The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Rating: ***

Making three movies out of The Lord of the Rings made sense. It was split into three books when originally published, the whole thing is well over 1,000 pages long, and even considering all that there were still characters and story developments in the books that director Peter Jackson jettisoned from the film trilogy. By comparison, this new trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien's first Middle Earth book, The Hobbit, seems to be squeezing out every last detail for the movies, and it's nearly so excrutiating you have to wonder just how much padding did Jackson and Co. sew in that a 350-page novel needs three, two-and-a-half hour movies?

Snow White and the Huntsman

Rating: ***

Obviously, this ain’t your mama’s Snow White. Not just because the titular princess is played by vampire bait emo-queen Kristen Stewart, and not just because Charlize Theron paints the evil queen as one of her recurrent sexpot roles, but because the film revels in the style implied by the name of the original Snow White authors: Grimm.

Under the supervision of commercial director Rupert Sanders, Snow White becomes a Tolkien-like epic across a sprawling fantasy landscape to battle improbable evil forces to save the kingdom from evil. And because of that, it’s less a damsel in distress-y tale where the limp and weak princess needs constant saving. Well it kind of is, but at least there’s a feeling that although Snow White may need occasionally (frequent) rescues, she’s not waiting for rescuers, be they drunken hunters, or seven little dwarves.

In this Snow White, trouble comes when the grief stricken king rescues the beautiful captive Ravenna (Theron) from an evil army. But Ravenna has her own dark agenda, and after seducing the king, she murders him on their wedding night, seizes his kingdom and locks up his daughter Snow White (Stewart) high up in the castle tower. Years later, Ravenna is told by her magic mirror that she’s not the fairest anymore, but if she wants the title forever she’ll have to literally take the heart of Snow White.

Here’s where the fairy tale goes off its traditional course for a more post-modern turn: Snow White uses a rusty nail to strike Ravenna’s brother (Sam Spruell) when he comes to collect her for dinner. She runs through the castle, evades the guards, escapes through the sewer, steals a horse and rides through the dark forest before the bad guys are able to catch up with her. Like Robert Munsch’s Paper Bag Princess, this royal knows how to handle herself.

In this movie, Snow White even has a “Prince Ronald.” Not that Snow’s long-lost childhood love William (Sam Claflin) is superficial and self-absorbed, but William as the story’s prince, doesn’t serve a tremendous function. Indeed, the Huntsman (played by Thor himself, Chris Hemsworth) is probably closer to being Snow White’s love interest here, although I don’t think that’s the point. Whether a matter of function or a matter of chemistry, it only helps the story’s new narrative, Snow White is not (just) the object of romantic desire, but a symbol of freedom from the evil, youth sucking claws of Ravenna. Sure, there’s still a poison apple and a kiss, but the tone and intention of those scenes is changed I think.

But while the screenplay does some interesting things with the story and its inherent archetypes, it is a letdown in some regards. It feels like the story wants to do so many things, but its running time is an issue and thus it all seems rather crammed. In the end it seems as if Ravenna’s forces go down so pitifully that you’re wondering what took the cowering masses of the kingdom so long to take her down. The time between Snow’s escape and climactic showdown seems like a series of checkpoints, and though it comes across as a Lord of the Rings-style epic journey, Snow White lacks Rings’ leisurely indulgence.

But the joy of Snow White is how it plays against expectations. Theron as the evil queen never ceases to be mesmerizing, and the actress throws herself into the part and all the assorted goo that comes with it. It’s actually surprising how much Theron gets away with, from some not so subtly implied incest between Ravenna and her brother, to the fact that Ravenna practically orgasms after she kills the king.

Against Theron, it’s hard for Stewart to keep up in the much blander role of the movie’s heroine, but unlike the majority of movie fandom, I find Stewart perfectly lovely and talented, and she’s at least believable as a butt-kicking princess in shining armour. She struggles in the giving of inspirational and commanding speeches, but she doesn’t come across as wholly out of place in the fairy tale world of the film.

Hemsworth is perfectly fine as the Huntsman, but really that’s all you can say about the character. It’s said that he had a wife, and after her death succumbed to despair and alcoholism, thus making him the type of brigand that I compare favourably to Harrison Ford’s portrayal of Han Solo in Star Wars. What’s missing though is what it is about Snow White that changes the Huntsman’s mind about turning her over to the queen, and the reason why he sticks around after he turns on the queen’s lackeys.

But where the film falls flat repeatedly is the hints at story threads that never get played up (or might get played up in a sequel). There’s hints that Ravenna is quite mad, as we see a scene where she talks to the golden cloaked figure that comes out of her mirror, but she seems to be the only one that sees him. The assembled dwarves have a beef with the queen, but it’s never explained what that is. It’s also never explained how Snow White can seemingly commune with the giant stag, or why the bridge troll retreats when she looks in his eyes. And it’s also never made clear why the land actually withers as Ravenna rules, and comes back to life when Snow White takes back her throne (a meme borrowed from The Chronicles of Narnia).

Snow White and the Huntsman is a middle of the road fantasy epic that has some interesting things in it, and has an interesting spin on a classic. It’s a cover tune, and a decent one at that. It’s a cover that feels like there’s reason and idea for it to exist although no one, least of all the filmmakers, seem to know what that is. Naturally, a sequel is already in the works, and I’d be interested to see what the filmmakers can make of the story now that Snow White’s “origins” have been established.

Either way, the film should make feminist critics of the Twilight films happy, for at least this time Kristen Stewart plays a princess that can save herself.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Rating: ***

From the studio that brought you the film based on a theme park ride, and the sequel to a movie that’s 70 years old and didn’t need a part two anyway, comes a film based on a segment from a movie of short cartoons inspired by pieces of classical music. Further still, this movie has almost nothing to do with the material that inspired it save for a title and the fact that it’s about a wizard and his employee. Of course to make matters more egregious is the fact that the filmmakers shoehorned in a little homage to the famous Mickey Mouse starring segment from Fantasia, all mops a dancing and cleaning supplies going awry. Thanks, there’s another childhood memory butchered.

Strangely enough though, there is something compelling to be found in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. If anything, there’s enough adventure and magic in it to make the act of sitting through it worthwhile. It’s perfectly entertaining in its own way, but I can’t say that I get wholly invested in the story. In fact, it’s a reaction quite similar to the one I had for director Jon Turteltaub’s most recent effort, the National Treasure movies. The plot contrivances, the technobabble, and quirkier than quirky characters make the movie, at times, hard to swallow, but if you can get around that, you might have a good time.

But first you have to get over the exposition loading as the opening narration tells us about Merlin, his apprentices, sorcerer wars, Morgana La Fey and something called the “Prime Merlinian.” This ridiculous piece of alliteration is revealed to be a sorcerer born whose power will be equal to Merlin, and thus be able to defeat Morgana once and for all should her minions release her from the nesting doll holding her prisoner. Naturally, this prophesized chosen one is a nerdish slacker living in the 21st century.

There’s something enchanting about treating modern New York City as a hidden magical playground, and casting the pronouncedly loopy Nicolas Cage as the sorcerer Balthazar, charged with the mission of finding the Prime Merlinian and training him, is inspired. It’s too bad then that Cage is on complete autopilot mode, which leaves his poor apprentice Jay Baruchel to work his acting magic on the audience. Baruchel does an admirable job, but one can’t help but get the feeling that he may be a little bit over his head. Alfred Molina though, as the film’s primary villain, manages to be saucy, creepy and just generally slick while he’s making with the evil.

