This review has been ‘repurposed’ from my other site, theOneliner.com

Stop! Romero Time! One of the longest running series in film returns with yet more zombies shuffling around chowing down on people. Mainly taking place on a small island off the coast of America, which given the names of all concerned might as well be Ireland, a generations-old rivalry extends into the Zombie Era as Patrick O’Flynn (Kenneth Welsh) and Seamus Muldoon (Richard Fitzpatrick) clash over how to treat the living dead.

Muldoon wants to keep friends and family contained and pacified, in the hopes that there will one day be a cure, or a miracle, or something that returns the deadheads to normality. O’Flynn has a more conventional approach to the zombie menace – shoot them in head. This disagreement in philosophy soon becomes a disagreement in arms, and O’Flynn’s clan turns out to be on the loosing side of that. O’Flynn is exiled to the mainland.

It’s not long before he runs into ‘Nicotine’ Crocket (Alan Van Sprang) and his small group of… well, not mercenaries, exactly. A band of ex-soldiers who figured they’d be better off on their own would fit better. While remaining sceptical, they decide that they have a decent shot for survival by heading out to the island, helping O’Flynn gain dominance over the Muldoons.

How does that work out for them? Well, it’s a zombie film. Expect eatings.

It’s not exactly a traditional zombie film, though. I suppose Romero has tired of the usual man-the-barricades setups that zombie outings often devolve to. It’s also no work of social commentary or satire, although I’ve always been slightly puzzled by that line of praise for Romero. Much as I like Dawn of the Dead, holding it up as an arch, Swiftian satire of commercialism seems to be pushing things a bit. More realistically, I’d imagine the idea for Dawn came about by saying, “You know what would be cool? Zombies in a mall”.

Similarly, I’d imagine the idea for Survival came about by saying, “You know what would be cool? Zombies in a Western”. That’s as close to a genre pigeonhole that Survival fits into (well, outside of Zombie Horror, obviously). It’s practically a remake of A Fistful Of Dollars, but with zombies. Although given that Fistful is practically a remake of Yojimbo, we also open up the possibility of a Samurai film with zombies, which would obviously be super-awesome.

If this is sounding like waffling here, it’s because there’s not an awful lot to latch on to with Survival of the Dead. It does it’s job well enough, it’s reasonably entertaining, there’s a few funny lines and a couple of amusingly arcane methods to kill a zombie on display.

I don’t even have too many bones to pick about the parts of it that are not, perhaps, top drawer stuff. The effects work is endearingly rather than distractingly shonky, and the overblown acting and storyline isn’t exactly out of place in a world where the dead have risen to walk the dead and eat the living.

It’s tough to hate any film that was MPAA-rated R for “strong zombie violence/gore”, and I don’t hate Survival of the Dead. It’s just that it’s a very forgettable film, and in a world with no shortage of zombie films it doesn’t shamble out from the crowd.

While I’m not going to proclaim myself as the world’s biggest Romero fan, I’ve no grudge against the man or his work. While Survival of the Dead was a perfectly agreeable way to while away ninety zombie-filled minutes, it’s not a damn thing more than that.

This review has been ‘repurposed’ from my other site, theOneliner.com

As someone who has played altogether too much Fallout 3 in his life, it’s always disappointing to see the name “Paradise Falls” used in films and not take the opportunity to have it overrun with super-mutants and slavers. In Legion, it’s used as the location of a remote diner / petrol station in the middle of the desert, owned by the grumpy old Bob Hanson (Dennis Quaid). Assisting him in what’s about to become hell on earth are Percy (Charles S. Dutton), Bob’s son Jeep (Lucas Black) and a heavily pregnant waitress Charlie (Adrianne Palicki), whom Jeep happens to be deeply in love with.

An unusually busy day for the diner sees a squabbling family of three stranded there, along with Kyle Williams (Tyrese Gibson), who has a certain hint of the gangster to him. A more unusual visitor on this particular day is the Archangel Michael (Paul Bettany), who warns of the forthcoming apocalypse based fun and games. Turns out, for no particularly explicable reason, the bun in Charlie’s oven is the only hope for the future of mankind and he’s sworn to protect her.

