Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

 

This is the first time, I think, that I’ve ever blogged a novel after seeing and indeed blogging the film adaptation, something I vaguely try to avoid. But I enjoyed this.

I’ve not read any twenty-first century science fiction novels, really, having focused more on the classics, so I’ve no idea whether cyberpunk is still a thing in our online age. This could certainly be a cyberpunk novel, but one written in an an age of MMORGs, augmented reality and a general blurring of real life and online life, which is a theme here. The Oasis is a refuge from an environmentally devastated corporate dystopia, but said dystopia is making incursions into said refuge.

What makes the novel such fun, though, is the quest for the egg and its twists and turns… alongside the pop culture references which appeal to this fortysomething geek.

This is a lightweight read, nothing particularly clever or groundbreaking. But it’s fun, and just being fun is no crime.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011)

 "What if you have to pee when you're on fire?"

Yes, I know: this film is notoriously not very good. And on the strength of tonight's viewing I'm not going to quibble with the consensus. Yet I've seen worse films- annoying directoral style aside, this is a pedestrian but mildly entertaining watch, if disappointing. But it could have been more.

I don't mean to suggest, of course, that this film is big or clever, or should aspire to be anything more than a good B movie. But there's nothing wrong with a good B movie. And I think we have here a decent if corny action plot, with  decent if corny characters, by decent if corny actors, with Nicolas Cage fitting the description exactly, Idris Elba stealing the show as a kind of religious French James Bond, and Ciaran Hinds chewing the scenery in the best possible way. There's lots of Da Vinci Code-style religious conspiracy hijinks, there's Blackout, there's Danny Ketch from the comic as the boy the Devil/Mephisto is after- interesting. Allthis is promising. The script could perhaps do with a polish, but I think the same script directed better would have garnered a much more favourable reaction.

Because the direction is bloody awful- music video lighting and music video camerawork throughout. Cool camera tricks have their place, but there's too much of it here and, fatally, although the camera trick culd have been gloriously silly, they give the impression of trying to be cool. The same goes with the dizzying camera movements throughoit. There's lots of action but very little mood or atmosphere. And the direction is utterly humourous, which works very much against the grain of a silly B movie script.

It's a shame. This is a bad film, but could easily have been a rather fun one.

A Dangerous Method (2011)

“Angels always speak German...”

I've been watching a lot of David Cronenberg films lately, something which stems from both an increasing admiration of the diversity and extraordinary quality of his work and their ease of availability, particularly as several of them have been available on Amazon Prime of late. Sadly, I've seen rather more of the later films which tend to be subtitled than the older, more stereotypically Cronenberg "body horror" films which Amazon Prime seems unable to subtitle although its rival Netflix seems to have no trouble subtitling everything. Still, this superb film can't be blamed for that, and is another example of Cronenberg's late career peak.I hope, with increasing desperation, that he hasn't retired.

Superficiall this is a typical late Cronenberg film in that the camerawork and mood feel like Cronenberg and, of course, Viggo Mortensen plays a prominent role. Yet this is anything but a typical sort of film for Cronenberg to helm, being an adaptation of a period stage play that eschews the visual in favour of psychology. In every sense.

This is a fascinating portrait of three figures in intellectual figures- the well-known figures of Sigmund Freud and Paul Jung and the less famous yet pivotal figure of Sabina Spielrein.The film deals with several themes which echo those of psychoanalysis- father figures, sexual repression and guilt, and a very Belle Epoch approach to kink and kink-shaming, but also such things as social class and the tension between a comfortable yet repressed bourgeois life and a Bohemian life of freedom without security. It's a fascinating film of ideas, in that sense reminiscent of Cronenberg's Cosmopolis, but also a film full of repressed passion.

The whole thing is anchored by the three central performances of Mortensen, Michael Fassbender and expecially Keira Knightley, whose performance is simly extraordinary. A splendid film.

Green Lantern (2011)

"You haven't just been replaced by an alien or something?"

It's so frustrating. This film has stuff going for it. It could easily have not been rubbish with a few tweaks. But sadly that was not to be, and rubbish it is.

There’s so much potential here. Ryan Reynolds is genuinely great as Hal Jordan. The Guardians and hordes of alien Green Lanterns look awesome, particularly Mark Strong as Sinestro and a great cameo from Michael Clarke Duncan as Kilowog. All of that side of things is great; the whole thing looks fantastic, the fans get what they want. But no amount of polishing can disguise the fact that the script is a turd.

