Ben Wheatley's High-Rise Review, starring Tom Hiddleston

Down Terrace, Kill List, Sightseers, A Field in England... It's fair to say that Ben Wheatley has had a pretty interesting career so far. His latest High-Rise is out in UK cinemas on Friday and here's a snippet of my review from the London Film Festival:

While lesser filmmakers get their heads down and sprint into the mainstream after even the most offbeat of beginnings, Ben Wheatley appears determined to keep himself steadfast on the outskirts of conventional filmmaking. High-Rise may feature his starriest cast yet with a so-hot-right-now Tom Hiddleston and Sienna Miller, but this is definitely no cautious step towards blockbuster boredom. Wheatley follows up the dazzlingly weird and wonderfully experimental A Field in England with something higher budget but equally perplexing, adapting J. G. Ballard's ‘70s novel.

Opting to keep the ‘70s setting of the book, High-Rise offers an oddly nightmarish vision of what a near-future building would look like as conceived in the ‘70s. It’s the future as seen from the past, and at the same time an apparition of a future that has already passed. The residents of a brand new tower block descend into a mad orgy of sex and violence as the different floors of the building turn to tribalism and savagery. Isolated by their own free will from the outside world, petty grievances over usage of the building’s swimming pool and waste chutes become amplified as the high-rise structure begins to disintegrate and the formerly ‘civilised’ society inside collapses.

Sound like your cup of tea? Check out the rest of my High-Rise review at Starburst Magazine now.

Watch the trailer below:

More reviews from the London Film Festival 2015

Room Review

Abducted seven years ago, a woman has been held captive in a garden shed, repeatedly raped by the man she calls Old Nick and has become mother to a boy who is now celebrating his fifth birthday in the only room he has ever known. This one space is their whole world, particularly young Jack, who has never known anything but the four walls in which he lives.

Brie Larson as the abducted woman is brilliant, but this isn't really Ma's story. It's her son's, and Jacob Tremblay is sensational. Helped by Emma Donoghue's script from her own novel and Lenny Abrahamson's immersive direction, Tremblay gives a performance that belies his age and is staggering in its range. He is completely convincing as a boy who has never known any different, and then who finds himself in a world that is both endless and terrifying.

This could have been an exploitative thriller ripped from recent headlines and handled with all of the sensitivity of a Charlie Hebdo cover. Instead, there is only a few central scenes that get the pulse racing. The rest is incredibly stirring and yet still presented with a huge amount of restraint. While most films would have saved any escape attempts for the climax, Room is concerned more with the aftermath of such an ordeal, than just the method of escaping. Still, when Ma puts her plan in motion, it is riveting, terrifying and overwhelmingly emotional.

The decision to tell the story from Jack's point of view puts us completely in the mind of this little boy for whom the outside world might just be scarier than anything else he has ever experienced. When Room leaves its titular space, it could be overwhelming, and it sometimes is. But it’s anchored by Tremblay’s performance and the quiet tragedy of how these characters will forever be affected by their time in isolation together.

What should be a horrendous ordeal, both for the characters and audience, becomes something beautiful and heart-breaking, but ultimately life-affirming. 

Watch the trailer:

30 Must See Movies in 2016

Whether it's comic books, videogames, books, sequels or something a little more original you are after, these three lists I have written for The Daily Heckle should hopefully have everyone covered. There are going to be a huge amount of adaptations and franchise additions in 2016 so strap in and read on for my 30 Must See Movies of 2016, handily divided into three different lists!

Top 10 Must-See Films of 2016: No Sequels, No Superheroes (but just one spin off)

Top 10 Must-See Superhero Films and Videogame Adaptations in 2016

Top 10 Must-See Sequels in 2016

The Maze Runner Review

Tired of the girls in YA adaptations having all the fun; why not try The Maze Runner? Though Katniss may still wear the crown for the most kickass protagonist in recent memory, it’s a testament to how far science fiction has come that The Maze Runner feels currently refreshing for having a cast of mostly male teens fighting and fending for themselves in a dangerous future world.

