3D Cinema Review – Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

You can rely on Disney’s well known Pirate franchise for one of the universal laws of cinema. As sure as night follows day and the tide washes in and out, each successive film in the Pirates of the Caribbean series will be worse than the last. Like a basket of juicy fruit left to rot on a sunny beach, the individual ingredients that made the first film so fun gradually lose their enjoyment. You can also bet your house that in increasingly more desperate attempts to recapture the magic of the Black Pearl’s virgin voyage, the plots will acquire more baffling layers with each new instalment. And this film’s ending proves once again that there will always be room for yet another adventure.

However this film does break some new ground. For example for the first time ever, the title is as confusing and vague as the many competing strands of the story. The tides are certainly no more or less important than before and there is nothing strange about the film; within Captain Jack’s world at least mermaids and myths are pretty standard fare.

Things get off to a familiar but promising start. Our beloved scallywag Jack Sparrow is in London to rescue sidekick Mr Gibbs from a trial, which would be swiftly followed by a hanging if the bloodthirsty crowd had their way. After some costumed shenanigans and typically camp stalking about, Jack and Gibbs find themselves at the King’s palace. The crown wish to find the fountain of youth before the crafty Catholics in Spain and they’ve heard Sparrow knows the way.

Jack gets an audience with the King in a sumptuous room and Depp gets ample opportunity to showcase the physical comedy and wordplay audiences have come to love. The King is played by Richard Griffiths in a delightful cameo. Needless to say Jack manages an escape. Later in the film Geoffrey Rush’s Barbossa takes the time to mentally plan an escape route, presuming that’s what Depp’s madcap Sparrow does, only for Jack to reply that he sometimes “improvises”. The running and jumping through an impressive CGI London in the film’s opening segment, is ad hoc Jack Sparrow action at its best.

Sadly the film simply cannot maintain the entertainment levels as chase follows chase and sword fight follows sword fight. Most of the action is surprisingly inventive, especially since we’ve had three films already but at times even Jack’s luck over judgment leaps of faith enter ridiculous territory. The stunts become monotonous by the end because of the film’s relentless opening barrage, tarnishing the drama of the finale. There are no explosive cannon battles for those who love their ships and nautical duels. Instead of boarding we get an awful lot of trekking through the jungle.

Having said this, two standout scenes are exciting and engaging. I’ve already mentioned Captain Jack prancing his way around London but the first mermaid attack scene is also terrific. Only the Pirates franchise could deliver such a scene. It’s got frights and bites, fangs and bangs. The mermaids are less interesting by the end, but here they are introduced in a lengthy scene as seductive and dangerous. The attack comes as a real shock and well managed change in pace after they are lured in to enchant some pirates left as bait.

The mermaid battle is an epic, long scene and the film is so long that it loses much of its epic feel. Sub plots like a half formed romance between a mermaid and clergy man could have been slimmed considerably or dropped altogether .The runtime is literally bladder bursting, as a friend of mine dashed from the room as soon as the credits rolled. I was content to sit and watch the names of the cast fly at me in 3D however, because of Hans Zimmer’s magnificent music, which remains the best thing about the Pirates of the Caribbean. There are some nice variations and new additions to the main theme in this instalment but I can’t help feeling it’s time he focused his talents on new projects, rather than continually recycling one stunning track.

Hang on though; surely this is still worth seeing just for another outing from Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow? Isn’t he the single most important pillar upon which the blockbusters are based? I always assumed, like many critics, that the romantic pairing of Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley in the previous films was holding back Depp’s brilliance. But having seen On Stranger Tides, in which Depp must mostly steer proceedings alone, his performance is somehow less effective without them.

He is at his best in this film when dancing around other characters, making light of them. Penelope Cruz is suitably sassy and sexy as a pirate, albeit with an unrealistically attractive cleavage for a hardened sailor, and she and Depp have some fun exchanges, but putting Sparrow at the heart of a love story doesn’t work. Even the filmmakers realise this by backing out of it somewhat at the end. Captain Jack Sparrow is not the emotional type. And what made him so attractive to audiences, was the way he mocked the clichéd relationship between Bloom and Knightley. Making him part of the conventional storyline robs his performance of some of its power.