It tries to be epic, it really does. But it starts with a load of CGI aliens we don’t care about, for ages, and then moves to an extended F-35 dogfight. All visual spectacle, no heart, no real humour, no character, until the film is quite a long way in. And, while Ryan Reynolds is great at giving us a well-rounded Hal whom we can like, the film never really recovers from that. We aren’t given time to know and care about any of the characters until the plot starts in earnest. And there’s an awkward moment where Hal “wins” his dogfight by going to high altitude and the same stunt saves him at the end, which looks awkwardly derivative of Iron Man. And then there’s the onviousness of the plot- you know, man-child with aimless life and problems with responsibility is given great power and responsibility that he supposedly deserves; seems undeserving and gives up; is persuaded by a beautiful woman to try again and saves the world. This sort of formula isn’t unusual in Hollywood, but it’s seldom so blatant.

And it’s a real shame; the film is well shot and well made. But, well, it’s the script, stupid.

X-Men: First Class (2011)

"I've been at the mercy of men just following orders all my life. Never again!"

Wow. Best X-Men film ever, or at least so far. Thank you, Matthew Vaughn.

Of course, this is the Fox continuity, in spite of only a cameo appearance by Wolverine linking it to its predecessors, and rather divergent from the comics; Banshee seems like he's going to die, for example, and doesn't. And there's the silly fact that Chares Xavier has a British accent and has done since childhood, in spite of having grown up in that mansion in Westchester County. And why is Moira MacTaggart now an American CIA agent, having previously been shown as English and never Scottish?

But we'll ignore all that because this is a brilliant and exciting tale of a deep friendship unable to withstand ideological differences; you really believe in the friendship between Charles and Erik. James McAvoy is good, but Michael Fassbender is exceptional.

It's interesting that Mystique is Charles' step-sister, and to see her gradually being drawn towards Magneto. Her connection to Hank McCoy is well-handled, too, as is the question of whether mutants ho look unusual should visually conform or not. The Beast's fate is cruel but poetically appropriate, especially given the allusions to Jekyll and Hyde.

The Hellfire Club gives us two impressive villains in January Jones as Emma Frost and the ubiquitous Kevin Bacon as the mercurial Sebastian Shaw- perhaps he's Joseph Dashwood in this continuity? But there are striking similarities between Shaw and what Magneto becomes although, of course, he killed Magneto's mother and must die.

The plot is superb- using the Cuban Missile Crisis is inspired- but ultimately the film works because of its successful focus on Erik and Charles as characters. Superb,

Thor (2011)

"We don't have horses. Just dogs, cats, birds."

"Then give me one of those large enough to ride!"

So far I haven't seen a bad Marvel Cinematic Universe film and this, while not one of the very best, is no exception. It may be an odd film for Kenneth Branagh to direct but he does a fantastic job, giving us Asgard in all it's spectacular glory exactly as we dreamed of. Chris Hemsworth is a splendid Thor, Anthony Hopkins a brilliant Odin, and Idris Elba an implacably magnificent Heimdall. All this and we get Sif and the Warriors Three. Most of all, we get the extraordinary Tom Hiddleston as the villainous Loki. Natalie Portman also impresses as poor Jane Foster, with her doomed love for a god.

The film strikes exactly the right balance between the fantastical and the ordinary, giving us plenty of spectacle but grounding it in just enough reality to avoid alienation. It also subtly continues the ongoing plot thread with Clark Gregg's Phil Coulson and a post-credits sequence setting up what is to come. There's an obvious basic plot, yes, as the arrogant god learns humility and becomes better, but this is a hugely entertaining couple of hours. But then, Marvel films always are.

Only one thing, though... why didn't they incorporate the theme tune for the 1966 cartoon with the closing titles?

The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence (2011)

"Is this the perverted film you've been talking about?"

Oh, you just knew I had to blog the sequel.

This is much more splendidly disgusting than it's predecessor, which inevitably failed to live up to its stomach-turning reputation while being a perfectly decent standard issue horror. This is much more genuinely horrific, and not just in terms if the obvious body horror.

We now find ourselves, in a nicely metatextual move, in a world in which the previous film was just that- a film. The scene shifts to England, a bleak and monochrome England of run-down multi-storey car parks and barely inhabitable flats, areas redolent with poverty and the scent of violence and sexual abuse. Within this dark world we meet the weird, tragic Martin, a tragic and virginal loner who lives with his mum, endures a dead end job and is at the bottom of society. He is obsessed with The Human Centipede. He's also at the bottom of society and a very damaged and creepy young man, who punishes his own sexual urges by sand papering his own genitals; repression and arousal in a single act.

It's made clear, though, that it's not the film that made him this way; unsurprisingly, this horror film is not pushing a tabloidy, reactionary message about violent films be getting violence. It is Martin's environment that has made him what he is, and that environment is very dark indeed. 

