Voyage of the Dawn Treader - Review

Not mine, I'm afraid, but this one is well thought through...

HT to Christianity Today.

The Hurt Locker

I missed this one when it was at the cinema, but I aim to watch all the films that won the "Best Picture" Oscar.

It starts with the quote

"The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug."

And the whole film is basically an illustration of that.

It follows the story of a bomb-disposal team in Iraq towards the end of their time there, with all sorts of hard-hitting encounters between them and Iraqis.

I wouldn't say it was a pleasant film, or a nice film to watch. It isn't something I'd especially like to watch on an evening in front of the TV. But it's a really good film, and a thought-provoking one.

Shrek 4

Yesterday, we went to see Shrek 4 - "Shrek - Forever After" at the cinema. Not the 3D version, because that's just a silly overpriced gimmick which means you have to keep your head vertical...

Shrek 1 was a work of genius in the way it reworked fairy stories and went against the grain. Shrek 2 was a pretty good continuation of it, that heavily referenced and parodied modern culture. Shrek 3 was so easily forgettable I can't find anyone who can remember it well, though I've found several people who think they've probably seen it.

Shrek 4 doesn't parody anything really. It just uses most of the same characters, with one new major character (the evil Rumplestiltskin), who is largely as in fairy tales rather than being a clever twist on it. It's a fun film, and a decent one - probably better than 3, but nowhere near either 1 or 2 in standard. There are a couple of really clever moments, and one really romantic one, but they're the exception rather than the rule.

It's like they tried writing a decent-ish story with the same characters (albeit in a parallel universe where Shrek was never born), and it's just all a bit too pedestrian in comparison with the first two - as if the clever writers had run out of steam. Fun, but not fantastic.

The Phantom of the Opera

Here's some of the TV info blurb for the film of the Phantom of the Opera, as shown on Film4:

Joel Schumacher directs this darkly Gothic interpretation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's stage musical

Andrew Lloyd Webber's famous musical is, as the name suggests, about a phantom who lives in an opera house. The script requires a few murders and attempted murders and has several significant scenes set in a graveyard and abandoned caves under the opera house.

It contains lines like "Down once more to the dungeon of my dark despair / Down we plunge to the prison of my mind!"

And yet, somehow, the blurb suggests that it might be possible to produce an interpretation of Phantom that isn't darkly gothic!

Don't get me wrong, I think Phantom is ALW's best musical. It's probably my second favourite musical (after Les Mis). It's clever, and has some real feel-good moments. But it is dark, and it is gothic. Oh, and I enjoyed the stage version more than the film.

Star Trek (11)

The 11th Star Trek film finally manages to break one of the long-running rules in Hollywood - that odd-numbered Star Trek films are rubbish. Many would say the even-numbered ones were too...

This is partly an attempt to do a film that comes just before the first series in the 1960s, and partly a reinvention of the whole franchise. And I have to say it's very well done. All the major characters from the first series are there, all well played by different actors but in such a way that it's believable that they're the same people. There are lots of nods to stuff in the original series - like a sense of fashion that could explain how on earth they ended up with the uniforms from the first series, and a scenario that explains how someone like Kirk ended up as captain. And it brings in some of the science from later series without the whole "particle of the week" solutions that dogged the later series of TNG.

The special effects are of course much, much better, even than the later series. And it's fun! (significantly helped by Simon Pegg as Scotty.) And the start of the film is incredibly good.

As a bit of a physics geek, I have to say I like what they did with the philosophy of time travel here. Not just having a consistent theory of it, but also playing with some characters having alternate theories of it...

It's worth adding that a friend of mine pointed me to this amusing video review...

Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'

Angels and Demons

This is a review I wrote about the book ages ago. It's probably worth reposting it now that the film is being released.

State of Play

I've been really disappointed with the quality of the twists in films of late. Most of them are really really obvious beforehand. But I don't think Russell Crowe has made a bad film for a long time, and this is no exception. I'll try not to spoil it in what follows.

In some ways, this is a standard journalist thinks they are a detective film, investigating a Washington political scandal which involves several deaths. Big companies being evil, courageous politicians trying to take a stand, the usual sorts of thing.

I suppose the biggest weakness is that the film is probably slightly more sympathetic to the journalists than it should be. As the police point out during the film, there is a sense in which their desire for the scoop does make the situation work...

Oh, that and the presence of the annoying guy from the Orange phone cinema adverts in a minor role. He was really, really distracting, not because he was a bad actor, but just because, sitting in the cinema, I was expecting him to say something really stupid...