Depp is still fantastic fun at points though, rising above an overcomplicated script with a bizarre fascination for throwing in random and rubbish rhymes. This film may just go through the motions and it may be far too long, but it’s undeniably grand and fairly pleasing despite the odd yawn.

Rather than fork out for its occasional 3D gimmicks of a sword jutting out of the screen though, I would recommend ditching the high seas for inner city London and Joe Cornish’s critically acclaimed directorial debut, Attack the Block. I saw this just hours before Pirates 4 and without adding anything new to the chorus of praise around it, I will just say go and see it. It is funnier and more thrilling than Rob Marshall’s blockbuster and doesn’t deserve to sink.

DVD Review: Another Year

Prior to watching Another Year I was not in awe of Mike Leigh’s track record, but rather shamefully ignorant. I was keen to watch the film though because of some glowing reviews last year, promising trailers and that wonderful artwork and logo. I remember seeing said tree sprawling massively across an Odeon in London’s West End way back in the halcyon days of 2010, and thinking that was the type of thoughtful British picture I wanted to see.

The central idea behind the story, which Leigh scripted as well as directed, is tender, realistic and probably true to life. Happily married couple, Tom (Jim Broadbent) and Gerri (Ruth Sheen) are lucky and they know it. The people in their lives, who seem far less blessed, gravitate towards them for kindness and warmth. Their son Joe (Oliver Maltman) is taking his time to find love as his friends get hitched left, right and centre,  Gerri’s co-worker Mary’s (Lesley Manville) bubbly energy conceals her loneliness and Tom’s childhood friend Ken (Peter Wight) is trapped in Hull watching his precious roots wither away. The narrative plays out with a chunk from each of the year’s four seasons.

The opening scene was just what I had been hoping for and what Leigh’s reputation guaranteed. Imelda Staunton plays an insomniac pressing her GP for sleeping pills but understandably her doctor seeks out the true, underlying causes. Staunton’s character is clearly completely miserable; crestfallen at her lot in life and the realisation that this is all she’s likely to get. The scene lasts a full five minutes, uninterrupted; Leigh really lets it breathe and grow. For most of the scene we don’t see the GP’s face, helping us truly inhabit Staunton’s excellent performance. We’ve all felt like that at the doctors, like you’re just another appointment to be checked off by a faceless health drone.

The GP refers our dejected and menopausal patient to a counsellor. It turns out that Gerri is a counsellor. And this is where the problems begin with Another Year. Gerri continues to be a counsellor for the duration of the story, always behaving as though maintaining professional standards, even alone in bed with soul mate Tom. Ruth Sheen’s tone of voice never varies more than a fraction, making her seem either mildly interested or not that bothered. Whilst Broadbent’s range of reactions to the various problems of friends are different and human, Gerri deals with each situation on dull auto-pilot. Sheen’s performance genuinely seemed mechanical and totally robotic, which was a real shock after all the talk of quality acting.

The passing of the seasons is beautifully shot and there are moments of heart warming dialogue that is convincingly ordinary and recognisable from everyday life. Do I really want to watch a film with conversations startlingly similar to the small talk I run away from in reality though? It all gets rather dreary, with next to no drama in the first two seasons and not a pinch of escapism. Leigh’s script also has some awful expositional dialogue, particularly for Lesley Manville’s character Mary, Tom and Gerri’s desperately clingy friend. I cringed at the clumsy manner her myriad but dull problems were introduced and grimaced later at Manville’s caricatured portrayal of an overzealous eccentric going off the rails. Her drunkenness at BBQs is amateurish.

Or is it? I honestly don’t know if I fell into the trap of mistaking the annoying traits of a character for bad acting and storytelling. This is because the last two seasons, autumn and winter, went a long way to redeeming the failures of the first couple. As Mary reaches rock bottom her character becomes far more bearable and Manville’s performance finally makes you empathise and feel pity, sympathy, and even sadness. David Bradley puts in a fabulous performance as Tom’s grieving brother who is a man of few words. Some of his scenes with Broadbent, and an extended one with Manville, are superb.