Martin's mum is a horrible bully who bleakly and pointedly makes sure her son knows how she longs for death, and his dream hints clearly at his abusive childhood. Both he and his mum live in fear of their thuggish neighbour. His pet centipede seems to symbolise his late abusive father. This is a dark, dark world before we mention any of the human centipede stuff, a world in which the camera never looks at things straight on, as though to emphasise how alien this life is to the presumed middle class audience of this film, which is shot just like the art house flick that it isn't.

Martin uses his job as the car park security guard to murder and kidnap, and has gone to great lengths to lure Ashlynne, actress from the earlier film. It is clear from his drawings that he plans a much bigger centipede. Soon, indeed, he has eight people including a pregnant woman, soon joined by Ashlynne.

The human centipede is just the body horror, though; the most horrific thing about the film is the dynamic between mother and son. It is when he kills her, and then eats a meal with her corpse, that the film's darkest moment arrives. In shirt succession he then proceeds to violently kidnap the thuggish neighbour and kill his psychiatrist, whom he observes doing sexual things that he, a virgin, unable to attract girls and therefore fearful of and disgusted by sex, could never do.

He has his twelve "segments", and we slowly see the build-up to the horrific surgery to come. The surgery is amateurish, involving a staple gun and very little hygiene. The pregnant woman soon dies, her baby still alive. 

The surgery is over, and Martin is ecstatic, feeding his "centipede" with dog food and tinned soup. He delightedly encourages defecation into the mouth of the person behind, right down the line. Urrrgh. He masturbates, and rapes the woman at the back. It's all very disgusting.

Suddenly, the "dead" pregnant woman awakens. She's about to give birth; fleeing, she locks herself in the car with a crazed Martin trying to get in. As Martin leaves the scene the "centipede" splits, the thug bleeding from his mouth. Martin returns to see several smaller centipedes. Enraged, he shoots them until he runs out of bullets, and then starts to behead them with a knife. By now this is pure Grand Guignol. His death, with a centipede up his arse, seems entirely appropriate. 

This film is quite, quite disgusting and is everything that it's predecessor wasn't. It's also a rather good little character study with a message behind the gore; create a marginalised underclass and this is what you get.

Paul (2011)

"Sorry you got killed by my Dad."

"That's fine."

This film obviously plays on the whole '90s "aliens and men in black" trope that was so big back then, mainly due to The X-Files. The X-Files didn't create the "men in black" trope, or that specific type of alien, but it brought it into the mainstream so that films like this could use it. This whole type of science fiction may be nearly twenty years old, but the characters are no spring chickens so it's sort of appropriate. Still, it's odd to see Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in such a very American setting and the film very much plays on that.

We start with our two British comics geeks, appropriately for Pegg's and Frost's first Hollywood film, at the San Diego Comic Con. The soundtrack, appropriately, is "Another Girl, Another Planet" by the Only Ones. They follow this, of course, with a more-eventful-than-planned road trip to Area 51, during which alien-related hi-jinks ensue and they make the acquaintance of a nice Christian fundamentalist girl. Oh, and there's a resurrection. And much riffing on E.T. 

Pegg and Frost are playing the same characters as ever, this time called Graeme and Clive, except that they play ever more middle aged versions with every passing film. This means that their characters become increasingly childlike, and this film only narrowly avoids a real bête noir of mine- an interest in sci-if, fantasy, comics and the like being used as a signifier of immaturity. Just you wait until I get to Buffy season six...

Paul himself is fantastic, and the early scenes between him, Graeme and Clive are a joy. Wonderfully, Paul smokes weed ("the stuff that killed Dylan"), has seen Predator and knows popular culture, so he should know how awkwardly close he is as a character to Roger from American Dad.

This is a superbly funny film with some very witty riffs on various tropes and a sublimely high standard of swearing. 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 (2011)

"You've been raising him like a pig to the slaughter!"

And so it ends. At last. Deep breath.

It's no secret that I preferred the earlier films in this franchise, more whimsical and childlike in their charm and the fun they have with the concept of a school for spellcasters. I didn't exactly welcome the shift into being Big, Serious and Epic. Still, I supplies by this point it had to happen. And, to be fair, it really really works.

We begin on a downer, after Dobby's recent death, and the whole effect of the cinematography, the colours and the mood of the film is to tell us this. Harry and his friends have such a steep, uphill calm ahead of them. 

There are still a good few Horcruxes to go; I've lost count. And there's also another MacGuffin, the Sword of Gryffindor, which now falls into Harry's possession. If that isn't enough, there's Draco Malfoy's wand, now loyal to Harry. And there are, of course, the three eponymous deathly hallows: the elder wand (Voldemort's), the invisibility cloak (already Harry's) and the resurrection stone. That's a lot of MacGuffins.

