a stare that would stop a politician at fifty paces, she replies, ‘I don’t like the tone of it.’  Be assured, there will be a lot of reviewers and film-goers backing her on that one.

As this movie releases in late December, the first thing you will hear is that Meryl Streep is a shoe-in to win the Oscar.  And, I would say she should win the Oscar, not just for her performance but in that she manages, to elevate a very average movie to watchable and entertaining.  She is startlingly brilliant in this role and it is a pleasure to watch her personify a woman so recognisable from our recent history.  Only once did I catch a Meryl gesture; the rest was pure Margaret.

The Iron Lady is the story of Margaret Thatcher (Meryl Streep), probably one of the most famous and controversial political leaders of our time.  She was England’s first female Prime Minister, serving from 1979 until 1990.  An ambitious and influential leader, she was loved and hated during office.  Having lived in London in the early eighties, I can attest to the criticism and strong emotion her “Thatcherite” policies evoked, whilst she transformed England from a country in recession to a prosperous economy again.  Her hard line stance on unions, her decisions to go to war in the Falklands, and her overseeing of the introduction of the divisive Poll Tax are all touched upon in the movie. These tough political decisions of her Prime Ministership are intermingled with the personal moments she shared with her Father, her children and her husband, Denis (played with comical charm by Jim Broadbent).

The Thatcher story is a fascinating one on many levels, from her early childhood as the daughter of a green grocer in a politically minded family, to her determined struggle against the political ‘Boy’s Club’, to the family she neglected in order to realise her goals.  The peek through the window into the eleven years of her Prime Ministership, where she literally had a hand in changing the world, leaves us in admiration of her stoicism. 

In all that huge life though, lays the first problem with the movie.  There is a lot of story to tell, in one hundred and five minutes.  Abi Morgan, penned the screenplay, and worked closely with Director, Phyllida Lloyd.  My sense of it is that they took off on the wrong path from the very beginning. 

First, in wanting to cover everything they have created a film that felt, annoyingly, like we were jumping around in a time machine and a broken one at that—Doctor Who, we need your sonic screwdriver.  We are hurled back and forth through five minute snapshots of key life events.  Then, just as things get interesting, we are whisked back to present day with old pensioner Margaret Thatcher, who suffers dementia and converses with her long dead husband, Denis.

Another issue and, the ruination of the story for me, was the choice to frame the story around Margaret Thatcher’s senile character, struggling to clear her long-dead husband’s clothes from the house. This Margaret’s behaviour raises character flaws which don’t ring true.  In one scene, we have old Margaret giving her Doctor a run for his money, fitting perfectly with the strong, younger Margaret character.  In the next, we have Margaret dithering over her husband’s clothes or over concerned about the price of milk.  You could argue that this was the dementia influence but I would say anyone who faced the world fearlessly would also face her own health issues the same way.

Then, after the film has delivered us ninety minutes of a woman who will not be stopped, who knows her own mind, who will go to war for her principles, she then utters one of the weakest lines a female character can, as her husband’s ghost walks out the door.  She cries out, ‘Denis come back’.

After I saw this film, I felt a margin of anger towards its makers, in that they chose to tell the story using a senile Margaret’s reflections.  I kept thinking why Aaron Sorkin (Acadamy Award Screenplay writer of Social Network) couldn’t have penned this one.

As Margaret Thatcher once said, ‘What Britain needs is an iron lady.’  What this inspirational story needed, with its talented leads, strong supporting actors, and remarkable makeup artists, was an iron strong script.    What they gave us was hollow tin.

Release Dates:  Australia December 26,   USA December 30,   UK January 6.    Other Countries 

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Anonymous ★★★★

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet."

In Anonymous, this very question posed by Juliet, may be answered.

Anonymous provides one theory on the debate surrounding the belief that William Shakespeare was not the author of the 37 plays and 154 sonnets credited to him. Mark Twain even commented that in Shakespeare’s will there was “Not a play, not a poem, not an unfinished literary work, not a scrap of manuscript of any kind.”

The film is complex, centring on Edward De Vere’s, the Earl of Oxford’s (Rhys Ifans) initial use of the playwright Ben Johnson (Sebastian Armesto) as the front man for his work, which as a nobleman, he was not permitted to publish. Enter William Shakespeare (Rafe Spall), a drunkard actor, who grasps the money-making opportunity by signing his name to the increasingly more popular plays.  Alongside this is the other story of De Vere’s love affair with Elizabeth 1 (Vanessa Redgrave & Joely Richardson—as the younger Elizabeth), creating its own political dramas, with later shocking ramifications.

Anonymous moves alternately between the earlier lives of De Vere, Elizabeth 1 and her confidante the powerful William Cecil (David Thewlis) to their present day lives, filled with political manipulation, jealousy and betrayal.  It’s almost a ‘thinking man’s’ soap opera.

It’s an unexpected project for Roland Emmerich, director of the blockbusters, Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, and 2012.  Emmerich became fascinated with the Shakespeare authorship question after a conversation with screenwriter John Orloff.  He believes the film will open up the subject to wider discussion. 

The actor’s performances are compelling, the storyline well-crafted and the computerised visualisation of London beautifully evoked.  You cannot help pondering the ideas presented in Anonymous long after the movie is over. 

Shakespeare may have been talking about himself when he wrote,

“All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts.” But he could have also been talking about the film, Anonymous. Whoever Shakespeare was, I think he would have applauded.

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