Stuff for Dads

  Bridge to Terabithia (DVD)

Starring: Terminator 2, the older brother from Zathura, Trillian and the inflating gum-chewer from Charlie and the Cholocate Factory.

Rated: PG.

Story: Jesse (Josh Hutcherson) is in the fifth-grade. He feels under-appreciated at home, gets bullied at school and has a crush on his music teacher (Zooey Deschanel). Life isn't great. Then he meets new girl Leslie (Anna Sophia Robb). She's cute but crazy as an umbrella made of cheese. They create an imaginary, fantasy kingdom in the middle of the woods. Their experiences there help them deal with and overcome their everyday problems.

Comments: If all you know about Bridge to Terabithia is what you saw in the adverts, then this isn't the film you're expecting. It's not the Golden Labyrinth of Narnia where a ten-year-old decides that life sucks but then discovers a magical world where they learn to value themselves and others. This is a movie where a ten-year-old decides that life sucks and then discovers that life really, really sucks but learns to get over it by imagining trolls.

On its own terms, it's an affecting tale of children struggling to cope with isolation, criticism and bereavement. It's difficult to view Bridge to Terabithia without a host of expectations brought about by countless other films and its own advertising campaign, however. These expectations make the few short sequences of CGI confusing. I'm pretty sure the animated sections are there just to show the audience what the kids are imagining and I don't think they're meant to imply that the magical kingdom is 'real' but I'm not certain because I'm so used to films with actual elves and pixies, talking lions and Quidditch. I kept having to suspend my suspension of disbelief. This was slightly painful. The problem was made worse by my children constantly asking what was going on and which bits were pretend. I simply didn't know the answers, which simply made them ask all the harder.

Then the last half an hour turned out to be incredibly sad and I had to deal with a whole load of other questions.

I spent much of the film wondering where it was going. Even the end left me bemused because it's hard to work out the message. I suspect the general idea is that we all need a safe place to hide away from the world and that it's good to pretend and imagine. Unfortunately, the beautiful CGI blurs the line between a tactical withdrawal into day-dream and a full-scale retreat into delusion.

My eldest is nearly eight and the film was a bit over his head. He's never much been into make-believe, which didn't help, but the movie is probably more suitable for older children. Bear in mind that they could find it emotionally traumatic, though, so you might want to watch it with them.

Conclusion: A decent family drama that doesn't do what it says on the tin.

Explosions: None.
Bullies: Some.
Ending: Confused.
Sympathetic teacher, crotchety teacher and annoying younger sister: All present and correct.
Killer squirrels: Several... or none. Or maybe several and none. Who knows if they're really there? Perhaps they're quantum squirrels - only there if you think they're there and spending the rest of the time hanging out with Schrodinger's Cat. Don't ask me - I'm off to watch The Goblet of Fire.

Rating: 3/5.

Labels: drama, family, fantasy, film review

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  Night Watch (DVD) & Day Watch (DVD)

Starring: Lots of Russian people speaking Russian. (Which is worth knowing. I was five minutes into the first one before I realised that they really weren't going to stop and I needed to find the 'Subtitles' button on my DVD remote.)

Rated: 15.

Story: The forces of Dark and Light have been holding an uneasy truce for a thousand years. 'Others' - those with supernatural abilities - live secretly amongst ordinary people, the two sides keeping watch over each other to make sure the ancient laws are adhered to.

In contemporary Moscow, Anton learns that he's a seer and becomes an agent of the Night Watch, a group of Light Others who police the darkness. He begins to learn that, as usual, Armageddon is approaching and it's all his fault...

Comments: This is an interesting pair of Russian films. And, yes, by 'interesting' I mean 'not that great but entertainingly odd if you feel like something a little different'. The story follows on directly from one to the other (without any kind of recap) so don't even try to watch them out of order.

Night Watch is a fairly low-key affair, introducing the world of the Others, their leaders and the tensions between the two sides. It's quite vague, though, and not entirely coherent. Day Watch is much slicker and ups the eye-candy with plenty of Matrix-like effects but these are often the moments where the film makes least sense. Characters seem to occasionally develop X-Men style superpowers simply as an excuse for some cool CGI. It's all quite inconsistent - especially when compared to Night Watch where the abilities of the Others is fairly limited. The last half hour is just insane, with magic chalk that controls fate, James Bond-esque car combat, a tactical nuclear yo-yo, a rampaging Ferris wheel and massed Medieval melee.

