Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides review

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (12A/PG-13, 137 mins)
Director: Rob Marshall

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

It’s been eight years since the unexpected triumph of Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, a movie based on a theme park ride that made Johnny Depp bankable at the box office for the first time in his career.

In that time we’ve seen the series go from fresh and surprising to bloated and incomprehensible. The good news is, On Stranger Tides is better than At World’s End, the threequel from four years ago that seemed to bring the trilogy to its natural conclusion. But that film raked in just shy of $1bn at the worldwide box office, so its makers were unlikely to stay away forever.

It’s the Depp factor that’s undoubtedly the biggest draw. His flamboyant turn as Captain Jack Sparrow earned him his first Oscar nomination and transformed him from quirky indie darling to blockbusting superstar.

When we reunite with Jack here, he’s in London and facing piracy charges. Spanish fishermen meanwhile have dredged up a half-drowned man talking of Ponce de León and the Fountain of Youth.

King George is also keen on finding the fountain and has hired Jack’s long-time nemesis Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) to find it in his name. Jack has no ship, but someone pretending to be him is putting a crew together, which results in Jack reteaming with old flame Angelica (Penelope Cruz) on board a ship run by the fearsome Blackbeard (Ian McShane).

With the race on to find the fountain, it doesn’t make for an especially scintillating first hour as the pieces are put in place. Conversations are expositional and much of the action is limited to rather repetitive swordfights, though Jack getting chased around Greenwich by guards is sprightly enough.

For the most part it’s just one thing on to the next without much flow, no longer particularly interested in constructing a character based story. It’s all about the exoticism and production detail, which is certainly of a very high standard.

It’s the addition of the supernatural elements that give it a boost, as the search for the fountain takes them on to encounters with mermaids, whose tears they need to make its rejuvenation powers work.

But this stretch threatens to outstay its welcome and introduces, in a preacher and the mermaid he takes a shine to, a couple of characters so dull that you long for the relative pizzazz of the now-ditched Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley.

Depp is just fine, but strange as it may sound, there’s actually too much of him here. His sheer number of lines means not all of them can be as pithy as they ought to be and, as a result, the movie just isn’t very funny. Cruz isn’t much of a character and McShane is reasonable value though cameos from Keith Richards and Judi Dench smack of indulgence rather than necessity.

It gets by on little more than the occasional flash of brilliance from Depp and one or two fun scenes, but it’s a sad state of affairs when being a marginal improvement on an utter shambles is worthy of scraping a third star by dint of not being terrible. And unlike the first instalment, you’re unlikely to come out clamouring for more of the same.

Thor review

Thor (12A/PG-13, 114 mins)
Director: Kenneth Branagh

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

At first glance there are several elements of Thor that make it an odd choice to kick off the 2011 summer blockbuster season.

Compared to some superhero properties, the Norse god romp is not all that well known outside comic book circles, then there’s an unknown in the title role in the shape of Aussie beefcake Chris Hemsworth.

But most intriguingly, in Kenneth Branagh, it has a director who made his bones bringing Shakespeare to the screen, and who hasn’t been near a major special effects spectacle in his behind-the-camera life.

But recognition matters little when the story is so strong, Hemsworth is really very good indeed, and Branagh brings the whole thing together like he’s been spitting out action extravaganzas his whole career.

Mercifully this isn’t really an origin story, although we do get a lengthy, sometimes chaotic prologue set in 10th century Norway, in which Anthony Hopkins, as Norse god Odin, king of Asgard, tells us about a war with the Frost Giants (stay with it).

Just as Odin's son Thor is to become king ahead of his brother Loki, the Frost Giants make a return and Thor wants to fight back, against his father’s wishes, and as punishment is cast out of Asgard and down to earth as a mortal.

Meanwhile in modern day New Mexico, Natalie Portman and her team of scientists are doing something or other scientific in the middle of the desert when Thor falls from the sky with no idea where he is.

He enlists Portman’s help to find his magic hammer, Mjolnir, a device of unimaginable power which was last spotted if you hung about after the end credits of Iron Man 2 being found by Agent Coulson of the mysterious organisation S.H.I.E.L.D.

Such details may seem insignificant, but it’s all part of the broadening of the Marvel comics universe that started with Samuel L. Jackson’s appearances in the Iron Man films, Robert Downey Jr in The Incredible Hulk and building up to The Avengers next summer, which will feature all the major players from the Marvel stable.

It’s every bit as cuckoo as it sounds, but good grief, is it ever fun, and  mostly very well paced save for a slight lag in the middle when the pieces get put into place for the all action finale. Thor may not get to a great deal of superhero-ing during this phase but, by great Odin’s raven, when it comes, the hammer time is stunning as he fights back against betrayal in Asgard and a massive destructive robot on earth.

