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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 05 December 2007

Briony Tallis (Ronan) is a 13-year-old girl who lives with her family in a lavish mansion on a large estate.  She speaks beautifully and eloquently.  You can tell that she is extremely well educated.  It’s no surprise that she dreams of being a famous writer.  At the same time, you’ll sense an immaturity in Briony.  It’s what you’d expect from a spoil young girl who loves being the centre of attention.

Looking out her bedroom window one afternoon, Briony sees something.  Her elder sister, Cecilia (Knightley), appears to be having an argument with Robbie (McAvoy), the good-looking son of the family’s housekeeper.  Cecilia storms off and Robbie is left standing there.  Briony is curious as to what just happened.  She has had her own crush on Robbie for a number of years.  Is there something going on between Cecilia and Robbie that she isn’t aware of?

Her suspicions are confirmed that very afternoon.  Robbie asks Briony to deliver a secret letter to Cecilia.  It was meant for Cecilia’s eyes only but Briony can’t help herself and reads the letter.  She is stunned by its contents (you’ll have to see the film to find out why) but it does reveal Robbie’s true feelings.  In a state of shock, Briony passes the letter on to Cecilia and quickly retreats to her bedroom.

That evening, a special dinner has been prepared.  Briony’s brother and a few of her cousins have come home for a family visit.  In the aftermath of dinner, a crime will be committed.  In a haze of confusion and jealousy, Briony points the finger at Robbie.  Despite knowing that it was not Robbie, Broiny tells the police that she saw him commit the crime.

My plot overview covers much of the film’s first half.  In the second hour, we pan into the future and learn that Robbie went to jail.  He was released after a few years under the condition that he join the British Army and fight the French in World War II.  There’s a great scene where we see him walking on the beaches at Dunkirk.

Despite all that happened, the love between Robbie and Cecilia was as strong as ever.  They may not have been able to see each other but they wrote constantly.  Cecilia continually pleaded with Robbie to “come back to me”.  As Briony grew up, she would realise the gravity of her mistake.  Was there anything she could do to “atone” for her foolish actions?

Atonement is a simple story told beautifully by screenwriter Christopher Hampton (The Quiet American) and director Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice).  It is adapted from the book written by Ian McEwan, which won Time Magazine’s best fiction novel of 2001.  The finale (involving veteran actress Vanessa Redgrave) caught me off guard.  I could not have imagined a more appropriate ending.

The film has been touted as a possible Oscar contender and these claims are well and truly justified.  Every performance is terrific.  It’s a breakout role for James McAvoy (following his brilliance in The Last King Of Scotland) which should generated a lot of positive publicity.  Keira Knightley has proven once again (after Pride & Prejudice) that she the acting talent to match her good looks.  Newcomer Saoirse Ronan (as the young Briony) is incredibly impressive given her young age.

It was Joe Wright’s direction of the film which sealed the deal for me.  He magically weaves the story in a way that we can see events from a variety of perspectives.  It’s not done obviously though.  You’ll be watching the screen and then realise that you’ve seen this before.  He has also conjured an inventive soundtrack with the help of composer Dario Marianelli (Pride & Prejudice).  Who’d have thought that a typewriter could be a musical instrument?

Atonement tells an absorbing story in a creative manner.  What more could you want?

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 26 November 2007

I’ve been waiting to see Into The Wild for a while.  The trailer looked great and the combination of rising star Emile Hirsch (The Emperor’s Club) with director Sean Penn (The Pledge) was an attractive proposition.  Early reviews from the Toronto Film Festival were positive and many believed it had a legitimate shot at earning some Oscar nominations.

Into The Wild tells the true story of Christopher McCandless.  After graduating from an Atlanta college in 1990, Chris decided to go on an “adventure”.  He gave the balance of his bank account to charity and set off on a trek across the United States and Canada.  His goal was to make it to Alaska.  Why did he do this?  I’m not entirely sure but I think he wanted to escape his problems at home and live his life at his fullest.

I think now is the right time to break the bad news – I passionately disliked this film.  Within 15 minutes it was “rubbing me up the wrong way”.  My first reason is that I did not like or understand the Chris McCandless character.  Quite frankly, I think he was an idiot.  My second, and most important reason, is that the film wanted me to like him.  This has been debated on various internet forums and some people will disagree with this statement.  I am giving my honest opinion however and it cannot be changed.  I refuse to feel sympathy for a smart-ass who thinks he has the answers to everything.