The Mission

This is an extraordinary film, and thoroughly worth watching.

Jeremy Irons plays a Jesuit missionary to a remote tribe in the South American jungle, at a time when slave trading and politics both threaten the area. It's really well acted - Robert de Niro is another major character but I think Irons is even better.

His character is so clearly totally sold out for Jesus, and so clearly willing to die for him and for the people he is seeking to reach. Lots of stuff too about the importance of what was effectively an early form of native farmers' co-operatives and the dangers of church politics. All in all, a brilliant and very moving film.

Two Films about Germany and WW2

Over the last week, I've been to see a couple of quite different films, both set in Germany, and both giving sympathetic portrayals of at least some of the Germans during WW2.

The Reader

The Reader is about a teenage boy who falls in love with an older woman, who has quite a few secrets. I won't say much more, because I think one of them was meant to be a twist, though I thought it was pretty obvious from the start. The woman is played by Kate Winslet, in her usual role of woman who can't keep her top on for more than 5 minutes. What is it with Kate Winslet and getting her top off? There's a kind of moral that it's better when we don't keep things secret and actually learn to talk about stuff, but that just seemed cheesy. Overall, I thought the film was fairly good, but pretty relentlessly depressing.

Valkyrie

That can't be said about the other film - Valkyrie, even though pretty much all of the good characters die at the end (well, it's a historical film about the failed von Stauffenberg plot to assassinate Hitler - what do you expect?).

With one major exception, it's really really well made and done. I hadn't realised that von Stauffenberg did it largely because of his Christian faith - there's a great bit early on where he argues that his citizenship in heaven (or possibly in the "Sacred Germany" - Germany as a Christian region, which it had been for so long before the Nazis) trumps his loyalty to his country. His final words are "Long live our Sacred Germany." Except that whole idea is toned down a bit so that people who wouldn't recognise the allusion probably wouldn't get the point. Nor had I realised quite how close they got to succeeding...

The one exception was Tom Cruise, who managed to act as von Stauffenberg using only one single expression through the whole film - a kind of intense, efficient, ruthlessness, with very little warmth.

But having said that, it's still a great film, and one which I'm glad I watched.

Quantum of Solace

I quite like James Bond films. Cheerful, escapist, random gadgets, most people acting heavily in stereotype, etc. In some ways, The World is Not Enough and Die Another Day were the archetypal Bond films - taking all the normal devices to such extremes it became self-parodying. I certainly laughed...

Like its predecessor, Casino Royale, only more so, this is not a classic Bond film. It is a well-made action film - more Bourne than Bond, but almost all the stereotypes are gone. Many would say it is darker for that. But is it?

I think that is actually a theme running through the film - who is the darker Bond - the violent, injured, over-tired Daniel Craig, or the calm, sophisticated Sean Connery or Pierce Brosnan? At the very end of Quantum of Solace, Craig steps into the role of the calm, professional Bond, but when he does it, he has become a calm, professional killer, who does not feel for the women he seduces and unintentionally leads to their deaths, and who no longer seems motivated by revenge, because he feels nothing for his victims. Which is colder, a man who kills out of anger and revenge, or a man who feels nothing as he does it? Who is more heartless, the man who is torn apart by wanting to kill those responsible for the death of the woman he loves, or the man who doesn't care what happens to the women he sleeps with?

Maybe Craig is actually the warmest and most likeable Bond yet, even if on the surface it seems the opposite...

Kingdom of Heaven

This is a surprisingly good film (when it came out, I heard that it was rubbish) about the Crusades, specifically the fall of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Typically, they've messed around with history a bit... Orlando Bloom plays Balian the blacksmith-turned-knight who realises the futility of it all.

Here's one of the best dialogues in the film (from about 1 hour 40 mins in):

[Bishop] How are we to defend Jerusalem without knights? We have no knights.
[Balian] Truly
(Balian looks around, and finds a teenage lad.)
[Balian] What is your condition?
[lad] I am servant to the Patriarch.
[Bishop] He's one of my servants
[Balian] Is he?
[Balian] You were born a servant. Kneel.
[Balian] Every man at arms or capable of bearing them, kneel! On your knees!
[Balian] Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright, that God may love thee. Speak the truth, even if it leads to your death. Safeguard the helpless. That is your oath.... Rise a knight. Rise a knight.
[Bishop] Who do you think you are? Will you alter the world? Does making a man a knight make him a better fighter?
[Balian] Yes.

That dialogue has great potential for talking about what the priesthood of all believers (for example) means...

