The Orphanage

Director: Juan Antonio Bayona
Starring: Belen Rueda, Fernando Cayo and Geraldine Chaplin

An excellent film and while it qualifies as horror and contains several skin crawling and jump in your seat moments, it is really an absorbing mystery/drama involving the supernatural.

This Spanish horror/drama is supernatural horror made in a classic style. While British and American horror has fallen back on either dealing with excess gore and violence or remaking Asian horror film (which themselves have become stuck in a repetitive rut of Ring rip offs) its good to see that some people still remember how to scare through building the right atmosphere and actually giving us a story and characters that we can become emotionally attached too.

Directed by Juan Bayona and produced by Guillermo Del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth & The Devil's Backbone), The Orphanage is the story of one woman, Laura. Laura, with her husband and son, have moved into an old house that was once an orphanage that Laura once resided at. What soon comes to light is that they are not alone in the home as Laura's son begins talking to imaginary friends, friends with an intimate knowledge of the orphanage and of Laura herself which leads to a mystery within the orphanage's past, of secrets kept, of Laura's own secrets concerning her son and then a mission to find her son when he disappears with his imaginary friends supposedly taunting Laura to find him.

What occurs in the film is an emotionally engaging drama as one woman's search to find her son and her belief that the orphanage is haunted by children from the past who hold her son hostage threatens to leave Laura unhinged and also to alienate her from her husband. You will, however, find yourself believing her fears to be true.

The focus on mood and character makes later scares more effective. Some come during moments of calm (a car accident that made the entire audience jump) while others are the result of scenes filled with building levels of suspense, of dread from slamming doors, creaking floors, glimpses of a child in a sackcloth mask and a seance scene that truly chills you before scaring you outright.

All of this is accomplished without excessive violence or gore and without cheap tricks. Everything is built up carefully, balancing the scares with drama and resulting a truly heart wrenching climax.

I can only hope that audiences can overlook the subtitles and their blood lust and go and see a horror that will have an emotional impact that will stay with you afterwards just as much as the shocks do.

Rating: 4/5

Diary Of The Dead

Director: George A Romero
Starring: Michelle Morgan, Josh Close and Shawn Roberts

A decent attempt by the father of the zombie genre to add some originality to the genre. The results are only partially successful and is both helped, and handicapped, by Romero's decision to go back to low-budget.

We all know that without Romero's Night/Dawn/Day (and later Land) of the Dead films that it is likely there wouldn't even be a zombie genre in horror. After working with studios, Romero decided to revisit his roots by going very low budget this time and going back to the beginning of his franchise by retelling that first Night of the Living Dead but through new sets of eyes. This time those eyes are through the lense of a video camera belonging to a student and his friends who are filming their own horror film in the woods when the dead begin to rise and they find themselves living out something far worse than they could imagine.

The documentary style works quite well, though the effect suffers slightly by coming out so soon after the larger budget Cloverfield that uses the same technique. Here though, instead of the Blair Witch/Cloverfield device of this footage being 'found', we have a narrator, one of the students, who tells us that this footage is real and that it has been edited into a film designed to scare you as well as show you what happened. Allowing us to see the footage edited this way, with narration allows Romero to critique society as he has done in previous films. Here Romero attacks the media, particularly the 'spin factor' of government/corporate sponsered media as they try to play down the truth of the events occuring. One sharp example of this is us witnessing the unedited footage of an attack at the start of the film that was put on the internet only to appear edited later when our characters see it on TV with a police chief denying that the situation is as dire as first reported.

Romero's criticisms of the media though are now so one-sided as to look solely at the mainstream media and censorship. He also criticises the internet generation of Youtube and Myspace and the popularity of anyone being able to film their own footage and upload it to the internet for all to see whether it is wnted or not and how the amount of footage out their allows us to see as much coldness and cruelty in society as we accuse the mainstream media of possessing. Footage of people torturing zombies and filming it for their own amusement is particularly disturbing and our 'director' within this film, a boy named Jason, is likewise cold as he documents events and often chooses to film his friends under attack and dying rather than help them.

