Cast: Matt Damon, David Strathairn, Julia Stiles, Joan Allen
Director: Paul Greengrass
Running time: 1 hr 56 mins
Genre: Action/Thriller
REVIEW:
After the summer’s blockbustering splash of conclusive trilogies, albeit most of them have sunk worse than Titanic (no, not the film, I’m talking about the ship), here’s a finale to a trilogy that’s satisfying, exciting, and pumped up with adrenaline rush that would have you breathless and shaken from the thrill ride. Take that all you Spideys, Pirates and Shreks out there. Threequel had never been this fulfilling ever since RETURN OF THE KING.
Five years ago, when the character of Jason Bourne was unleashed to the world in BOURNE IDENTITY, it was nothing short but promising. The amnesiac-spy-based plot ripped from Robert Ludlum’s trilogy novel had been completely modernised, making it more attuned to the 21st century technology of CIA spying, and from IDENTITY to SUPREMACY, the plot may have thickened but certainly, it’s all about balls-to-wall hard-grit action thriller that’s unrelenting. This is James Bond – stripped from flashy cars, suave demeanours, sexy babes, and uber-sleekiness – but grittier, tougher, catch-me-if-you-can entertainment. Oh boy, first hour of the film and yet it never gives you air to breathe out of tension.
Paul Greengrass sits on the chair as director, after helming the superbly astonishing UNITED 93, bringing his realistic vision to ULTIMATUM. One gripping sequence is the Waterloo Station chase in London; it’s so three-dimensionally convincing, so expertly executed, that you could actually see people around looking surprisingly at Matt Damon running around the train station as though they never knew there a film being shot in the place. There are car chases, foot chases in globe-trotting scale from Spain, Russia, London, New York, one particularly outstanding across the Tangier rooftops in Morroco. It’s a bedazzling sequence, as Bourne leaps from rooftop to windows, making this spy a hands-on prodigy.
While the action scenes might be enough to unnerve the senses, its sheer intelligence uplifts the mediocre thriller prototypes and delivers a knock-out brain-sizzling plot. We may not be so smart-alecky but ULTIMATUM doesn’t insult our intelligence and carefully studies the character of Bourne trying to regain his integrity and personality that was taken away from him. After the chases he went through, we suddenly realise that at the end of the day, he was after all chasing himself. And Matt Damon’s toughened American boy-next-door looks and acting skills refines the Bourne character as a human in pursuit of his memories and his vindictive nature balances his frailty.
With performances of David Strathairn as a intimidating CIA chief, Joan Allen as feisty CIA investigator Pamela Landy, and Julia Stiles in a returning role, it’s mostly Matt Damon who’s the obvious standout. After all, this is about Bourne and his soul.
VERDICT:
Definitely, 2007’s best action-thriller. Hands down, ULTIMATUM is an apotheosis of how trilogies should end; a lesson to the ambitious threequels out there. Blockbuster? Hell, it’s a payoff.
RATING: A
Cast: Will Smith, Alice Braga
Director: Francis Lawrence
Running time: 1 hr 40 mins
Genre: Horror, Action
REVIEW:
Richard Matheson’s apocalyptic novel had a gobsmacking concept: wipe out 90% of the world’s population and scatter some survivors here and then, inundate the place with blood-lusty night creatures. But that was more than a decade ago. His book had been suffering long enough in development hell before making its way to filmdom. Arnold Schwarzenegger was attached to star first, set to walk around the empty New York like he bloody owned the place, and Ridley Scott was chosen to direct. Times change, and Arnie became Governor of LA and strutting around like he bloody owned the place. Johnny Depp enters, but his frolicking Sparrow had more important things to dwell into. Then comes Will “Man-in-Black” Smith. I AM LEGEND is finally set. Two years and a hundred-and-fifty million dollars later, it is out and ready to rock the roll. Of course, after being compared to Danny Boyle’s stirring 28 DAYS LATER (which is to say, far superior and more realistic), it’s inevitable for this film to endure sharp stares from critics; after all this is a Will Smith film, and fortunately he stares back at the critics with a performance that he can be proud of, which saves the entire film from darkness.