There's lots of other interesting stuff in the film, like questions about who is a Christian and who isn't, and what it means for an earthly place to be called the "Kingdom of Heaven", as well as the importance or otherwise of the earthly Jerusalem. Can't say I agree with them on everything of course, though there are some good points made and it's interesting nevertheless...

In terms of the politics, people generally seem to agree that it's fair to everyone. There are good and bad people on the "Christian" side, there are wise and stupid Muslims (though I can't think of any Muslim characters who were bad in the way that some of the "Christian" nobles were, but on the other hand there are only a few Muslim characters who really get developed...).

12 Angry Men

For a very low-budget film that flopped when it was released in 1957, it's amazing that it is currently ranked 10th in the IMDB list of greatest films of all time. It's the top black-and-white film on the list, unless you count Schindler's List.

Apart from a very brief scene at the start and the end, the film is entirely set inside the jury room at a murder trial which requires a unanimous verdict and carries a compulsory death penalty, with the 12 men being the jury. In the jury room, there are no names given; and we only find out the occupations of a few of the men.

Obviously based on a play, lots of very clever lines, a good few twists, as each piece of evidence comes more and more under scrutiny.

The acting is excellent, there's good character development, it's very very good for thinking through how and why people think what they think or change their minds. Great film. Top 10 of all time? Maybe. But certainly the sort of film that people doing a job where the truth matters would do well to watch.

The Dark Knight

I don't think I've ever seen a superhero film as dark as this, the sequel to Batman Begins. It is complex, brooding and all the characters are morally ambiguous in a way that is very unusual. But Batman always was the Dark Knight, even if that wasn't how he was portrayed on screen. The exception in terms of moral ambiguity is the Joker, who is a fairly clear mix of evil, insane and very clever.

The special effects are good, but the focus is rather on the large number of moral cans of worms opened in the film, with questions like "Does the difference between what people deserve and what people need legitimate lying?", What is the difference between the "good" people and the "evil" people in the film? How does that work out with reference to e.g. Harvey, the groups of people on the ferries? Is the Joker really that different after all?

I think where it all ends up is remarkably close to GK Chesterton's classic Father Brown stories, though without the strong redemptive theme there. By all means watch the film - it's a good, entertaining, well made, and thought-provoking time. But don't expect it to be happy.

Prince Caspian and the next few weeks

Last night, I saw Prince Caspian at the cinema. I have to say - I think it was a lot better than the first film, and even better than the book of Prince Caspian. They've expanded the story in several ways, most of which are improvements and which bring out the points more clearly or nuances in the characters. For me, the only thing that didn't work was the whole Susan / Caspian subplot.

Having said that briefly, I'm about to go off on placement until late August. I don't know how much I'll be able to post (if at all). So don't worry if nothing much new appears here.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

It's odd. My experience of talking to American Christians about Indiana Jones is that they love the films, except for Temple of Doom, which they hate. Temple of Doom was my favourite of the first three, and is still my favourite. Possibly because the peril isn't just Germans with guns.

But in a more profound way, this film is also the odd one out of the four. And yes, Indiana Jones was probably due for an expedition with one of the ancient American civilisations, but there are definitely strong X-files-type sci-fi elements as well. It even starts with the Russians invading Area 51 to try to find something from the UFO crash at Roswell...

The Russians protested about this film. But that's just New Cold War scaremongering. Actually it makes sense if when Indiana Jones was 40 he was up against the Germans to be up against the Russians when he's 60. And they don't come off anywhere near as badly as the Germans (let alone the Thuggi) do in the other three films. Their position makes perfect sense - they want knowledge, especially knowledge that might help militarily. They aren't trying to use weird occult powers or anything.

From an action point of view, it's probably the best of the 4 Indiana Jones films, and the compulsory gross-out animal scenes are great too. From a plot point of view, it's possibly the weakest. But it's still great fun.

Lord of War

I guess the best film to compare this with is Blood Diamond. They're similar in a lot of ways (this was made first). Both are about huge problems facing Africa largely caused by the West - in this case arms trading, with the central character here being an arms dealer who specialises in selling to Africa. Both films are very hard-hitting.

For what it's worth, I think that Blood Diamond was probably slightly the better film, but that Lord of War was harder-hitting.

What I didn't realise until renting the DVD was that this is Andrew Niccol's fifth film (after Gattaca, The Truman Show, S1m0ne and The Terminal). I knew I was a fan of his work already. I even quite liked S1m0ne, despite the appalling computer virus scene... Most of his films even seem to have a conscience, which is great.