The main trouble though is that like a lot of big, studio, summer pictures, it’s got its mind on franchise opportunities. Now it’s often a good idea to look to the future, but not when it comes at the expense of the here and now. I look at the first Pirates of the Caribbean as a prime example because in that is no sign that the filmmakers were laying out a plan for part two, three and four. In Sorcerer’s there’s so much backstory and ground work you can practically see the producers flagging things to reference in later films. Why else would you saddle the opening with prologue before prologue before getting into the real story?

I will say that once the story gets going it breezes by, which is a kind of a shame because it feels like there should be some more to it. Baruchel’s Dave does a lot of whiny about how he doesn’t want to be a wizard and how he keeps blowing his chances to date anew the girl that got away in the fourth grade. In other words, it’s all rather typical, and in the end, despite having a briefer training regiment than Skywalker at Yoda’s Jedi School, Dave is able to summon the magical gravitas to overthrown Morgana (played by the underused and undervalued Alice Krige).

But somewhere in this litany of complaints there are moments that were enjoyable. Molina’s evil scheming, whenever he’s on screen, is consistently enjoyable to watch, especially his interactions with Toby Kebbell as Drake Stone, a wizard who poses as David Blane like showman. There are also some reasonably well done action scenes that make good use of effects and the movie’s New York locations. Of course I expect Turteltaub to be able to construct some decent adventure, but this Sorcerer lacks that certain spell that could have made it sing. Satisfying, but not overall inspiring.

Clash of the Titans

**1/2 stars

The subject of much controversy, this Easter weekend brings to theatres the new rendition of Clash of the Titans, the big budget remake of the film more famous for being F/X king Ray Harryhausen’s last than for being any good. The controversy comes from Clash’s quickie conversion to 3-D in post-production, a process initiated after studio bosses heard the cash register bells ring off the hook for Avatar. Of course, Avatar had 3-D in mind all along when it went before the cameras. You know James Cameron’s vision and blah, blah, blah. One can hardly blame a studio suit for trying to squeeze out a couple of extra bucks, but you can, however, blame them for the result.

The fault of Clash lies not in the mythology, but in how it ends up being treated. Say what you want about the first Clash, including some harsh words about young Mark Harmon in a toga, but at least one could sense a giddy love of all things Greek. In this Clash, Greek mythology seems a handy system upon which a Lord of the Rings by way of Gladiator story of questing, vengeance and daddy issues can be hung. So far, so unimpressed. And adding insult to injury is the fact that we’re saddled with a Perseus that’s one of those heroes that does nearly as much whining and brooding as he does world-saving.

Sam Worthington beams down from Pandora to fill the armour of Perseus and he does an admirable, if not overwhelming job playing the hero. In other words, he’s perfectly bland but it doesn’t really matter because the point of this movie is action, spectacle and more action. We also get duelling brothers Zeus and Hades as essayed by Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes respectively. What’s interesting, as pointed out by one of my sisters, is that in Clash, as in the other recent Greek-centric movie Percy Jackson, Zeus and Hades are portrayed as rivals. The crux of their divide is never really explained (or understood), but at least Neeson and Fiennes seem to be relishing their roles. Danny Huston, on the other hand, gets treated more like a red-headed step child than the third brother in the pantheon.

The story goes that a kindly old fisherman (played by Pete “more grizzled than ever” Postlethwaite) finds a baby boy in a casket the surfaces in the sea near his boat. This boy is Perseus, who grows up to be a fisherman like is dad. But Perseus’ real dad is Zeus, who seduced the hero’s mom in one of his sex-as-revenge schemes against a spiteful King. Now, here we are, 20 years later, and another act of Zeus defiance results in Hades going medieval over Perseus and his family, who just so happened to be in the neighbourhood. Now this I didn’t like. The notion of Perseus stepping out to save the City of Argos because it’s an obvious path to getting revenge on the guy that smote his family rubbed me the same wrong way as when Tim Burton subbed pre-Joker Joker as Batman’s parents’ killers. Isn’t it enough that a hero does heroic things because he wants to, without being driven by personal, short-sighted revenge?

Well, let’s just assume it is and continue. Leaving Argos, Perseus is teamed up with a group of soldiers led by former Bond villain Mads Mikkelsen. In a montage, they march across various landscapes to receive wisdom on how to save Argos from the gods’ wicked wrath and stop the unstoppable Kraken. Oh yeah, there’s a whole thing in there about saving the Princess whom Hades has decreed worthy of sacrifice to placate the gods’ anger, but no one seems to care. As Andromeda, Alexa Davalos gets the award for most ineffectual damsel in distress in recent film history. Can they save her time? I could care less, and what’s worse is that seems to be Perseus’ opinion too.

But if all else fails, if you can’t have fun at a movie, then there really is no hope at all, and say what you want about Clash of the Titans, but it is rather fun. When the gang of warriors has to fight through giant scorpions, or outfox the enormous kraken while riding a Pegasus, that is a sight to see. But the thing of it is, don’t go wasting your money on 3-D. It doesn’t enhance the experience, although it doesn’t do anything to dampen the experience either. It just seems like a whole lot of wasted money, so don’t go adding fuel to the fire by further convincing Hollywood to dump money on this trend. Save 3-D from itself should be the new motto.

Alice in Wonderland

Rating: ***

I knew we were in uncharted territory when Alice in Wonderland didn’t open with one of those great title sequences to Danny Elfman’s theme music that typically kick off a Tim Burton movie. Burton is perhaps my greatest filmmaking inspiration, which is why it pains me so to say that his Alice comes out into a mere ho-hum. Granted, it’s visually amazing, but I can’t say that I was whole-heartedly engaged with this take on Lewis Carroll’s classic. It seems as if Burton has spliced together the original animated Disney Alice with a tame version concocted by American McGee, all in what seems like an effort to bolster Johnny Depp’s ongoing campaign to make himself as ugly looking as possible on film.

Yes, the Bozo the Clown meets Lloyd Christmas mug of what’s supposed to be the Mad Hatter on the movie posters is indeed Johnny Depp. I can’t knock the guy’s enthusiasm, but now having completed their eighth collaboration, I think it’s time for Burton and Depp to see other filmmakers. Nothing against either of them, but Depp’s become a crutch for Burton because Depp’s an actor that Burton knows will go out on a limb. But Depp is “big box” now. His boutique days when he could get away with playing a guy with scissor hands or a cross-dressing schlock-maker while burying his movie star presence aren’t what they used to be. Sadly, Depp doing kabuki Mad Hatter doesn’t work as well as it should. For the most part.

But The Hatter isn’t the main character of this story. In this Wonderland Alice, played by newcomer Mia Wasikowska, is a young woman who’s taken to party where it’s expected she’ll be proposed to. Like Robin Williams’ Peter in Hook, she’s grown up thinking that her childhood sojourn into another world was nothing more than childish fantasy. So it’s an awful surprise to her when she sees a familiar white rabbit in a waist coat and fob watch hopping through the garden. It takes Alice a while to catch on that her Wonderland excursion was real, not that this is the Wonderland she once knew thanks to the machinations of the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter).

