Labyrinth

Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) is a teenager who lives in a word of dreams, magic and fantasy. And this particular evening she is supposed to babysit her baby half brother, something she doesn’t really want to do. He is crying all the time and so Sarah tells him a story, a story whereby she will wish him away to the Goblin King Jareth (David Bowie). Unbeknownst to her the words she uses awakens a horde of muppets…erm I mean Goblins as they along with Jareth whip the child away as she recites the magic words. Confronted by Jareth she decides that she needs the get Toby (The Baby) back and so the oh-so-fearsome Goblin king gives her 13 hours to get through the Labyrinth after which the baby will become his and live in the castle forever. As time slips by Sarah enters the maze and meets across a plethora of different characters, some who help and some who hinder her way to the Goblin Kings castle.

If I told you that this movie was directed by Jim Henson of The Muppets fame you will probably understand exactly what this film is like and to whom it is aimed and so anyone who remembers the muppets and that silly humour would warm to the concept. Although it has to be said that it was an overwhelming failure at the box office on release, and only over the years has it earned a bit of a cult following. Personally I remember it as an entertaining movie that was typically watched on a Sunday afternoon and before the disc went in I was wondering if it had held its charm like The Goonies which I watched again recently.

Sadly the answer was no.

I think that there are a few reasons for this. Let’s look at the two actors. Jennifer Connelly was a young teenager when this was made in 1986, I believe this was her 4th movie and so she was still finding her feet as an actress. Bowie of course is an iconic Rock musician and Henson’s first choice to play the Goblin king, he also wanted Bowie to do the soundtrack and I think that we can see one of the main issues with the film right there, Inexperience on the part of both parties. Connelly’s lines seem forced and wooden in places, especially at the beginning of the film. And Bowie looks and sounds decidedly awkward doing pretty much everything that doesn’t involve singing. And these things are very much apparent in this movie when watched today.

Image from Standard DVD Release

The other reason was the length, it was an immense chore for me getting through to the end and seemed infinitely longer than the (approx) 100 minute running time and I will admit to being more than slightly relieved when the credits started to roll. I wonder if toddlers and small kids who may still enjoy this movie today will bored and wander off.

There are some nice touches to the movie; for the most part the special effects are quite good. There were a couple of scenes were you could tell that the background was a matte painting but overall the production values were pretty good and that certainly holds the film in good stead. The “good” characters are also quite endearing. Ludo who reminded me in many ways of Sully from Monsters Inc would be a favourite amongst youngsters. Initially looking quite scary he is soon shown to be a big softie. Didymus whom is a manic, hyperactive character in an energetic little fella who likes to pick fights way above his station; his humour gets a little tedious but generally he is the punch to Ludo’s Judy and Hoggle who when you analyse it is your worst type of person to have as a friend as he wants to be good, but his “fear” of the Goblin king often leads him to betray you. Although in the end we see his heart is in the right place.

But apart from these characters and the special effects the film was a bit of a miss for me, and it didn’t play out as I remembered it all those years ago. Something to watch out for though is a cameo from Yoda? Don’t believe me? Just check out the character that seems like a woman with a ton of items on her back. Its Yoda with a wig on, I swear.

Image from Standard DVD Release

Audio/Visual
My AMP doesn’t play HD specific audio steams so I had to listen to it Dolby Digital 5.1 and it was pretty good, dialogue and soundtrack came across as clear and concise from the front array, although I cannot remember any specific stand out audio from the surrounds. Picture wise the studio will be pleased with the transfer with a movie that is over 20 years old the details are nice and the colours seem natural and balanced.

Special features:

There are five extra features to tuck into on the disc. I think the best of these is “Inside the labyrinth, making of documentary” The “storytellers picture in picture” is just an occasional commentary speaking about the film in general whereas the “Commentary with Brian Froud” is ok in that it imparts a fair bit of information but it all seemed quite dull and monotone to me. The other features are “Journey through the labyrinth”,” kingdom of characters” and “Journey through the labyrinth, the quest for goblin city”

Overall:
I do not think that the film has aged well; unsuccessful when released I think I now understand why. It is too long and the dialogue was bad in places although I appreciate that toddlers may like it (if they have the patience to sit through it). But for me it took all me will power not to throw it into the Bog of Eternal Stench.

View The Whole Blog At Movie District

Labyrinth – Blu-Ray Review

It only seems like yesterday that I first heard that Daniel Craig was going to be the new Bond. I have to admit to going to IMDB to find who the hell he was (I hadn’t and still haven’t seen Layer Cake). The only one of his previous films I seem to remember seeing was one of the Tomb Raiders, which didn’t particularly inspire confidence. I also have to admit to liking Pierce Brosnan as Bond, although I think the producers lost the plot a bit with the films, each seemed to be more spectacular, and unbelievable, than the last.