The films have high production values and are intriguing throughout. Few of the questions raised are answered satisfactorily, however, and the concentration needed to read the dialogue makes it harder to just let the whole thing wash over you as the plot goes off the rails. You'll need some patience to keep going. Still, you could do worse.

Conclusion: These are a couple of passable supernatural action dramas that come with the added bonus that you can pretend to be cultural while watching them. The story gets madder than an inflatable pin-cushion stuffed with squirrels by the end, though.

Explosions: There are a few crashes and bangs but nothing much blows up... until the last twenty minutes of the second one - then everything blows up.
Bizarreness: Ever increasing.
Comprehensibility: There are times when you might be as well having the subtitles off.
Stunning, yet inexplicable, events: Several.
Ferris wheel induced panic: Extensive.

Rating: 3/5.

Labels: action, fantasy, film review, sci-fi

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  Highlander: The Source (DVD)

Starring: Adrian Paul.

Rated: 15.

Story: The world has descended into chaos and a small band of immortals sets off in search of the fabled 'Source'. Unfortunately, random passers-by want to eat them, and the Source has a very camp guardian who wants to chop them into tiny pieces. Cue some lack-lustre sword fights...

Comments: This fifth Highlander film was originally intended for theatrical release but, instead, went straight to Sci-Fi Channel.

Which just about says it all.

A paper-thin plot, aimless action and confused characters combine to make The Source a total mess. It's the kind of film where things explode simply for the sake of it. Even better than that, despite listing the basic rules of the Highlander universe at the start, the film seems to delight in breaking them. There's even a dodgy Cardinal in it for no real reason. Fantastic.

Since it features characters from the TV series, The Source might hold some nostalgia for fans but, more likely, it will just sully fond memories. Happily for everyone else, the movie's so inept on occasion, that it's actually funny. Also, thanks to both the participants in the final battle being endowed with super speed, it's all over mercifully quickly.

Conclusion: A film so bad that it fast-forwards itself.

Explosions: Three or four.
Big swords: Loads.
Ludicrous astronomical events: One. (Repeated).
Award nominations: 'Priest with the bizarrest haircut', 'Worst blade-cleaning montage' & 'Most gratuitous use of a fuel truck'.
Chance of franchise ever recovering: Well, at least we have the impending game tie-in to look forward to...

Rating: 1/5.

Labels: action, fantasy, film review, quick, sci-fi

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  Holes (DVD)

Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Sigourney Weaver, Patricia Arquette & The Fonz.

Rated: PG.

Story: Young Stanley Yelnats winds up in a juvenile detention centre in the middle of a desert even though he's innocent. He blames a curse that his great-great-grandfather brought upon his family but, as fate would have it, he is in exactly the right place to set straight a number of things which have been wrong for a very long time...

Comments: This film is hard to pin down. It's not a comedy, it's not a serious drama, it's not an action adventure. It's The Shawshank Redemption with a whimsical tone, children, a touch of magic, cowboy flashbacks, buried treasure and poisonous lizards. It's also very good.

The cast is excellent and the story is enthralling, if a little odd. Yeah, it's packed full of coincidences but they're convincingly passed off as destiny. The whole thing hangs together well without feeling forced. In fact, it's a master-class in how to hold information back from an audience without confusion or trickery. Events play out in different times and places, gradually becoming intertwined and leading to a satisfying conclusion.

The movie was a little over the heads of my kids but children of nine or ten shouldn't have a problem. Even if your kids aren't old enough, rent it for yourself.

Conclusion: Quirky but fantastic.

Explosions: None.
Coincidences: Lots.
Holes in the ground: Hundreds.
Thing you never thought you'd hear The Fonz say: 'Honey? Could you smell these shoes?'

Rating: 5/5.

Labels: drama, family, fantasy, film review, quick

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  300 (DVD)

Starring: Gerard Butler, Lena Headey and David Wenham's voice. (The rest of David Wenham is in it as well but it's his pleasant-but-weird accent that you'll really remember).

Rated: 15.

Story: Three hundred Spartans take on tens of thousands of Persians in the Battle of Thermopylae while wearing nothing but cloaks and loincloths. And then... No, hang on, that's about it, actually.

Comments: Back in my youth, Sunday afternoon wasn't complete without some sword-and-sandals epic plugging a large hole in TV schedules between the farming programmes and Songs of Praise. They were generally lavish, plodding and in a slightly odd colour. They also tended to be less gory than the public service announcements in the middle of Farming Diary. (Maybe that was just in Norfolk, though. It's possible that the rest of the world doesn't need to be told to avoid repairing heavy machinery while it's still running...)