As a character-study film, it works like a pro. There’s an arthouse feel in I AM LEGEND as our hero Robert Neville, the only survivor known living amid the jungle of New York, where Times Square had grasses growing up to knee length, cars piled up, tall buildings casting long shadows, streets eerily abandoned, and stags and does hunt the city. It’s a stunning panorama embellished with haunting cinematography (after all this was shot by LORD OF THE RINGS cinematographer). There are near-unforgettable imagery – fallen bridge, spookily empty Times Square, Neville playing golf at the top of an army place. At times, LEGEND is a definitive character-driven cinema in its first act, steered by Will Smith’s laudable performance, probably his best performance in his entire career. To mention as well his dog, delivering one of the best animal performances ever to be seen in screen, working well sideways with Smith’s Neville, in the brink of insanity, considering dogs to be vegetarian and talking to mannequins. Nobody can blame him. He was the only man left to venture the world of emptiness.
As a horror flick, it’s scary as hell. When the sun retreats behind the horizon, the run begins. Hair-raising scenes slicks the screen; there are frights, edge-of-your-seat suspense, and just plain old-school scare-fest entertainment.
After 30-minute running time, the movie’s monsters are shown – this was where LEGEND lost its creative balance. Kudos to Francis Lawrence for bringing an edge to this horror-thriller-drama genre pastiche, his graduation from CONSTANTINE seemed to have put to considerable use, but sod to his CG-animated virus-infested rage-zombie virus. The whole film might have encrusted with breathtaking almost-impossible cinematography but the creatures are poorly made, as though they have forgotten it’s already the 21st century of films. The creatures so-called “Dark Seekers” are blood-sucking vampires in the original novel but reinvented in this film as virus-plagued creatures of the night, reduced to zombified Gollum-like creatures who attacked like orcs and climb walls like Spiderman does. It’s a horrible FX misstep.
One last grumble would have to be the dire conclusion. It’s blockbustery mixture with a great character study climaxes to something that turned out so obviously, which doesn’t deserve its brilliant first half.
VERDICT:
Half-and-half – first part, a subtle caricature of a character in the brink of desperation with a compelling performance by Will Smith; second part, a spook-show with flimsy, ridiculous-looking vampire-zombie breed of creatures that would have Nosferatu laughing. Good film, but could have been better.
RATING: B
Cast: Dakota Blue Richards, Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Ian McKellen, Ian McShane, Kristin Scott Thomas, Sam Elliot, Freddie Highmore, Kathy Bates, Christopher Lee
Director: Chris Weitz
Running time: 1 hr 53 mins
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure/Family/Sci-Fi
REVIEW:
Truth be told, there are some novels out there that are best left as books, unscathed by filmic scalpels. Philip Pullman’s HIS DARK MATERIALS, for one. As soon as Hollywood planned to pin down the project, it’s hard not to fret for it. The series’ extreme complexity is definitely head-numbing to tackle, merging theology, laws of physics and science, and Church-bashing epistle into the genre of escapist fantasy for children. Now since THE GOLDEN COMPASS has already graced the screen, albeit without protection from the attacks of religious sects, considerably, the anti-Church theme has been toned down quite radically, appealing more family-friendly and kid-loving. However this film was bound to be imperfect, and it might not please all fans, but COMPASS is nevertheless a spectacle of high, sophisticated fantasy brimmed with adventure, free-spirit, and intelligence, one that’s not so common in fantasy franchises nowadays. Some people reckon it’s a bit rushed, but cinematically, it deserved the pacing it needs and its rendition is cinematic enough for its storytelling.
The first volume of the trilogy, THE GOLDEN COMPASS (originally NORTHERN LIGHTS in the UK, same with the bastardisation of Harry Potter’s original PHILOSOPHER’S STONE), had its rough history before making way to the big screen. Turned down, refused, and ignored by many a director, apparently intimidated by its complex subject matter, until Chris Weitz, the helmer of the heartfelt ABOUT A BOY and the raunchy pie-meddling AMERICAN PIE, came to rescue. After all, he read Literature in Cambridge, hence he knows his Wordsworth from Dryden, his Dante from Milton, and in COMPASS, he fully understands the sheer enormity of his task and the intricacy of the tale that he laboriously toned down the book as a mere fantasy-adventure at its core.