Casino Royale is the last of the Ian Fleming books to be made into a film, but it’s also, chronologically, the first story in which we see Bond. This raises a tricky problem, do they re-write the story so it’s not Bond’s first mission, or do they take us back in time to see how Bond became Bond. Personally I think the producers made the write choice in sticking to the story and rebooting the series, taking us back to see the Bond we all know and love develop as he becomes a 00 with a license to kill.

For those that don’t know the plot, Casino Royale is centered around Le Chiffre, a money launderer that handles the money for various nefarious characters. Bond, having earned his 00 status by completing two kills, unknowingly thwarts Le Chiffre’s plan to blow up a new passenger aircraft during its unveiling. Le Chiffre has bet that the company’s stock will go down, whilst everyone else is expecting it to go up, so he’ll make a tidy profit. Unfortunately he makes this bet with the money obtained from various rebels and terrorists, fully expecting the plan to work so he can pay back the money and pocket the profit himself. When the plan goes awry Le Chiffre is left in a vulnerable position. M sees an opportunity to bring him in and learn the secrets of a lot of groups MI6 have their eyes on.

Le Chiffre, in his spare time applies his substantial mathematical ability to the game of poker, and is a very formidable player. To make his clients money back, before they notice it’s gone and come hunting for him, Le Chiffre sets up a high stakes poker game, $10 million buy-in for 10 players, winner takes all. If MI6 can make it so that Le Chiffre looses then he’ll have no choice but to accept their protection.

It just so happens that Bond is the best poker player in the service and so is chosen to enter the game, win the money, bring in the bad guy and get the girl (oh yes, there’s a girl, haven’t mentioned her yet though). On this mission Bond doesn’t travel alone, Vesper Lynd, a rather attractive accountant, represents the treasury, as they’re the ones putting up the $10 million entry fee. She’s not the typical Bond girl though, she’s sassy and goes toe to toe with Bonds quips and actually comes out ahead in most cases.

Casino Royale was exactly what the Bond series of films needed. The last few attempts before this were getting ever more fantastical, with each film trying to top the last and introducing ever more ridiculous gadgets. In a post-Bourne era Bond needed to be tougher, grittier, more realistic and that’s exactly what the producers did and it worked a treat, this is the best Bond film I’ve seen in a long, long time.

I already have the early Blu Ray release of Casino Royale and it was a corker back then, excellent picture and sound and not much is different here, the picture is the same but the PCM soundtrack of the first release has been changed to Dolby Digital trueHD, but only the most fanatical audiophiles will be able to tell the difference. Where the original Blu Ray fell down was in the lack of extras, certainly not a problem here! On disc 1 there’s a picture in picture commentary with producer Michael Wilson and director Martin Campbell in which they cover a huge range of topics connected to the film and is well worth watching. There’s also an audio commentary with contributions from the crew that’s also worth a listen. Interestingly there’s a trivia quiz on disc 1 as well which covers all Bond films and for those that think they know their Bond (as I did) it’s a challenge. The BD live features of this disc I couldn’t get working, whether that’s my inability (quite probable) or that they’ve not been activated yet I don’t know.

As this is a 2-disc release, it means that there’s a while host of other extras (and most of them in HD) on the second disc. Deleted scenes, quite a few featurettes, story boarding, music video and BD live features again. I won’t go through all the features, but the outstanding ones for me were ‘The Road to Casino Roayle’ the convoluted story of who held the rights to the film and why it’s taken this long to get it made, ‘Death in Venice’ goes through the technical details of the final sequence and ‘The Art of Freerun’ a short look at the excellent free running sequence (that I love) near the start of the film.

If you don’t own Casino Royale on Blu Ray yet then this is the copy to get, great picture and sound it’ll be one of the discs you put in to showcase your setup, whilst the extra value bonus material now added in this 2-diosc release will keep you entertained for ages (and that’s without seeing the BD live features that will be coming out for it soon).

View The Whole Blog At Movie District

Casino Royale Deluxe Edition, Blu-Ray Review

Way back in 1981 George Lucas and Steven Spielberg released Raiders of the Lost Ark onto the world and in the process influenced what action adventure films would be like for many years to come. Now almost 20 years after the last movie in the trilogy that spawned from the original, Lucas and Spielberg have collaborated again to bring us Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

I think that it can pretty much be taken as a given that had Harrison Ford not wanted to re-don the fedora then this movie would never have happened, Ford IS Indiana Jones the same way that Hoovers are Vacuum Cleaners and Durex are a prophylactic. But of course Ford did say yes and he did re-don the fedora.