When he set out on his journey, Chris got rid of all his identification and changed his name to Alexander Supertramp.  He didn’t tell anyone what he was doing or where he was going.  His parents (played by Marcia Gay Harden and William Hurt) and his sister (played by Jena Malone) didn’t know what had happened to him.  Not once did he contact them during his trip.  Police were called in but they had no luck locating him.  Now Chris may not have liked his parents but that’s a pretty cruel thing to do them, is it not?

Over the next two years en route to Alaska, Chris met an assortment of people.  These tales (some more interesting than others) make up much of the film’s narrative.  They didn’t improve my liking for Chris McCandless.  He rambles on with a bunch of philosophical garbage and these new found friends lap it up like he’s a saint.  We’re talking about a kid with next-to-no real life experience.  Can I ask one question – why does he give away all his money at the start of the film and then get a low paying job at a global food giant (Burger King) to pay for supplies?  Now that’s experiencing “nature”!

The only decent part in the film come at the very end when Chris stays at the home of an elderly gentleman named Ron (Holbrook).  Veteran actor Hal Holbrook is being touted as an Oscar contender for his brief but beautiful performance.  The scene where he says goodbye to Chris (before he heads off on the final part of his journey) feels true and honest.       

Sean Penn’s direction didn’t win me over either.  I think this is the worst film he’s done.  He’s split the story into meaningless “chapters” and uses the same techniques over and over again.  What’s the point of including the journal extracts from Chris’s diary and splashing them all over the screen?

Most moviegoers have liked Into The Wild but I’m sticking to my position and supporting the minority.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 04 December 2007

The tale of Beowulf comes from a lengthy poem written approximately 1,000 years ago.  No one knows who wrote it.  It is set in Scandinavia in the 5^th and 6^th centuries and has been the subject of much scrutiny by historians.  How much of the story and its characters are real?  Is it all a simple fable?  We’ll never know for sure.

After having been made into a poor live-action movie in 1999 (starring Christopher Lambert), Beowulf has been brought back to the screen in animation form by director Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump).

I think I’m correct in calling this film “animated” but it’s not so clear cut.  The film has been made using a “performance capture” technique.  The way it works is that real actors have thousands of digital sensors attached to their face and body.  Every movement is captured by a computer and these movements are then used to create the animated characters that we see in the film.  This same method was used to bring Gollum to life in The Lord Of The Rings movies.

Getting back to the story, Beowulf (Winstone) is a brave English warrior who has travelled to a Denmark in search of fame and fortune.  The King (Hopkins) has offered a reward to any man who can kill the evil monster named Grendel that is terrorising his kingdom.  Beowulf is successful in his task and in return, the King gives him a valuable golden horn.

It turns out that there’s one more evil being that will need to be slain – Grendel’s mother.  When Beowulf finds her in a cave high atop the nearby mountains, he is seduced by her incredible beauty.  She offers Beowulf a deal – she will make him “the greatest king who ever lived” if he will sleep with her and give her a son.  Beowulf accepts the offer but will regret it for the rest of his life…

I thought this film took a little while to get going but once the stage was set, I enjoyed it a lot.  It reminded me of a Shakespearean tragedy – it’s easy to follow and you sense that trouble lurks around every corner.

There’s a great group of actors amongst the cast also.  Some look exactly like they do in real life (such as Angelina Jolie and Anthony Hopkins) but others look different (such as Ray Winstone as Beowulf).  Seeing them in quasi-animated form gives the film a distinctive look.  I like this style and it suits the legendary nature of the story.  I don’t think this could have worked as a live action movie (as verified by the 1999 film discussed above).

The film is showing in selected cinemas in a 3-D format.  I know a lot of people wait until movies are released on DVD before watching them but here’s one reason to make a trip to the cinema.  Whilst I only saw the film in 2-D, I’m told the 3-D version is incredible from a visual perspective.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 21 November 2007

Eddie Cantrow (Ben Stiller) is a 40-year-old guy who has never been married.  He’s not phased by that fact and likes his job working as the manager of a sporting goods store.  His dad (Jerry Stiller) and best friend (Corddry) see things differently however.  They keep telling Eddie that he’s missing out on so much by not having a wife.