You don't get so many sandy extravaganzas these days. There's been Gladiator and Troy but not much else. Perhaps too many people, like me, just think back to long, rainy Sunday afternoons and sigh at the thought. I couldn't bring myself to get excited about 300. All I could imagine was pontificating in togas and a bit of spear waving.

I was wrong.

300 replaces the lavish sets of yesteryear with a couple of rocks, three pillars and a stack of CGI but it ups the action a hundred-fold and delivers more rampaging men in loincloths than a Tarzan convention and more dismemberment than a carelessly unjammed combine harvester. (In an attempt to replicate the style of the original graphic novel, it does retain the traditional slightly odd colour, though.)

The result is an action film more gripping than any number of the identikit space operas and espionage thrillers that have been churned out over the last couple of decades.

Give it a shot.

Conclusion: Made on the cheap but with such style you won't notice.

Explosions: A few, thanks to the Persians' supply of hand-grenades. (No, really...)
Muscles: Everywhere.
Lunatics in loincloths: Three hundred.
Body count: Astronomical.
Hilarious cameos by a rhino: One.

Rating: 4/5.

Labels: action, fantasy, film review, quick

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  Pirates of the Caribbean - At World's End (DVD)

Starring: Johnny Depp, his clone army, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Jack Davenport, Jonathan Pryce, Bill Nighy, far too much computer generated nonsense, a very large number of crabs and very little actual piracy.

Rated: 12

Story: Captain Jack Sparrow's friends must travel beyond the world's end to return him from the land of the dead. They need him to help release the sea goddess Calypso so she can defeat the East India Company who are intent on wiping all trace of piracy from the seas.

Obviously, taking away people's right to be pirates is an affront to liberty and something to be frowned upon. Well, it is in the PoC version of history, anyway, where it's the East India Company (Boo! Hiss!) who go around murdering women and children while pirates (Yo ho! Hurrah!) do little more than drink rum in a boisterous fashion and double-cross each other.

Comments: Die Hard 4.0 is a fantastic example of both the modern action movie and of how to maintain a franchise even once its original premise has worn a little thin. Some of the stunts are pretty unlikely but they're always spectacular and never appear totally beyond the laws of physics. The story keeps things moving along swiftly, isn't over-complicated, provides just enough character development and throws up a stream of in-jokes and one-liners. It's excellent.

Pirates of the Caribbean - At World's End is a fantastic example of all that can go wrong with a modern action movie and of how to kill a franchise stone dead, bury it in merchandise and then set fire to it.

After the complex and meandering story of the second film, Dead Man's Chest, there were more than enough plot threads to see this one through to a climactic conclusion. Unfortunately, the movie is stuffed full of superfluous twists, asides and reversals. They're probably there to make it all seem clever and exciting but the actual result is closer to tiresome and dull. It drags on and on as all the characters compete to make themselves unsympathetic.

All this might be forgivable if the action sequences were any good. They're not. It was as if they were given a vast budget for stunts, just in case, but then felt they had to spend it all to avoid being given less next time. People walk through a maelstrom of explosions without a scratch, perform impossible acrobatics on ropes and dance their way through extensively choreographed sword fights. Usually in a storm. At sea. Up a mast. At length.

It's hard to care after a while. There ceases to be any sense of peril once it becomes apparent that the main characters are magically invulnerable. Harry Potter can get away with it because he is magic. John McClane at least makes jumping on the back of a fighter jet look feasible. Jack Sparrow just waltzes through the impossible, shrugs and then mumbles about sea turtles or something.

That's not even the end of the problems. There's lots of forced dialogue and dubious motivation to keep the unlikely love triangle alive. The sections where Jack struggles with madness make him seem more sane than usual. The ending's not great, the film's often not that interesting to look at and nothing holds together unless you can accept that, deep down, pirates are lovable rascals really.

All in all, it's such an overblown mess that it might make more sense if they'd lost any notion of self-control whatsoever and thrown in some aliens or dancing penguins or both or even dancing alien penguins. I don't know.

It would certainly have been worth cutting out more than a third of the film, however.

Conclusion: So bad that it has blighted the memory of the other two in my head. Makes we want to go and knock a point off my rating of the second one.

