The Incredible Hulk (2008)

"You wouldn't like me when I'm hungry..."

Well, that was a bit disappointing. It wasn't awful, not quite; I'm glad they didn't just do the bloody origin. But, I mean, come on- Edward Norton has no bloody charisma. And, in spite of lots of CGI action, the direction just isn't that exciting.

I mean, it's nice to hear the telly theme tune as incidental music. It's nice to see a CGI Abomination. It's nice to see a sort of origin for Samuel Sterns becoming the Leader but with literally no climax; the actual cinematic equivalent of bad sex.

I suppose the treatment of the origin during the opening titles is neat and, as with Iron Man, it doesn't bother with any of that secret identity nonsense; everyone knows Bruce is the Hulk, so has to wander the western hemisphere like it's the '70s. Plus Liv Tyler, Tim Roth and William Hurt are all ok.

But, CGI spectacle aside, this film is boring. A good Hulk film needs a charismatic lead actor, and Edward Norton is no Mark Ruffalo. And no, a cameo from Lou Ferrigno doesn't make it right.

So the second ever Marvel film is a proper misstep. It's not surprising how little influence this film has had on what came after. Eminently skippable.

Sausage Party (2016)

"We need to unite and stop focusing on each others' differences. Especially in immature and outdated ways."

Yes, this film is puerile, expletive-ridden, sex-obsessed and filled with lowest common denominator bad jokes, as its critics often point out. That is all perfectly true. What is equally true, however, is that it is also witty, intelligent, delightfully cheeky, politically aware and... well, what exactly is wrong with sex and swearing? Any film which essentially solves the notoriously intractable Israel/Palestine problem by having a Palestinian chap and a Jewish bloke have rigorous and gloriously gay sex is fine by me.

The idea behind the film- food is sentient and suffers when we prepare it for eating, but is kept blissfully unaware of its fate by a made-up religion, is brilliant, followed through and milked for every possible ounce of humour. And we get all sorts of humour, low-brow and high-brow together. The sense of humour is very Jewish American which is, for reasons unknown, pretty much the same as British humour.

I love everything about this film. I love the lyrics of the song ("...Where I'm sure that nothing bad happens to food"), I love the political commentary, I love Gum, I love the way it goes mad and orgiastic and fourth-wall breaking at the end. Don't be put off by the negative reviews: this film is clever, funny and wise.

Red Dragon (2002)

"Any rational society would either kill me or put me to some use."

I ought to confess, before anything else, that I haven't seen Manhunter. But this is a different adaptation of the novel, not a remake, so it doesn't break my "no remakes before I've done the original" rule. Besides, the film is deeply entwined with the two predecessors to which it is a sequel, dovetailing very nicely into The Silence of the Lambs.

It's also bloody good, and even manages to pull of the trick of Anthony Hopkins, eleven years older than we first saw him, playing the intellectual, civilised Hannibal Lecter of 1980. Well, aside from the small point that he's feeding his guests human flesh, but it's fascinating to watch a Lecter whose proclivities are as yet unknown. Even more interestingly he's a psychiatric expert in psychopathic killers, and regularly consulted by FBI agent Will Graham, but we quickly move, over the opening titles, to Graham catching him, his trial, and his nine consecutive life sentences, followed by Graham's retirement, although we just know that the cliche of his coming out of retirement is upcoming. 

Interestingly, Lecter is again not the main villain here. The Buffalo Bill this time, the Tooth Fairy, is left mysterious for a bit, and eventually Graham is forced to consult the esteemed Mr Lecter, the approach to the cell echoing The Silence of the Lambs. The twist is, rather nicely, that the Tooth Fairy is a big fan of Hannibal's. The plot is, perhaps, predictable, but it is sufficiently well-realised and well-acted to get away with it. 

The killer's final tragic end eventually comes after a few twists and turns, revelations of a life of abuse and a twist in which we find that he is not, as we had thought, dead. There are lots of jolts and moments of excitement amongst the violence and yet the film still seems to maintain a certain sense of quality, of being more than just a violent thriller. This is yet another sequel which is in fact more than decent.

The Illusionist (2006)

“Everything you have seen here has been an illusion.”

This is the first time I’ve seen this film, but I well remember the awkwardness of its coming out at much the same time as The Prestige, which slightly overshadowed it and was largely seen as the better of the two films about Victorian magicians with massive twists. That’s a pity. The Illusionist, considered on its own merits, is a fine film.

The film is set in a semi-historical Vienna of 1900, in the dying days of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and has an interesting political subtext. The villain, Crown Prince Leopold, is fictional (although the emperor is clearly Franz Josef) and at the head of a disturbingly hierarchical class system with the Habsburg monarchy at its apex. The emperor is far more than a figurehead, and the snobbery of the system is seen in various ways- Eisenheim’s romance with the Duchess Von Teschen is star-crossed and forbidden, while Chief Inspector Uhl is limited in his career paths through being far too common to advance much further, especially given the further handicap of his integrity; Paul Giamatti is outstanding.

And yet the Habsburgs are the glue that holds this multi-ethnic empire together, protecting it from the dangers of nationalism and ethnic conflict which would plague this area throughout the Twentieth Century, from the Holocaust to the bloody collapse of Yugoslavia. The empire is archaic and moribund, but the future without the Habsburgs is ominous. Another slight theme is the association of the Crown Prince with rationalism and empiricism and Eisenheim with Madame Blavatsky style spiritualism. This is a little uncomfortable for the sceptics among us, but heigh-ho.

The film centres mainly around an audacious, brilliant and twisty-turny plot with a still, dignified, mysterious hero in Eisenheim (Edward Norton gives an undemonstrative performance but this seems appropriate), a truly unpleasant villain in the Crown Prince (a suitably slimy Rufus Sewell). I shall try to avoid spoilers, but the plotting is glorious and the ending truly satisfying.

The direction, from Neil Burger, is also impressive. I admire the colours in particular, with the sepia element to the opening titles and the pre-Raphaelite look to the flashbacks contrasting with the realism of the “present”. It’s a mystery why the largely American cast should feel the need to adopt vaguely British accents for characters who would have been speaking German, a rather odd Hollywood habit, but otherwise I can find little to pick at. The score, from none other than Philip Glass himself, is also superb.

As far as I can recall this isn’t quite up there with The Prestige. But it deserves better than to be unfavourably compared to a slightly better film. The Illusionist is a superb film in its own right.