Of course this isn’t an adaptation, which is probably why the film feels like it has no cohesion beyond the stylistic. There’s a blatant kind of Lord of the Rings feeling where there’s an elaborate quest for a magical device and a final, titanic battle on a chessboard shaped field. Frankly, in this instance, the whole thing seemed rather dull and if there’s one thing that Wonderland shouldn’t be, it’s dull. Sadly, it might be the fate of these 3-D efforts, Avatar included, to suffer in the narrative while being visually very pleasing. In this case though, I can’t completely get behind the look of the film since all the digital tricks work against that Burton vibe. He’s not a boy with his toys like James Cameron, Burton’s the kid that wears 40s fashions because of his distaste for all things modern.

There is an ambition to the film that’s admirable, but Tim Burton has never been an epic kind of filmmaker. Even the little superhero movie he did (Batman) looks like a low budget indie as compared to the way summer tentpoles are made now in days. What does this matter? Because Burton’s about quirk, and quirk doesn’t cost. He’s also about character, and you don’t need motion-capture technology to make a character interesting. The difference between Alice and Burton’s past triumphs is the difference between someone singing a song and really being a performer. I can enjoy it, it can engage me, but it doesn’t really fill me up spiritually. Alice in Wonderland, as the collective name of Lewis Carroll’s literary work, is insanely adaptable with enough vibrantly weirdo characters for two Tim Burton movies. But this could have been better. And while 3-D may save the movie industry, some of us still want a good story with compelling characters. And if possible, a less scary looking Johnny Depp.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightening Thief

Rating: **1/2

Everything about Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightening Thief screams mea culpa. It’s director Chris Columbus’ mea culpa to himself for passing up the Harry Potter series after launching it with the first two adaptations, and, I presume, it’s Columbus’ mea culpa to the masses after foisting I Love You, Beth Cooper on us. I kid Chris Columbus, mainly because he’s the red-headed step child of Harry Potter filmmakers having made the least inspired and textually limiting of the Harry Potter movies. Alfonso Cuarón had style while Mike Newell and David Yates had the benefit of more adult-minded material (and in the case of Yates, the added comfort of knowing how the series ends).

So with all the fortitude and impetuousness of a drunken robot yelling at security hooligans that he’s going to build his own theme park with black jack and hookers (Futurama reference), Columbus found another supernatural kid to invest in. Based on Rick Riordan’s novel of the same name, The Lightening Thief follows young Percy Jackson (played by Logan Lerman) as he learns that he’s not a struggling teen slacker with dyslexia and ADD. No sir, he’s the son of Poseidon, Greek god of the seas and earthquakes. That dyslexia he’s got, it’s just his brain hardwired to translate everything to Ancient Greek. And the ADD, why it’s his warrior instinct itching to keep him up on his feet and ready for battle.

Like any good young hero moulded in the Campbell tradition, Percy receives guidance from a wise elder, in this case embodied by his wheelchair bound teacher Dr Brunner, who, in actuality, is the centaur warrior Chiron (both played by Pierce Brosnan). No sooner does Percy discover his lineage does he have to do a runner. Zeus’ famed lightening bolt was nicked and for some reason, Percy’s the prime suspect. Hades then kidnaps Percy’s mom as leverage to get Percy to give him the bolt in exchange for his mother. So with a quest at hand, Percy gets assistance from his new allies Grover the satyr (Brandon T. Jackson) and Annabeth, the severe daughter of Athena (Alexandra Daddario). He also gets magical tools to help with his mission including a pen that turns into a sword and a pair of sneakers that are literally wing-tipped thanks to Hermes. So cue the AC/DC and let’s start on that Highway to Hell.

Now I’ve never read the Percy Jackson books, but I do know that in the original Lightening Thief the main character was 12 rather than 16. I suppose, Columbus wanted to buffer himself in some ways from Potter, and though I would never say that this a line-for-line pastiche of J.K. Rowling’s wizard world, a lot of the same story beats are here. In other words, in keeping with a lot of youth novels getting screen time in hopes of having Harry-like success, I just can’t see what makes The Lightening Thief so startlingly different that it screamed, “I must be adapted.”

Truthfully, I found the movie harmless if nothing else. It’s a satisfying adventure that hiccups over some rather obvious musical cues and some uncomfortable winks to the current world climate, especially Grover’s references to recession-induced cash saving measures. The young actors do a serviceable job to their characters, but a lot of the adult actors seemed sidelined in their parts, as if they were merely there to move the plot along. The casting also seemed a bit chaotic. Steve Coogan as Hades? Really? I take it Paul Reubens was unavailable. However putting Rosario Dawson in the part of Hades’ wife Persephone and giving her a Desperate Housewives style makeover was not necessarily a bad idea. And as I watched The Lightening Thief, an intriguing question occurred to me: who would win in a fight, Sean Bean’s Zeus from this film or Liam Neeson’s Zeus from the coming soon remake of Clash of the Titans?

But back to The Lightening Thief, which despite some serious cynical aspirations I cast, was not actually all that bad. Of course, how a group of teenagers criss-cross the United States inside 10 days is a travelogue of 24 proportions, but this is fantasy after all. I think what really holds this film back though is the filmmaker’s rather clinical vision. Of course Mount Olympus, now accessible through an elevator at the top the Empire State Building’s observation deck, is the exact same Olympus visualized by mortals for thousands of years with clouds, columns and togas. How dull. But despite that, The Lightening Thief isn’t a total time burglar. Sequel? Why not.

The Princess and the Frog

Rating: ****

Almost 15 years ago, Toy Story broke all the rules of animation. A little while after that there was a movie called Shrek, and it was so successful that the money men in Hollywood started thinking that if your animated movie wasn’t being populated by computer engineered characters you were practically daring the general public to not see it. Since the traditional cel animation wing of Disney seemingly closed its doors nearly six years ago, it seemed that anyone that specialized in the art of hand drawn animation was either relegated to Saturday morning stuff or oblivion. In an interesting twist of fate, it took one of the guys that started the computer animation revolution to blow the dust off the Ink and Paint division of Disney, and do you know what happened? There’s still some magic in those pencils.

Thanks to producer John Lasseter and his team, Disney finds its way home with The Princess and the Frog, a marvel of both moviemaking artistry and storytelling magic. Several smart decisions make Princess and the Frog a worthy successor to modern Disney classics like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. First was casting the studio’s first African-American princess, a broken barrier nearly rivalled in grandness by the man now occupying the White House. Second is the transfer of setting to a roaring jazz age New Orleans, which gives the film a rambunctious zeal from the supporting characters to the jazz-inspired musical numbers. There’s still a romantic subplot and the talking animal sidekicks, but these elements seem fresher somehow. The relationship between working class waitress Tiana (Anika Noni Rose) and the indulgent Prince Naveen (Bruno Campos) seems more Hepburn and Tracy then Cinderella and her Prince Charming.

The story follows Tiana trying to live out her father’s dream of opening a restaurant in the Crescent City, working herself to the nub to earn enough money for a down payment on an old sugar mill where she’ll set up shop. Prince Naveen, meanwhile, rolls into the Big Easy looking for a good time. Cut off by his parents from his family’s large fortune, he’s near penniless but doesn’t seem to care as he strums his ukulele in time with a street band. But money is on the mind of the voodoo enchanted con man Dr Facilier (Keith David). He turns the prince into a frog and his assistant into the prince so that a wealthy socialite will marry the stooge prince and Dr Facilier will get all the money and power he wants.