Seems that God’s decided to hit the franchise reboot button on Planet Earth, and rather than the usual boring “big flood” option, he’s going old-school. He’s taking over the minds of ‘the weak-willed’ and converting them into, err, stretchy limbed zombie monstrosities and unleashing them on the remainder of humanity. Original! The big man’s still got it.

Still, turns out these horrors are not immune to mankind’s greatest inventions, high calibre weaponry. So, the scene is set for a somewhat bizarre firearms based defence of the diner that, inevitably, is going to see a good number of our heroes meet grisly ends.

Now, the trailer for this looked quite exceptionally terrible, and it’s somewhat subverted my expectations by not being utterly irredeemable. Not, you understand, that it’s good, or even anywhere on the acceptable side of mediocre. There’s still a few elements in there that, to my very great surprise, aren’t completely obnoxious.

There’s a few pretty amusing lines scattered throughout. Once you get over the incredible bombastically high concept plot it settles down into a mildly entertaining Terminator / Zulu / Every Zombie Film Ever groove. They’ve even managed to find a character suited to Dennis Quaid’s absence of charisma in the irritable diner owner. There’s glimmers of something decent in here, amid the problems.

However, there’s a lot of problems. Chiefly, to me at least, there seems to be a massive disconnect between the script and the direction. This film is, for the most part, played so straight-faced and earnestly that when it tries to present something so insanely high concept such as, say a rebel Archangel teaming up with humans to face the forces of evil that arrive in an ice-cream van that it comes across as laughable rather than dramatic.

With a lighter touch, this could have been an awful lot of fun. As it stands, it’s pretty disconcerting. The massive difference between what I perceive, at least, to be a more knockabout script and the absolute po-faced gravity that everyone involved seems to be taking it is more than enough to sink this film.

Bettany, I’m sure, does everything that’s been asked of him in his role, but really an awful lot more should have been asked of him. He is, after all, supposed to be an angel, not just another guy, which is very much how it’s played here. A more ethereal or other-worldly slant to the character would perhaps have helped sell the concepts better, or at least better than making him grimace and wield an assault rifle would.

There’s other problems, in as much as none of the effects work or acting performances ever get above ‘acceptable’, and I’m probably just being generous to it because I’m genetically incapable of truly hating any film where an old woman gets sconed in the head with a frying pan thrown by a dude with a hook for a hand.

So even despite that there sconing, a recommendation to avoid is hereby issued.

This review has been ‘repurposed’ from my other site, theOneliner.com

Sally (Naomi Watts) is approaching the end of her tether. Her increasingly self-obsessed father Alfie (Anthony Hopkins) has suddenly taken it on himself to recapture his youth, which means divorcing Helena (Gemma Jones), setting himself up with a bachelor pad more suited to a twenty-something banker-type and marrying a “high class” escort Charmaine (Lucy Punch). Questions could certainly be asked as to whether Charmaine’s bra size is greater than her IQ.

Meanwhile, Sally’s husband Roy (Josh Brolin) is engaged in a long-running struggle with his ‘difficult’ second novel, with the novel thus far getting the upper hand. Much of the time when he should be writing is spent staring goo-goo eyed at the neighbour across the courtyard, Dia (Freida Pinto), and the two will soon embark on an affair. Roy has a hate / hate relationship with Helena, no doubt in part because the couple must rely on Helena’s help to pay the rent.

Sally’s tempted to get on board the affair train herself, destination Greg (Antonio Banderas), her boss at his art gallery. However, as she’s more of a loosely bound selection of unwarranted neuroses than a character, she’s not going to act on her feelings. Things start rolling to a head after Helena starts visiting a fortune teller, Cristal (Pauline Collins) for advice, whom Sally feels is taking advantage of her mother’s vulnerability, threatening the remaining good relationship Sally has with those around her.

At it’s heart, You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger is a film about delusions, and the mess that they make if you follow them to their extremes. For example, Alfie’s deluding himself with the notion, if you’ll pardon the age-old canard, you are only as old as the woman you feel, and I trust I am not subverting any of your expectations by revealing that things do not go well for him and his young trophy wife.

There’s no character here that is not deluding themselves on some level, in whatever way they choose to cope with the grim realities of modern life. Everyone seems to get what they deserve, which doesn’t work out well for any of them. For what I’m sure was nominally pitched as a comedy there’s a refreshingly miserable ending for everyone, apart from the characters who are deluding themselves all the way into a mental health problem sometime after the credits roll. Whether such an ending is a good idea in a comedy is another matter entirely, of course.