Teen Thomas awakes to find himself being lifted into the Glade, a beautiful green open space surround by the giant grey stone walls of an impassable maze. With no memory of who he is or how he got into the lift, he is immediately encircled by the group of wild boys who populate the Glade. There is friendly leader Alby, big brute Gally, scrawny second in command Newt and a younger fat kid named Chuck to name a few. The ‘Gladers’ have made a peaceful and stable community for themselves under the leadership of Alby but Thomas’ entrance stirs things up between the boys, particularly as Thomas begins to break the rules and heads into the maze without permission.

The Maze Runner is full of terminology invented for its mysterious dystopian set up. The Lord of the Flies like tribe of boys are divided into groups with only the ‘runners’ being allowed to into the maze to try and map it and find a way out. In the maze, they meet partly mechanical arachnid creatures known as The ‘Grievers’ who send the boys mad if they are unlucky enough to be stung. Until Thomas arrives, no one has survived a night in the maze as the doors close each night, giving runners only a limited time to spend exploring the maze each day. 

It’s a set up that wears its influences on its sleeves. There is plenty of Lord of the Flies, a little splash of The Beach, and a central premise highly reminiscent of The Cube. Not only that, but this film version of James Dashner’s book looks like it owes a debt to more than a few video games in its occasionally computer generated Doom-style aesthetic. However despite its derivativeness, The Maze Runner feels fresh enough (particularly no doubt to its younger target audience) to maintain attention. Wes Balls’ direction and the screenplay and score zip along so that the film moves at such a stunning pace, that even at nearly two hours, it never allows time for ennui to set in, or for audiences to pick at the exposition heavy plot.

The mystery at the heart of this maze may not add up to much but The Maze Runner has action aplenty. It is amazing how exciting the good old fashioned sight of running can still be, even if occasionally the characters are clearly surrounded by digital effects. The performances are solid with Will Poulter particularly showing his range when compared to his performance in recent comedy We’re the Millers and Dylan O’Brien making a decent hero, even if the character of Thomas isn’t that interesting. 

The Maze Runner sprints along, finding a way through its myriad of influences to become something breezily entertaining, if not totally satisfying by the time it reaches its end.

Here's a picture of me with The Maze Runner star Will Poulter

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The Maze Runner Poster and Trailer

The next YA adaptation is on its way with Will Poulter starring in The Maze Runner. Check out the new trailer below. It looks promisingly much more like Hunger Games than Twilight. The Maze Runner is about a group of boys who are trapped in a place called 'The Glade' with no memory of their past lives before they were brought in. They are surrounded by a maze that could lead them to escape but it is filled with slug like spiked monsters that can kill them. Dystopia, danger and the constant threat of death; it sounds like the kind of story I would have loved when I was a teen.

There are two more books in the series already so Fox will undoubtedly be hoping for a big hit. It is coming hot on the heels of Hunger Games, Twilight and Divergent so The Maze Runner will have to be good to compete in that kind of market place.

The new trailer and poster are below:

Hunger Games Catching Fire tops the box office

Every couple of weeks I contribute a box office report to Tastic Film that looks at what has topped the box office charts in America and elsewhere. This week it was the turn of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire which has surpassed even the high expectations most had for how well it would do. Here is an excerpt from my box office report for this week:

No surprises this week as The Hunger Games: Catching Fire sets light to the box office and smashes Thor and his puny hammer off the top spot. What is slightly surprising is just how scorching Catching Fire’s box office take will be on its opening weekend. It is estimated to take over $160 million in North America alone, almost doubling that for its worldwide take. This is a huge debut for a film not released in 3D and also in the traditionally quieter movie month of November. Catching Fire is leaving other young adult adaptations in its ash, namely the recent Twilight franchise that never performed this well. It is a step up from the first film in the trilogy and bodes well for the final book, now split (like Twilight) into two potentially massive movies.

Way back in second place, Thor: The Dark World took a measly $14 million but thanks to its own strong opening in both America and abroad, is still riding high on a worldwide take of nearly $550 million at the moment. The Best Man Holiday follows in third taking only around $8 million but after its surprisingly high opening weekend last week, is already well into profitable territory, beating the $50 million mark before it even opens overseas and all from a budget of $17 million.