Everything about Thor works on a technical level, from the luscious design of Asgard, to the sparkling visual effects and Patrick Doyle's immersive score. Hemsworth is hugely engaging, not just in using his astonishing physicality to great effect in the bruising action scenes, but in his line readings and pratfalls that help to make the movie surprisingly funny thanks to Thor’s fish out of water antics.

It’s almost enough to make you think this might be a very good summer at the movies after all.

Fast Five review

Fast Five (12A/PG-13, 130 mins)
Director: Justin Lin
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ 

At the end of Fast and Furious (which happened to be part four of the increasingly ridiculously titled fast car franchise), thief Dominic (Vin Diesel) was heading to jail for his crimes. This kinetic fifth entry opens with his partner, and former cop, Brian (Paul Walker) busting him out before they hotfoot it to Rio where they get involved in a bungled train heist that ends with them falsely accused of killing some DEA officers. They're now wanted by the FBI (led by newcomer to the series, Dwayne Johnson) and a Brazilian crimelord, whose money they intend to steal by putting together a crack team. This moves the series farther than ever from its street-racing roots, not necessarily a bad thing, and gives it more of an Ocean’s vibe. Though instead of George Clooney and Brad Pitt we get characters who flitted in and out of previous instalments who you’ll be hard pushed to remember, even if you have seen them. It constantly walks a very fine line between nifty and ludicrous, but there’s no suppressing the verve with which the action is executed. A foot chase over the roofs of the Rio favelas is terrific, while the colossal budget allows for unhinged carnage on the roads and watching Diesel and Johnson face off in monolithic combat is a sight to behold. It’s a bit too padded with unnecessary talk, but if you can look past the risible dialogue, tree-stump acting and frequent forays into the unintentionally hilarious, it will keep you smiling throughout, if not always for the reasons intended.

Rio review

Rio (U, 96 mins)
Director: Carlos Saldanha

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Parrot Blu (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg) is taken from his home in the rainforest and ends up by accident in snowy Minnesota where he’s raised domesticated and flightless. But he’s the last blue macaw of his type, and so an ornithologist takes him to Brazil to mate with the last remaining female, Jewel (Anne Hathaway), only for the pair to be kidnapped by poachers. The only reason Rio would appear to exist (aside from the obvious financial incentives) is to showcase its bright and colourful, samba-infused exoticism. Did its makers just see Up and think South America looked like a good place to stage a cartoon? Because underneath its surface polish, it’s thematically empty, with nothing to distinguish it from every other run-of-the-mill animated effort that’s more about noise and spectacle than a story worth telling. The search round Rio de Janeiro to get Blu and Jewel back comes complete with stale one-liners and frantic action, but is light on laughs and excitement. Voicing Blu, Eisenberg is good value, nicely parlaying his Zombieland nebbishness, and Jemaine Clement shines as the cockatoo baddie, even getting to do a Conchords-style number, sadly the only highlight among a small collection of forgettable and superfluous songs.

Sucker Punch review

Sucker Punch (12A/PG-13, 109 mins)
Director: Zack Snyder
★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Director Zack Snyder has gained himself quite a reputation in the last few as a fine visual stylist, thanks mostly to his work on 300 and Watchmen. Digging deep for faint praise, he once again brings that hyper-stylised sensibility to Sucker Punch to create a gorgeous world of rich pastel and grey, filled with all manner of amazing creatures and effects.

But that’s where the positives must end, because everything else about this nasty little film is tawdry and empty and badly written to the point of disbelief. It’s the ultimate realisation of movie as video game, and there has possibly never been one more beholden to the power of the X-Box. The problem is, most video games these days are better written than this.

Our heroine is Baby Doll (Emily Browning), who accidentally kills her sister and is sent by her evil stepfather to a home for the insane. There she befriends four other girls and they hatch a plan to escape after Baby Doll learns she’s going to be lobotomised.

But here’s the thing: in her mind the asylum is re-imagined as a burlesque club. But within that, she escapes into another world through dance (no, really). Her dancing transfixes those watching and allows Baby Doll to enter a fantasy realm where Scott Glenn turns up to impersonate David Carradine and tell her she must find five objects they need in order to escape.

As she dances, the other girls steal the items, while we see them participating in elaborate action sequences where they fight dragons and giant ninjas and Nazi zombies. If that doesn’t make any sense, well then that’s because it doesn’t make any sense.

It would nice to think Snyder is aiming for Inception-style layers of reality to create an intricate puzzle, but in truth it’s just incomprehensible. It’s a screenwriting cacophony, garbled hooey without anything resembling a cohesive structure, one game level after another, beautifully designed but nonsensical and ultimately lavishly boring.

Don’t look for an explanation of the rules of the fantasy world either, like how the other girls can be in Baby Doll’s mind, or what happens if they get hurt. Not a moment is spent considering character or consequence, each shiny thing existing only to get us onto the next cool and awesome shiny thing.