You can’t fault the cast. It’s as good an ensemble as you could hope for, and everyone is doing what they’re asked of well enough. It’s just another case where what they’re being asked to do isn’t up to the level they’re capable of performing at. Most of the characters only barely scrape into two dimensions, and never seem like they’re comfortable with the words Woody Allen is stuffing into their mouths.

I was going to say that this is above the low water mark set by Cassandra’s Dream, but that can’t be entirely accurate. Cassandra’s Dream didn’t set a low water mark, because it was so bad it banished all water around it to the land of wind and ghosts. It’s more accurate to say that You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger is adequate, although so Woody-Allen-by-numbers that you’ll already have a pretty good idea what’s going on long before it happens, which rather makes the experience of watching it somewhat pointless.

To my surprise You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger isn’t a completely unenjoyable work, largely due to the performances. While I don’t find it to be quite as reprehensible as its predominantly negative reviews would suggest, it’s by no means the most memorable film I’ve seen this year. There’s enough flaws present to prevent recommending it to anyone but the most die-hard of Woody Allen fans, and even that would require a guarded recommendation.

This review has been ‘repurposed’ from my other site, theOneliner.com

At the very least, director Joe Wright can’t be accused of getting stuck in a thematic rut. After the stoic dramas of Pride & Prejudice, Atonement and The Soloist, he now directs this action-laden, high concept revenge thriller. Overall, he’s pulled off this genre switcharoo better than could perhaps be expected, although Hanna is a long way from perfect.

The titular 16 year old Hanna Heller (The Lovely Bones‘ Saoirse Ronan) lives a quiet life in the woods of Finland with her father Erik (Eric Bana). Well, quiet apart from all of the training she’s receiving to become a super-assassin. But y’know, quiet, other than the hand to hand combat and stuff. Plainly she’s being shaped as a weapon, and it turns out the target is the C.I.A’s Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett), whom Wikipedia informs me is corrupt, although I’d argue she was just in charge of an ethically wonky program, but to get into any details would head firmly into spoiler territory.

Structurally, Hanna isn’t far off the Bourne Identity genotype, what with the highly trained operative trying to uncover mysterious, hidden details about their past and suchlike. In fact, come to think of it, it’s nigh-on identical. The largest differentiator between them is the style of the piece. It used to be said of films that they had been made “for the MTV generation”, and arguably the Bourne franchise is a decent example of that hyper-kinetic shakycam, fast-paced, fast-cut style.

Hanna appears, then, to have been made for a generation of people weaned on psychotropic drugs. It’s not often I wish a film had rained itself in and not gone to such extremes, but I can’t escape the feeling that Hanna pushes the envelope so hard that it pokes holes in it, and the film starts dribbling out the hole and making small, messy puddles on the floor that someone’s going to have to clean up later.

It goes too far. The plot by itself, which I don’t feel we can discuss in depth without ruining it (although arguably it’s relatively obvious how this is going to play out), is ‘high concept’, and by which I mean ‘silly’, enough by itself, but it’s embellished at every turn with additional bizarities that add up to make the film too alienatingly daft to really get into. Witness Tom Hollander’s oddball German hit-man and his skinhead cronies, and that dude in the amusement park, and all the other flourishes that push it over the line from ‘quirky’ to ‘willfully obscure’. It feels like a rather desperate attention grab to fast track it into ‘cult favourite’ territory, and goes from being ‘individual’ to ‘crass commercialism’.

Hanna is a film that I really want to like a lot more than I can actually justify, and there are certainly some strong elements to the piece. Almost universally wonky accents aside, it’s well acted, and the characters are sympathetic and substantially more believable than I’d expect given the nature of the plot. It’s well paced, punchy, and the action is well handled by Joe Wright and his team. The Chemical Brothers provide a pounding soundtrack that fits the film exceptionally well.

Certainly, Hanna takes risks, and on a purely ideological level I support that fully. We need all of it we can get, in this risk-averse cinematic landscape. Sadly Hanna, ultimately, just doesn’t work. It’s not an unenjoyable film to watch, and it’s a long way from boring, but it’s just a little too oddball to be fully embraced. Interesting, but I can’t recommend it.