In a strange sequence of events, Eddie meets Lila (Akerman), a young woman who works as an environmental researcher.  The two hit it off right away and start spending a lot of time together.  Things couldn’t be better… until Lila gets some bad news – they want her to relocate to Holland for work.  The only way of preventing the move is for her to get married.  So, after 6 weeks together, Eddie and Lila take the plunge and head to Mexico for their honeymoon.

It turns out that Lila is the “bride from hell”.  She has a series of annoying habits and was not entirely honest about her past and her work.  Eddie quickly realises that he shouldn’t have gotten married so soon.  To further complicate matters, he meets a girl named Miranda (Monaghan) who is also staying at the beach-side resort.  They have much in common and enjoy each other’s sense of humour.  Eddie suddenly feels guilty.  This is not because he’s ignoring his sunburnt wife in the hotel room but because he isn’t being honest with Miranda and telling him that he’s married and on his honeymoon.

This could have been funny but the screenplay is not well written.  I expected much better from Peter and Bobby Farrelly, the guys responsible for such comedic classics as There’s Something About Mary and Shallow Hal.  The Heatbreak Kid is actually a remake of a 1972 Neil Simon film of the same title which stared Charles Grodin and Cybill Shepherd.

My big problem with this film was that I didn’t understand the Lila character.  As I’ve alluded to earlier, she reveals a few things about herself that Eddie would have preferred to know before they were married.  Did she do this deliberately?  This is what’s never made clear.  How then, can I see her as the villain?  Why should I be cheering for Eddie to hook up with the new girl when I’m thinking that Lila is an innocent pawn?  Isn’t it just as much Eddie’s fault for rushing into this relationship?

My issues with the farcical storyline prevented me from enjoying the film’s attempted humour.  Some of the key jokes aren’t too bad.  They’re crude but I liked that – they caught me off guard.  A scene near the end of the film involving a jellyfish sting was the standout.  It will undoubtedly get an audience reaction in every cinema in which this movie is shown.

The jokes and style are similar to that of There’s Something About Mary but in the end, The Heartbreak Kid is a vastly inferior film.

Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 04 December 2007

Seinfeld is one of my all-time favourite television shows.  Creators Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld took ordinary situations and made them hilariously funny.  The final show (which aired in 1998) was the 3^rd most watched series finale in U.S. television history.

Considering his success, it’s strange that Jerry Seinfeld hasn’t featured in a movie or television series since Seinfeld wrapped up.  That nine year stretch has been broken with the arrival of Bee Movie – an animated film written by Jerry Seinfeld in which he also voices the leading character.

It tells the story of Barry B. Benson (Seinfeld), a bee who has just graduated from college and is about to start his first job.  His excitement turns to despair when he realises that once he picks a job, he must stick with it for the rest of his life.  It’s just the way things are in the bee world.  Everyone works hard and there’s no time for any leisure.

Determined to break the mould, Barry goes outside the hive in search of adventure.  He winds up on the window sill of a young florist named Vanessa (Zellweger).  After Vanessa saves him from a certain death, Barry thinks it appropriate to thank her.  He flies up to her in the kitchen and says just that.  As you’d expect, Vanessa is stunned.  Who’d have thought that bees could talk?

Barry soon realises that not everyone in the human race is so nice.  He learns that bees are being farmed by humans with the resulting honey sold in supermarkets.  Furious that they are stealing their only source of food, Barry decides to sue the human race.

Bee Movie was not as funny as I thought it might be.  The storyline is far-fetched (you should have gathered that already) and this limits the opportunities to slip in a good joke.  You can only take this “bee concept” so far.  It can’t compete with the superbly written Ratatouille, the best animated film of 2007.

Is it still worth a look?  I think it is.  There’s some fun celebrity cameos and a few moments to chuckle over.  You’ll have to wait until the very end of the film for the best joke – a scene in which a mosquito (voiced by Chris Rock) describes why he’s perfect to become a lawyer.  The animation is also top-notch – the characters look cute and will grab the attention of the younger audience.

My mixed feelings for Bee Movie make it the ideal film to award my passing grade… a B.