Horrid Henry: The Movie (2011)

Here comes trouble!

The eponymous books are great, essentially based on the premise that kids are totally selfish beings ruled by their desires, and that these desires are in conflict with what their parents think is best for them. (Henry is the junior equivalent of Fat Freddy in the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comic books, ruled by the desires of his id: for food, drink, drugs and sex.) Kids like being on holiday, weekends, junk food, TV, computer games, lazing around, having fun, being rude, playing tricks on other kids. They hate school, homework, chores, getting up and going to bed early, being polite and well-mannered, eating proper meals, eating vegetables and so on. Their parents want them to do the opposite. With this conflict, kids are always in trouble. Perfect Peter, Henry's annoying younger brother, is essentially an idealised mirror intended, by contrast, to highlight Henry's character, who is in fact a pretty normal kid writ a little large.

What's good: the central kid's characters are well played: Henry (Theo Stevenson), Peter (Ross Marron), Moody Margaret (Scarlett Stitt) and indeed most of the other kids. Some of the adults rein in their performances sufficiently: Siobhan Hayes and Mathew Horne as Henry's Mum and Dad, Rebecca Front as the headmistress, Miss Oddbod, and Parminder Nagra as the teacher, Miss Lovely. Other adults portray their characters rather too large, too cartoonish, namely Angelica Huston (Miss BattleAxe), Richard E Grant (the head of Box Hill School), Jack Sanders as the gym teacher, Aerobic Al. Dick and Dom, talented comic creatives in their own TV shows (the "Mini Dick and Dom" shorts are brilliant), portray TV hosts so extremely unpleasantly nightmarishly styled that I wondered how they passed the censor for a U certificate.

There's quite a lot of breaking the fourth wall by Henry, which is OK, though used here rather lazily as a disguised voice-over to spoon-feed us backstory.

What's mainly wrong with this film, to my mind, is the script. The plot device of the kids having to save the local primary school is just so tired. And the idea that the head of the local private school would scheme to make money by getting the state school shut down and gaining fees from the desperate parents of kids from that school seems extremely unlikely. Also, the script is very laboured at times, with Moody Margaret metaphorically beating the audience over the head with key plot points that seemed obvious to me anyway.

Worse, the story betrays the characters of Henry and Peter at various points. The idea that Henry has had the self-discipline to become the lead singer of a fairly proficient pop band stretches credibility. And when Peter's rendition of the traditional canon "Frére Jacques" morphs into an extraordinary contemporary interpretation, it seemed like demonic possession. And when Henry, uncharacteristically altruistic, plots to save the school, it's as if he and Peter have swapped personas.

Annoyingly, the two ten-year old boys in my charge, though seemingly bored during the film, afterwards gave it 4 stars and 5 stars!

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• Director: Nick Moore
• Writers: Lucinda Whiteley (screenplay) based on the books by Francesca Simon
• Starring: Theo Stevenson, Scarlett Stitt, Ross Marron, Anjelica Huston, Richard E. Grant, Rebecca Front, Parminder Nagra, Siobhan Hayes, Mathew Horne, David Schneider, Wladmir Klitchko, Vitali Klitchko, Noel Fielding, Richard McCourt, Dominic Wood, Jo Brand, Prunella Scales, Tyger Drew-Honey, Kimberley Walsh, Helena Barlow

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• Rating: Rental
• When seen: 14 Aug 2011
• Where seen: Cinema
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

Written in WriteRoom, formatted using HyperEdit, posted from my MacBook Pro

Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

There's one in all of us.

Where the Wild Things Are is rather like a live action version of Pixar's Monsters Inc (directed by Pete Docter, 2001), with some insightful dramatic parts, some laugh out loud fun and funny parts, but also some parts that are quite dark in tone and rather scary for under 10s.

When the film came out I remember there was some doubt as to whether the presumed target audience (kids) would take to it. Checking Wikipedia, they have a quote from the director that 'his goal was "to make a movie about childhood" rather than to create a children's movie.' In a home viewing context, with most of the cast running around in big "silly" animatronic monster suits, I thought it would be touch and go as to whether my 10-year old son would suspend his disbelief, but he watched till the end, laughed quite a lot at times, said he enjoyed it and would give the film 4.5 out of 5 stars.

The initial setup introducing the 8-year old boy, Max (Max Records), is very insightful, showing things from his point of view, exploring how lonely life can be in the winter holidays for a kid in a modern single-parent family, with no friends evident nearby, no siblings to spend time with, and a mother busy with work or boyfriend. Max Records is very convincing as a normally imaginative boy pretty much left to his own devices, who sometimes puts on his wolf costume and goes a little wild and crazy, like jumping on the kitchen counter and howling. In the heat of the moment, he goes further than that here, does something that causes him to need to escape the home environment, to flee to the country of the Wild Things.

The way Max travels to the country of the Wild Things is different than in the book, where the voyage is clearly and artistically psychological in nature, but it still works pretty well. A key question is how the filmmakers are going to tackle the monsters themselves. At first glance, seeing the direction they'd taken, using costumes with big heads, and animatronic expressions, like the Jim Henson creatures, the casual viewer might well be apprehensive, but as the story progresses, the monsters turn out to work very well, in large part due to the strength of the storyline, and the strength of the characterisation. So that by the end, the fate of the Wild Things is quite moving, and by the very end of the film, it had even got a little dusty in there.