This review has been ‘repurposed’ from my other site, theOneliner.com

We take a return trip to Brazil’s Elite Squad of police / commando hybrids, as we find the entire point of the first film, that being the boss’s quest to find someone to replace him has been immediately upended. For reasons not entirely clear, Roberto Nascimento (Wagner Moura) returns to duty at the helm of a force still struggling with rampant crime in Brazil’s favellas and immediately finds himself in the centre of a controversy.

A botched, kinda, hostage situation at a prison riot puts him on a collision course with a human rights advocate, who also happens to have shacked up with Nascimento’s ex-wife and kid. This is given more importance early on than it really seems to deserve, given the rest of the film. However, his seemingly harsh, bullet-based justice finds favour with the general public and he unwillingly becomes a pawn in a political game, hoping to reach the other side of the board and become a Queen. Well, in the ‘more powerful’ chess-based sense, at least.

The bulk of the film is taken up with Nascimento’s ascension to a higher level, a Homeland Security style governmental role and attempting to crack down on both drug dealers and corruption in the police force. His basic idea is that by getting rid of the former, we should automatically get rid of the latter, however he hadn’t counted on the imagination, resourcefulness and political connections of the bent cops, as they transition from merely accepting bribes to forming entire protection rackets.

While I have heard far worse set-ups (or excuses, depending on your tolerance) for sequels, it seems a little like someone brainstormed “I know what the first film was missing – bureaucracy!” and started on that basis. As it happens, it’s turned out to produce a pretty compelling narrative that, sadly, also seems all too believable.

It could, perhaps, use a little more focus. There’s a lot of the early running built around the family drama and conflict between Nascimento, his ex-wife and her new husband that turns out to be nearly irrelevant to the events of the rest of the film, and play a little like an attempt to graft characterisation into a plot not otherwise built for it. However, it doesn’t get in the way of the pacing too badly, and I wouldn’t want to put myself in a position where I’m arguing against character development, so I’ll mention it no more.

I liked the original film well enough, albeit not quite as much as the buzz around it would perhaps warrant, and I like Elite Squad 2 just about as much – a rarity for a sequel. I can’t think of any major problems with the way the story is told – it’s dynamic, stylish and punchy. The narrative perhaps takes a little too long to get rolling, but once it does it’s easy to go along with.

I suppose my only minor issue is that in order to call itself Elite Squad 2 it has to jump through a few hoops and have returning characters act somewhat contrary to how I would expect them to, at least from as far as I recall their character temperaments and motivations from the first film. I wonder if the opening half hour might have felt more comfortable were it a film with no connection to the first.

Still, if that’s the limit of my problems with a film it must be doing something right, as it’s a pretty esoteric complaint. Overall, Elite Squad 2 is a very good police procedural, and it’s well worth a look.

This review has been ‘repurposed’ from my other site, theOneliner.com

Hmm. A chick-lit based romcom. You can, perhaps, guess that this was not my choice of film on the trip to the cinema, especially with a perfectly good Takashii Miike film running next door.

Rachel White (Ginnifer Goodwin) is a lawyer, recently turned thirty and plagued with the insecurities of a single thirtysomething that all single thirtysomethings have in romcoms. Biological clock, left on the shelf, yadda yadda yadda. She’s acting as maid of honour for her best friend Darcy (Kate Hudson), although it’s complicated somewhat by Rachel’s long-standing attraction to Darcy’s fiancee Dex (Colin Egglesfield).

I don’t think there’s any point going any further into the plot. Suffice to say that there are precisely no deviations to the way you would expect this to go, based on having seen any romcom at all in the past.

This sort of movie is going to live or die by the characters and their interactions, and Something Borrowed quickly flatlines. The actors are doing a reasonable enough job, but the script calls for an unsustainable level of suspension of disbelief regarding the characters personalities and their relationships. Darcy is supposed to be ‘fun’ and ‘lively’; she’s actually insufferably annoying, egotistical and there seems to be only the very slenderest of chances she’d ever be able to form lasting relationships with either of the more staid, sensible types of Dex and Rachel.

Those two don’t pass the sniff test either, both oscillating between impossibly perfect and ridiculously impassive, neither being sympathetic. The only remotely likable character is played by The Office‘s John Krasinski, and that only because as the film lumbers towards its final act he’s the only one calling people out on how pathetic they’re being.

