Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) Dir: Brad Bird

Some five years after the last installment, Mission Impossible 4 was always likely to be a hard sell but, despite this, two weeks at the top of the charts both here and on home soil suggests people are flocking in droves.
So what's all the fuss about?

The plot:
Ethan Hunt (Tom's Bruise), IMF's top agent, is imprisoned in a Moscow jail. Happily, his team are determined to break him out and, shortly afterwards, they are assigned a mission to infiltrate The Kremlin to obtain vital files. Halfway through the mission, new information comes to light and they are forced to abort. As Hunt flees The Kremlin, the building explodes in a shower of CGI goodness.
America responds swiftly, invoking Ghost Protocol, so now Hunt and his cohorts must establish precisely who was responsible for the attack, else be labelled terrorists for the rest of their days.

It's piffle.
It's a Mission Impossible movie, so of course it is, but that doesn't stop it being unrelentingly entertaining.
Bruise is starting to look his age - maybe he hasn't been 'auditing' quite enough down at The Church - but that does nothing to dampen his enthusiasm for character building stuntwork. Sure, most of it is green screen stuff, but still, those flexing muscles were not the product of computer generated imagery.
With a globe trotting plot that takes in Moscow, Dubai and Mumbai, this has the feel of a good old fashioned espionage yarn, with some high technology modern wizardry thrown in.
It flags towards the end and, at two hours fifteen, is clearly half an hour too long, but that's about the only flaw to find here.
This winter's blockbuster season continues to surprise, then, following the equal success of Sherlock Holmes 2.
Pleasantly enjoyable daftness.

4 out of 5

Do You Like Hitchcock? (2005) Dir: Dario Argento

A modern TV movie from the master of Giallo.

The plot:
Giulio is an aspiring journalist, desperate to spot a story to get him the break that he needs. After meeting a mysterious and exotic neighbour at the local video store, he begins to suspect that all is not as it seems in his neighbourhood.
Spying on the world from the expansive window of his apartment, he observes what he believes to be murderous activity and, worse still, he thinks the beautiful neighbour may be involved.

And this is certainly watered down fare.
First off, a confession: Against my better judgement, I watched the dubbed version of this movie. Never a wise move, and it certainly proved folly here as the poor quality of the voice acting made much of this movie feel like a particularly low budget porno.
Setting that aside, here we have the occasional Argento style directorial flourish, though everything is reigned in, presumably for budgetary reasons.
The cast are likeable enough, I suppose, but the plot is so contrived it is difficult to really buy into it.
Also, think about this: Argento takes Hitchcock's Rear Window as his source material, and effectively tries to replicate it, but on a shoestring budget and, frankly, that was simply never going to work.
A pale imitation of his more famous works, this feels like something of an experiment for Argento and, in my humble one, it was a failed one.
Disappointing.

2 out of 5

The French Connection (1971) Dir: William Friedkin

Considered by many to be the finest cop movie ever made, I really tried to like this.

The plot:
Marseille, France. A policeman is assigned to stake out a businessman suspected of drug trafficking. Whilst on duty, the policeman is executed.
New York, USA. Two cops, 'Popeye' Doyle (Gene Hackman) and Buddy Russo (Roy 'We're gonna' need a bigger boat' Schneider) are also on stake out duty. After watching a suspected drug offence, the two swoop in for an arrest and, after mercilessly beating the suspect, details emerge that will lead them into very dangerous waters indeed, with repercussions on both sides of the Atlantic.

It's slick as you like, Friedkin effortlessly blending the stake out dynamic with the more action-oriented scenes.
Hackman and Schneider are both in fine form, playing off one another effectively, a display of such machismo you won't find anywhere outside of an army barracks.
But it's dull.
Crushingly dull.
And I understand the reasons for it.
Friedkin's choice here is to aim for total realism so, when a cop is on a stake out, we are on a stake out, too. Trouble is, for the most part, staking a joint out is terribly boring so, in order to achieve maximum realism, the director has to make the film terribly boring, too.
The soundtrack doesn't help, all crashing cymbals and blaring brass, grating on the nerves of most creatures with sentience.
I'm glad I watched it, but I know for certain I will never watch it again.

3 out of 5

The Fountain (2006) Dir: Darren Aronofsky

Darren Aronofsky's most confounding work to date, this one will severely stretch those synapses.

The plot:
Three storylines run in parallel, each seemingly featuring the same main players, though the story played out spans more than a thousand years of existence.
Story 1: In Medieval times, the Spanish are the dominant force in Europe. A knave is issued a quest by the princess he secretly loves: find the Tree of Life, as spoken of in Genesis, that Spain may conquer the world for, with the power of the tree's sap, no army could be stopped; wounds would be healed instantly, limbs would regenerate and Death itself would be conquered.
Story 2: Present day, and an experimental scientist is working with animals to discover the cure to a debilitating illness. He has a vested interest: his wife is suffering from the disease, and she doesn't have long to live.
Story 3: Not really a story, more a sequence of visuals. In the far future, the spiritual form of a man sits beneath the Tree of Life, positioned in a far off nebula, only just visible to the naked eye in the night sky. The nebula is encased by a bubble, allowing him to breath and, as the other two stories play out, so too is his existence affected.

