2/14/15 (Part Two): Blame the Cat

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Adi Shankar, Anna Kendrick, auteur theory, Bosco, childhood trauma, cinema, colorful films, dark comedies, disturbing films, Ella Smith, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, flashbacks, Gemma Arterton, hallucinations, horror, horror film, horror movies, insanity, Jacki Weaver, Marjane Satrapi, Maxime Alexandre, mental breakdown, mental illness, Michael R. Perry, mother-son relationships, Movies, Mr. Whiskers, Oliver Bernet, Paul Chahidi, Persepolis, psychopaths, Ryan Reynolds, Sam Spruell, serial killers, Stanley Townsend, talking animal, talking animals, talking cat, talking dog, The Voices, Udo Kramer, vibrant films

For the most part, live-action “talking animal” movies are awful. Sure, you get the occasional Babe (1995) or Homeward Bound (1993) in the batch but most films in this particular sub-genre are rather abysmal: pitched at the lowest-common denominator, full of bad CGI, “peanut butter mouth” and dumb humor, most live-action talking animal flicks are only good for torturing doting parents unlucky enough to be caught in their orbit. Even the “good” talking animal films tend to be family-focused or comedies: to the best of my knowledge, the only “serious” talking animal film out there is Baxter (1989), Jérôme Boivin’s disturbing fable about a philosophical, if psychotic, dog who kills indiscriminately while we “hear” his thoughts. One is, indeed, the loneliest number.

To this incredibly exclusive group, let’s add the newest film by Marjane Satrapi, the Iranian auteur behind the superb animated film Persepolis (2007): The Voices (2015) is not only the best talking animal film to come out in decades, it’s also one of the most intriguing, disturbing and colorful films I’ve ever seen. In many ways, The Voices is what you would get if you threw Repulsion (1965) and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) into a blender and had Wes Anderson serve up the smoothies. If that sounds like your drink, belly up to the bar for one wild and wooly good time.

Meet Jerry (Ryan Reynolds), our cheerful, sweet and slightly naive protagonist. Jerry works at a bathroom fixtures wholesaler, never has an unkind word for anyone and lives above an abandoned bowling alley with his faithful dog, Bosco, and his aloof cat, Mr. Whiskers. Jerry’s a happy, friendly kind of guy but he’s also go a few problems. He’s lonely, for one, since he’s so painfully shy that he can never get the nerve up to talk to any girls, including Fiona (Gemma Arterton), his office crush. He’s also regularly seeing a court-appointed psychiatrist, Dr. Warren (Jacki Weaver), for some sort of unspecified childhood trauma. And then, of course, there’s the little issue about Bosco and Mr. Whiskers: while many folks talk to their pets, Jerry’s got to be one of the only ones who actually holds back-and-forth conversations with them. That’s right, folks: Jerry’s got himself a couple of talking animals.

Jerry’s talking animals are a little different from most, however. For one thing, they’re not quite benevolent: while Bosco seems like a nice enough, if slightly dopey, kinda guy, Mr. Whiskers is a real sociopath. Snarky, foul-mouthed and a firm advocate of violence as conflict resolution, Mr. Whiskers is like a feline version of Trainspotting’s (1996) psychotic Begbie. The other way in which Jerry’s animals are different from the ones in most talking animal films is…well, it’s because they aren’t actually talking. You see, sweet little Jerry is also completely, totally insane, a character trait that he does a remarkably good job of hiding from the outside world. Driven over the deep-end by a patently terrible childhood involving his equally demented mother and abusive father, Jerry has a tenuous relationship with reality, at best.

Disaster strikes when Jerry finally gets up the nerve to ask out Fiona, only for her to stand him up on their resulting date. The pair end up running into each other after Fiona’s car breaks down and Jerry offers her a lift: a bizarre accident on an isolated, country road leads to Fiona’s shocking death and sends a panicked Jerry straight back to the wise counsel of his pets. Bosco tells Jerry that he needs to do the right thing and report the incident to the police. Mr. Whiskers, however, has a slightly different take on the situation: if Jerry comes clean, his future is going to include an awful lot of non-consensual prison sex…his only recourse, according to the cat, is to dispose of the body.

As Jerry tries to figure out what to do, even more disaster looms over the horizon: Lisa (Anna Kendrick), another of Jerry’s co-workers, is smitten with him and coming dangerously close to figuring out his secret. Will Jerry be able to suppress his darker instincts, take his meds and rejoin the land of the lucid or has Fiona’s death opened up a Pandora’s Box that will go on to consume everyone around them? Regardless of the outcome, you know one thing: Bosco and Mr. Whiskers are always ready with an encouraging word.

