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CI: Prince Caspian (Andrew Adamson, 2008)
I didn't actually catch the first film, but what the heck. Four children of varying degree of posh annoyingness get sucked through a wormhole in the (now closed) Strand Underground Station. Back in Narnia, but a couple of thousand years since their last visit, they get involved in the attempt to restore Prince Caspian to the position he has been usurped from. Cue various battles and trebuchets and oh no, the walking trees. And once they've properly learned self-reliance, Aslan can save their asses.
Oh mi god Christian allegory! Summat about faith and he who will return, and doing the decent thing, and going to the next life, and everyone learning something. Yawn.
Of course the CGI characters are scene stealers, what with Eddie Izzard providing one of the voices, and it all feels a little post-Shrek. Tilda Swinton has a cameo and I was rooting for her.
CII: Savage Grace (Tom Kalin, 2008)
It's a decade or more since Kalin's last feature - Swoon, a recreation of the Leopold and Loeb case which inspired (possibly) Rope - and a second one is welcome. This is the story of the Bakelite heir Brooks Baekeland (Stephen Dillane), his wife Barbara (Julianne Moore) and their son Tony (Eddie Redmayne). Barbara is a social climber, apparently aware of the affairs of her husband (or imagining them) and liberated to be unfaithful to her as well. With the maturing of their son, a wedge is driven between them and both seek sexual solace elsewhere. Tony, meanwhile, is by turns straight gay and bisexual and doesn't necessarily have that much of a grip on reality either (like his mother).
Of course your tolerance for films of the woes of the down-at-heel American rich seasoning in Europe may be low, but there is a fascinating sexual charge between the characters - Oedipus eat your heart out - and the performances of Moore and Redmayne are extraordinary. Be warned that none of the characters are particularly likeable, and that it should be relied upon as history. There is a tension between the narration of the film (by the son) and the events shown (which include things before his conception).
CIII: Cold and Dark (Andrew Goth, 2005)
Oh dear. John Dark (Luke Goss from Bros) wants to work with the Guvnor Mortimer Shade (Kevin Howarth) on cases involving illegal immigrants and prostitution. When Shade is killed and blood drips in his mouth, Bad People start being ripped to pieces. Dark is watching his back and his best mate.
This is shot as if it's Baltimore rather then Penzance, which apparently has world class camp tailors supplying the finest silks, and all the cops carry guns. There's a clearly lunatic Superintendent (David Gant) who looks like Christopher Lee in the wrong light and a late cameo from Matt Lucas, whose face remains off screen for the first half of his performance. By that point the Big Bad could end up being anybody, a car is blown up for no reason (I think former Big Bads combust) and the post credits jump is by the numbers. Goth is taking this all too seriously - and every so often as Goss takes a bath or answers the door in a towel you wonder if the David DeCoteau version wouldn't be more fun.
Totals: 103 (Cinema: 41; DVD: 57; TV: 5)
I didn't actually catch the first film, but what the heck. Four children of varying degree of posh annoyingness get sucked through a wormhole in the (now closed) Strand Underground Station. Back in Narnia, but a couple of thousand years since their last visit, they get involved in the attempt to restore Prince Caspian to the position he has been usurped from. Cue various battles and trebuchets and oh no, the walking trees. And once they've properly learned self-reliance, Aslan can save their asses.
Oh mi god Christian allegory! Summat about faith and he who will return, and doing the decent thing, and going to the next life, and everyone learning something. Yawn.
Of course the CGI characters are scene stealers, what with Eddie Izzard providing one of the voices, and it all feels a little post-Shrek. Tilda Swinton has a cameo and I was rooting for her.
CII: Savage Grace (Tom Kalin, 2008)
It's a decade or more since Kalin's last feature - Swoon, a recreation of the Leopold and Loeb case which inspired (possibly) Rope - and a second one is welcome. This is the story of the Bakelite heir Brooks Baekeland (Stephen Dillane), his wife Barbara (Julianne Moore) and their son Tony (Eddie Redmayne). Barbara is a social climber, apparently aware of the affairs of her husband (or imagining them) and liberated to be unfaithful to her as well. With the maturing of their son, a wedge is driven between them and both seek sexual solace elsewhere. Tony, meanwhile, is by turns straight gay and bisexual and doesn't necessarily have that much of a grip on reality either (like his mother).
Of course your tolerance for films of the woes of the down-at-heel American rich seasoning in Europe may be low, but there is a fascinating sexual charge between the characters - Oedipus eat your heart out - and the performances of Moore and Redmayne are extraordinary. Be warned that none of the characters are particularly likeable, and that it should be relied upon as history. There is a tension between the narration of the film (by the son) and the events shown (which include things before his conception).
CIII: Cold and Dark (Andrew Goth, 2005)
Oh dear. John Dark (Luke Goss from Bros) wants to work with the Guvnor Mortimer Shade (Kevin Howarth) on cases involving illegal immigrants and prostitution. When Shade is killed and blood drips in his mouth, Bad People start being ripped to pieces. Dark is watching his back and his best mate.
This is shot as if it's Baltimore rather then Penzance, which apparently has world class camp tailors supplying the finest silks, and all the cops carry guns. There's a clearly lunatic Superintendent (David Gant) who looks like Christopher Lee in the wrong light and a late cameo from Matt Lucas, whose face remains off screen for the first half of his performance. By that point the Big Bad could end up being anybody, a car is blown up for no reason (I think former Big Bads combust) and the post credits jump is by the numbers. Goth is taking this all too seriously - and every so often as Goss takes a bath or answers the door in a towel you wonder if the David DeCoteau version wouldn't be more fun.
Totals: 103 (Cinema: 41; DVD: 57; TV: 5)
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