Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1

The end is nigh. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 takes the seventh and final book in J.K. Rowlings much-loved fantasy series and breaks it into two. Just as well, because at well over two hours long I don’t think they could have squeezed much more in. If you are a huge Potter fan you will be thrilled to see the story continue but also a little sad the journey will soon be ending. If you are a Potter-hater then you will be thrilled to learn that around this time next year all the hype will be over. And if, like me, you are somewhere in between the fans and the haters, you will want to know whether this movie is worth going to see. Well, it is – while by no means brilliant, it is probably the best of the Potter movies so far.

It is also the darkest. Remember, how Harry Potter started off with a group of thirteen year olds and was kind of light and fluffy, but as they grew up, the story grew up with them becoming progressively more mature as the main characters started wrestling with more grown-up dilemmas. Harry, Hermione and Ron have to adjust their relationships as they struggle to adulthood, all the while facing the chilling evil of Voldemort and the reality that opposing him might bring suffering and death not only to them, but also to their loved ones.

One of the opening scenes is decidedly creepy as Voldemort’s hideous snake-like face presides over a dinner table of Death Eaters and his monstrous pet python Nagi. It aptly sets the scene for how the world has become a decidedly darker and more frightening place as Voldemort’s powers now extend to the Ministry of Magic, and all good witches and wizards have fled into hiding. This includes the central threesome who find themselves trekking through British wildlands with only a magical tent for company. They search for the mysterious Horcruxes – artifacts of power in which Voldemort has hidden parts of his soul. He remains immortal while these Horcruxes still exist so Harry and the others know they have to destroy them all before they can fight Voldemort on equal terms. The journey is fraught with danger, however, both from within and without. Hormones, growing sexual awakening, fear and stress all place tremendous pressure on previously inviolable relationships while they are constantly in danger from the Death Eaters tasked to hunt them down.

We have watched all three actors grow up with the story and they do a fine job of reflecting that growth. Daniel Radcliffe (Harry), while solid enough, is probably the weakest performer of the three. I found that Emma Watson (Hermione) and Rupert Grinch (Ron) seem to be able to communicate far more with facial expressions and body language than Radcliffe who is a little wooden. Director David Yates does another great job in trying to cram a huge amount of material into one movie, and uses the dark and haunting mood of many scenes to communicate what words cannot. Although, he does stick very faithfully to the book in general, one particular scene (not originally in the book) where Harry dances with Hermione to cheer her up after Ron has abandoned them is priceless and really helps to convey their sense of desolateness. I found the trio’s wilderness travels quite dreary and overly drawn out in the book, but Yates sped this up by interspersing it with tremendous scenes of action. The actions scenes were incredibly well done throughout and the special effects are top notch. The scene involving the seven Harry Potter’s and subsequent broom stick chase is a highlight in this regard.

One warning, however, if you have not read the books or seen any of the previous movies, you will struggle to keep up. This movie takes a lot for granted, and there were quite a few scenes that lost me because I couldn’t remember how it all tied in to the overall story arch. I don’t think this is a fantastic movie, but it certainly is a step up from some of the previous ones. Three and a half stars out of five. Be aware that the PG-13 rating is fully earned – this is not for young children!

Movie Review: Unstoppable

I went into this movie without any real expectations, but got blown away. Built on a similar premise, this is as good, if not better, than the original ‘Speed.’ Based on a real life runaway train incident, “Unstoppable” is quite literally a juggernaut of a movie that seeks to crush you with its full weight of sheer suspense, edgy visuals and crunching sound. It starts slowly enough, but then much like the train involved it quickly builds up speed until you become swept away by it all.

Tony Scott and Denzel Washington collaborate yet again (Crimson Tide, Man on Fire, Déjà Vu and last year's The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3) to good effect, and young actor Chris Pine (Captain James T. Kirk in Star Trek) is thrown in for good measure. Washington and Pine play the good guys but they aren’t special force ops, or highly trained policemen, just ordinary working-class Americans whose increasing poverty during the economic recession has left them facing uncertain futures.

I loved the focus on ordinary blokes in this – a train driver and conductor. There are no guns or bombs just heavy duty gloves and flannel shirts. There are no damsels in distress, just estranged wives and children. There are no snide, mentally imbalanced villains just profit-minded, greedy bosses who care more about equipment and profits than they do about people. And keeping the plot hurtling along is a speeding train roughly the length of a skyscraper, and weighing in at 1 million tons of steel with extremely hazardous and combustible material in its cargo. Through the indifference and incompetence of two red-neck engineers, the train escapes its station unmanned and builds up to speeds of in excess of 70mph. Various profit-saving preventative measures to stop the train fail dismally resulting in unnecessary death and damage, leaving it up to the blue-collar average joes Washington and Pine to save the day.