Its after this that Naveen, in frog form, encounters Tiana thinking she’s a princess, and gets her to kiss him only to turn her into a frog as well. Strangely, this is about half an hour into the story, and you think to yourself that there’s no way that the frog versions of Tiana and Naveen can fall in love, find a way to become human again, defeat the plans of Dr. Facilier and fulfill Louis the Crocodile’s dream of playing trumpet in a jazz band, all in the time remaining. But unlike several of Disney’s recent efforts, outside of collaborations with Pixar that is, one can sense a confidence in the material that’s sometimes been lacking. I’m thinking primarily of films like Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet, in which the studio tried to break formula but seemed to get scared along the way resulting in something that seemed bold but watered down.

But in The Princess and the Frog there was nothing watered down and no expense was spared. As a long time admirer of the art form, I felt positively indulged by this film. This is Disney animation as it was meant to be realized with no attempts at backhand satire or cheap shots at pop culture quirks of the moment. I loved the chemistry between Tiana and Naveen, Dr Facilier is perhaps the best Disney villain since Aladdin’s Jafar, and the songs by Randy Newman were memorable and singable. Sure, you get the traditional happy ending, but it feels like it’s earned in The Princess and the Frog, and not just a forgone conclusion based on the accepted Disney playbook of storytelling. I sincerely hope that this film is commercially successful enough to prove that when you put the right effort into traditional animation it can still surprise you. Welcome home Disney, we missed you.

TIFF Review-The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Rating: ***1/2

Morbidly, Heath Ledger’s first scene in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is one where his character, Tony, is found by vagabonds that make up the titular doctor’s sideshow, hanging from the neck under a London bridge. To be in the mind of Terry Gilliam when he was in the editing room on this film… Imaginarium is Ledger’s final film. That is to say that it was the last film he was working on when he died of an accidental drug overdose January 2008. From the look of things it seems that the actor’s work was half over when he passed away; Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell graciously stepped in to finish his work on the film. (And for the record, the actor switches make sense in context of the story. More on that later.)

Two things standout after the hype’s worn off. One, this isn’t Heath Ledger’s finest work, probably not even Top 5, and two, he doesn’t even feel like the star. Sure some of that may be that the work of playing Tony is spread out amongst four actors, but really this film is Dr. Parnassus’ story. Played by Christopher Plummer, the Doctor is some kind of wizard monk, like a cross between Harry Potter’s Dumbledore and Kung Fu’s Cane. Parnassus is constantly trading bets with the Devil (Tom Waita), a squirrelly looking figure that looks like Mel Brooks but dresses like Charlie Chaplin. Their game is implied to have taken place over centuries and probably stands to reason that it’ll continue for a couple more. The stakes this time are very high though: the soul of Parnassus’ daughter Valentina (Lily Cole).

Clearly, this is not a film of gritty realism with a few whimsical elements like, say, The Dark Knight. Imaginarium is more of a fable, a fairy tale, and certainly a much more enchanting one that Gilliam’s self-styled Brothers Grimm. But set amongst the streets of modern London, where piss drunk hooligans are the closest thing to an engaging customer, the wondrous world finds of Dr. Parnassus finds greater need, but little patience from the quick-fix crowd. Plummer is great and barely recognizable beneath the make-up demands of the part. You sense that Parnassus, despite his apparent need to outwit the devil, is a man fed up with society and seeing it through his eyes as an immortal. The only good thing in his life is his daughter, but even she’s tainted because of how she came about in the world. Recurrent in the film is the search for perfection, and the realization that how we perceive such perfection is as intangible as the world that lies behind Parnassus’ mirror.

Adding to the ethereal quality to the film, although unintentionally is Ledger. Because going in you know that Gilliam had to find substitutes after the actor’s death, you’re conscious of those moments when Ledger disappears and is replaced by Farrell, Depp or Law. In keeping with the story, the concept works, perhaps to a greater degree had Ledger lived to finish Imaginarium. Every time Tony enters the Imaginarium, a subconscious construct where one can enter their own imagination, Tony appears with a new face. It can be taken as implied reference to Tony’s duplicitous nature, and once things flip you’re able to but aside the practical reasons why you’re seeing another actor rather than Ledger. Unfortunately, I think the threesome of Depp, Law and Farrell come with varying degrees of success. Not helping matters is that whenever Depp plays a British bragger now it’s with the voice of Capt. Jack Sparrow.

Imaginarium is elegantly designed and fairly well made. As a final film, it’s not a brilliant showcase of Ledger’s talents, but then again neither was Transformers the Movie for Orson Welles. Gilliam’s best films occasionally are more about head scratching moments of confusion then they are about telling a straightforward story, in this movie though its more of the latter than the former. The only way to described it is that Gilliam feels restrained in his filmmaking, and if that’s okay with you then perhaps Imaginarium is a decent showcase for the man’s talents. It is a solid film no doubt, but not as bittersweet as I thought. Ledger takes his bow before the final act, but I’d love to know what would have happened had he lived, and how Gilliam’s approach to the story would have been different. But having said that, this Imaginarium offers closure, and that’ll do.

Fantasia-Evangelion 1.0

Rating: **1/2

The anime film Evangelion 1.0 demonstrates that not even Japan’s film industry is immune to remakes of past successes. I’m not sure how this Evangelion stacks up against past offerings, but I know it’s the typical anime mash-up of giant robots, alien invaders and occult lore referencing. Still, it’s exceedingly well made, features some tight action and has a real emotional drive at the centre, and all this ends up in a cliffhanger to be concluded in the three sequels that followed. (Evangelion 1.0 was released in 2007 in Japan.)

At the heart of the story is Shinji Ikari, a boy rescued in the midst of a military fight against a giant alien invader on the city of Tokyo-3. Shinji Ikari thinks that he’s being taken to his father for safety, but at the secret base of NERV he discovers that he’s actually being recruited to pilot a giant robot weapon thingamajig and that his father’s as cold and distant as ever. Shinji Ikari instead ends up forming a bond with Lt. Col. Misato Katsuragi, one of the officers overseeing the military operation against the invading so-called “Angels.” (Don’t ask.) This parental abandonment and exploitation angle really spoke to me and got me invested in the story. I’m by no means your average anime consumer, but this one reached me and got me engaged. So why did they end on a freakin’ cliffhanger?!

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Rating: ****

Every time a Harry Potter movie comes out, I try and not measure it by the book and consider how it stands on its own as a work. Obviously, this is not an easy task, especially when the filmmakers continually feel compelled, out of a sense of fan loyalty, to make these films as true to the books as possibly without making it a staged reading of the novel. Half-Blood Prince gets a leg up on its predecessors because it’s the first Harry Potter movie made knowing the ending and the details on getting their laid out in the seventh and final book, which was released during the film’s pre-production. Much like how TV’s Lost found its way once the producers knew the end point, so it seems it’s true with the Potter series.

