Posts Tagged ‘Eddie Marsan’

Jack the Giant Slayer

Fantasy tales make a fabulous bedtime story. That quiet half an hour when a parent reads to their anxious child the bedtime story involving a beautiful princess, some fairies and the occasional Giant is hugely significant in the passing down of a culture’s myths and legends. A recent Hollywood trend starting with the visually arresting Snow White and the Huntsman has seen many fairytales and fantasy films like Oz the Great and Powerful being re-imagined. The tale of Jack and the Bean stalk is vividly recreated by X-Men director Bryan Singer in the Feudal Fantasy Jack the Giant Slayer, featuring Nicholas Hoult (A Single Man) as the hapless commoner Jack who goes to town to sell his stallion and soon receives some magical beans in payment for the horse from a shady monk.

Whilst the exchange occurs Jack meets the gorgeous Princess Isabelle played by Eleanor Tomlinson who is eager to escape the confines of her father’s kingdom. At King Brahmwell’s insistence Isabelle is destined to marry the scheming Roderick played with evil panache by Stanley Tucci (The Devil Wears Prada) and assisted by his sidekick Wicke played by Trainspotting star Ewen Bremner. The Kingdom’s protector  brave Elmont played by Ewan McGregor (The Impossible, Moulin Rouge) has a task on his hand trying to keep track of the illusive princess.

One stormy night upon her escape she comes across Jack in his humble abode and unbeknownst to them one of his magical beans has gotten wet and soon a gigantic beanstalk grows taking the princess up into the heavens and soon to become the mercy of a band of giants which inhabits the heavens and are merciless and forever hungry. Soon the adventure of Jack the Giant Slayer begins as Jack, Elmost and a band of the King’s men climb the treacherous bean stalk in a quest to save the proverbial princess. Bryan Singer brings all the visual dexterity that made the original X-Men trilogy and Valkyrie so dazzling to this cinematic recreation of Jack and the Beanstalk and firmly entrenches Jack the Giant Slayer in the long forgotten realm of British feudal patriarchal society whereby monarchy was supreme and power and royal continuity was enforced through myth and legend. Especially when the Kingdom of Cloisters is being threatened by a band of evil man-eating Giants.

“Be Quiet, I am talking to Giants”

Stanley Tucci is wonderful as slimy Roderick, the facilitator of evil and Giant dealer with his best line being “Be Quiet, I am talking to Giants”. Ewan McGregor is a great supporting actor to the little known Nicholas Hoult as the hero Jack who not only has to slay Giants but also prove his worth to the vain King Brahmwell in order to marry his illusive daughter, the ever resourceful princess. All narrative is tied up in fairytales of some sort and this plot is no different and while the script could have been expanded, Jack the Giant Slayer relies heavily on action and visual effects, which are spellbinding to say the least especially the final medieval battle between knights and Giants at the Cloisters Castle.

Like all battles fought, and all legends lived, many are entwined into narrative and myth to make a wonderful bedtime stories that can be passed down the generations, making it just as valuable as the gorgeous crown jewels which survive in the Tower of London. Jack the Giant Slayer, though thin on character development, relies heavily on the fabulous narrative of a simple farmer Jack slaying Giants to gain the hand of the princess and not much characterization is needed when such dazzling special effects are used to recreate another cinematic fairy tale. Recommended  for definitive and entertaining family viewing!

Snow White and the Huntsman

Vicious Vanity takes no prisoners

Director Rupert Sanders visually stunning Gothic Snow White and the Huntsman channels Gullermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth and the hit HBO Feudal Fantasy series Game of Thrones and ain’t no fairytale although all the elements of fantasy are evident from Trolls to Dwarves, to Knights and Fairies. The real winner of Snow White and the Huntsman is the Evil Queen Ravena played beautifully with a seriously unhinged quality by Oscar winner Benoni superstar Charlize Theron, referencing her earlier role in Monster. In Snow White and the Huntsman, Charlize steals the show and is the backbone to this dark fantasy epic featuring Kirsten Stewart as the meek and anaemic Snow White and Thor’s hairy and gruff Chris Hemsworth as the sword wielding Huntsman sent to rescue the damsel trapped in the dark forest…

Mirror Mirror

This Queen ain’t no Bad Apple

Where the frivolous and occasionally funny Mirror Mirror spectacularly fails is the casting of goodie-two-shoes actress Julia Roberts as the Evil Queen in director of The Immortals Tarsem Singh’s frothy and glossy retelling of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in Mirror Mirror, which as a comedy is fun in parts namely due to the casting of genuine dwarves, along with Nathan Lane and Lily Collins, daughter of singer Phil Collins as the sweet and innocent Snow White, but the casting of Julia Roberts as the Evil Queen?Really?