Washington plays Frank Barnes, a 28-year veteran engineer, a widower who has forgotten to call one of his daughters on her birthday, and now she isn't talking to him. Both his daughters are working their way through college by waiting tables at Hooters. It could have been worse I guess. Will Colson (Chris Pine), is recently estranged from his wife and son, and is a greenhorn conductor with political connections, who is resented by his fellow blue-collar coworkers who all fear losing their jobs. Barnes is assigned to show Colson the ropes, and what is unknown to the younger man is that Barnes has already been placed on early retirement. Their relationship is a typical veteran/rookie mix, although no one plays a veteran better than Washington. Add to this are the varying social, political and economic factors already mentioned and you have relationships that are as battered and bruised as anything else that gets in the way of this train.

Scott does a superb job in directing Unstoppable. His close up shots of the train, mixed with the body-jarring sound makes you feel as if you are an eye-witness. It’s better than 3D! Also, Scott cleverly uses the news hounds chasing the train to flesh out the developing crisis in explaining need-to-know details, and also to bring loved ones and random citizens into the story. Colson's estranged wife and Barnes's grown daughters watch on television and hold their breaths as they see their ordinary, blue-collar loved ones turn into heroes. Washington brings his usual, effortless skill into his character, while Pine leaves behind his brash James T. Kirk persona to play a man who clearly lacks confidence and emotional security and makes up for it with surly petulance. Their lives are about as out of control as the train is.

The film gives excellent insight into average human beings who are willing to face up to tremendous odds and sacrifice their lives to save others, and because they are so ordinary it makes it all even more powerful. There are definite limitations to this move, and I probably enjoyed it so more than I should have because I went in with ambivalent expectations. Four stars out of five for Unstoppable.

Note Unstoppable has a PG-13 rating with some strong language and violence.

Movie Review: The Girl Who Played With Fire

The Girl Who Played With Fire is the second film installment of Stieg Larsson’s monumentally popular “Millennium” trilogy. It is an above average crime thriller that does enough to keep you interested, but in many ways is a step down from its predecessor, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. The story line is not quite as gripping, the plot a little more implausible, the dark edginess is quite tired, and the bad guys are fairly stereotyped. Perhaps, it is because first movies have that fresh, new appeal and sequels always have to work harder to impress. Noomi Rapace reprises her role as the anti-hero hacking genius Lisbeth Salandar and once again does an excellent job. She really owns this role and I struggle to see how the Hollywood version due to be released in 2012 will find an actress to match up. Michael Nyqvist also returns as investigative journalist and much like the first film provides a similarly solid presence.

Lisbeth is framed with the murder of a Millenium magazine researcher and his girlfriend. They had been working on an article on international sex-trafficking implicating high-level Swedes. Mikael is sure that she is innocent and sets out to prove it, while Lisbeth hides out and does her own sleuthing. The unlikely partners find themselves facing a seriously impressive arsenal of bad guys, including a monster thug (Micke Spreitz) who can feel no pain and seems to have sprung straight out of a Bond movie. As they try to clear Lisbeth’s name, they begin to unravel some dark and threatening secrets from her past building up to a climatic, if rather conventional and somewhat implausible conclusion.

The two main characters spend most of the movie apart, a circumstance that undermines the overall impact, but as before, Rapace manages to keep you fascinated by her dark anti-social character with a good heart. Salandar, like many in modern society has been so damaged by the evil actions of others that she struggles to socially interact in any meaningful way. New director Daniel Alfredson continues the direction of the first movie by showing most of the sex scenes as gritty and ugly rather than erotic. This is because rape and abuse of women was a major theme of Larsson’s work, and the real ugliness of it all is an attempt to awaken and educate people to its grimly disturbing reality. Whether the movie succeeds in this or not, or whether it wanders a little uncomfortably close to the darkness and thus becomes voyeuristic is an active debate among many followers of the series. The message is important and should be supported, I am just not convinced that we need to be so repeatedly and graphically exposed to the heinous sexual depravity and violence conducted against women in the story. You might well think differently.

Overall, it is quite a bit less gritty than the first movie and plays more like a conventional thriller. The clues seem more easily discovered, the villains are a little more boring and the finale feels like it has been done a million times before. I will go to watch the final installment of this trilogy (The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest), but truly wonder whether the Hollywood version is necessary.

Three and a half stars. Be warned that there is strong language, violence and sexual content. It is also a Swedish movie so if sub-titles aren’t your thing, then don’t bother with this one.

Movie Review: The Social Network

David Fincher’s new film The Social Network is a movie of endearing and compelling ironies. Firstly, much like Facebook itself, this runaway success of a movie largely but not wholly manages to live up to its hype. Secondly, it purportedly tells a true story but relies mostly on supposition and guesswork and is openly fudgy about ‘facts’. And finally, its central character is the man who put together a computer programme that connects 1 in 14 people on the planet in hundreds of countries, yet he evidently is deeply lonely and fundamentally lacking in any people skills of his own.