When press first came out regarding Satrapi’s film, I was struck by her desire to throw herself headfirst into a horror film: after all, her previous films, Persepolis, Chicken With Plums (2011) and The Gang of the Jotas (2012) were the furthest things possible from genre films. In certain ways, it seemed like Satrapi was interested in making a horror movie strictly for the novelty factor, which is always a dangerous route to take (I’m looking at you, Kevin Smith). When someone “dabbles” in something, there’s always a chance that the results are going to be half-assed or, at the very best, significantly flawed. After watching the results, however, I really only have one thing to say: All hail Marjane Satrapi, one of the boldest, freshest and most ingenious “new” faces in the world of horror.

In every way, The Voices is a revelation. The film looks astounding, for one thing, with a visual flair that’s the equal of Wes Anderson’s most candy-coated moments. Indeed, the film looks so eye-popping, colorful and gorgeous that it’s tempting to just stare at the images as if one were watching a particularly lovely slideshow. All of the colors in the film are unbelievably vibrant and genuinely beautiful: one of the neatest motifs in the film is the repeated use of pink and pastel colors, something which gives the whole demented masterpiece something of the feel of a Herschell Gordon Lewis-directed Easter special. Veteran cinematographer Maxime Alexandre (Alexandre Aja’s resident camera guy, as well as the man behind the lens of Franck Khalfoun’s equally colorful Maniac (2012) remake) paints such a lovely picture with his images that it’s easy to forget we’re watching a film about an insane killer. One of Satrapi’s greatest coups is that she has such respect for the material and the film: the quality, literally, shines through the whole production.

The script, by longtime TV scribe Michael R. Perry, is rock-solid, full of smart twists and turns, as well as some truly great dialogue. One of the greatest joys in The Voices is listening to the way that Bosco and Mr. Whiskers (both voiced by Reynolds) feint, maneuver and verbally spar with each other throughout the course of the film. They, obviously, represent the proverbial angel and devil on his shoulders but nothing about the film is ever that obvious. Just when it seems as if things are starting to fall into predictable patterns, the film throws us another curve-ball, such as the instantly classic bit where Jerry starts to take his meds and we finally see the true “reality” of his living situation. In a genre that can often have one or the other but doesn’t always have both, The Voices is that rarest of things: a smart, witty, hard-core horror film that also looks and sounds amazing.

And make no bones about it: The Voices rolls its sleeves up and gets dirty with the best of ’em. For a filmmaker with no previous experience in horror, Satrapi displays an uncannily deft touch with the gore elements: while the film never wallows in its bloodshed (certain key scenes are staged in ways that deliberately minimize what we see), it can also be brutal and shocking. More importantly, the film can also be genuinely frightening: when things really go off the rails, in the final act, the tone shifts from playful to outright horrifying in the blink of an eye. If this is Satrapi’s first shot at a horror film, I’ll spend an eternity of birthday wishes on a follow-up: she’s an absolute natural and, in a genre with a depressingly small pool of female voices, an absolute necessity.

One of the things that really puts The Voices over the top (and another testament to Satrapi’s skill behind the camera) is the stellar quality of the acting. The film has a killer cast, no two ways about it: Ryan Reynolds, Anna Kendrick, Gemma Arterton, Jacki Weaver, Ella Smith…any and all of these folks have turned in more than their fair share of great performances. A great cast doesn’t always indicate a great film, however: plenty of notable names have been attached to absolute dogs. In this case, however, each member of the ensemble compliments each other perfectly, allowing for a completely immersive experience.

Say what you will about Ryan Reynolds but his performance in Buried (2010) was absolutely masterful: his work in The Voices is even better. Reynolds is an actor who lives or dies by the dichotomy between his boyish good looks and slightly unhinged demeanor, ala Bradley Cooper, and his performance as Jerry takes it all to another level. Alternately sympathetic, likable, pathetic and terrifying, this is the kind of performance that should get people talking: at the very least, I find it impossible to believe that he won’t end up on at least a few “year-end” lists. It’s always a dicey proposition when an actor needs to portray someone who’s mentally unstable: Elijah Wood found the perfect balance in Maniac and Reynolds does the same here.