Explosions: Lots.
Plot twists: Too many.
Jokes: Too few.
Length: Too long.
Dancing penguins: None (sadly).

Rating: 2/5 if you've seen the other two, else 1/5.

Labels: action, fantasy, film review

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  Premonition (DVD)

Starring: Sandra Bullock

Rated: 12

Story: Linda, a housemom, lives a week in the wrong order, experiencing the days before and after a family tragedy out of sequence.

Comments: This is slick and tense but doesn't make much sense. In fact, it may even make less sense than Deja Vu but Premonition gets away with it better because it seldom pretends to make sense. The weakest scene is where a priest is drafted in to try and explain things.

There simply isn't a way to trace a convincing timeline from any perspective. Sometimes Linda's attempts to alter events she has already experienced succeed but then, on other occasions, these attempts cause the events. Maybe a point is being made that some things are pre-determined and that our free will is limited. Or maybe it's just a mess. Who knows? It's not awfully satisfying, though.

The cast are good (especially Bullock) and the cinematography is great but the script is broken.

Conclusion: There are worse ways to spend an hour and a half than staring at Sandra Bullock (unless you're watching Hope Floats, of course. That's worth battering yourself senseless with a frying pan to avoid).

Explosions: One very silly one.
Questions: Plenty.
Answers: Few.
Creepiness: Some.
Sandra Bullock: Lots.

Rating: 3/5.

Labels: drama, fantasy, film review, quick

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  Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (DVD)

Starring: The usual suspects but even Jessica Alba can't save it this time.

Rated: PG

Story: The Fantastic Four come to terms with their new-found fame while attempting to stop the Earth being eaten.

Comments: The Fantastic Four is turning into the archetypal modern superhero franchise. The first film was OK but took ages to get going and had too much angst and not enough smashing. This second film builds on that by taking ages to get going and adding more angst. Great. Rather than increasing the frequency of action scenes, it has more complex, CGI-heavy action scenes.

No, no , no , no, NO!

Less nonsense, please. More smashing.

Expect a third and final installment in a year or so. It will feature less angst, even more CGI and at least one of the main characters being turned evil. Someone will probably die.

None of us will care, though.

Conclusion: Watch Die Hard 4.0 again rather than this.

Explosions: Not enough.
The Human Torch: Irritating.
Invisible Girl: Bored.
Mr Fantastic: Ropey.
The Thing: All but forgotten.
Consuming question: What did they do to Jessica Alba's hair?
Note to makers of future superhero films: Faster pace, better plot, less angst, more smashing. Still. Thank you.

Rating: 2/5.

Labels: action, fantasy, film review, quick, sci-fi

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  Fantastic Four (DVD)

Starring: Jessica Alba in a very tightly fitting outfit and, er... some other people I didn't pay much attention to.

Rated: PG

Story: Four astronauts get caught in a cosmic storm and develop superpowers. They have angst and bicker. Eventually they get to smash things.

Comments: This is mildly entertaining but why can't superheroes just be superheroes any more? Why do they have to have angst and rubbish love lives? Why does the first film in the series have to focus on them coming to terms with their power? Why can't they just start out flying around smashing things saving people? Why? Why? Why?

Explosions: Considering it features a man who flies around on fire, not as many as you might expect.
Predictability: Larger than The Thing.
Mr Man most closely impersonated: Mr Tickle.
Silliest superpower in cinematic history: One that makes Jessica Alba invisible.
Note to makers of future superhero films: Faster pace, better plot, less angst, more smashing. Thank you.

Rating: 3/5.

Labels: action, fantasy, film review, quick

  8:03 AM - Permanent Link - 1 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  Heroes (TV)

Starring: A whole bunch of people getting their big break, with brief appearances by Malcolm McDowell, Captain Sulu and Christopher 'I-was-a-fool-to-quit-Dr-Who' Ecclestone.

Rated: TBC but I'm guessing it'll be a 12 on DVD release.

Story: A group of people leading disparate lives begin to discover that they have superhuman abilities. As they come to terms with these abilities, they learn that their lives are connected - they are all threatened by one of their own and by a conspiracy that seeks to bring a new order to the world. Their normal lives start to unravel. (No one wears spandex, though).

Comments: The first series of Heroes has just finished on Sci-Fi in the UK. It starts on terrestrial TV on BBC2 on Wednesday 25th July (2007) with a double episode. Set your videos/DVD-recorders/PVRs now!