The film starts with Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) chilling out at a diner in a subway station (or tube station as they say in Britain), checking out the latest grisly news in the wizarding newspaper, The Daily Prophet. But Harry’s mind isn’t entirely on the dreary news of the day, and he flirts with the attractive waitress while there. Yes, Harry Potter flirts. Awkwardly, mind you, but it’s a flirt nonetheless. The scene sets the tone just right for Half-Blood Prince, which is two parts romantic-comedy and one part seriously dark wizard stuff.

Director David Yates, returning after Order of the Phoenix, demonstrates an enormous comfort with the material, thus allowing him to play with it to a greater degree of latitude than the films and filmmakers that came before. Again, I credit the release of the final book because being less concerned about what plot points are important allows the script to be more selective and instead of wondering what’s important later, everyone involved can focus on the one area the films have been lacking: character. Ron (Rupert Grint) gets more screentime as he becomes a Quiddich all-star and tries to balance a relationship with the overly affectionate Lavender Brown (Jessie Cave) and staying on speaking terms with Hermione (Emma Watson) despite her obvious jealousy.

Indeed, the Potter world seems to crackle with new energy. Alan Rickman returns some level of menace to Professor Snape after being relegated to a kind of comic relief part in the last couple of films. Maggie Smith balances the sentimental side of Professor McGonagall with her sterner tendencies in a couple of nice scenes. Also making the most of her limited screentime is Helena Bonham Carter, who proves that she was made for Bellatrix Lestrange, Voldemort’s right-hand henchwoman, and the one scene where she works off Rickman is just dynamite. The biggest new addition though Jim Broadbent as Horace Slughorn, the new Potions master. Broadbent wonderfully captures the avarice and regret of Slughorn making him both a funny and pitiful character.

But by far this film belongs to the kids. Tom Felton as Harry’s erstwhile school nemesis Draco Malfoy gets a chance to shine as the true foil in the film. Felton lays aside Malfoy’s traditional role as the smug and confident bully, to play up the conflict and turmoil his character endures in The Half-Blood Prince. There are scenes where he’s sitting alone in the dark that are somehow both menacing and miserable. I know in real life that Felton gets kids running away from him, which is tribute to how commanding he was when Malfoy was the Nelson Muntz of Hogwarts, but it’s good to know that when the time came, Felton was able to find the softer side of Malfoy. As for Radcliffe, I think that by the time the final credits roll on The Deathly Hallows he may have found his inner Harry. In Half-Blood Prince he’s pretty close, and the script allows him to be more proactive and more like the Harry we all know from the book.

Obviously, the technical specs on Half-Blood Prince are excellent. I’d love to see it in IMAX to get the full measure, but on the regular big screen the razzmatazz works perfectly fine, thank you. The cinematography is gorgeous, the editing is well-paced and smooth and the effects are incredibly well done. Despite a clunky beginning and end, Half-Blood Prince is the first film to really bring a Harry Potter book to full-blooded life on the big screen. Speaking of the book, a few of the changes bothered me, but not enough to stymie an overall positive movie experience. For future reference, having a continuity of filmmakers helps a lot when making a series, and more than that, knowing where you’re going before you start is the biggest help of all.

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

Rating: ***

At the risk of being unpopular amongst the critical elite, I’m afraid that I’m going to give a positive review to the sequel to Night at the Museum. Is it perfect? No, but it is honestly enjoyable thanks to the actors involved and the bounty of this film’s setting. Looking back on my review of the first film, I was just as easygoing about it then as I am now about its sequel. But it also reminded me that the 2006 original was hardly memorable and I wonder if it’ll be the same for this movie. But in the context of the summer movie season, and a public always on the look out for solid family fun, this night at the museum delivers handily.

Ben Stiller returns as Larry Daley, know the former night guard at Manhattan’s Natural History Museum having achieved much success as an inventor. Returning occasionally to the museum he learns that many of the exhibits, who still come to life when the sun goes down thanks to a magical Egyptian tablet, are being packed up and shipped to Washington for storage. The tablet goes to, and when it arrives at the Smithsonian, one of the exhibits it wakes up is Kahmunrah (Hank Azaria), an Egyptian pharaoh who claims to be the rightful owner of the tablet, and that it does more than bring museum exhibits to life. So while Kahmunrah gathers an all-star Axis of Evil including Ivan the Terrible (Christopher Guest), Napoleon Bonapart (Alain Chabat) and Al Capone (Jon Bernthal), Larry teams up with Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams) to stop them.

Most, if not all, of your old favourites return including Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams), Jedediah (Owen Wilson) and Octavius (Steve Coogan), Attila the Hun (Patrick Gallagher), Ahkmenrah (Rami Malek), Sacajawea (Mizuo Peck), Dexter the Monkey and crusty old Dr. McPhee (Ricky Gervais). Fortunately we’re spared this one too much of Robin Williams’ bluster as Teddy, but in his stead we get General George Armstrong Custer as characterized by Bill Hader, who at times I think was channelling another George, George W. Bush, in a cavalry uniform.

That’s not to say that Battle at the Smithsonian doesn’t have its hiccups. For every great cameo or gag you have to sit through something egregiously unfunny such as the statue of The Thinker with a thick accent reminiscent of a certain Austrian bodybuilder turned actor turner politician. And I seriously hope that whoever’s idea it was to give a chorus of Cherubs the voices of the Jonas Brothers finds themselves out of work, because every time they appeared it was like nails on a chalkboard. But these scenes are usually saved by an uproarious Amy Adams whose Amelia Earhart is like a cold blast of wind on a hot day; she’s magnetic every scene that she’s in.

But the actors aren’t the problem, and really the basic premise isn’t the problem either. Using the Smithsonian collection as a backdrop allowed filmmakers to cast a wide net for material, from the Museum’s portrait gallery to the Air and Space Museum to the expansive collection of pop culture artefacts. Still though, the film plays out rather predictably and the gags skewer between the juvenile and the outright shameless. Subtlety has never been Shawn Levy’s gift as a director, even though he knows how to reach a wide audience. Many of laughs are generated through the comedic timing of the actors, or otherwise happen by accident, like the pitch perfect parody of 300 that only a couple of people in the theatre are going to get at any particular showing.

The film does wear in places though. After awhile Azaria’s lisp goes from bearable to irritable and Stiller only has really the two settings: the slow-witted good guy and the pompous blowhard. The action may not be particularly awe-inspiring, and why it deserves an IMAX berth is a mystery beyond me, but it’s fast and bright and reasonably paced while not doddling too long before getting the action going. Fans of mid-brow family comedy have found a friend, but the pundits and the wags will hate this movie regardless, even if it was scripted by Jonathan Nolan. This is a solid movie, if not an overly artistic or ambitious one.

Inkheart

Rating: ***

When I read other reviews of Inkheart, I wasn’t given much hope; which goes to show you that sometimes the only judgment you have to trust is your own. Is Inkheart perfect? No, absolutely not. It’s got a hook, it has a talented cast of actors, and it has a popular series of novels as its inspiration to draw from. Where things go wrong though is that the director lacks the scope and ambition to bring the film to a truly stirring existence. He’s unable to marry style with substance and because the former is lacking, the latter ends up suffering. Still, I think there’s enough in the finished product to recommend.