The rest of the cast is equally great: Anna Kendrick brings enough of an edge to her typically bubbly persona to keep us wondering about her actual mental state, while Jacki Weaver, who was so good as Aunt Gwen in Stoker (2013), makes her psychiatrist the perfect combination of quirky and caring. Arterton, meanwhile, manages to make the potentially clichéd, unlikable character of Fiona duly sympathetic: she’s not a “mean girl” looking down her nose at a social misfit…she a real person who doesn’t appreciate unwanted advances. As with everything else in the film, it’s the kind of characterization we don’t get enough of in horror films.

Ultimately, my praise of Marjane Satrapi’s The Voices can be summed up thusly: it’s a ridiculously self-assured, stylish and unique film that manages to constantly surprise, while finding myriad ways to upend the “psycho killer” sub-genre. While I thought Persepolis was an amazing film, The Voices practically comes with my name on it: it’s like handing a carnivore a slab of prime Kobe beef. Visually stunning, smart, packed with great performances and featuring two of the best animal performances in years (Bosco and Mr. Whiskers deserve their own franchises), The Voices is a truly singular experience.

As a lifelong horror fan who watches more than his fair share of horror films, let me close with my highest possible recommendation: The Voices is an absolute must-see and Marjane Satrapi is one of the most exciting, fascinating new voices in the field. I absolutely loved this film and I’m willing to wager that you will, too. I’m also willing to wager that if you have pets, you might never look at them the same way again.

7/19/14 (Part One): Memory is a Burden

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auteur theory, based on a play, Best of 2013, Byzantium, Caleb Landry Jones, cinema, Daniel Mays, drama, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, flashbacks, Gemma Arterton, horror films, Interview With the Vampire, isolated communities, Javier Navarrete, Jonny Lee Miller, Let the Right One In, misogyny, Moira Buffini, mother-daughter relationships, Movies, Neil Jordan, patriarchy, rape, romances, Sam Riley, Saoirse Ronan, seaside resorts, the Brotherhood, The Crying Game, vampire code, vampires, vampires vs humans

If you think about it, actually being a vampire would be kind of a drag. You get to live forever but all of your friends and loved ones will be long dead, at some point, leaving you all alone (unless they’re also vampires, in which case, party on, Wayne!). You get to stay the same age forever, which would probably be okay if you were between 20-50 but would, presumably, suck if you were either a pre-teen or in your nineties. You’re pretty much constantly on the run, since normal folks probably don’t dig getting their blood drained as much as vamps dig draining it. There are also all of those codes of conduct to get through: like any secret society, there are leaders and followers…imagine keeping a middle-management job for thousands of years and then come complain about your 9-5 job. You’re also going to wind up old-fashioned and out-of-date, at some point: if you were cutting-edge in the 1700s, you’re gonna be a little passe in the 2010s. And, of course, there’s the whole “daylight turns you into ashes” thing: forget about those sunny afternoon picnics!

While these issues with vampirism have, presumably, existed since the very advent of the idea, too few films actually deal with this on any significant level: for the most part, vampires are either seen as blood-thirsty monsters or as tragic, romantic, Byronic figures. Leave it to acclaimed writer/director Neil Jordan, then, to help rectify the situation a little. Fans of vampire cinema will probably recall that Jordan was responsible for one of the more elegant, esteemed vampire films of the ’90s, Interview With the Vampire (1994), which briefly touched on the huge gap between those who embrace vampirism and those who are afflicted with it. After almost 20 years away from the fanged ones, Jordan has returned with another vampire adaptation, Byzantium (2012), based on Moira Buffini’s stage play “A Vampire Story.” While Interview was a lush, big-budget and star-packed “event picture,” Byzantium ends up being a much more elegiac, low-key and subtle, if no less beautiful, film. It’s a world of difference from Interview but, ultimately, I another masterpiece for the Irish auteur.

Byzantium deals with the life and times of young Eleanor (Saoirse Ronan) and her mother, Clara (Gemma Arterton), who seems to be no more than a decade older than her daughter. As it turns out, both young women are actually centuries-old vampires, on the run from the patriarchal vampire Brotherhood and keeping as low a profile as they can in the modern era. This, of course, means a life spent as refugees, never getting too comfortable in any one spot, lest they blow their cover or run afoul of the omnipresent Brotherhood. Clara exists in the same manner that she did before being “turned,” which means she sells her body and exists on the blood from her unsuspecting “clients.” Eleanor, on the other hand, tries to exist in much the same way as any teenager might: she takes classes, strikes up friendships with young men and tries to stay on the good side of her temperamental mother.