Around two hours seems like a long time to tell a story about a computer programme and the geniuses and personalities behind it, but the sheer pace, humour, intelligence and zing of the dialogue is more than enough to keep you ‘connected’. Jesse Eisenberg is wonderful as Steve Zuckenberg, the man behind Facebook who became a multi-billionaire in his mid-twenties but whose path to success was littered with fractured relationships and broken trust.

Zuckerberg and his roommate and best friend Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) started Facebook together, with Mark doing the programming while Saverin funded it and acted as CFO. Zuckerberg was accused of stealing the idea from two other Harvard students, the Winklevoss twins, who came up with Harvard Connect and claim they hired Zuckenberg to develop it. They subsequently sued him. Then Zuckenberg became swept up by another brilliant but incredibly sleazy internet guru Sean Parker (well played by Justin Timberlake). This relationship drives a wedge between Zuckerberg and Saverin, and ultimately leads to another lawsuit. Yes, the story behind Facebook is a story of disintegrating relationships and various betrayals.

Cleverly enough, and perhaps to avoid a lawsuit of its own, the movie is told from the perspective of these lawsuits. Fincher shrewdly interweaves straightforward chronology with deposition scenes involving Mark and both Eduardo and the Winklevosses. Using flashbacks, he presents various versions of what really happened and leaves it up to us to sort out the truth of the claims, or the different degrees thereof.

The Social Network is brilliantly directed, well-acted, has sizzling dialogue, and also delivers a penetrating morality message, without coming across all preachy. Of course it is controversial since the Facebook owner and many others vigorously dispute the truth of its relentlessly negative portrayal. Therein lies another irony, because somehow the story (and message) seem to play true, even if the facts aren’t. It is a scathing critique of our obsession with status and image, and the fact that our overreliance on digitally connecting could ironically (that word again) make us even lonelier. Behind the hundred of friends we may have signed up with on Facebook, lie many tales of broken relationships, character isolation and the inability to truly connect with others. Ultimately, we are reminded through the sadness of Zuckenberg’s case, that digitally connecting should be used as a method of enhancing community rather than as a means of replacing it entirely.

Four Facebook pokes out of five for The Social Network. Be warned that there is some sexual content and strong language.

Movie Review: The End of the Line

Forget 2012. It seems the world has a good chance of ending around 2050. No, this is not the prediction of the latest apocalyptic Nostradamus-style book, nor is it to do with the latest Hollywood disaster movie, rather it is the message of the latest eco-documentary. The focus is on our rapidly depleting worldwide fish stocks, and The End of the Line has facts, details and visuals that are far more horrifying than reading Nostradamus, or watching a high-tech end of the world disaster movie. This is because we are informed that an estimated 90 per cent of the world's large fish – tuna, cod and salmon – have disappeared from the ocean since 1950 and, extrapolating from the current rate of decline, some experts believe that, by mid-century, there may be nothing left but plankton, jellyfish and worms. Yes, exactly. At the rate we are going, fish stocks worldwide could collapse by 2050. We are used to viewing the sea as an endless resource, but those fantasies are well and truly over.

‘Green’ actor Ten Danson lends his soothing tones to this Rupert Murray directed film based on a book by Charles Clover. During the course of the movie we hear stories of fishermen from countries as diverse as Canada and Spain who are all facing the same, harsh reality that there are just not enough fish in the sea to sustain them and their livelihoods. Director Rupert Murray combines these stories with impactful visuals of our plundered oceans, and then seasons the whole enterprise with hard, cold, frightening statistics. Murray points to corporate greed, government ambivalence and inadequate regulation and enforcement, as the root causes of our planet’s over-fishing. Murray never complains about the need to fish, rather he acknowledges the central role that fishing plays in many cultures, but he does rightfully complain about the tonnes of wasted sea-life caught and discarded annually and the destructive effects of practices such as bottom-trawling, which leave one feeling a little nauseous they are so disgusting.

All in all, it is more than enough to both educate and infuriate, and Murray definitely demands a response from his audience with an ‘altar-call’ ending - a call-to-action for those who have sat idly by as our oceans are squeezed dry of life. Murray does well to give practical and actionable advice that the average person can do to make a difference in this regard. The optimistic, activist ending informs us that reducing the size of fishing fleets, creating more marine reserves and encouraging consumers to eat only sustainable fish will make a huge difference.

This is a better-than-average eco-doc, although I fear the effectiveness of these messages will become lost due to the sheer number of them that are being churned out lately. I would encourage you seeing it, because its message really does matter and as Murray makes clear at the end – the normal, average individual can make a difference.

Three (and a half) stars out of five.

Movie Review: The Joneses

"They're not just living the American dream, they're selling it."