Inkheart is the name of the book within a movie based on a book. Mortimer (Brendan Fraser) is a restorer or rare books, and he’s searching for one of the rarest books of all. You see, through an accident several years earlier, Mortimer discovered an ability to bring things to life from books just by reading it aloud. This rare talent makes him a “Silver Tongue” and it cost Mortimer his wife when in exchange for bringing three characters from Inkheart to life, while she took their place in the book. Mortimer and his daughter Meg (Eliza Bennett) have been on the run for years from the dangerous villain Capricorn (Andy Serkis), while look for a way to bring the missing member of their family back.

Truthfully, it’s pretty standard fantasy fair. So it really shouldn’t have come as any surprise that the characters new to this entire books-coming-to-life thing should be so cool with it. But that was a bit odd for me. “Hey, I have the ability to make stuff out of books come to life. Want to see King Arthur’s Excalibur? Shall I conjure the tornado from the Wizard of Oz?” “Yeah. Sure, go for it. Maybe you can conjure up Lady Godiva too.” It’s one of those suspension of disbelief things because it’s okay for us in the audience to buy this stuff easily enough, but the characters’ refusal to see the obvious gives us permission to do so.

Also, I think Inkheart suffers the fate of many fantasy books turned movies by trying to cram too much into the story without giving it proper time to grow and breathe. So many characters and so many predicaments are thrown at us in such a short space and time that you don’t really get any time to get to know any of them. The final battle with Capricorn also feels horribly contrite and barely exciting. It’s probably the most static final battle I’ve ever seen, with the reveal of the dreaded monster called Shadow looking less Balrock and more Barney. However there was something about resolving the situation with writing that appealed to my pen-is-mightier-than-the-sword writer’s sensibility.

And besides, the various characters I found very appealing. Helen Mirren as Great Aunt Elinor is a treat, with her over-protective book nerdiness; she’s kind of the Henry Jones Sr. of Inkheart, if you will. Serkis is delicious as Capricorn, relishing the Lex Luthor style attitude and shorn dome. You can truly tell that Serkis enjoys playing the bad guy and he wears that ice smile like a silk suit. Jim Broadbent has a few good blows as Inkheart – the movie book’s – author, but Fraser looks bored as he finds himself facing off against magic and mayhem again for what feels like the millionth time. The film’s saving grace is probably that he doesn’t have to fight a mummy.

But in the end, I found that the energy and spirit of the film itself overcame the technical and occasional thespian failings that grind it down. It’s got a good message about the power of the written word, which, although understandably marginalized given the medium, is a good thought to leave with the Playstation generation. It’s also a reminder that there’s more to life than Harry Potter or, heaven forbid, Twilight. I wish though that the producers had managed to recruit a Tim Burton or Guillermo del Toro type director that really good have married the content with the presentation. This film had such great possibilities and it seems that only through luck that it avoided being a void.

Bedtime Stories

Rating: **1/2

Although Bedtime Stories is a kids movie, it bears a striking resemblance to the Adam Sandler classic, Billy Madison. Both are about immature goofs that find themselves competing for control of a hotel with a pompous business jerk while pursuing a romantic interest in a lovely elementary school teacher. Perhaps that’s why the material appealed to Sandler, familiar territory and all.

As for the audience, Bedtime Stories will probably appeal to kids because it’s bright and colourful and moderately humorous with neat effects and a crazy bug-eyed hamster. The plot is highly improbable, but any film that can tone down the antics of Russell Brand to a G-rating deserves some kind of credit.

But back to Sandler who plays Skeeter, a hotel handyman that remembers with fondness the days his father (Jonathan Pryce) owned the hotel when it was an exciting place filled with imagination. The hotel’s owner Mr. Nottingham plans to upgrade the facilities, and hand over the reigns of the operation. Skeeter thinks he’s the successor, which would fulfill Nottingham’s long-standing promise to Skeeter’s dad, but instead the smarmy Kendall (Guy Pierce) gets chosen.

But Nottingham suddenly has a change of heart, remembering his promise he declares that between Kendall and Skeeter, whomever can come up with the best theme for the new hotel, will get to run it. Skeeter can’t believe his fortune, but he comes to understand, the developments in his own life are being directed by the details in his bedtime stories contributed by his niece and nephew (Laura Ann Kesling and Jonathan Morgan Heit).

Now Skeeter’s stories are rather typical: cowboys, space men, gladiators and knights, but at least there are no O’Doyle jokes. And on a personal note, I have to say that Skeeter’s fantasies are pretty pedestrian. A cherry red Ferrari and a hundred million dollars? Please, how about the fact that your sister and her kids are moving away because the school they work and learn at, respectively, is closing down?

And I don’t know if this is a further comment on Skeeter’s lack of imagination, but the “Bedtime Story” sequences aren’t very creative. It’s an odd sensation to want to skip over the fantasy sequences in order to get the “real life” part and see how the kids’ additions to the story unfold in Skeeter’s life. It’s at these parts the writers seem to find a rhythm to follow.

At least Sandler’s in his element, even though his characters are constantly learning lessons in maturity he seems always at home reverting back to a carefree slacker no matter how much older he gets, or many times he’s played it. Guy Pierce, reversely, should be out his element in a kids-friendly, Adam Sandler movie but he really seems to get into the oily, sanctimonious stuffed suit well and he gets Xena Lucy Lawless as Harley Quinn to his Joker.

The kids are adorable of course, but mostly it seems like everyone’s just going through the motions. Even the typically vivacious Brand looks medicated. I guess it’s too bad then that Pierce doesn’t get a freak out, break down moment like Bradley Whitford in Billy Madison, or an obligatory Steve Buscemi cameo. That would have really spiced things up.

The kids will love it though, but to me that’s never a ringing endorsement of a true family film. The movie’s not that difficult to figure out; from the irritant attraction of Keri Russell’s teacher to Skeeter to the fact that the climax of the story will come down to the fact that the new hotel will be built on the grounds of the kid’s school. Interesting, but not all together compelling, Bedtime Stories won’t put you to sleep, but it won’t necessarily keep you awake either.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Rating: ****

Would you turn down the opportunity to direct films like Halo, I Am Legend, One Missed Call, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in order to direct the sequel to a moderately successful movie based on a not-so-well-known comic book? Oh, especially as your follow-up to a universally acclaimed, award-winning art house hit? Well then you’re not Guillermo del Toro then. So great was his love for Hellboy and so obvious there is for franchise and merchandise opportunities that nobody was going to let “Big Red” slide into cultural oblivion. Good thing too, because Hellboy II: The Golden Army is a superior sequel to a film that was already pretty good.

You have to admire any movie that can take an 8-foot tall devil, his fish-man sidekick, his girlfriend who can generate fire and his new boss: a protoplasmic cloud contained a rubber suit, and make them the most human people in the room. Ever get drunk with a buddy over women trouble? Ever not got along with your new boss? Ever fight with your girl because you’re a big slob and she doesn’t like living in squalor? Or maybe you’re a little intimidated of the imposing nature of your crush’s career-driven brother?

Well, that last one misses a few key details. The brother in question is Prince Nuada (Luke Goss), he’s an exiled elf that wants to take the world back for the magical people by any mean necessary, and he takes “any means” to be interpreted as awakening the goblin-built, indestructible Golden Army. His sister is Princess Nuala (Anna Watson), who is more moderately minded. She holds the final piece of the crown that will allow the wearer to control the Army.