Fortune seems to smile on the pair when they end up back at the small, sea-side village where Eleanor spent her pre-vampire days in an orphanage. While at her “day job,” Clara makes quite an impression on a lonely sad-sack of a guy, Noel (Daniel Mays), who invites Clara and Eleanor to come stay with him at the sprawling, dilapidated resort hotel known as Byzantium. Eleanor, for her part, strikes up a friendship with a pale, wan young wine-bar waiter named Frank (Caleb Landry Jones). As mother and daughter each pursue their relationships, for very different reasons, it seems as if the nomadic pair will finally be able to find some semblance of normalcy in their ageless lives. This, of course, is not to be: when Clara’s violent past comes crashing into their present, she must do everything she can to protect her and her daughter from the predatory, misogynistic Brotherhood. Will mother and daughter find “true love” or is the real onus of vampirism the eternal loneliness and isolation that these creatures must endure?

In many ways, Byzantium is a spiritual cousin to Tomas Alfredson’s exquisite Let the Right One In (2008), a compelling, beautiful and almost crushingly sad rumination on love, duty and the burdens of eternal life. The film looks and sounds absolutely gorgeous: the cinematography, courtesy of esteemed veteran Sean Bobbitt (Hunger (2008), Shame (2011), 12 Years a Slave (2013)), is consistently elegant, vibrant and immaculately composed, while the score, by frequent del Toro composer Javier Navarrete, is instrumental in establishing the mournful, elegiac tone.

Without some serious substance to back it up, however, Byzantium would still only be a beautiful, if empty, confection. Lucky for us, then, that the film ends up being another of Jordan’s jam-packed mini-epics. Truth be told, there’s so much going on in the film that it actually felt way too short at two hours: there are numerous elements, such as the extraordinarily detailed vampire backstory, that get something of short shrift in the film but that’s quite a nice problem to have…after all, how often do you walk out of a film wishing there were more rather than less? Byzantium features some very interesting notions on vampirism, not the least of which is the rather amazing manner in which vampires are “created.” While I’m loathe to spoil any viewer’s first introduction to the “turning,” suffice to say that it involves a supremely creepy shrine on a tiny, isolated island, blood-red waterfalls, bats and doppelgängers: it has to be one of the most unusual vampire origin stories I’ve ever seen and is so visually stunning that I found myself replaying the scenes multiple times. I don’t often have the tendency to “geek out” while watching films but Byzantium makes it patently impossible to not become fully invested in every aspect of the production, be it visually, thematically, or acting-wise.

Thematically, Byzantium deals with some pretty heavy subjects: the power struggle between men and women in a patriarchal society; the burden of revenge vs the higher calling of forgiveness; mother/daughter relationships; euthanasia of the elderly; the notion of women as “creators” vs men as “destroyers;” the impossible myth of true love; the way in which the time constantly informs the present; the intriguing idea of vampirism as cure for earthly illnessess…that’s quite a lot to digest in a mere two hours, especially when Jordan takes the time to develop each angle in as much detail as possible. In particular, I found myself utterly captivated by the power struggle between Clara, Darvell (Sam Riley) and Captain Ruthven (Jonny Lee Miller). Ironically enough, Clara main sin, as far as the Brotherhood is concerned, is the fact that she turned Eleanor into a vampire: women are not allowed to “create,” in the Brotherhood…only males are allowed this particular “honor.” Contrast this with the biological reality of women as the true “creators of life” and you get just a small taste of what the film is cooking up.

None of this would have the same impact, of course, if we didn’t become so invested in the characters. Luckily for Byzantium, the film is graced with a pretty exceptional cast. Ronan and Arterton are exquisite as the mother/daughter pair: Ronan’s ethereal beauty is so otherworldly that it’s pretty easy to buy her as an ageless, tormented creature, while Arterton makes Clara a completely three-dimensional character. Clara is not always the traditional “hero”: truth be told, she can frequently be an impossibly selfish, brutal, emotionless monster but she never stops being Eleanor’s mother, which gives the proceedings a rare poignancy. Jonny Lee Miller portrays the unbelievably slimy Capt. Ruthven as a bigger monster than any bloodsucker and Riley brings a quiet sense of elegance to the role of Darvell that’s as close to Byronic as the film really gets. These are not romantic characters, certainly nowhere close to the vampires in Interview, and the top-notch acting helps to sell this unconditionally.

Truth be told, Byzantium is an amazing film, the kind of beautifully made, deep experience that marks the very best cinematic experiences. There are very few filmmakers that combine languid beauty and gut-churning violence in the same way that Jordan does and Byzantium must certainly stand as a high-water mark in either instance: when the film is beautiful, it’s absolutely stunning (there are probably 300 or more “frameable”shots in the film) and when it’s brutal (beheadings are a pretty common occurrence), it absolutely kicks like a mule. Jordan knows that life is equal parts beauty and filth, however: this wouldn’t be nearly as honest without both.

