Twilight: Eclipse – 3*

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Posted: 22/08/2010

Face it, all you cynics: The Twilight Saga is here to stay, long after the books are read and the final films are (re)watched to death (pardon the pun). And it isn’t just hormonal teens or sad, lonely singletons that fit into the Twihard category – the latter having had Sex and the City 2 to indulge in a month ago – because what this series delivers is pure, unadulterated fantasy escapism and good old-fashioned romance. Chivalry and good manners are still king, something that anyone can appreciate, once you get past the (often) nauseating and incessant moodiness that lead frowner Bella (Kristen Stewart) is guilty of a good 90 per cent. So, the latest edition’s seeds of success are sewn and it doesn’t really make a blind bit of difference what any critic says, quite frankly, because fan curiosity and loyalty fuels box office ratings – and this is going straight to the top.

Quite deservedly so because, dare we admit it, this third film in the angst-ridden vamp saga is not only better than the first two, it’s ten times more super-charged and has more bite. This may not put the former in the best light and in all fairness to the second film (New Moon) that was a yawn-a-minute, the third book is oodles more exciting anyway. Eclipse just translates better onto the big screen, with the film-makers sticking fairly close to the written word. Yes, this latest film’s cinematic impact was never going to recapture the initial giddy thrill of ‘the first meet’ and subsequent Bella pursuit in Twilight, plus the real-life ‘are they, aren’t they’ speculation over RPatz and Stewart’s relationship has finally been put to rest. To be honest, the Bell-Ed fireworks fly off the screen in this film and the bedroom scene sizzles with frustration and desire to merely confirm showbiz’s worst-covered-up affair. That said what you witness in this scene does make you wonder whether the actors have done the horizontal foxtrot yet – though, based on RPatz’s recent sexy number in Remember Me, this man-boy has skills, so our guess is ‘quite likely’.

What has happen with the third film is it’s found a great director in the diminutive form of Brit David Slade who skilfully brought another fanged romp, 30 Days of Night, to the big screen. Slade has injected a new lease of life into the introspective Twilight brand that has a huge dosage of wit and a smothering of passion in equal proportion, allowing you to both swoon in the right places and catch your breathe in others, as well as enjoy a momentary dig at the overwhelming intensity of the characters who may well be dealing with more than the average teen, but should seriously get out and have some much needed fun.

The film may well be about a new sanguine army of vamps descending on the respectable ‘vegetarian’ Cullens, but it’s actually all about Edward and Jacob’s clash of fangs over the diminutive Bella, with one of the funniest lines delivered by Jacob: “Let’s face it, I’m hotter than you”, after a reluctant, cold-blooded Edward lets the horny, torso-naked pup warm up his lady in a tent on the side of a snowy mountain. The entrance fee alone is worth witnessing Jacob and Ed verbally tear chunks off each other, with another great retort from centuries-old Ed about Jacob’s lack of decency – any True Blood fans will appreciate this generation gap quip. Another well-directed scene is the awkward ‘birds-and-the-bees’ talk in the Swan household, which is a divine father-and-daughter moment between Bella and cop father Charlie.

On the downside, our CGI wolf friends still don’t look as convincing as they could, and the film has some necessary but rather bland flashbacks explaining both Rosalie’s and Jasper’s demise into immortality. The Volturi royalty never actually amount to anything, but amusingly stand there looking like a bunch misplaced, black-cloak-wearing Jedi knights that only get one kill in – minus cool lightsabers. It’s also a shame that new character Riley, played by rising Aussie star Xavier Samuel, isn’t in the next episode because he develops into an intriguing character over the course of this story. Bryce Dallas Howard also injects some fire into Victoria, where Rachelle Lefevre missed out.

These films are not perfect, but this one Eclipses the lot and nicely sets up book number 4, Breaking Dawn, coming in 2011 in its first part. But Twilight needs no real promotion here because it has a captive audience that will pay top dollar to feast on the next part of the story and keep the books alive. If a dashing hero like Ed and a buff fur ball like Jacob can be fascinated by morose Bella, there’s hope for every ordinary girl yet.