Of course, standing in the way of all that is Hellboy (Ron Perlman), whose life as the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense’s star agent is being complicated by his desire to stop being a government secret and the snags arising from moving in with his girlfriend Liz (Selma Blair). But when Nuada starts making his move, Hellboy becomes public knowledge and is surprised to find himself treated like a mere X-Man (as in feared and hated). Hellboy and his B.P.R.D. allies are faced with the difficult choice in confronting Nuada: do their loyalties lie with the magical realms or with protecting the humans they’ve sworn to defend?

The thing about this Hellboy is that you notice how much more freedom that del Toro has now, all those studio mandated notes from the first film are pretty much cast away with a wave of the magic wand in the first half hour. Agent Myers: gone. David Hyde Pierce as the voice of Abe Sapien? Nope, Doug Jones gets to play Abe 100 per cent. I also get the feeling that making Hellboy and B.P.R.D. a secret was also a studio note, even though I haven’t read anything to prove that, but considering how quickly Hellboy goes public and the fact that he’s public in the comics, it must have been.

Truly, Hellboy II’s biggest feature is the proverbial feast of the movie’s visuals. The troll market scene is so beyond detailed that any comparisons between it and Star Wars’ Cantina scene is like comparing an anatomical drawing to a stick figure. The director let’s his imagination run wild: from the troll with a cathedral for a head to a giant plant monster that’s birthed from a green bean when it gets wet. This film will be a DVD delight once fans will be able to go over it frame by frame to catch a glimpse of all the various creatures and characters, most of whom are actually created through practical effects.

But as we all know: great visuals only get you so far, it’s story and character that make all the difference and as I’ve said above, the monster characters are the most human. Perlman, Blair and Jones are a tremendous trifecta. The Hellboy-Liz relationship is much more fleshed out and sent in some surprising new directions; it’s sweet, it’s funny and it’s also very romantic. And speaking of romance, even Abe gets a little love in the sequel. Not to mention the fact that his character is elevated into a full-fledged member of the team and on par in terms of importance with Hellboy. Jones is great with little human touches that make you almost forget Abe is made of scales.

The introduction of Johann Kraus is handled very well. The ectoplasmic ghost man is brought in, not as another weirdo for B.P.R.D., but as a highly accomplished agent in his own right who’s job is to rein in Hellboy post-public revelation. Naturally an anti-authoritarian like Hellboy is instantly going to clash with the new boss, and there are a lot of great scenes where the two come to loggerheads. Adding to the humour is Family Guy’s Seth McFarlane (voice of Brian and Stewie) as Kraus, a bubbly German that’s all about going forth and getting the job down with frank, German efficiency. Jeffrey Tambor returns as Director Manning and gets some fun stuff of his own rather than just being the guy that’s always yelling about what a loose cannon Hellboy is.

There’s enough life and excitement to Hellboy II that I think that it will be appealing to people of all stripes. Certainly, it was a full house in the theatre Friday night, which says that there’s enough curiosity about the character to bring in people on a look and see basis. Or at least they should because Hellboy is more lively and inventive than half the summer offerings, and most other comic book movies.

The Golden Compass

Rating: **1/2

There are a few occasions when so much effort is spent on something so undeserving of controversy you shake your head and wonder what’s missing in people’s lives to make themselves so obsessed over nothing at all. Case in point: The Golden Compass, the dirty movie so atheistic it’ll poison the soil of any good Catholic child who has the misfortune of having a parent uncaring enough to take them to it. And we all know that movies are the gateway for the real drug: books, and their even denser anti-religious subtext.

So much ado about nothing really because The Golden Compass barely satisfies on a storytelling, let alone get you anywhere near the point where you want to track down the books in order to open the doors of perception. (Those frisky wilds of atheistic delight.) While thoughts of fantasy trilogy dollars the likes of which have yet been seen since the end of The Lord of the Rings were obviously playing in the heads of studio execs, they forgot some basic rules of the game.

First, it’s about the characters. Story is good, story is fine, but unless you know and love the characters the rest doesn’t matter much. I understand that Compass is not only taken from a book, but part one of three of a series of books, so there’s a lot of story to cram in. But who and what is the engine for all that story? That’s right, the characters and the more characters there are, the less chance there is to get to know even a fraction of them. This is one of the many faults of Compass, but by far the most glaring.

Secondly, you have to be full vested in the world and that means understanding and accepting it. In the Harry Potter films that’s easy, Harry has lived a typical childhood of any kid in the real world before he’s spirited away to the magical world of Hogwarts, and once there the viewer has the narrative luxury of being as much in the dark as Harry as to the meaning of things. Lord of the Rings meanwhile is modern mythmaking with several characters, creatures, settings and archetypes that have been used in literature for centuries. The same goes for Star Wars which was an amalgamation of several genres and stories.

Golden Compass takes place in an entirely unique world. A kind of futuristic Victorian England where people’s souls exist as animal entities called daemons that live outside the body and can communicate with their host. In the North, the lands are ruled by armoured polar bears who can also talk. Gypsie-like Gyptians roam the seas, friendly witches fly across the skies (as do the cowboys), Russianesque mercenaries with wolf daemons keep the peace and they’re all ruled by the dictatorial Magisteria. From their seat of power, the Magisteria seek to rule all the Earths in all the dimensions through means of a substance called Dust, the discussion of which amongst the intellectual class is forbidden and considered blasphemous.

Against this complex backdrop is Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards), a young woman being raised and educated at Jordan College as per the instructions of her uncle Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig). Lyra is granted leave to go on a trip to the north with Mrs Coulter (Nicole Kidman), a powerful member of the Magisteria with her own agenda. The professors give Lyra an Alethiometer, a compass-like device that answers all questions and is highly sought after by just about everyone. When Lyra gets wind of Mrs. Coulter’s true intentions, she runs away and unites with the forces of good to save a group of kidnapped children being experimented on by the Magisteria for some unknown reason.

It’s problematic when your movie needs a book to explain it, especially when it already comes from a book. It’s also problematic when at the end of a film, two characters sit and describe to each other the details of the plot that’s to come rather than, I don’t know, living it. At best, objectives are left unclear. Why is the Magisteria kidnapping children and attempting to rid them of their daemons? What’s the deal with dust and why is the discussion of it outlawed? And what the devil happened to Daniel Craig’s Lord Asriel after the second act?

The performances aren’t that solid either, all I was with left with was a wanting for more, more about the characters, more interactions between the characters. Sam Elliot does his cowboy twang, Eva Green is barely even there as the witch Serafina, Craig comes and goes but doesn’t do much and Kidman plays mean without much else to keep her occupied. As a reminder of older, better franchises both Christopher Lee and Ian McKellen put in a penance with small, supporting parts, but it does nothing more than remind you of the superiority of Rings.

Finally, after nearly two hours of stuff happening, the movie ends on the cusp of another out of the blue mission barely after Lyra receives some rather disturbing and surprising information about her parentage. So with one bomb dropped on us and no real resolution to the storyline I barely understood in the first place, the credits roll. Huh? So confusion comes with the price of admission now. The Lord of the Rings trilogy may have been told in three parts, but each part felt like it had a natural ending that closed the door behind it as the story moved in to the next chapter; something that Compass was lacking.