The scene in the bank vaults, with the besuited goblin scribes, is visually beguiling, reminding me for some reason of the sort of thing we tended to see during Walt Simonson's amazing run on Thor back in the '80s. If that isn't enough, we get to see a dragon, first guarding treasure and then being ridden all over London. Awesome.

But the focus, inevitably, has to turn back to Hogwarts, where Snape truly seems to have instituted a reign of terror. Much violence ensues there, but a Horcrux is ultimately destroyed. There's a big, epic fight but, more importantly, Harry and Ginny finally kiss. At this point we know they're going to be together. Aaah!

There is still one last Horcrux, though: Voldemort's snake. There's also a boy revelation: Snape is killed by Voldemort, and it conspires thatcher was secretly a goody all along, inspired by his love for Harry's mother, and that killing Dumbledore was always part of Dumbledore's plan. I knew it! Not only that, but the Malfoys were always in on it, too. That I was not expecting.

But, ominously, Harry must die for Voldemort to be destroyed: it seems he always was a sacrificial lamb, which puts Dumbledore and other "goodies" in quite a different light. 

However, a dream Dumbledore has a way out, and rumours of Harry's death have been much exaggerated. And Neville Longbottom, no less, is positively inspiring. Harry's return turns the tide; I never thought I'd ever see Helena Bonham Carter being killed by Julie Walters. Voldemort dies at the "hands" of his own wand, Neville kills the snake and gets the girl (Luna, in his case), and we flash forward a generation to see everyone with age make-up.

I hate to say it, not liking my Potters to be too epic, but that was bloody brilliant, with the plot twists reaching absolute perfection. A triumph of an ending.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)

“I’m on my honeymoon!!!!”

I’m not going to repeat the things I said about Guy Ritchie’s distinctive directorial style in my blog review for this film’s prequel. Nor am I going to point out that this is pretty much an action film version of Sherlock Holmes (though this film emphasises this less), or that Robert Downey Jr is ridiculously good here and undoubtedly the greatest leading man working in Hollywood today. Yes, he’s even a bit better than Johnny Depp. He’s that good.

This film is far more respectful of the source material than its predecessor. Although not exactly a version of The Final Problem, it borrows from it heavily, including the apparent deaths of Holmes and Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls, although of course we’re not expected to believe that Holmes actually died. Are you listening, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss? If that wasn’t enough, Stephen Fry gives us a version of Mycroft which is both extremely entertaining and extremely faithful to the source material.

Moriarty’s dastardly scheme is delightfully nefarious, if a little dependent on the writers’ knowledge that the First World War would break out twenty three years after the end of the film. Moriarty’s plans to make a gun running fortune from a massive war gives us a good excuse for lots of big budget hijinks as Holmes and Watson speed through France, Germany and, of course, Switzerland.

The bromance between Holmes and Watson is handled rather hilariously, with best man Holmes not being best pleased about Watson’s upcoming marriage. This nice little character point gives Downey a chance to show what a great actor he is, and gives Jude Law a chance to show what, in my opinion, a great actor he isn’t. Jared Harris is a surprisingly middling Moriarty, and one surprisingly faithful to what little references there were to the character in the regional stories. In fact, this faithfulness is taken a little too far: is there really any need to include Colonel Sebastian Moran? Incidentally, doesn’t Moran sound a bit common for a colonel in the Victorian army?

Still, this is enormous fun to watch, if slightly long, and I have to admit it was excellent. In fact, I would admit this film to that elite club of sequels that are better than their originals.

Hanna (2011)

“Hanna, what did your mum die of?”

“Three bullets.”

I misjudged this film. It has Eric Bana in it, and, in my experience, films with him in are generally shite! Here, though, his performance is entirely adequate, and the film is bloody good in spite of his presence.

The script is rather good, hinging on the story of the eponymous Hanna, a little girl who is the result of genetic experiments to create the perfect soldier, and who has spent her entire life up until now north of the Arctic Circle. She’s a sort of cross between Heidi and Captain America. All sorts of people are after her, including (in a film which, ironically, stars no Americans) the CIA. Much praise has to go to the performance of Saoirse Ronan, upon which so much depended.

The film is an action thriller with an engaging and exciting directorial style. The action sequences are always in flux; the moving camera is used with great skill and precision to create a sense of pace, movement and realism. The soundtrack, from the Chemical Brothers, is excellent, and compliments the direction perfectly.