In the book, which is very short, whatever else they may be, the monsters are an expression of Max's psyche, an outlet for the wild, wicked side of his character. In this film version, the monsters are that too, but from the very outset, they clearly have lives of their own that apparently exist independently of Max. To my mind, the monsters go beyond representing Max's wild imaginings, and are in a way more his imagining of the sort of virtual extended social network, extended family or group of friends that he might appreciate. The group of monsters that Max happens upon reminded me most of a small commune of aged hippies or community of artists, who have their own long-standing issues, especially relationship issues.

Because one thing that Max seems to be missing, that could help during times like these when he's burnt up or used up relations with his closest relatives, his mother and sister, is a deficit or lack that Kurt Vonnegut highlighted in his book Slapstick! or Lonesome No More (1976), and that is extended family (and friends and neighbours). Many of us in the west, perhaps especially in the USA, live in small tight family groups, nuclear families. And that's just not enough, Vonnegut points out, for animals who until recently evolved in tribal societies with lots of adults to pick up the slack when nuclear relations go sour or when those people need a break.

• Rating: High matinee
• When seen: 16 Apr 2011
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Amendments: Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.

The Karate Kid (2010)

A Challenge He Never Imagined. A Teacher He Never Expected.

Long, but very good. The new film keeps to the same general plotline of the old film, with neat twists to the iconic moments. What's great about the storyline is that the main characters' stakes are strong and clear from the outset (except of course for the mystery about why Kung Fu master Chan is content to work as a handyman). There's a similar story arc, as I think the Spill Crew or maybe the Filmspotting guys said, as Rocky (1976): boy loses respect of peers, boy trains hard, boy gains respect of peers by excelling in competition. Or is it, more generally, boy is taken over by fear, boy trains to battle fear, boy battles and conquers fear.

In any case, the stakes are high: Smith must cope with bullies who have no mercy and can't be avoided.

Jackie Chan, in particular, is excellent, with real gravitas, a little like Beat Takeshi. Jaden Smith, in the lead role, also does very well; the girl, WenWen Han, is very cute, and the romantic sub-plot is well handled; the rest of the cast is good.

The action sequences are very well handled. As Mark Kermode (if I remember right) pointed out, however, the violence to Smith in the first and final reels is pretty extreme, and the script writer's have to stretch credulity to allow Chan and Smith's mother to permit Smith to fight on despite very serious injury.

In the end, does it matter if the martial art is not karate, but kung fu?

• Rating: Full price
• When seen: 15 Aug 2010
• Where seen: Cinema
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Amendments: "As Mark Kermode (if remember right)" corrected to "As Mark Kermode (if I remember right)". Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.

Rango (2011)

From the director of "Pirates Of The Caribbean"

Rango is a lot of fun and sometimes laugh out loud funny: an animated western set in a parched desert town, with a plot driven by a suitably noirish mystery and a cast list full of quality performers.

Johnny Depp voices a fey captive chameleon used to filling his days acting out improvised heroic scenarios with make-believe friends who is suddenly dropped, literally, into a real western adventure, full of life and death choices.

Adopting a heroic facade, Depp's character's fate becomes tied to that of the townspeople, a mixed set of crusty characters including the town bully and his cronies, an avuncular wealthy wheelchair-bound mayor and a feisty attractive young female lizard fighting to keep her farm under threat of bank foreclosure. Outside town, there is a nest of outlaws. The stage is set for a series of showdowns. How long will Depp's character be able to keep up his act?

As a western, this film stands up very well, swiftly shifting the action from the present day to a world of classic and spaghetti western tropes. The saloon sequence early on is very nicely scripted, and along the way there are some clever gunfights and some rollicking action set pieces. There are a lot of nods to classics of the western genre, the soundtrack pays homage to Sergio Leone's films and at one point The Man With No Name himself (as voiced by Timothy Oliphant) even puts in an appearance.

The plot borrows its Hitchcock McGuffin (and the basis of at least one major character) from the classic Roman Polanski/Jack Nickolson detective thriller Chinatown (1974), which fits perfectly in the context of this film.

The cinematography and quality of animation are very good, almost to Pixar level, and should be with the famed Roger Deakins in the credits.

The only question is what market the film is aimed at, and whether children will enjoy it. I would say that it is primarily aimed at a cine-literate adult audience, but will also be suitable for older children, say 10-12 plus. Though generally avoiding westerns, my 10-year old son enjoyed the film, though for him I suspect it had more longueurs than for me.

Turning briefly to the topic of 3D films, as we were waiting for the film to begin, a small child at the front was heard to complain rather piteously, "But Mummy, we haven't got our glasses! Where are our glasses?" Clearly, this poor creature had been brainwashed by the recent studio trend of releasing nearly all films for young people in 3D into believing that 3D glasses were actually NEEDED at the cinema. For shame, film studios, for shame!

• Rating: Full price
• When seen: 13 Mar 2011
• Where seen: Cinema
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Amendments: added year of release (1974) to mention of film Chinatown. Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.

Enchanted (2007)

The real world and the animated world collide. This fairytale princess is about to meet a real Prince Charming.

Very enjoyable. Good story with strong positive underlying message about women's role in fairy tales, with Giselle (Amy Adams) developing from paper doll into a strong relatively rounded character.

Especially notable for Adams' performance, bringing credibility to a tricky role requiring sweetness and naïveté as well as inner strength.

• Rating: Full price
• When seen: 26 Dec 2010
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Amendments: added actor tags: "Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Timothy Spall, Idina Menzel, Rachel Covey, Susan Sarandon". Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.