This is a movie that could have been so much more than it actually is. The Joneses (as in keeping up with …) was meant to be a biting satire, a socialist message about our culture of mass consumption but ultimately it ends up with nothing much to say at all. And it certainly had a lot going for it in terms of potential, not least being built upon an intriguing idea about a fake family set up as stealth marketing team in a wealthy McMansion-type neighbourhood. Their good looks and popularity were meant to kick-start new trends in products and clothing that would send their wealthy admirers scuttling to the nearest store in a desperate attempt to keep up. The Joneses also enjoyed the privilege of two strong lead actors in David Duchovny (Steve Jones) and Demi Moore (Kate Jones) who both have had intimate experience with the highs and lows of Hollywood and thus should have been able to lend this movie the extra satirical bite it needed to be effective. Furthermore, these two were well supported by their ‘perfect teenage children’ in the good-looking duo of Amber Heard playing Jenn and Ben Hollingsworth playing Mick.

So with all that in place this really could have been a great movie, with an edgy satirical message and a black humour undertone that you would laugh at but simultaneously feel challenged by in terms of your own vain weaknesses and tendencies towards needless mass consumption. Sadly, The Joneses ends up totally missing the mark in this respect. There are some incisive and funny moments but about mid-way through its cultural critique collapses as the Jones' 'family' endure episode after episode of psychodrama. It ends up becoming a rather weak and unoriginal moralistic tale, rather than the scathing satire it could have been, should have been. The film tries to be more than one thing and ends up as nothing really. If it had continued the satire, then the noose of the Joneses inauthentic lives would have gradually strangled the life out of them, and we would have been left a little shaken – as any good satire should leave us feeling.

Ultimately, this movie wimped out and it paid the price. A compelling premise was wretchedly executed as it backed away from the satire and moved into a wishy-washy moralistic tale. The result is a decidedly average movie. In fact, it is a decidedly ironic movie, because it ends up being nothing more than weak escapist fare; it doesn’t make you think or challenge you, but ends up massaging your mind while you pay good money to do nothing more than sit there and consume popcorn.

One and a half stars out of five for The Joneses. Be warned that there is moderate bad language and some semi-nudity.

Movie Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Swedish film version of the best-selling book is a compelling and suspense filled thriller that is clearly designed to shock and provide food for thought. It is based on the first of a trilogy of books written by Swede Stieg Larsson before he died. Central to the story is one of the most fascinating heroines ever devised. She is Lisbeth Salandar (played by Noomi Rapace), a young genius computer-hacking rebel covered in tattoos and body piercings. Her abusive childhood has left her bearing many emotional and spiritual scars and as a result she faces life’s challenges with seething intensity and brutal ruthlessness.

The story begins with disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) being hired to solve a mystery by an elderly billionaire named Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube), who inhabits a eerie mansion on a remote island. Forty years before, his beloved niece Harriet had vanished from a family gathering on the island and because the access bridge was blocked, the killer must have been a member of Vanger's large and greedy family, which he hates.

Since Blomkvist has six months to waste before having to serve a prison sentence for libel, and because he is keen to remove himself from public scrutiny, he agrees to help. Blomkvist is unaware that Salandar who works for a security firm has been hired to watch him, and she takes an interest in his case after finding out about it from hacking his laptop. They eventually team up and begin uncovering terrible secrets involving Nazi sympathizers, religious maniacs, sexual perverts and a serial killer. However, their meddling puts their lives in danger as someone is willing to do anything to keep Harriet Vanger’s disappearance an unsolved mystery.

Director Niels Arden Oplev makes the best of the forbidding island setting, with the grey winter light, dark buildings and hostile locals used to create a chilly and frightening atmosphere. Rapace as Salandar is an absolute star and plays her scenes with ferocious intensity. Although she looked a little older than the book version, she certainly nailed the character.

You do need to be warned that this film is graphically violent with heavy sexual content. This is not erotic sex but rather it is rape, bondage and assault and so is grueling to watch and quite emotionally draining. The original Swedish title for the book was “Men Who Hate Women” and author Stieg Larsson, who was renowned as a sharp social critic, saw these stark scenes as part of a larger crusade of awareness to awaken people to the awful realities of women abuse in modern society. Much like that graphically violent opening battle scene in Saving Private Ryan is a statement against the true horrors of war. However, I thought the director went a little overboard as he seemed to revel in the story's sadism to an uncomfortable degree especially in the needlessly, vile rape scene.

Overall this is a good film; it is a classic edge-of-your-seat thriller and a more than competent psychological study. But it is also a sober, grown-up film that will leave you feeling edgy and unsettled. If it succeeds in creating greater awareness around how prevalent violence against women is, and how deeply damaging that violence is to the individuals involved and society around them, then perhaps it can be forgiven for some of its more graphic scenes. I am not totally convinced that it does however.

Three and a half stars out of five. Once again, be warned that the age restriction is fully earned.