Moving away from the Germans, this time our bad guys are the Russians, set in 1957 at the height of the cold war which is quite clever really as the film makers had moved the movie time forward by almost the same amount of real life time, which is a good way to recognise that Ford may not be able to do some of the things that he used to do in the previous films, but also sets a fresh canvas for the new Indie movie to be painted on.

We get to meet Indie very soon into the movie as both he and his sidekick Mac (Ray Winstone) have been kidnapped by some Russians led by Irina Spalko (Cate Blancett) and taken to a large, (supposedly) secret warehouse in the Nevada desert where they force him into tracking an artefact that he had helped discover 10 years previously. The fact that there is a big 51 painted on the doors of the secret warehouse gives a not so subtle clue as to where the group are.

After a close escape with the ruskies Indie discovers that the FBI thinks that he maybe a danger to national security and forces him to be fired from his job as a professor. He decides to leave town but meets a very Marlon Brando-eque Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf) who has information that leads Indie into a quest to find the Crystal Skull which in turn takes him to Peru in order to search for the lost city of gold called Akator, more commonly known as El Dorado.

I have heard bad things about this new movie. Ford was too old, or the story was crap and not up to standard and whilst not perfect (few ever are) by the time that the credits had rolled I felt that the criticism that I had heard, criticism that had influenced me NOT to see the film at the cinema was more than a little unfair. Some of the rumours must have been created by die hard purists that thought that Raiders of the Lost Ark was the mother of all adventure films, and to even attempt to do another Indie film was sacrilege. The joke is most of these people would be hard pressed to string together some decent footage of their family with a camcorder.

Ford obviously cannot continue playing Indie for long, I believe that he is 65 now and although this particular film makes things all a little more believable by having it set 19 years after the previous movie therefore explaining why he has aged they cannot do that forever and so his and therefore the franchise should really close soon. Saying that though Harrison Ford does still make this movie, his presence is fantastic, and the way he takes on the Indie character is so believable both as the college professor as well as the daredevil adventurer that we can forget that the man is in his mid 60s.

Another welcome return is Karen Allen (Marion Ravenwood) whom we saw way back in Raiders of the Lost Ark. It was nice to see her paired back up with Indie. She is still just as feisty and you can feel the chemistry between the two of them as if this film had come within a few years of Ark.

Shia LaBeouf as Mutt Williams I wasn’t really sure about, he seemed to be stuck awkwardly between rocker rebel and gleaming frat boy and I am not really sure that it pulled off; when we first saw him my first thought was Marlon Brando Wannabe and the word wannabe stayed with me throughout the film.

Cate Blanchett as Russian Col. Dr. Irina Spalko threw me initially as although I have not seen Blanchett in many movies I’ve never ever associated her as the “baddie”, but once I got used to her in the role it is obvious that she relished it, the accent, the uniform everything, she seemed to have great fun.

The other supporting actors did well. Ray Winstone in many way drives some of the story on and it is through him that indie finds himself in many situations, (I cannot really give away more or it will give away a bit of a spoiler) and lastly two British Actors John Hurt and Jim Broadbent are effective within their characters shoes.

I think the one real complaint I have is that there is possibly too much action in the film, there are not many scenes that allow you to catch your breath for any decent length of time, instead we have action scene after action scene with much of it having a fair amount of CGI support. Whilst I find nothing wrong with CGI you can sometimes tell those scenes apart from the others, but overall it was the relentless action or dramatic things happening on a constant level that I felt went a little too far. I also found this with King Kong too. Sometimes less is more and whilst this didn’t spoil to film to the point of it being terrible I did feel that there needed to be some calmer moments within the running time.

But apart from that gripe I thought the film was a great adventure true to the days of the original Indie, there are the witty lines and the sometimes silly goings on which has always been the hallmark of a good action film that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Extras:

On disc two there are a wealth of extras, the best of which is a 1 hour 20 minutes making of documentary that is of great quality taking you through every possible area of making a film with talks from pretty much everyone involved in the making of the movie.

All the other extras are short in nature and look at very specific areas such as the warrior make up and props etc. They are all pretty good in there own way but it is the making of that is the one to watch.

Overall:

A really good entertaining 4th instalment to the Indiana Jones franchise. It isn’t perfect but then no movie is perfect but it certainly fits into the niche that the original Indie films forged.

View The Whole Blog At Movie District

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, DVD Review