I don’t want to mimic the idiotic readers of the X-Factor age who throw away a book they’re reading in disgust because the characters are not “likeable”. Novels and films are not about providing you with brief friendship. But Another Year is hard to get into. As I’ve said I was really surprised by how irritating I found the performances of Ruth Sheen and Lesley Manville. In Manville’s case I think I judged her too quickly and her character was simply a vibrant pain in the neck, well realised. However I maintain that Sheen was simply two dimensional, which is disappointing given the importance of actors to such an ensemble piece. By the time Another Year ended I was starting to enjoy it but there’s no doubt that this is a film with the potential to frustrate as well as reward.

Date Night

Life, for most of us, boils down to monotonous repetition. It’s broadly predictable, with the odd insignificant surprise. And Date Night, starring the comedy talents of Tina Fey and Steve Carell, is a routine rom-com affair, in more ways than one. It’s about the universal desire to shatter the same old everyday habits once in a while with some glamour and risk, and it’s a standard action packed tale of spiralling events, misunderstood circumstances and hilarious antics. Like life it does feature the odd surprise, in the form of cameos dotted throughout that are often scene-stealing turns, but the outcome is never much in doubt and the route is familiar.

Indeed critical opinion of Date Night following its release earlier this year was fairly unanimous. It’s an average film, neither good nor bad but “pretty good”. Most reviews inevitably focus on the central pairing of Fey and Carell, so crucial to the success of the movie. Most verdicts declare Date Night to be an adequate vehicle for their talents, with pleasing performances from both, but certainly not their best. I would certainly agree with the assessment of the leads’ performances and add my voice to the chorus praising (or denouncing?) Date Night as a pretty good film. However like most reviewers I was caught off guard by some brilliant cameos that overshadow the stars at times and generally I enjoyed Date Night considerably more than the usual “pretty good” film.

What was the reason for this I wonder? Well perhaps it was largely down to the fact I’m a sucker for sentiment. Whilst Carell is undoubtedly better working with comedic material, he’s proved he can handle the action in films like Get Smart and more importantly the emotional side of things by giving his characters bags of appeal as well as humour, for example in 40 Year Old Virgin. Here he does a more than passable job as the well meaning everyman. Fey too proves she is comfortable with the serious stuff as well as proving more adept in the funnier moments. It was easy to buy into the dying relationship scenario and the basic premise set up by a cameo from Mark Ruffalo; that marriage can descend into two people that are “really excellent roommates”. It tugged at the heartstrings to see two people so comfortable with each other, so suited and so close, growing tired of each other’s company simply from over exposure and the onset of tedium. The story keeps prodding at your emotions and stirring them into life, in that instantly recognisable rom-com manner, as the thrills and spills reignite the couple’s buried love for one another. Crucially though this is confidently executed romantic comedy based on real-life, largely free of sick inducing soppiness and lame gags and stuffed with quality.

There is a danger of the film losing sight of its focus at times though. The description of the film called it an “Action/Adventure, Comedy, Thriller” and this might suggest an identity crisis. Indeed during a key action set piece, a car chase with a slick new Audi, the comedy is at its weakest at the expense of some ridiculous and not hugely exciting thrills. This is not to say there is not some enjoyment to be found in the action segments of the film, but the average excitement of these scenes is ultimately what ensures the labels of mediocre and average. The comedy has some excellent moments, and is consistently good throughout with some likeable running gags. I particularly liked the recurring theme of outrage that the Fosters (Fey and Carell) would have the audacity and cheek to take someone else’s table reservation, as they explain to various people the crimes and horrors heaped upon them since.

And those cameos of course, from James Franco and Mila Kunis as a wonderfully bickering criminal couple that simultaneously mirrored the Fosters and were opposite to them. From Mark Wahlberg, in a bare-chested performance that first alerted the world to his hidden comedy talents and William Fichtner as a detestable caricature of corruption. These performances inject life into the film and stop it going stale. Not that there is ever any real danger of it doing so; the runtime is blissfully snappy and the leads are always likeable, if not always powerfully magnetic. Of course you could want more from a film, but perhaps Date Night’s message and execution is best summed up by the song “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”. The Fosters undoubtedly need each other and you might find yourself needing a pick-me-up like Date Night on a dreary drizzle sodden winter’s day.