Tagged as the pretender to the throne of THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, it’s not a hardcore epic as RINGS was, as COMPASS cavort the whiteness of kid adventure (the subsequent books are much darker, getting rid of all the snowiness). Let’s get this straight: this is no LORD OF THE RINGS, it’s a far cry from that. However, HIS DARK MATERIALS is more intelligent, and this film COMPASS is a good staging for the future events to come.
Centering mainly on Lyra Belacqua’s character, this part encompasses a girl’s free-will in a world of authority and oppression; her feisty, strong-headed, almost stubborn attitude enraptures courage in her to do anything she chose to do, so as soon as she discovers her friend Roger has been kidnapped, she journeys to the icy North in simultaneous events after being given the alethiometer, a truth-measure. She also discovers that the life she lived in Jordan College in Oxford was all a lie. But the world wasn’t as what she supposed to be, the Magisterium ruled with an iron fist and the Oblation Board, spearheaded by Mrs Coulter, kidnaps children for experiment in the North, detaching the daemons from the children to reduce them into citizens bereft of choice and submits into authority without question. Lyra, in her voyage, is joined by gyptians, witches, and a stunning polar bear by the name of Iorek Byrnison, to wage the battle for freedom.
In Pullman’s world, another Oxford parallel to our world, scholars also exist, but here gyptians who are nomads roam the rivers, witches fly in the northern mountains, and talking polar bears sits in throne in the icy pole. Zeppelins soar the air, but most importantly, daemons (pronounced as just demons) co-exist alongside humans as extroverted manifestation of souls, connected to their body counterparts that they are linked by somewhat an invisible thread that can be cut shown in a horrifying scene with the electric guillotine. The other London here in shown in a mixture of old Victorian and at the same time futuristic appeal, a wonderfully designed vista.
Dakota Blue Richards is such a revelatory discovery herself. Being chosen amongst a throng of thousands of girls, she has indeed the spirit of Lyra and satisfyingly done the job like a professional actress. Her presence lights up every scene she’s in, and confidently bearing the whole gravitas of the film in her shoulders. COMPASS is fuelled with great performances too; an impeccable standout is Nicole Kidman as Mrs Coulter, giving that fiery, fabulous woman of sophistication and class an icy, impenetrable perfection. No other actress could have played the part better with such complexity as the character that when her smile makes us melt and when she gets furious we all feel goosebumps. That scene where she slapped her own daemon, the golden monkey, it’s so genuinely shocking. There are minor appearances too, Daniel Craig for one, whose Lord Asriel will hopefully be given more screen time in the sequel. Eva Green feels comfortable in her part as the witch-queen Serafina Pekkala, and Sam Elliot is born to play the role of the Texan aeronaut, Lee Scoresby. Ian Mckellen, meanwhile, releases his intimidating polar bear in him by lending his voice to the magnificent Iorek Byrnison, sharing that majestic spectacle of a battle with the bear-king Iofur Raknisson, voiced by Ian McShane.
At the end of the day, this is only the first part of the trilogy. Anyone saying that this is anti-Church is blind and deaf; COMPASS is against nothing but oppression from authority and at its very core, promotes children to be receptive and act intelligently, using free-will and courage to face responsibilities and destiny in this world. And anyone scratching their heads from the film’s ending better start scratching their heads more for they are in a more complex ride in the sequels, generating from one of the best written fantasy books of all time.
VERDICT:
Not madly rushed but fast-paced, not blatantly condensed but toned down a wee bit, certainly not your average fantasy flick. Its aesthetic value remains intact. Offering the right amount of momentum that the film deserved, COMPASS doesn’t shy away from being imperfect, as there are indeed flaws, yet it is a film of class, a visionary experience with gorgeous cinematography with the inspiring heroine in Lyra. So who says a battle between polar bears doesn’t look cool?
RATING: A-