Read the rest of the box office report at Tastic Film here.

You can also read my review of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire at Starburst Magazine here. 

Have you seen it yet? Reckon it deserves to top the box office charts again next week?

Does the Divergent trailer know its place?

Divergent is another adaptation of a trilogy of young adult novels that sees a dystopian future and a female heroine who will fight the system she finds herself in. Like Katniss Everdeen and The Hunger Games, the novels have an empowering young female lead and in Divergent it is the turn of Shailene Woodley to fight the power. Best known for her role in The Descendants alongside George Clooney, Divergent could be the role that sends her stratospheric in a similar way to the impact The Hunger Games had on Jennifer Lawrence's career.

Kate Winslet also stars as the villainous head of one of the factions in this new and 'improved' future society and will undoubtedly be a potential threat to Woodley's heroine. Winslet looks a bit like she is channeling Jodie Foster being a hard bastard in Elysium but will hopefully bring something interesting to what could be a potentially one note role.

If The Hunger Games isn't enough dystopian future teen rebellion for you, then Divergent is likely to be the way to go when it is released in March. Based on the debut novel of Veronica Roth, Shailene Woodley is Beatrice Prior, a girl who does not fit easily into any of the five strictly defined factions that populate future Chicago. She is what the powers that be call 'divergent' and the system does not take kindly to those who do not fit in to their factions.  It wouldn't be a contemporary YA Adaptation without a love interest and hunk with a heart duties fall on Theo James' numerically named Four, who may be able to help Tris keep her divergence a secret. If this does well and makes a healthy profit, expect sequels based on Roth's two remaining books in the series (Insurgent and Allegiant).

Check out the trailer below:

What do you think?

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Saving Mr. Banks Review

Is it supercalifragilisticexpialidocious or will it take more than a spoonful of sugar to make this medicine go down? Saving Mr. Banks tells the impossibly boring sounding story of Walt Disney's attempts to get author P.L. Travers to relinquish the rights to her beloved Mary Poppins so that he can make an all singing, all dancing Disney adaptation of the book. Travers is a miserable, jaded and stuck up Emma Thompson and Disney is nice guy Tom Hanks. What a surprise; Saving Mr. Banks is produced by none other than Disney.

Saving Mr. Banks is not a bad film. Thompson peels away the layers until we start to see the sympathetic soul beneath the icy exterior of Travers while the supporting cast of Paul Giamatti and Colin Farrel are superb. When Travers gets lured to Hollywood due to financial problems, Disney attempts to woo her with Sherman brothers songs, delicious sugary treats, a tour of Disneyland and even her own personal driver. Travers hates all the confectionery, the rooms full of Disney merchandise and the sugar coated songs but most of all she hates animation.

With flashbacks to her childhood in Australia humanising this hard to like figure and a developing relationship between (most poignantly) her and her driver played by Giamatti, Disney's film wins you over in the end, much like Disney himself ends up winning Travers over. That is all well and good; a nice little yarn about a woman learning to loosen up and forgive her self and at the same time a sweet, if slightly dubious, message about the power of movies to bring joy to people's lives.

I went home wondering if all this was true or how much the writers made up. So I did some exhaustive and extensive research (well I looked on Wikipedia) and found out that Travers was indeed an adviser to the production for two weeks and one of the real Sherman brothers who got the pleasure of working with her insists she was even worse than how she is portrayed in the film. 'She disapproved of the dilution of the harsher aspects of Mary Poppins' character, felt ambivalent about the music, and so hated the use of animation that she ruled out any further adaptations of the later Mary Poppins novels.'

In Saving Mr. Banks she does not get invited to the premiere but requests a ticket from Disney herself. This is true but instead of crying and tapping her feet and Disney and her parting ways on fond terms, this is what apparently really happened: 'she reportedly approached Disney and told him that the animated sequence had to go. Disney responded by walking away, saying as he did, "Pamela, the ship has sailed."' Whatever happened, she never agreed to let Disney adapt any more of her novels again.