Joan Rivers, Rupaul  or Kim Catrall could do a better job especially in this semi-Bollywood fantasy featuring  the buff Armie Hammer as the hapless but entirely vacant Prince. Wait for the end of Mirror Mirror to see the Dance number and the redeeming aspect is the fabulous costumes at the Queens Ball with Snow White as a Swan…

Unlike Mirror Mirror, Snow White and the Huntsman is pure feudal old world action with a dash of macabre incest, vanity and vicious magic realism. Charlize Theron steals the show as the completely off kilter pyschopathic Evil Queen who bathes in milk and whose gold mirror comes to life. Twilight star Kirsten Stewart only really comes into her role as the grubby Snow White in the second part of the film, but alas there is no chemistry between her and the Huntsman, played with less enthusiasm by Chris Hemsworth who really made an impact with Kenneth Branagh’s Thor.

Mirror Mirror is suitable for pretty little girls and Snow White and the Huntsman is more closer to malignant  witchcraft appealing to a more jaded generation complete with a sinister Evil Queen hell bent in her quest for the heart of a virgin at the expense of the seven dwarfs, the occasional fairy and a hapless Troll. Charlize Theron is just that much more menacing in the evil Queen stakes and film’s final show down is visually stimulating.

SHERLOCK HOLMES

The Dark and Sexy 1890s….

Picture the Victorian age, and most people imagine a British society  with strict morals and closeted virtues, governed by an immovable Queen, who managed an Empire, whose centre was London and radiated out to the four corners of the globe, from South Africa, to Hong Kong, to New Zealand and Jamaica. But by the 1890s that Victorian society was slowly unravelling by the very constraints that were tying it together. Under that epitome of London fortitude, that epicentre of British colonialism, Oscar Wilde was flouting his homosexuality in the mid 1890s and was soon to be tried for his alleged affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, culminating in one of the most famous trials in British legal history. Jack the Ripper was prowling the East End, slitting the throats of Cockney prostitutes and opium dens were rife in the less savoury parts of the City. Under the veil of conservatism, the late Victorians were a quirky bunch, many sects were popping up exploring the occult and challenging the grip of the Church of England, spiritualism was rife, as was the certainty that Victoria’s steel reign was coming to a rapid and abrupt end. England was emerging from the industrial revolution and slowly entering the edges of the modern era. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, lived at a very interesting junction in history and his most famous literary creation from 1890-1905, Sherlock Holmes was a mixture of bound up fanaticism and heroic individuality, a brilliant mind, a borderline addict and an overwhelming eccentric living in an age well before forensics was perfected…

Ritchie Returned…

No other director but the London born, Guy Ritchie (Rock n Rolla, Snatch, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) could have brought a 21^st century take on the most filmed literary character, and no better actor than Robert Downey Jnr could have pulled off all the perverse complexities as the Victorian super-sleuth, Sherlock. Downey’s performance was reminiscent of his Oscar nominated role in Richard Attenborough biopic, Chaplin.

Hollywood iconic…

Jude Law is superbly cast as the unassuming but more stable companion Dr Watson whose repartee with Sherlock is bordering on between British Machismo and pervading homo-eroticism. In this version, Holmes and Watson bicker like an old married couple and Holmes sensing separation anxiety at the thought of Watson leaving London to take his bride to go and live in the country, engages Watson as his ever faithful sidekick to destroy the plans of an occult aristocratic. It’s an enabler-rescuer relationship of note and the male bonding that ensues between them penetrating secret societies and separating the mysticism from the science can be read at deeper levels if a viewer wishes. For besides the central Holmes-Watson relation which is central to the film is a fascinating plot which has the duo pitted against the evil and enigmatic Lord Blackwood, another wonderful role by Mark Strong and his ring of henchmen including a French giant.

A Trio of Triumph….

Sherlock Holmes is at home in the 21^st century thanks to the adept eye of Guy Ritchie who steers the plot away from glamorous American commercialism and keeps the film, gritty atmospheric, dark and downright British, even to tea in the afternoon, bulldogs and Big Ben. Judging actors and directors by their personal lives is misleading especially with the private affairs of Ritchie, who was going through a divorce with Madonna, Downey who has had an eventful ride to fame, from the early days of Less than Zero to the brilliant Iron Man and Jude Law himself, whose extra-marital affairs have kept him in the spotlight. This trio of talent is brilliant as a team and Guy Ritchie with the extraordinary power of his leading men, create a muscular, engaging and quirky cinematic Sherlock Holmes for the 21^st century, leaving a whole generation to discover the very complex and fascinating era that was Victorianism with a twist.