So, while Romero's decision to go low budget helps give him the freedom to make the film he wants with the message he wants, the low budget aspect also threatens to undermine the actual horror. The cast is filled with unknowns and of this results in a mixed batch of performances. Our heroine is generally fine though sometimes struggles with some clunky dialogue while an English film studies professor is highly entertaining. The rest of the cast are quite stiff (pun not intended) and are annoyingly amateur. This might be intentional on the behalf Romero (these being amatuer filmmakers) but it also means we are less than interested in caring about the fates of most of the cast and the inevitability of some of their deaths lacks impact. The scares themselves only succeed some of the time but the low budget nature of the film does allow for some of Romero's impressive make up effects and gore which is more interesting than CGI.

Overall, the film is a decent addition to Romero's zombie saga. It is good to see he hasn't lost his edge when it comes to socio-politcal commentary but the option to go low budget, in today's media, often brings the look and feel of the film perilously close to that of the Youtube generation is sometimes criticises.

Rating: 3/5

National Treasure: Book Of Secrets

Director: Jon Turteltaub
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Diane Kruger and Ed Harris

An entertaining follow up to National Treasure, Book Of Secrets provides more of the same in treasure hunting adventure, complex government conspiracies and puzzles to be solved. This series of films succeeds in being a more fun Da Vinci Code style of film though still provides nothing that could come close to challenge the fun and adventure of the Indiana Jones films.

Nicolas Cage returns as our hero, Benjamin Gates, and slips right back into character. Cage clearly enjoys the adventure and his brand of tics and behavioural eccentricities is more acceptable when he's playing a role for enjoyment (rather than playing things deadly serious where his mannerisms can distract). Most of the cast is also lured back from the first film too. Diane Kruger is more fun this time around though her performance is still a little wooden and lifeless at times. Jon Voight is given more to do which is welcome and Helen Mirren is a nice addition to the cast. Justin Bartha plays the role of comedy sidekick with relish although it is disappointing to find Harvey Keitel sidelined to a virtual cameo role and Ed Harris as our main villain is fine but just a rehash of his earlier roles.

The plot itself is fun in its unbelievability, taking us from America to Paris, to Buckingham Palice in London, to The White House and then to Mount Rushmore collecting clues and artifacts while kidnapping the American President and finding a book full of U.S. conspiracies (including Area 51 and the JFK assassination) along the way. Enough little facts and educational tidbits are thrown in to make the plot seem more plausible (and make the film more educational, it being financed by Disney as a family film) though the attempt to cram as much of history into its mystery sometimes feels excessively forced and threatens on occasion to bring the momentum crashing down under the weight of it's own ambition.

The climax of the film though is a little disappointing though. The final sequences under Mount Rushmore is a virtual carbon copy of the first film's down to near-identical death traps, villains and with the reveal of the treasure although, like with the first film, it's certainly refreshing to see actual sets and props being used instead of turning to CGI.

Overall, this is a fun film if predictable but is suitable for the whole family. However, it seems set to spawn further installments in the attempt of making National Treasure a franchise and to succeed it will need to show a little more focus and a little less formula than seen in this sequel.

Rating: 3/5

My Blueberry Nights

Director: Wong Kar Wai
Starring: Norah Jones, Jude Law, Natalie Portman & David Strathairn

An interesting effort from Wong Kar Wai to try and transfer his style of romanticism to an English-language film.

Wong Kar Wai is an aquired taste. He is well known for his visual style, pop music soundtracks and his desire to explore romance through wistful glances and silences over traditional speeches. His dialogue feels natural and the mood his films evoke often feel unreal, magical. Of course for every fan (like myself) there are those who find his films slow with little happening (or at least it seems that way at a glance).

My Blueberry Nights marks Wong Kar Wai's first attempt at an English-language film in an effort to see if his style translates as well overseas. The results are mixed. The opening half hour feels like vintage Wong Kar Wai as an English cafe owner (Jude Law) spends his evenings getting to know a young woman (Norah Jones) over blueberry pie as she copes with the end of a recent relationship. The mood is similar to that of Chungking Express and Jude Law fits into the mood of the film well and Norah Jones does so especially. Her character is a quiet one, not given to long conversations but rather learns from those she's with as she tries to figure out who she is. In her first film role, musician Norah Jones impresses with a subtle performance.