I get the feeling that Travers would have hated Saving Mr. Banks for its sugar coating of her story and I doubt much that Disney would have approved much of the way it softens her. It's a sweet movie with solid performances but forget a spoonful of sugar, take it with a pinch of salt.

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Hunger Games: Catching Fire: Hope is stronger than fear

Katniss is back on screens in less than a month in Hunger Games: Catching Fire and a new trailer has been released to finally show us a bit more of the new and improved arena. The trailers so far have been a bit coy with the arena action but this one shows the waves, the wildlife and that central ciscle of water that is where the tributes of the Quarter Quell first find themselves thrust.

President Snow's voice over dominates the soundtrack with Donald Sutherland's sinister, silky tones threatening Katniss with a 'real war'. First she has to make it out of the deadlier arena with its terrifying jungle of clockwork horrors and then we'll see about that real war in the final part of the trilogy which has been split into two parts. Mockingjay parts 1 and 2 will see the revolt rising and really catching fire next year.

For now we get to see a whole new band of tributes, Katniss and Peeta struggling with their new found fame and revolution brewing in the districts. President Snow comes up with an ingenious way to get Katniss back in danger, putting her up against ex-winners in what was a jaw-dropping moment in the second book but has now been spoiled by all the trailers for those who didn't read it. So while those who have not read the book will surely be aware by now that Katniss is forced to fight another day in a Hunger Games arena, they will not get the shock of finding out halfway through reading the book that this is Snow's plan.

If you have not heard who Katniss is up against in the latest arena, then try not to read too much of the publicity stuff surrounding the film. Rest assured, the competition is fiercer and more frightening than last time around and Katniss (and Peeta) are really going to have their work cut out in order to survive.

Check out the trailer:



And here's a longer look:



Excited yet?

How I Live Now Review

Adaptations of popular novels for young adults are clogging up Hollywood production lines quicker than authors can write them. Following the success of Twilight and The Hunger Games comes a far grittier, grounded tale of ordinary kids at war starring Saoirse Ronan.

As American abroad Daisy, Ronan is outstanding, at first precocious teen before becoming a slowly budding flower when shipped to the English countryside to stay with her cousins. With World War 3 about to break out, her Aunt Penn leaves Daisy with the children; hunky Edmond (George MacKay), nerdy Isaac (Tom Holland) and their imaginative but annoying little sister Piper (Harley Bird).

Just as Daisy starts to let herself go, breaking down the barriers she puts up against the world, a nuke devastates London and worse still, she starts to fall in love with cousin Edmond. Heartbreak ensues as the kids are split up, forced to survive the war apart and desperate to find a way back home.

Director Kevin Macdonald creates two very distinct moods; optimism, hope, beauty and the joy of being young and free in the outdoors before the second half paints a bleak portrait of life under occupation. Despite the mood swing, Franz Lustig’s gorgeous bursts of close up photography stay beautiful throughout, adding pathos to the already emotional story.

While some elements of the novel appear lost in translation (the telepathic stuff sits uneasily with the realism of the rest of the film), Saoirse Ronan gives a magnificent performance transforming slowly from self-centred teen to terrified but determined victim and finally to something more.

Adapted from the novel by Meg Rosoff, it really treats its audience as adults containing mild incest, plenty of swearing, a dash of sex and some shocking moments of violence. It is admirable for not toning down the brutality of war (hello Hunger Games) or the language and lust of its protagonists (goodbye Twilight).

THE VERDICT A YA adaptation with the focus firmly on the adult, How I Live Now mixes forbidden romance with a bleak vision of World War 3. Twilight it ain’t.   

Certificate 15 Director Kevin MacDonald Starring Saoirse Ronan, George MacKay, Tom Holland, Harley Bird, Anna Chancellor Screenplay Jeremy Brock, Tony Grisoni, Penelope Skinner, Jack Thorne Distributor Entertainment One Running time 101 mins

Watch the trailer:

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