As far as I’m concerned, Neil Jordan already had the kind of back-catalog that most filmmakers would give their right arm for: from The Company of Wolves (1984), Mona Lisa (1986), The Crying Game (1992), Interview with the Vampire (1996) and The Butcher Boy (1997) to Byzantium, Jordan has made a career out of elegant, difficult films. When his films have managed to break through and wedge themselves into the popular zeitgeist, as The Crying Game and Interview did, Jordan has proven that he can be just as indelible a force as Coppola, Scorsese or Spielberg. With Byzantium, Jordan may just have crafted his most exquisite film yet, which is no faint praise for such an artisan. It may have taken him a while to return to horror filmmaking but let’s hope that we don’t have to wait 20 years for the next one. Byzantium is the real deal and any fan or student of cinema, regardless of their interest in vampires, would do well to see this as soon as possible.

1/6/14: Fighting Studios, Witches and Medieval Diabetes

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action films, anachronistic, Dead Snow, Drew Struzan, Drew: The Man Behind the Poster, Edward the Troll, fairy tales, fantasy, films, Gemma Arterton, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, horror, Jeremy Renner, medieval diabetes, Middle Ages, poster art, Tommy Wirkola

Tonight’s double-feature consisted of a documentary and a goofy fantasy action-film. I like to mix it up a little and, for some reason, I felt these two would compliment each other fairly well. The evening began with:

Talk about a massive case of “Oh, yeah…that guy!” I went in to this doc about poster artist Drew Struzan with only the barest knowledge of the man’s work: I knew that he was a ridiculously famous poster artist, mostly because I like to collect Mondo posters and Struzan has done a few here and there. I also knew that he was responsible for some truly iconic movie posters…I just didn’t know that he was pretty much responsible for ALL of the most iconic movie posters. I also didn’t realize that he designed some of my all-time favorite album covers: talk about a serious overachiever!

What, exactly, do all of these films have in common: John Carpenter’s The Thing; the Back to the Future trilogy; the Indiana Jones quadrilogy; most of Spielberg’s best (including The Goonies and ET); the classic Muppet movies; all of the Star Wars films; Big Trouble in Little China? They all feature truly iconic posters and all were done by Struzan.

How about Black Sabbath’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Alice Cooper’s Welcome to my Nightmare and Greatest Hits (the awesome gas station gangsters cover)? Yep, those belonged to good ol’ Drew, as well. In fact, one of my favorite parts of the documentary was where he described the process behind Sabbath Bloody Sabbath: not only is Struzan the man in bed on the front and back covers but the idea of putting a “heaven” scene on the back (to compliment the hell scene on the front) was his, too. I really cannot stress enough how much I love both that album and cover, so this little insight was pretty nifty for me.

Since film posters are a lost art these days, it’s definitely bittersweet to take a look back to an era when everyone actually seemed to give a shit. We’ll never see this variety of hand-painted, non-Photoshopped posters in the future and the film world is definitely poorer for that. Drew’s posters all had such a vitality and individuality, traits that simply can’t be replicated in these days of “line-up/floating heads/person standing in the center/facing backwards” cookie-cutter promotional tools. I hesitate to even call these things posters because, in reality, they’re actually just computer files.

More than anything, however, Drew: The Man Behind the Poster is a love story. It’s a truly touching story about how Struzan, a loner and rebel whose family didn’t like him and who left home as soon as he could, met and fell in love with another loner, Dylan. The two have been together since their teens, have a grown son and grandson now and are pretty much the most perfect couple I’ve ever seen. In fact, one of the biggest takeaways from this documentary is just how loved and respected Drew is. From George Lucas to Guillermo del Toro and back to Michael J. Fox, all of those interviewed go out of their ways to describe how sweet, good-natured and obscenely talented Struzan is. One of the most heartbreaking parts of the film was when Drew described being taken to the cleaners by a former partner he trusted: the guys seems so nice that I knew people would be taking advantage of him.

In the end, if you have any interest in movie and album artwork, this is a must-see. The documentary comes loaded with more amazing artwork than you can shake a stick at and also gives viewers a rare look into Struzan’s home studio, including several of his non-film/music related “personal” artwork. After seeing the doc, I would love to get a chance to meet the master in person and just say, “Thank you.”

