In a recent review of Heroes in The Times, Kevin Maher argued that it was a sign of the fundamental decline of American politics that superheroes were being used to address serious political issues. Can superheroes do politics? Does the very act of dressing serious issues in spandex and transplanting them into an artform that […]
One of the most common criticisms I’ve heard levelled against The Science of Sleep is that it is a “slight” film – that in it simplicity, wit and even innocence, somehow Michel Gondry’s new film fails to be serious enough. It isn’t intellectual. It isn’t grown-up.
I have a feeling that if I knew anything at all about the Mayan people that I would probably be deeply, deeply annoyed by Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto. It has the feeling of authenticity – from the idyllic jungle village to the fantastically realised city through to the subtitled language – there has been a great […]
Pan’s Labyrinth is a visually stunning film. The extraordinary imaginations of director del Toro and cinematographer Navarro have created a truly spectacular fantasy land full of images that will live with the viewer long after they have left the cinema. But there is far more on offer here than eye candy. As well as being […]
One of the major themes running through Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Prestige is that many things in life (magic tricks, rivalry, love) retain their appeal only so long as there remains mystery about their inner workings. Knowing the secret of a trick renders it mundane.
Typical, isn’t it? You wait nearly fifty years for another movie adaptation of The War of the Worlds, and then three turn up at once. This year has seen the release of two straight-to-DVD versions of the story, The War of the Worlds (Pendragon Productions/Timothy Hines) and HG Wells’ War of the Worlds (The Asylum/David […]
Let’s start with the obvious, whether Alan Moore’s name is attached to this movie or not, V for Vendetta is about the most reverential adaptation of a book that any author could reasonably wish for. There are flaws, serious flaws in fact, which I’ll come to in a moment, but in terms of respect for […]
Sometimes you watch a film and you can’t help wondering what the director was thinking when they made it. A major movie is a huge collaborative effort and the director is the captain of the ship. Everyone looks to them for a sign that they’re all sailing on the right course, that everything is working […]
It is tempting, with a film like The Planet, to be condescending. Like watching a dog deliver Hamlet’s soliloquy, it is easy to be impressed that the performance is taking place at all and ignore the quality of the delivery.
A lot of people are really going to hate The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Some sad, possibly miserable, people are going to walk from the cinema bemused, cursing the director and his cast for wasting two hours of their lives on a rambling, strange and apparently pointless quest for a yellow shark. We should […]