Mechanically it’s clunky, with one of the least subtle establishing shots of London outside of recent Woody Allen films as it shows Big Ben, then Parliament, then Tower Bridge, then the London Eye, in a way that suggests that the second unit just wanted a sightseeing tour.

The absolute best I can say about the film is that it’s so massively generic and so studiously avoids any hint of controversy, or individuality, or anything that would give this a voice of its own, that it’s generally bland and inoffensive rather than downright unpleasant. Ah, the banality of evil.

However, it’s the films’ very bland inoffensiveness that annoys me the most about it. It’s the strident attempts to avoid sticking it’s head above the parapet in any respect in its attempts to avoid provoking any negative reaction that provokes my negative reaction.

It’s a film that does nothing, and says nothing, and therefore means nothing. It’s a film that’s only ambition is to exist for two hours during date night, and that’s the most offensive think of all. In a cinematic landscape that’s crying out for innovation, for anything remotely new, Something Borrowed, perhaps fittingly enough, provides nothing new, and everything borrowed from the ghosts of previous film that also had nothing new to say.

So, y’know, not recommended.

This review has been ‘repurposed’ from my other site, theOneliner.com

Noted documentarian Liz Garbus turns towards the life of noted chess playing man and nutjob Bobby Fischer. Chess might not, on first glance, seem like the sort of thrill-a-minute subject that will sustain interest over ninety or so minutes for those with no prior interest in the game. This may indeed hold true for the game, but the player in this case is a completely different matter.

This film covers some of his unique upbringing, giving some small insight into why he delved quite so deeply into the study of chess that brought him to a fame he wasn’t really socially equipped to handle. While the less-than-idyllic home life of his childhood hardly excuses his foibles, it does go a long way to helping understand them.

Of course, the movie looks in some depth at the iconic cold war matchups between Fisher and Boris Spassky, followed by his descent into anonymity and his return to the public consciousness in a way that makes most on lookers wish he’d stayed off the radar.It’s an interesting film, purely because Bobby Fischer is such an interesting character. It follows the usual documentarian subject rules by having the flaws be almost as important as the strengths, and is in no way putting Fischer on a pedestal, like, say the recent Senna did, creating a one-sided and unbalanced-feeling work.

As a result it’s a far more interesting experience that may perhaps be expected for those with little or no prior knowledge of Fischer, and it’s helped along by production values that are higher than might be expected for this kind of thing – the talking head shots are, for example, far more appealingly framed and shot than the basic transmittal of information would require.

There’s also a welcome step-up in the “talking heads” consulted for colour-commentary, with knowledgeable and engaging experts that do a great job in explaining and relating exactly what was so exciting about Fischer’s game. For anyone who’s grown used to the usual Channel 4 and Channel 5 “100 Greatest Whatevers” type of shallow list show with rentaquote comedians and “broadcasters”, it will be a complete revelation. Talking to people who know what they’re talking about? How remarkable!

Overall, Bobby Fischer Against The World is a likable and interesting document of Fischer’s spectacular rise and equally spectacular fall, and is well worth a look for everyone, not just chess aficionados.

This review has been ‘repurposed’ from my other site, theOneliner.com

It will perhaps come as no great surprise to reveal that The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec is based, as with every other film these days, on a comic book, however as my knowledge of Franco-Belgian comics is approximately zero it was at the very least new information to me.

The titular Adele (Louise Bourgoin) is an investigative journalist, we’re told, although she’s a lot more like a Victorian-era, Parisian version of Tomb Raider‘s Lara Croft. We’re introduced to her as she’s rummaging around a pyramid, in search not of hordes of Pharaohs gold, but a physician. A long dead, mummified doctor, which would seem a grand waste of effort, at least for those unaware of the capacities of Adele’s mate Professor Esperandieu (Jacky Nercessian), whose psychic powers have just hatched a fossilised egg and unleashed a pterodactyl over the skies of Paris.

This naturally draws the attention of the police, pressured by higher-ups to track down and deal with the flying irritant by any means possible. This could cause issues for Esperandieu, who’s still telepathically linked with the bird and would not react well to the death of the bird. Adele must help deal with this distraction to allow Esperandieu to get on with the real task, reanimating the Egyptian doctor so he can operate on Adele’s sister, coma-bound since a freak tennis accident.