3/5 stars

By L G-K

Predators – 3*

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Posted: 22/08/2010

Can Adrien Brody pass as an action hero? Yes, he certainly can, considering the large combat boots he’s had to fill, vacated by Schwarzenegger after the original 1987 film. As no-nonsense mercenary Royce, growling his way through this episode, Brody successfully plays totally against type, acting as one major factor that hooks you in and keeps you intrigued until the bitter end. The other massive advantage is the LOST-style beginning, where a band of sinful human bait land in an as-yet, unidentified jungle, helping to mimic the full potential of the TV series to spin the mystery along for as long as necessary. Sadly, the giveaway is in the film title that something has transported them there – Predators waiting to hunt. So, let the game begin…

The main thrill stems not from the haphazard killing scenes that include blasting away lookalike bestial extras straight out of Cameron’s Avatar content bank, as well as gutting pesky Predators, but the human interaction and allegiances formed between the bunch of armed misfits that include the token, hard-nut Hispanic beauty, Isabelle, played by Repo Man’s Alice Braga. The obvious love interest to Brody’s Royce and screen eye candy, Braga embraces her role in much the same way as favourite Latin toughie Michelle Rodriguez does – another LOST veteran. Perhaps, for non-Predator fans, this is how this film is best marketed because the relentless threat of the invisible, Terminator-like Predators is slightly lacking this time around and the fun is gone. It’s all about escape from the living hell – the question is how? Interestingly, in its place, Armoured director Nimród Antal has created a sci-fi feel, far more apparent than previous incarnations that retains the supernatural atmosphere and sense of stranded hopelessness.

Predators serves action-gore junkies well, with an array of guns, knives and kick-ass sequences to make sure the blood (both red and luminous green) intermingles with the jungle terrain. Predators is a very visually-pleasing film that many not thrill as much as the first because the illusive enemy is no longer a secret, but it gives the audience a solid pursuit adventure, complete with attractive and dangerously alluring characters. It even has time for a touch of graceful Samurai sword fighting between a Japanese Yakuza and a Predator in the swaying beauty of a crop field at night. For once in a film, knowing all about our characters is not necessary as the less we know, the more strength it retains, allowing the end twist to fully work – though some may try and argue that they saw it coming a mile off.

Predators is non-taxing, satisfying, action-packed entertainment that still manages to place more emphasise on its characters than previous editions, but without bogging us down with superficial details and dull jungle revelations, before each prize meets their maker. Has ‘Fear Been Reborn’? Not quite, if we’re honest, but claustrophobia and anxiety is rife, and this is Predators’ adrenaline injection. Does the human prey ever get out – and alive? Like LOST, that’s the big question and one worth lasting the duration to find out.

3/5 stars

By L G-K

Avatar 3D – 4*

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Posted: 22/08/2010

In the famous words of one American icon, “I have a dream…”, Hollywood got all giddy and happily jumped aboard the James Cameron vision express with his latest epic, Avatar, even though the blockbuster film-maker of Aliens, Terminator and The Abyss has been less than influential (studio-translated, ‘mega profitable’) on the movie scene over the past decade since ‘that weepy boat tragedy’, Titanic. Unless you’ve been on Mars, you haven’t been on faraway moon Pandora, and heard about the troubles between the warmongering and greedy humans and the beautiful, coltish-looking, blue-skinned indigenous Na’Vi population. This is where the grand Cameron fantasy takes place in the year 2154, and it’s a stunning ride of vivid, awe-inspiring intensity that is undeniably unique-looking, as production designs go.