This probably isn't the show you're expecting. It's different in both structure and style from how I imagined it having seen the trailers. It isn't about a group of heroes who get together and fight evil every week, emerging victorious just in time for the credits. It's about a number of individuals, mostly in different locations, who meander from one scrape to the next. They have special powers but they don't know what to do with them and they are keen to keep them secret. They very seldom do anything heroic. Episodes don't have self-contained plots which reach a conclusion - like 24 (only more so), the series is one continuous narrative.

There are more than half a dozen main characters, each with their own plot-thread, and so it takes several episodes just to introduce them all properly. Later episodes then focus on a subset of characters but this means it can be frustrating to watch the show at a rate of one or two episodes a week. Some episodes barely seem to advance the plot at all. Others leave a character in a cliff-hanger that's not returned to until the episode after next. Everything moves at a glacial pace, so the show is really about character development.

Fortunately, the characters are all likeable. It's shame, however, that some of their powers are so generic. Flying and fast healing? I think we might have seen those a few times before. Others, such as the ability to stop time, are more interesting and accompanied by excellent effects.

Heroes is a good show but it's never quite brilliant. It's always enjoyable to watch but never entirely satisfying. It always feels like it's going somewhere but never actually does. The build up to the finale goes on for weeks and then the conclusion is all played out in seven fairly confusing minutes. Gah! So close...

I'm still very keen to see season two, however. A little tinkering with the format, and it could be superb.

Conclusion: Worth checking out but you might want to watch it six episodes at a time. Consider waiting for the DVD.

Explosions: Yes.
Episode length: Too short.
Series length: Too long.
Episode pace: Moves like a greased weasel.
Series pace: Frequently loses sprints to tortoises.
Number of major characters: Hang on a minute, I'm going to need to use my fingers...
Spandex in patriotic colours: None.

Rating: 4/5.

Labels: action, drama, fantasy, film review

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  Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest (DVD)

Starring: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Jack Davenport, Jonathan Pryce, Bill Nighy and a waterwheel.

Rated: 12

Story: Oh, where to start... Suffice to say, if you haven't seen the first one, you won't have much of a clue what's going on. Then again, the complex justification for all the daring-do isn't hugely easy to follow even if you have. Basically, in order to save his fiancee Elizabeth (Knightley) from the gallows, Will Turner (Bloom) must bring a compass belonging to wacky pirate Jack Sparrow (Depp) to the sinister East India Trading Company. Sparrow, however, is rather busy trying to renege on a deal he made with the monstrous Davey Jones (Nighy). To this end, he needs the compass to find a key to unlock a chest which contains something unpleasant. Meanwhile, everyone double-crosses everyone else while attempting to avoid being eaten by cannibals and enormous sea monsters. Most of them try to snog Keira Knightley too.

Comments: I saw this sequel at the cinema when it came out a year ago but I rented it again recently and I actually enjoyed it more the second time round. There were a number of reasons for this:

• I saw the first one recently as well so all the backward plot references made more sense.
• I caught more of the one-liners.
• I already knew it wasn't worth trying to follow the story too hard.
• I'd had three glasses of red wine.

The effects are fantastic and the film contains some great action sequences. True, some of them are over-the-top and pretty silly but this is a rip-roaring adventure that leaves reality behind after about five minutes. It's a case of sitting back and letting it keep you entertained while the parts of your brain responsible for critical thought take a nap. (If you've been looking after small children for several years this zen-like state will be second-nature. Imagine the main characters as Teletubbies and you'll go to that happy place almost instantly).

The cast do a fine job. Bill Nighy is unrecognisable under a stack of make-up and CGI, and is a much more convincing monster than in Underworld. Surprisingly, it's Depp who seems to struggle, despite turning in the most memorable performance of the first film. It's not really his fault, though - the character of Captain Jack is simply wearing thin. Everyone, from Elizabeth to his crew of cutthroats, seems to love him in some way but he's neither a good man nor a good pirate. He lies and cheats to his own ends but is never ruthless enough to get his hands on any treasure. It was possible to sustain this moral ambiguity for one film; two is pushing it a bit. He needs either to be more blood-thirsty or to find a different profession. (I guess Accountants of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Tax Return doesn't have quite the same ring to it).

PoC:DMC is overly long and it has the usual problem of the second film in a trilogy - it starts in the middle of the story and doesn't make it all the way to the end. Oddly, it leaves you wanting both less and more. It is very watchable, though. I'll doubtless end up finding myself sucked in again when it comes on telly.