Plainly, this isn’t what you’d expect from your average comic book adaptation. Indeed, a quick glance at my esotericometer shows that it measures a full spectrum WTF. It’s certainly an imaginative, absorbing and entertaining story, with rich, fun characters and a great sense of adventure.

It’s not perfect, running a shade too long and perhaps spending a little too long introducing enemies, of sorts, and then not really doing anything interesting with them, although I get the sense that’s more trying to set things up for a sequel than deliberate content padding. This also has something of an effect on the film’s conclusion, as the film clearly ends in every sense relating to this film, then starts up something to lead into a new film, then abruptly stops, which is a pretty hamfisted way of dealing with things.

Thirty one million Euros isn’t exactly pocket change, but The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec looks substantially more expensive than its price tag. The CG might not be industry-leading, but it’s charming and with more character than would normally be seen in these applications. The real standouts are the sets and costume design, both of which are on occasion spectacular and never less than great.

Louise Bourgoin proves to be a feisty and charming lead, and for what as best as I can gather to be her first major acting performance does one hell of a good job. Her drive and determination keeps this shaggy dog story on a short leash, impressive given how easily it would be for it to run off chasing cars and urinating on lampposts.

This is hailed as something of a return to form for Luc Besson, which I suppose I can see given his penchant of producing boneheaded action films and Jason Statham vehicles of late. This is certainly the most unique and the best thing he’s had his name attached to in fifteen years, and certainly deserves to find an audience. Were it not for a typically French gratuitous flash of boobies in one scene, it’d be the best family friendly adventure I’ve seen this year. As it stands, it’s still a very likable and charming flick that I’m very fond of.

This review has been ‘repurposed’ from my other site, theOneliner.com

Woody Allen’s hardly been at the peak of his game of late, especially when he ventures outside of Manhattan. Match Point and Cassandra’s Dream were not exactly high points in the man’s career. Returning back to Noo Yawk, Whatever Works certainly feels more like a ‘golden age’ Allen film by starring Larry David, someone uniquely placed to carry off the brand of cynicism, misanthropy and neuroses that, worryingly, became Allen’s brand. It’s also got an old man marrying a young girl, but let’s skip over that for now.

Larry David takes the role of Boris, divorced from his wife after having an existential crisis followed by a panic attack followed by a dive out of a window. While his attempted suicide obviously didn’t work, it’s certainly changed his life, going from a respected Professorial position to occasionally teaching chess to young kids, with the bulk of his time spent calling everyone outside of his understandably small circle of friends idiots.

His no sympathy, no concessions approach takes a bit of a knock after returning home from another session of pontificating with his friends and entirely disassembling the fourth wall, finding the young Harmony (Evan Rachel Wood) kipping on his doorstep after running away from her home in the South. Agreeing to take her in on a temporary basis, complications arise when this turns into a longer term stay, with Harmony, barely believably, falling in love with Boris, and just about as believably, Boris reciprocating despite Harmony’s charming but brainless personality being pretty much everything Boris was railing against.

Whatever works, right? Grab any happiness you can and all that. This isn’t anything like complicated enough for an Allen film, so in short order Harmony’s mother shows up having split from her husband, quickly reinventing herself as a bohemian artist from a base of uptight God-botherer. Still not complex enough. How about said husband showing up, with similar character volte face?

None of the relationships in Whatever Works are remotely plausible, and we would be well placed not to dwell on them for any length of time. The basic point of the piece seems to reduce to “Love’s a funny old game, innit”, which is as valid an observation as it ever was, but hardly an earth shattering revelation.

Dialogue is, as is fairly usual in Woody Allen films, not the single most naturalistic aspect of his writing, and it has resulted in a few performances that border on stilted. Indeed, most of the film has that overly enunciated, projected to the back of the room feeling that’s born of a stage production rather than a film.

This is probably more forgivable in this film than most others, as from the outset this is making no bones about telling you very clearly that you are watching a comedy and not a documentary in a way so audacious that it pretty much pulls it off.

It’s perhaps slightly over-reductionist to say that this film reduces to Larry David shouting at people for a few hours, but even if it did I’d be entirely on-board with that scenario. While the characters and language are about as natural as the colour of Sunny Delight, it’s certainly wittily written and well delivered.