Whether Tinseltown has been wise in indulging Cameron is by the by – the curiosity in the film will help recover some of the studio spending. Avatar is arguably the most imaginative live-action film to date with 3D effects so subtle that anyone seeing it in 2D will not experience anything less magical. But it does have to be seen on a big screen to be fully appreciated, just not necessarily on an IMAX one. Thankfully, the vast arsenal of technology does not override the performance-capture performances from the leads that eerily bring to life each facial expression and nuance, including central character Jake Scully, a wheelchair-bound marine who is chosen to control his dead brother’s engineered hybrid (human and Na’vi DNA) ‘Avatar’ body through a form of telepathy, played by rising Terminator star Sam Worthington. A credit to the almost seamless blend of reality and effects that Cameron has WETA to thank for is Sigourney Weaver as visionary, fag-puffing scientist Dr Grace Augustine’s final moments under the spiritual ‘Tree of Souls’ that reinforces how cutting edge this production is – although ‘revolutionary’, as Cameron claims, may be a little audacious, given recent performance-capture offerings like A Christmas Carol.

Cameron’s battle cry sounds firmly for Mother Nature throughout every luscious scene in Avatar in an unashamed manner that has had some mocking his tree-hugging, hippy tendencies – even his Na’vi attempt to reach out and educate us before it’s too late. That said concerns for the environment are now universally felt, regardless of whether these are played out on Pandora that does not look that alien in hindsight, apart from some ultraviolet touches that lift the vegetation textures out of frame. In addition to the rich tapestry of foliage and looming mountainous landscapes and waterfalls that hang like Dali-painted rock sculptures from the sky, Cameron has created whole new species of prehistoric- and underwater-styled creatures to delight in, influenced by his passion for deep-sea marine life that would make David Attenborough a little green around the gills.

References to man’s obsession with mining natural resources are not lost either, as the humans try to solve their eternal energy crisis by plundering the rare mineral ‘Unobtainium’ from Pandora’s core, resulting in displacing the Na’vi and the tragic devastation of their Home Tree community. Global corporate power is still alive and well in the 22nd Century. The over-simplified political connotations are equally evident as the nature ones, with the gunship finale reminiscent of another Vietnam, and the toppling of the Home Tree and its subsequent, rushing cloud of enveloping ash not dissimilar to 9/11 footage. This is where the film reverts back to ‘action epic’ type and reinvents the wheel, given Cameron’s great ‘revolutionary’ claim, with the genocidal, two-dimensional military villain, Colonel Miles Quaritch, played by a pumped Stephen Lang – like life-sized Chip Hazard from Small Soldiers, spouting groan-inducing, Uncle Sam-styled rallying one-liners. There are also moments of déjà vu with some of the military hardware borrowed from Aliens, such as Quaritch’s robotic ‘AMP Suit’ that is similar to Ripley’s in her alien fighting scenes.

Cameron does not miss a controversial trick in stirring up anti-invasion (post-Iraq) sentiments, too, going back as far as European colonisation of the indigenous Americans. Whatever Cameron says, his Na’vi quite literally represent the latter, living in a tribe, chanting in a tribe, throwing spears and arrows, living off the land, and believing in spirits like the jellyfish/fairy-like ‘Woodsprite’. Their horseback skills are demonstrated on the back of ‘Direhorses’ and flying winged creatures called ‘Banshees’ that they must connect with, mentally, in order to tame to ride. The story also flags interracial unions between the human/Avatar, Scully, and the spirited tribal leader’s daughter, Neytiri, played by Zoe Saldana, who sulks like a teenage Xena, Warrior Princess and growls when things don’t go her way. The whole message is one of unity that is the Cameron-desired harmonious effect, or one that will spark scoffs from the more cynical among us.

Cameron’s claim that Avatar is the most challenging film that he has ever made is imaginatively correct. This sumptuous feast of visual vitality absorbs the viewer completely and has the necessary ‘wow’ factor and thrills. This alone is deserved of any cinema entrance fee. Narrative-wise, it can be a little preachy and convoluted in places, plus eyes-to-the-ceiling obvious in others, such as the call-to-battle scenes, but you are wooed back onto the side of Na’vi because of their gentle and graceful nature. For Cameron fans and cinema aficionados it is a must-see epic of epics for effects alone, but also because Cameron has another Avatar 2 story waiting in the wings…

4/5 stars

By L G-K