Breathtakingly avant garde, this by turns baffles, bewilders and leaves you breathless. Aronofsky is not one for making simple movies - with the possible exception of The Wrestler, though even that was pretty intense - but here he ratchets things up another notch entirely to the point that, for the first hour at least, he sorely tests the patience.
But this man is an auteur, a genuine visionary, and that patience that began to wear thin is amply rewarded in the final thirty minutes, as jaw dropping spectacle after heart-stopping scenes of beauty follow one another relentlessly. Just as you think he can't do anything more mind-bending, he lays another one on you.
A genuine work of genius, even if flawed, everyone must watch this, just be prepared to doubt yourself for a little while along the way.
Aronofsky, I love you.

4 out of 5

Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973) Dir: J. Lee Thompson

It's the last of the original 'Apes' movies, and clearly the worst.

The plot:
Caesar, ostensible leader of the intelligent apes, has a dream. He wishes for the human 'animals' and the apes to live in peace and harmony. Trouble is, not all of his kind agrees with and, sure as chimps throw faeces at unsuspecting members of the public, factions begin to be forged.
One gorilla in particular (whose name escapes me) begins to threaten the stability, and it's not long before Caesar must decide whether to stand and fight or let his dream fall into tatters.

Low budget by this stage, this doesn't really have a whole lot going for it.
Gone are the super-animated facial features of the first couple of movies, the ape costumes, and masks in particular, now redolent of the kind of thing you'd hire from a novelty shop for a Halloween party.
Roddy McDowell, somewhat surprisingly, reprises his role as Caesar (he must have needed the cash) and does his best with some substandard material, but this was a project way beyond redemption.
The only vague positive here is that the script does tenuously hang on to the political allegory, with Caesar in full on Martin Luther King mode, which is fine but, unfortunately, you can't spin gold from navel fluff.
Deeply flawed, primarily by lack of budget, this is something of a damp squib for the series to end on.
Shame.

2 out of 5

Four Lions (2010) Chris Morris

Some controversy upon initial release, this comes from the wonderfully deviant, darkly demented mind of Chris Morris, he of Brasseye, The Day Today and Nathan Barley fame.
A British comedy about the extremist elements of the Islamic community, set in Sheffield?
That can't be any good, surely?

The plot:
3 young Asian Muslim men, and one older, white Muslim convert are hatching a plan. Instead of sitting back and allowing the infidels to continue in their sinful ways, why not strike back at the heart of British society?
Why not invoke fear in an already nervous population?
Only trouble is, they are utterly incompetent. Whether it's firing rocket launchers facing the wrong way, falling over a wall and accidentally blowing up a sheep, or dancing with the foxy next door neighbour whilst surrounded by all the bomb-making gear, if they can find a way to mess things up they probably will.
After some umming and arring, they select both target and method: Suicide bomb attacks at the London Marathon.

Sounds like a right barrel of laughs, and no mistake. And right there lies the problem.
It ain't funny.
Sure, it has its moment and occasionally raises a wry smile, but not consistently, and certainly not often enough.
As for the storyline, whilst decent at its core, the goofball antics of the characters quickly becomes irritating, and all too often veers over into Keystone Cops style bickering and head slapping.
And what about the message of the movie? Surely the only purpose of making a satirical comedy is to make a point, and here all I got from it was that all Pakistani men are fanatical religious crazies and bumbling imbeciles.
And I really don't think that was the point.
As a self-confessed Morris fan-boy, I must say I was a tad disappointed.

3 out of 5

Cypher (2002) Dir: Vincenzo Natali

NOTE: Known as Brainstorm in some territories.

What would happen if the James Bond and Matrix franchises collided?
Well, something a bit like this, I suspect.

The plot:
Set in an indeterminate time period, an office worker is tired of the tedium in his life. Middle of the road, mid-salary, middling prospects, his life takes a sudden turn for the unexpected when, almost unbidden, he is plunged headlong into the murky world of corporate espionage. Daunted but determined, he dutifully carries out his instructions, attending mind-numbing seminars about cheese and sewage and skirting boards, he 'activates' a device in his pocket; a listening device.
Slowly getting to grips with his new life, another unforeseen happening: Lucy Liu appears and tells him that the espionage he is conducting is in fact a lie, that the transmitter device doesn't even do anything and that he is a pawn in a game he doesn't even know is being played.
What's a man to do?

Part espionage movie, part sci-fi, the mood here is quite out there. With a trippy-dippy soundtrack, odd camera angles and awkward, stilted conversations on screen for the most part, this does its very best to unsettle the viewer, and it certainly achieves it.
The performance of Jeremy Northam as male lead Morgan Sullivan is rock solid, perfectly capturing the bewilderment of his predicament.
Relatively unknown, this one may have been a bit too deep for the multiplexes, which is a shame as it stands head and shoulders above ninety nine percent of the guff out there.
Genuinely hard to find a flaw.

5 out of 5