There’s a bit of Kill Bill, some Sin City, a dash of Total Recall and even Chicago without the songs, all aimed squarely at undiscerning 14 years old boys without any thought for anyone else. It’s grimy and prurient and rather unpleasant, as one pouting thigh-and-midriff-revealing jailbait waif after another gets put on display for our masturbatory delectation.

If there's one thing that can be said in Snyder's defence, it’s that he knows how to coordinate an action sequence. But even these consist mostly of the same tricks we’ve been seeing since directors learned to utilise computer generated props, and if we see one shot of someone somersaulting in slow motion over a flashing sword-blade, we see a hundred.

More to the point though, all the whizzy action scenes in the world count for nothing if they don’t exist in the service of a working narrative, and that is something glaringly absent from Sucker Punch.

Hop review

Hop (U, 95 mins)
Director: Tim Hill
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
Blending live action with computer generated wildlife, this clunky but undeniably harmless family comedy sees the Easter Bunny (voiced by Hugh Laurie) running a Willy Wonka-style operation on Easter Island (naturally) where they make chocolate and candy for the whole world. His son E.B. (Russell Brand) is due to take over the family business, but wants to be a musician instead and so runs away to the US where he meets James Marsden’s unemployed loser, with underwritten adventure ensuing. Though loosely plotted to the extent that it’s coming apart at the seams (which extends to the visible join in the ropey special effects), Hop is somehow surprisingly agreeable, occasionally even amusing, mainly thanks to the vocal affability of Brand. You couldn't quite make the leap and call the film good or even memorable, but when you consider how skull-piercing the likes of Alvin and his chipmunk pals were, Brand's ability to render E.B. palatable is nothing short of a miracle.

A Turtle’s Tale: Sammy’s Adventures review

A Turtle’s Tale: Sammy’s Adventures (U, 85 mins)
Director: Ben Stassen
★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Made in Belgium, this third rate Finding Nemo knock-off comes to our shores re-dubbed with atrocious British voices to complement the tatty animation. Calling it an adventure is a tad optimistic, as young turtle Sammy tries to make his way in the big bad world, floating around the Pacific in search of anything resembling a story. Labouring under the sorely mistaken belief that simply anthropomorphising any old critter is a solid foundation for an animated film, this is low on fun and thrills and high on dodgy internal logic, while the sledgehammer eco-message and insipid songs are unlikely to impress kids weaned on more sophisticated fare.

Anuvahood review

Anuvahood (15, 89 mins)
Directors: Adam Deacon, Daniel Toland
★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
One of the stars of Noel Clarke’s Kidulthood and Adulthood movies, Adam Deacon, co-writes, co-directs and stars in this abysmal British comedy as Kay, an unemployed layabout who fancies himself as an up-and-coming gangster after getting mixed up with some local drug dealers. If there is a plot, it’s well hidden within what amounts to little more than a series of YouTube sketches, with all the wit and sophistication that suggests. If it’s a parody of Clarke’s films, it fails to find anything in them to actually make fun of. When the dialogue isn’t unintelligible, which it mostly is, it’s juvenile and smeared in racism and homophobia, and with every performance amped up to absurd levels, the resultant screeching mess quickly becomes intolerable.

The Resident review

The Resident (15, 91 mins)
Director: Antii Jokinen
★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Possibly the most interesting aspect of The Resident is the first appearance in 35 years of Christopher Lee in a Hammer production. But, typical of the film’s flaws, his role as the grandfather of a creepy landlord (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) who has rented his spacious apartment to Hilary Swank’s doctor is largely irrelevant. By so readily invoking Psycho, this prurient chiller makes a rod for its own back, and though it does some interesting work in the shadows, it’s choppy and clumsily scripted and really rather listless. It plays most of its cards early, which adds some intrigue to certain characters, but leaves others out to dry, and it’s sometimes hard to tell whether its sheer grubbiness is an asset or a curse.

The Adjustment Bureau (12A, 106 mins) review

The Adjustment Bureau (12A, 106 mins)
Director: George Nolfi
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

The work of late sci-fi author Philip K. Dick has been very well treated by Hollywood over the years (Blade Runner, Total Recall) and just as frequently badly mishandled (Paycheck, Next). The Adjustment Bureau falls somewhere in the middle, offering some modest fantasy fun that’s most notable for its terrific star pairing of Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. Damon plays a popular politician who meets and falls for Blunt’s dancer, but is then warned he must never see her again by a group of shady guys in hats. They seem able to predict the future and go to great lengths to keep them apart, with Damon determined to exercise free will and be with her. More romance than action-fest and light on any actual danger, The Adjustment Bureau is full of goofy rules that keep getting re-written, while chase scenes are slick without exactly fizzing with energy. It’s monumental hooey that only gets sillier the longer it goes, but Damon and Blunt share great chemistry and with stars on this form, it’s fairly compulsive stuff.