Lamentably for the good people at New Line Cinema, it looks as if their new fantasy trilogy is going to be more of a onelogy, which despite my opinion here, I think is a shame because the series has some great potential. Squandered though it is, I think that a Dark Materials series would be just different enough from a lot of other fantasy epics to be something unique and original. Perhaps director Chris Weitz’ instinct was correct and the movie was just too big for him. C’est la vie.

August Rush

Rating: ***

Now, for anyone who’s never seen or read Oliver Twist there’s August Rush, where little Oliver is actually a music prodigy named Evan who one day runs away from his orphanage to find his parents in the big city and have all sorts of wacky adventures. He even has a Fagan, a delightfully creepy, manic depressive man with mutton chops and a soul patch who philosophizes about the nature of music and its place in the universe. You can’t see right now, but I’m making a “gag me” face.

Yes, August Rush is unabashedly sentimental. It’s a feel good, chicken soup of a movie that works its magic even if you’re half a Grinch. (Yes, even me.) But it can’t be denied that this is an obvious and gushy film where happily ever afters happen as easily as five car pile-ups on the 401 on a snowy day. Also, I don’t know all there is to know about music, but I’m somewhat unconvinced of its Harry Potter-like magical abilities to help us solve our Earthly struggles.

Just don’t tell Evan (Freddie Highmore) that, he hears music everywhere, even in the electrical wires, which tell him to walk away from the orphanage in the dead of night. He arrives in New York City and runs into Wizard, a former street musician that now runs a whole crew of child labour musicians. Obviously with Evan’s musical ability, Wizard sees a gold mine and rechristens the kid “August Rush”.

Through flashbacks we learn that Evan’s parents were a debutant cello player with Julliard named Lyla (Keri Russell) and a soulful Irish rocker named Louis (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). They were star-crossed lovers torn apart when Lyla’s overprotective father (William Sadler) forbids her from seeing Louis, but not before she gets pregnant. Several years later, during a deathbed confession, dear old dad reveals that he used the injuries Lyla suffered in a car accident to fake a miscarriage and spirit her son into foster care.

Now this is deep stuff assuming that you’ve never seen a Disney movie, or in fact any movie, ever. It’s full of many pleasant little contrivances, like how an 11-year-old boy can wander the streets of Manhattan for hours and nothing bad ever possibly happens to him. Then there’s the way everybody starts looking for each other at the exact same time; dad’s death coincides with Louis desire to find the woman he loved more than all others, which is the exact same time that Evan performs his little Hail Mary to the big city. And then the way that Louis finds Lyla again: a Google search? Jeez buddy, what was holding you back? Carpal Tunnel Syndrome? Arthritis? Bonus Eruptus?

To be fair, I did find the performers engaging. I thought that Russell was really good and low key as the frantic mother and she played really well against Terrance Howard as a sympathetic social worker. Freddie Highmore, although being at times a little creepy, also does a good job of portraying Evans longing and search for not just spiritual fulfilment in finding his parents, but also looking for artistic fulfilment along the way even though he didn’t know that he was supposed to be looking for it. Robin Williams is impressive for his restraint, but there was something about his character that really disturbed by, although apparently benign, his character felt out of place and something more attune with perhaps the New York of Law & Order: SVU.

Some of the praise I’ve heard about August Rush calls it a “modern fairy tale.” I certainly can’t say that I disagree, but maybe that’s part of the problem: is it or isn’t it some kind of modern fairy tale? Because if it is, it’s a little too real for a simple fable and if it is not that it’s far to whimsical to be believed straight up. Maybe I wasn’t in the right head space to watch this movie, I don’t know. What I do know is that the ending, without giving too much away, left a little bit wanting and that’s not a good thing for any movie to leave the most satisfying bits out of frame by the time the credits roll.

Enchanted

Rating: ****

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Enchanted; was it a genuine hug and kiss to Disney’s beloved and historic past or a cynical grab at past glory much like the company’s pillaging of previous successes for a direct-to-DVD buck? Much to my delight, the answer to this query was the former. Ex-animation director Kevin Lima has assembled the first true Disney movie I’ve seen in years, as timeless and potent as anything from 75 years in the studio’s catalogue. If you love old fashioned Disney romantic adventures, be they animated or real life, then you’ll absolutely be enchanted by Enchanted.

In a typical Disney fairytale land, a young maiden named Giselle (Amy Adams) is rescued by the daring-do Prince Edward (James Marsden) and is taken to his castle to marry him. This, simply, will not do for Edward’s step mother, the Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon). Narissa disguises herself as an old hag and pushes Giselle into a mysterious fountain under the pretext of an “accident.” The fountain flow ends up in the real world, our world, New York City to be precise. Giselle, ever the princess, finds herself dependant on the kindness of strangers, in this case a divorce attorney and his daughter (Patrick Dempsey and Rachel Covey). Soon, Prince Edward, his squire (Timothy Spall) and Narissa herself follow Giselle into our world to mix things up.

It’s genius in concept and genius in execution. It’s a story told sincerely without the constant drip, drip, drip of sarcasm like in another popular fairytale parody: the Shrek trilogy. It revels in the conventions of Disney magic and while the real world characters are at first unconvinced, it isn’t long before Giselle has everybody under her spell, and frankly isn’t that where we all want to be? Nobody wants to be the gloomy Gus hissing thinly veiled insults from the sidelines.

There’s also a timelessness to the story, which should make it appealing for years. Though it obviously takes place in the present day, there’s really no reason the film shouldn’t appeal to kids 20 or 30 years from now. Part of this is because of the loving way winks and nods to Disney’s past are worked in the look and production design, Narissa bears a striking resemblance to Sleeping Beauty’s Maleficent, while her hag form is an all too obvious reference to Snow White. Less subtle is a reference to “Belle Notte”, a song from Lady in the Tramp turned name of an Italian restaurant in Enchanted. Watch carefully because there are several sly references like this one waiting between the lines for cinefiles.

The real credit goes to the actors though, they are uniformly excellent. Dempsey kind of gets on my nerves playing Dr. McDreamy on Grey’s Anatomy, but in this film I found him charmingly befuddled. Spall made for a perfect sidekick to Marsden’s uber-heroic Prince, he even reminded me of the guy that carried the glass slipper around at the end of Cinderella, he’s the spitting image.

Of course the real star, and what a star-turn it is, is Amy Adams. If you haven’t fallen in love with Amy Adams before, you’ll find it very hard not to do so here. She’s the heart and soul of the movie, another actress in the role of Giselle and the whole thing would have fallen down like a soufflé. It required the actress to hit all the right, sometimes conflicting notes, and Adams is very impressive in the way she makes Giselle a very real person though cut from the animated cloth.

And finally, we get a return to cell animation on the big screen, short time though it is, it is a welcome sight after nearly four years of the CGI onslaught. It’s proof that the Disney crew’s still got it despite being all but shoved out the door after Home on the Range and it’s a tantalizing hint at things to come as John Lassater continues to move the company back to its heritage. The bright colours, the big eyes on the princess, the music, it all hits the right notes and shows that the Disney formula is as potent now as it ever was.

Do yourself a favour and see Enchanted, in fact see it twice. I can’t think of a family movie released this year that even compares in both artistic and entertainment value. Just when you thought you’ve lost all hope in Disney, they come right back up and surprise you and I’m loving it. Enchanted is a non-stop delight that puts a smile on your face and keep it there.