The same cannot be said of every performance in the film. While there are no 'bad' performances, some just suffer in comparison to those in the directors other films or even the actor's own earlier perfomances. One example is Natalie Portman. While engaging, her character feels like Portman based her mannerisms on those used in Garden State or Closer but without being as well realised. Rachel Weisz appears as the ex-wife of David Strathairn's boozy policeman and delievers 'sultry floozy' well enough but lacks the glamour and walk of Maggie Chung or Gong Li.

Outside of Jones and Law, the only other impressive performance comes from David Strathairn as an alcoholic policeman drinking to forget and deny the pain of his marriage to Weisz's character ending. You can feel the pain in his silences and feel sorrow.

For his first film overseas, Wong Kar Wai has a new cinematographer in Darius Khondji (Se7en) and, luckilly, he manages to capture the style of Christopher Doyle well. The opening and closing scenes in Law's cafe look especially beautiful with rich colours, reflecting light and smooth camera moves between the characters as the converse. Visually, the style has been translated effectively as has Wong Kar Wai's skill in building a strong, mood setting soundtrack using classic pop tunes.

Overall, this film is a strong attempt, by a skilled director, in translating his style abroad. It is visually rich, the mood and atmosphere is maintained and performances are solid, though not outstanding. It doesn't stand up to his previous efforts, and while future English-language films will no doubt improve, I hope Wong Kar Wai does not leave his roots behind permanently.

Rating: 3/5

Rambo

Director: Sylvester Stallone
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Julie Benz & Matthew Marsden

Sylvester Stallone returns to the big screen with a new installment of the Rambo series after a twenty year absence.

After successfully resurrecting the Rocky franchise in 2007 with Rocky Balboa, Sylvester Stallone tries to achieve similar success by resurrecting another character he was famous for portraying after an even longer absence. However, while Rocky Balboa successfully capitalized on the period of absence between it and the last Rocky film by making it an underdog story of an old boxer looking for lost glory in a sport that has changed as much as he has, Rambo instead rehashes old attitudes without updating them to make them relevant to new audiences.

Whilst a fondly remembered, if not critically acclaimed, franchise from the 1980s, the Rambo films main themes were its message that “War is Hell” and in its conviction that John Rambo is a man can that take on all opponents. While the original Rambo films and its lead character were a response to the, then recent, Vietnam War, this new installment in the franchise chooses neither to re-visit that old conflict or confront any the conflicts taking place today. Taking place in Burma, its villains seem faceless and under-developed. Little motivation is given for why the villains exist or do what they do being stereotypical soldiers/slave traders living in the jungle and instead seem to serve no more purpose than to give Rambo someone to fight and to have people to save.

Sylvester Stallone also struggles somewhat in reviving the role of Rambo. Where Stallone’s age helped with his performance in Rocky Balboa, here it hinders it. While he offers many a gruff one liner or stoic sentiment regarding the necessity to confront violence with violence, his age and appearance makes it seem even more unbelievable that he can fight off soldiers in the numbers he faces here than it did in the original films. Even Stallone submits to the reality at first that Rambo is no longer a one man army when, as he goes on a mission to save some missionaries he helped earlier in the film, he realizes the need to hire mercenaries to assist him in his rescue mission. These mercenaries, while fulfilling almost every stereotypical class of soldier, also mean that Stallone’s Rambo sits out of most of the action until the final 15/20 minutes and then proceeds to accomplish what the mercenaries could not.

Despite the thin plot and characters, Rambo does succeed in delivering some decent action/battle sequences. Dark, gritty and violent, even by 1980s action movie standards, the battle scenes leave an impression. It is certainly enough to satisfy Rambo fans or fans of 1980s style action films though if Stallone is intending a deeper meaning in his presentation of violence then it is somewhat lost in the later scenes and the use of operatic music in earlier scenes when the missionaries, that Rambo is out to rescue, are captured comes of heavy-handed.

Overall, Rambo is a missed opportunity to revisit a character whilst addressing more recent attitudes to war. While Stallone’s attempts to capture the look, feel and message of the earlier films are successful enough to entertain the more hardcore fans, it nevertheless feels too dated and unoriginal to impress new or more critical audiences.

Rating: 2/5