Good film. Challenging, hard-hitting, lots to discuss from a Christian point of view. Also has some very violent moments (mostly gun-related).

Iron Man

Is this the best comic book film adaptation of all time? It's certainly up there (IMO with Batman Begins and V for Vendetta, both of which, like Iron Man, actually have some plot). And from a physics geeky point of view, it's certainly one of the coolest. All the guys came out of the cinema wanting to be Iron Man, and most of the girls wanted to be with him.

Robert Downey Jr stars as a playboy genius weapons developer who gets kidnapped in Afghanistan by rebels and forced to build a super weapon. Most of the rest is fairly predictable, but it's great fun.

Divorce Lawyers

In private, divorce lawyers not only say you shouldn't employ yourself for your divorce; they also say you shouldn't employ them either - ie just don't get divorced.

The divorce rate among divorce lawyers is incredibly low - however much they dislike their husbands or wives, lawyers know it's not worth paying people like them a fortune to make things worse.

from here

Reminds me of the magnificently tragic film The War of the Roses, which features a divorce lawyer who always advises people to get reconciled to their partner because he has seen just how awful not being reconciled can be.

Action Films

I've watched a bit of action-type stuff lately. Or more accurately, I watched it a while ago and haven't had much time to write stuff up for here.

Die Hard 4.0

Classic Bruce Willis. Incredible action sequences, though the one where the car crashes into the helicopter just couldn't work... Basically fairly high quality spectacular escapist tosh. And the ending takes Willis's famous "shoot the hostage" tactic to another level.

24 Series 1

Yeah, I know it's been out for ages and I must have been hiding under a rock or something to miss it, but I went for years without a TV and everything... For those who don't know, it's a real-time (with ad breaks) 24-hour TV terrorist/spy drama.

Quite simply an amazing TV series - the production values are a long way ahead of even the recent series of Spooks, which is made to look like a poor British copy. The action and suspense are very well done.

A friend of mine said "you can't watch just one episode of 24", and told me that the trick to watching them is to stop it at the slight dip in the storyline about 20 minutes into an episode rather than at the end. Good advice. There are quite a few twists - pretty much every episode ends with a twist or a major plot development, often involving death. I remember one episode where I was fairly surprised that no-one had died and it was 40 minutes in, but it didn't stay like that. Even without the plane, I suspect the body count of this series might well make it into three figures. It's that sort of show.

Lots of people apparently say that the twist at the end of series 1 doesn't make sense. It does.

Jesus of Nazareth (Zeffirelli)

It's interesting watching films of the gospels...

This is probably the most critically acclaimed one, but not necessarily the best. For what it's worth, the Passion of the Christ is better in every respect from Gethsemane onwards.

Important points to note about this film:

• Overwhelmingly white and British. Most characters have RP accents. Donald Pleasence as one of the Magi is particularly unsettling. And that also means they don't show enough emotion.
• It's done in the style of a "film of the book" where they mess about with the plot-line quite a bit. They even mess up bits of the theology (Jesus on the Law, for example).
• Lots of good incidental stuff - it actually looks like 1st century Judea for much of the film (geeky note - though they get the temple wrong. The stones are much too small, for one thing).
• Very few special effects, which means very few miracles.

What's interesting on the subject of miracles is that the film actually seems to be telling the story in a sceptical way - kind of like >Shadow of the Galilean, but less extreme. Most films from books jazz the plot up a bit. This does the opposite. So the only miracles are the feeding of the 5000, raising of Lazarus and Jairus' daughter (done so there's questions over how dead they were), the healing of a man born blind (done with questions over whether he was blind at all, even before he is healed). There's no darkness at the crucifixion, not even a storm.

The Resurrection is particularly oddly done - you don't see Mary meeting Jesus, but you do see her telling the disciples. There's then a long scene where Peter seems to persuade everyone that Jesus is alive because they all betrayed him and so they have to spread his message (not sure how that was meant to work). Then you have the Great Commission scene, where after the previous scene you're not sure if it's fantasy or not. I honestly wasn't sure whether Zeffirelli wanted to say the Resurrection happened or wanted to try to explain how people might have thought it happened. He probably left it deliberately ambiguous.

I'd be happy with using clips from this in church - the Triumphal Entry, for example, is done well, and there's some good discussion over expecting the Messiah to be a military figure. And it's good to be reminded of large chunks of the gospel narrative. But at the end of the day, I don't think it's actually telling the same story as the gospels.