It’s not classic Allen, but not much outside the Seventies is, and of his more recent works this is definitely in the top tier. It’s consistently amusing in that sort of ‘ahaha, how clever’ way, rather than delivering any outright bellylaughs, but it’s an enjoyable, mature comedy that’s well worth a look in.

This review has been ‘repurposed’ from my other site, theOneliner.com

I don’t recall the trailer making a fuss over the director of this latest Marvel comic book adaptation, presumably because it raises more questions than it answers. Kenneth Branagh? Really? Not that I don’t like the guy, but he doesn’t seem quite the Superhero director type.

While this takes a few liberties with the origins, I’d imagine anyone with a passing exposure to Norse myths will recognise the name Thor (Chris Hemsworth) as the God of Thunder, discoverer of the day after Wednesday. Here he’s passed off as a mere alien, an Asgardian, as it happens, mistaken for a God by those zany Viking primitives. While hardly lacking in the strength department at the best of times, he also wields the powerful divine/advanced alien technology hammer Mjolnir. So, a force to be reckoned with, at least until he launches an ill-advised revenge-seeking incursion into the territory of the Frost Giants, the Asgardian’s age old enemy.

As a punishment for his reckless, war-provoking, bloodthirsty actions, Thor’s father Odin (Anthony Hopkins), discoverer of the day before Thursday and Boss God of Norse Legend, strips Thor of his powers, banishes him to Earth and declares him unworthy of wielding Mjolnir, casting the hammer to Earth and embedding it in rock, Sword-in-the-Stone style, to remain there until a fit wielder retrieves it.

Thor’s descent to Earth is witnessed by theoretical physicist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), investigating the strange readings caused by the technology/magic used by the Asgardian bridge between worlds. Pulling the fallen God from his impact crater, she begins attempts to help the misplaced, shell-shocked Thor adjust to his new life as a man, at least until the officious S.H.I.E.L.D. agents start sticking their oar in. Meanwhile in Asgard, Thor’s younger brother Loki is making a power grab, attempting to deceive, trick and backstab his way into usurping Odin’s throne, part of which requires that Thor be removed from the picture permanently.

In retrospect, I suppose I can see why it would appeal to and/or be thought suitable for Branagh to have his hand at the tiller. There’s more in common here thematically with Hamlet than Iron Man. Although admittedly Hamlet didn’t feature Claudius setting a monstrous robot on the Prince.

Sadly the themes don’t sit well with the comic book action, which is much the same as every other Marvel adaptation knocking around, with little other than some lavish set design to differentiate it. If only they designed more than one set, we’d have something to properly praise, but most of it takes place in the blandest of New Mexican towns or worse, a desert. I suppose that’s to set up a contrast with the multicoloured digital opulence of Asgard, but it looks boring in comparison.

To his credit, Branagh has eked decent performances from his cast, and for the most part they’re as believable and likable as would be required for this sort of thing. The problem is the main character himself. Not that Hemsworth has given a bad turn, and some of his “Waah! I’m still a God! Honest!” anachronisms in the early stretches are pretty amusing.

While Thor’s story is supposed to be one of his personal redemption and maturation, when first introduced to him he’s so immature and irredeemable it’s difficult to buy in to anything that he’s doing. As a reminder, at the start of this film he’s such a warmonger that he’s willing to wander into an enemy land, break the truce and start hammering willy-nilly, presumably murdering a number of people who are just defending their land. By rights, the rest of the film ought to be Thor and his co-conspirators up in the Hauge on war crimes charges.

Perhaps that’s reading a little too much into what’s supposed to be a slice of escapist fun, but it’s an unwelcome distraction in a movie that’s not doing a great deal to otherwise stand out from the ever-increasing crowd. Also distracting is the bafflingly obligatory 3D, which is almost entirely unnoticeable. It’s been decried as ‘bad’ 3D, but bear in mind this is a sliding scale that starts at ‘utter obnoxious’ and goes all the way up to the heady heights of ‘merely unenjoyable and awkward’, so this is a different level of ‘bad’ than would usually be prescribed by linguistics.

Thor’s a decent enough, but pretty much unremarkable entry in a genre that’s already packed to the gunwales, with a goodly number of similar, better movies out there. Give it a miss.