The plot is clever, complex, but never over complex. There are some nice twists, there is a great villain who, hilariously, has his own musical score and who is, bizarrely, played by Tom Hollander, everyone’s favourite vicar. There is also a heartwarming yet doomed friendship between Hanna and a rather hippyish British family, the daughter of whom shares a brief but, er, very close friendship with our heroine.

As my very lovely girlfriend pointed out, there seems to be a theme of knowledge from experience versus knowledge from education; Hanna has plenty of the former, and this is what gives her the boost she needs. Her knowledge from education, with no context in the world around her, helps her hardly at all.

The climax is exciting and satisfying, and the final shot aesthetically pleasing. This film is not well known but I certainly recommend it.

The Rite (2011)

“What did you expect? Spinning heads? Pea soup?”

And so my journey into the unfamiliar territory of more modern horror continues with this acting tour de force from Anthony Hopkins. A confession, though: I’ve never even seen The Exorcist, let alone blogged it, so I won’t be making any comparisons. Sorry.

I suppose films about demonic possession would be scarier for those who believe in all that stuff; I don’t. Nevertheless, this film is effectively creepy, although it’s first and foremost a character drama and a chance for Hopkins to show us his considerable talents.

This is a very pro-Catholic film: the first thing we see is a quote from Pope John Paul II and the vibe seems to be that such things actually happen. Nonetheless, it’s a solid film, pleasingly structured with a strong cast, including Toby Jones trying out his American accent.

The audience identification character, Michael Kovac, has exactly the sort of theological doubts as to make him ideal for his role in the narrative; we see Hopkins’ Father Lucan almost entirely through his eyes. Lucan himself is full of precisely the sorts of eccentricities that we would expect from such a character. It’s highly convenient, of course, that Lucan would be Welsh, therefore absolving Hopkins from having to put on an accent.

We begin by following Michael through the seminary as he enters the strange, celibate world of the priesthood, but soon the scene switches to the far more gorgeous and cinematic setting of the Vatican, with all the obligatory shots where the camera lingers on the famous tourist sights.

The exorcisms are dramatic, and it’s clever that the supernatural elements are limited to a phantom horse and some creepy, devilish creepy crawlies. The creepiest moments, of course, utilise the psychological side of the supernatural: the most memorable moment in the film is where Michael speaks by phone to his dying father who says that “They’re hurting me”, and is then told that his father died hours earlier.

The climax of the film, where Lucas is himself possessed, conveniently gives Hopkins yet another chance to dazzle us with his acting skills. The conclusion is satisfying, although the fact that it revolves around Michael finding his faith again shows us what the film is trying to say.

This is a rather small scale little film, and essentially a vehicle for Hopkins to do a bit of a turn, but it’s well worth a watch.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 (2011)

“I won’t kill you. That’d be too easy. You deserve to live with this.”

Don’t expect the next review to be Part 2: I’ll get round to that when I see it. No spoilers please.

The film begins with a lot of wedding stuff, and feels like one of those comic books where one of the protagonists gets married: light, fluffy and full of crap humour. It’s all extremely well shot, though, with some extraordinary touches. There’s some nice switching between monochrome and colour, and the dream sequence with the rose petals looks extraordinary. Still, Bella is marrying Edward, and I’m bloody worried about her. A potential lifetime of abuse awaits.

Alarm bells start sounding very soon; Bella is not to become a vampire until after the honeymoon. Sex is dangerous, so anything before this happens could kill her. And it’s not as though they’re not going to have sex on their honeymoon, however much Edward tries to arrange their time to avoid it. I don’t care how uber-cool their honeymoon suite is: this is a stupid situation which the characters just seem to walk into. Surprise surprise, Bella becomes pregnant: I assume vampires don’t do contraception as it cramps their style. Surprise surprise: the child is not exactly all human, and could kill her. Edward is personally responsible for all of this easily avoided near-tragedy. How on Earth are we, the audience, supposed not to hate the bastard?

And what are we supposed to conclude/ That all sex, even good Christian married sex, is bad, dangerous and to be avoided? That is NOT a good message. And, yes, the issue of abortion rears its head. These films are getting more and more right-wing.

The ending is tiresomely predictable: Bella gives birth, “dies” and, to no one’s surprise, is about to become a vampire in the last shot. And I don’t like all this stuff about Jake imprinting on the baby either: essentially this is just taking a character who disagrees with the authorial viewpoint and making him conform. It’s crude and nasty.

I have to emphasise, though, that although I really, really hate the subtext of these films, they’re increasingly well made as they progress. His film looks gorgeous, and even the CGI for the wolves looks good. It’s just a shame that the central message is so wrong and dangerous.