Conclusion: Funny, spectacular and silly.

Explosions: Technically plenty, if you include cannons firing. Otherwise, one.
Tentacles: Dozens.
Plot twists: Too many.
Historical accuracy: As if...
Does it beat the first one?: No.
Does it beat Cutthroat Island?: With a big stick.

Rating: 4/5.

(BTW Getting the kids to play Potatoes of the Caribbean is a good way to distract them for a few minutes. The game involves thinking of the names of TV shows, films and games and then replacing one of the words with potato or potatoes. Personal favourites include: Indiana Jones and the Potato of Doom, CSI: Potato, Bob the Potato, CSI: New Potato, Gone in 60 Potatoes & Legend of Zelda: Potato Princess).

Labels: action, fantasy, film review

  10:00 PM - Permanent Link - 1 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  The Brothers Grimm (DVD)

Starring: Matt Damon, Heath Ledger (Brokeback Mountain), Lena Headey

Rated: 12

Story: The Brothers Grimm travel 18th Century French-occupied Germany hiring themselves out as freelance witch-hunters. A French general enlists their help in quelling trouble in the small village of Marbaden where girls are disappearing in mysterious circumstances involving wolves, witches, red riding outfits and gingerbread.

Comments: This is probably the film I was anticipating Pan's Labyrinth to be. It's a fantastical tale which throws a stack of folk stories into a pot, adds a touch of alternative history and gives everything a good stir. In reality, the Brothers Grimm were college professors. Here, they are shady adventurers in a fairy tale about fairy tales.

As you'd expect with Terry Gilliam directing, the visual style and attention to detail are arresting. Some of the characters are a little silly and some of the accents are a little improbable but that's OK - fairy tales are supposed to be outlandish, concealing nuggets of truth within a preposterous but mesmerising story. Gilliam does an excellent job of capturing this essence, creating an entertaining movie which is mainstream but also a little bit unusual.

Matt Damon isn't even annoying. Bonus.

Conclusion: Clever, funny, creepy, beautiful and surprising. Unmissable.

Explosions: Not many.
Fantastic sets: Lots.
Dodgy accents: Some.
Moving trees: A forest.
Memorable moments: A multitude.
Unexpected uses of snails: One.

Rating: 5/5.

Labels: fantasy, film review

  8:59 AM - Permanent Link - 0 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  Pan's Labyrinth (El laberinto del fauno)

Starring: Some people who speak Spanish.

Rated: 15

Story: In 1944, in Franco's Spain, a girl named Ofelia and her family move to the country to be near her psychopathic stepfather. He is an army officer and is conducting a ruthless campaign against Communist rebels. Surrounded by human evil, she finds herself drawn into a dark, fantastical world where a sinister faun sets her three tasks in order to reclaim her throne as a princess of an underworld kingdom.

Comments: At this point, you're probably thinking this is one of those kerrr-azeee foreign arts films. Don't worry, though - it doesn't feature psychedelic giraffe-people, moody black-and-white shots of Death, Gerard Depardieu or a heartfelt conversation with an orange. The effects and cinematography are fantastic and the production values are as high as any Hollywood movie. The only real problem is that it's a bit in Spanish. Actually, it's a lot in Spanish. Oh, all right, it's all in Spanish.

Don't be put off, though.

I have to say that when I put this on my LOVEFiLM rental list, I didn't read the synopsis too closely. I looked at the picture, read the title and had a flashback to David Bowie surrounded by muppets. Truth be told, though, this isn't a fantasy film book-ended by a couple of real-life segments; it's a war-time drama occasionally interspersed with a dark faerie tale. It's more Captain Corelli than The Lord of the Rings but with an oppressive atmosphere and graphic, bloody violence.

Personally I would have preferred a greater emphasis on the fantasy side of things but the film is absorbing nonetheless and the pacing is superb. The cast all do an excellent job (as far as I can tell). The English translation for the subtitles is decent and certainly better than the misleading title suggests. Fortunately, most of the more visually impressive moments don't have much dialogue, allowing concentration on the action.

Conclusion: Excellent and much less of an effort to watch than it sounds.

Explosions: A couple.
Amputations: One.
Self-sutured stitches: I couldn't watch.
People shot in the head: Rather more than you'd imagine.
Spanish: Lots.
Muppets: None.

Rating: 4/5.

Labels: drama, fantasy, film review

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