First of all, let’s clear one thing up right off the bat: Hansel and Gretel – Witch Hunters is not the stupidest film you’ve ever seen. Not even close. Without even knowing you personally, I can guarantee this (unless, of course, your entire life has been spent watching nothing but Bergman and Godard films. If so, Hansel and Gretel will be, without a doubt, the stupidest film you’ve ever seen.).

Why do I feel the need to defend this before I’ve even described it? Well, probably because the film has received the kind of critical drubbing that usually accompanies bottomless pits of waste like Van Helsing, Howard the Duck and Hudson Hawk. I tend to detest big, loud, dumb movies, especially ones that have delusions of intelligence. I went into Hansel and Gretel expecting something unrepentantly dumb, empty and soulless: perfect multiplex fare. What I actually got was something ludicrously entertaining and much smarter than 80% of similar films at the box office.

Helping matters along immensely is writer/director Tommy Wirkola. Had I paid more attention and realized that he created this, I would have definitely gone to see it in the theater. Why? Oh, just because of a little Norwegian wonder called Dead Snow, that’s all. Dead Snow is the best Nazi zombie film ever (of the five or six in existence, at least) and became one of my favorite modern horror films after my first viewing. Wirkola walks a tight wire between comedy and gushing blood, making Dead Snow one of the most fun experiences I’ve had watching a film: it’s simply impossible for me not to stand and cheer at various points.

Wirkola applies this same sense of humor to Hansel and Gretel and it works wonders. There are so many clever things happening on the periphery of the story, so many neat little details, that the film almost becomes a Bosch painting: part of the sheer joy is in hunting for little details you might have missed. Despite the medieval setting, we get: pictures of missing children on milk bottles; an insulin-injection system to help Hansel control the diabetes (“sugar sickness”) that he got from his first encounter with a witch’s gingerbread house; a taser that also doubles as a defibrillator; enough guns to make the Expendables look like Bronies and more uses of the word “fuck” than two back-to-back viewings of Joe Pesci’s drive-thru scene in Lethal Weapon 2.

Of course all of this stuff is anachronistic. Anyone with half of a brain should know this: machine guns and tasers weren’t invented until 1502, a full two years after the Middle Ages had technically ended. I find it endlessly amusing, however, to read reviews that pick up on that one angle as being synonymous with the filmmakers’ general lack of interest in their project. I could understand this criticism being leveled at a CGI-advertisement like Van Helsing but there’s a real, live heart beating beneath H & G’s cartoonish exterior. I never got the thought that the modern elements were thrown in willy-nilly, more that they all added up to the particular world that Wirkola wanted to set his film in. Bully for him. I’m not required to like or agree with any director’s slant on a story. I’m much more likely to get invested in their vision, however, if it’s a completely realized one, versus a marketing strategy. Van Helsing and Branded are great examples of films that establish worlds I simply can’t buy: they’re video game backgrounds, not real places. Blade Runner and H & G, by contrast, both have fully realized worlds. I would never compare the two, aside from that one undeniable fact: both films pull me into their worlds and keep me there, despite any of the odd or fantastical stuff that may be happening.

The film is anchored by three very good performances: Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton are perfect as Hansel and Gretel, playing the parts as the action stars that Wirkola requires. Almost as good, however, is Edward the Troll. A canny mixture of practical and CG effects work (I’m positive that Edward isn’t all CG but someone prove me wrong, if so), Edward brings more pathos and emotion to one raised eyebrow than most actors do with a speech. He’s a great character and makes me wish that Wirkola had applied the same attention to the witches in the film.

Are there problems with the film? Yeah, a few big ones. Primarily, the movie could really use some good villains. The inspired credits sequence set up anticipation for lots of cool fights with various kinds of witches but, in the end, we get the same-old-same-old: a few people in clichéd “scary-face” makeup overacting. The main witch, as portrayed by Famke Janssen, is one of the most generic baddies I’ve ever seen. The effects scenes where she turns from “Famke-face” into “scary-face” were tired five years ago and I just couldn’t help but feel that I’d rather have anyone else playing that role, including a CG creation. Oh, well.

Ultimately, Hansel and Gretel is what it is: a high energy, tongue-in-cheek re-imagining of a very old story. The action scenes are well-staged and thrilling; the effects are good and the acting is above-average. A few generic fantasy/horror beats don’t distract from the fact that H & G is, head and shoulders, above “similar” effects films like Van Helsing, et al. This provided a great stop-gap while I wait for Wirkola’s upcoming Dead Snow 2 to blow my head around backwards.