Category: Action film

Yojimbo (1961)

Kurosawa’s dust-filled samurai actioner is a very Japanese Western and huge fun

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Cast: Toshiro Mifune (“Kuwabatake Sanjuro”), Eijirō Tōno (Gonji), Tatsuya Nakadai (Unosuke), Seizaburo Kawazu (Seibei), Kyū Sazanka (Ushitora), Isuzu Yamada (Orin), Daisuke Katō (Inokichi), Takashi Shimura (Tokuemon), Hiroshi Tachikawa (Yoichiro), Yosuke Natsuki (Farmer’s Son), Kamatari Fujiwara (Tazaemon), Atsushi Watanabe (Coffin maker)

An unknown stranger arrives in a dust-filled border town and finds himself stuck in the middle of a long-running feud between two gangs with only his wits and skill with his weapon for any advantage. If you had any doubt about the influence American Westerns had on Akira Kurosawa, look no further than Yojimbo. Perhaps the most purely enjoyable movie Kurosawa ever made, Yojimbo can also lay claim to being one of the greatest Westerns ever made, given greater depth with Kurosawa’s subtle social satire on Japanese samurai culture. This is Kurosawa at his best: stripped-back and dynamic with a weight behind the fun.

Our unnamed samurai is (Toshiro Mifune), now a wandering ronin. The gangs: on one side Seibei (Seizaburo Kawazu) the town’s long-term boss, whose ruthless wife Orin (Isuzu Yamada) is the power behind a throne she intends to pass to their timid son Yoichiro (Hiroshi Tachikawa). On the other: Ushitora (Kyū Sazanka), Seibei’s former number two furious at being passed over as heir apparent, backed by his brothers, dim but strong Inokichi (Daisuke Katō) and would-be gunslinger Unosuko (Tatsuya Nakadai). The rivalry has bought the town to the edge of ruin and our unnamed samurai – giving himself the spontaneous pseudonym “Kuwabatake Sanjuro” (literally “Mulberry Field aged Thirty”) – use his wit and ingenuity to play both sides against each other to get rid of them.

The Western influences in Yojimbo are immediately obvious. The town looks like a Fordian dustboal frontier towns, Kurosawa delighting in the widescreen, windswept streets the site of so many slow-burn face-offs. Rivals meet on main street, facing each other at opposite ends, like High Noon. Seibei operates out of a worn-out brothel, Sanjuro stays in a saloon run by a weary old-timer, a local sheriff is a hopelessly inept foreluck-tugger, Sanjuro has the same gruff excellence with a sword as John Wayne and Alan Ladd had with a gun. By the time Unosuko turns up clutching the town’s only gun and preening like Jack Palace in Shane, it’s impossible to miss we are in the Old Japanese West.

This is a town in total breakdown, where the coffin-maker makes a huge income creating piles of tombs for the rival gangsters who fall in constant duels. Both gangs are in, their way, pathetic. Far from intimidating, Seibei (a hilariously whiny Seizaburo Kawazu) is a puffed-up old man, easily brow-beaten by his wife. Unosake has more swagger and guts, but he’s as cluelessly inept as Seibei. Both gangsters have crews stuffed with fighters but lack almost anyone with any actual skill. When the gangsters are first manipulated into facing-off, they posture and feint at each other like blow-hard school bullies then seem relieved when the arrival of a local official leads to a sudden ceasefire.

Parodying the old Samurai class, Sanjuro is a million miles from the sort of elite honour-bound soldier we expect. In one of his finest performances, Toshiro Mifune is scruffy, cynical and works very hard to give the impression he’s more interested in his immediate needs than any higher purpose. Mifune is gruff, constantly scratching or chewing: he’s a prototype Clint Eastwood (and Yojimbo was ripped off by Leone for A Fistful of Dollars, leading to a Toho Studios legal case), a morally ambiguous figure who does the right thing when it coincides with his own interests. His motives are unknowable. Why does he set-out to destroy both gangs? Is it sympathy for the mess of the town, or is it because he sees a chance to make a quick buck from the mess? Is it because he’s bored (and eventually annoyed) and does it for his own amusement?

The brilliance of Mifune’s shaggy-dog performance is that it could be all or none of these things. Sanjuro does just one, unmistakeably, decent, selfless thing in the film: saving Ushitora’s unwilling mistress and her downtrodden family. What does it get him? Their near suicidal deference and ostentatious gratitude drives him nearly to distraction and leads to a near-fatal beating. But it really rankles Sanjuro because it’s possible he despises the idea of decency in himself, an intriguing insight into what could be unknown darknesses in his past. Does he know selfless acts can become the only chink in your armour?

Aside from that, his mastery of the situation is hugely entertaining. Never mind two steps, he seems a marathon ahead of the rest. Provoking a pointless early clash with Ushitora’s heavies, he bests them in seconds with a series of lightning fast sword strokes (Star Wars Mos Eisley-based Kenobi swordplaywas clearly inspired by this), establishing in seconds he’s the alpha both sides need to compete over. When action kicks in, Sanjuro is unmatched by the Dickensian collection of street thugs both sides have amassed, his swift reflexes and expert slices reducing even a hideously outnumbered fight into a curb-stomp clash. You can see Kurosawa’s influence over Leone here: clashes in Yojimbo have long build-ups and explosive, sometimes violently bloody outcomes (an arm severed here, a spray of blood there, characters bleeding out).

But Sanjuro’s other skill is his ability to appraise rivals instantly. None of them disappoint in their transparent greed and shortsightedness. Kurosawa visually embodies Sanjuro’s shrewdness by frequently having him climb up a tower platform on the main street to literally look down on the results of his manipulations. No one can match him. Orin – a pleasing twist on her Throne of Blood role as an ineffective Lady Macbeth by Isuzu Yamada – thinks she’s smart enough to double-cross him, but her brains only look impressive matched against the mediocrities of the town. Daisuke Katō’s Inokichi – so dim he can’t even count with the aid of his fingers – literally believes anything he’s told by the last person who spoke to him. Only Tatsuya Nakadai’s smug Unosuke is in anyway threat, but he’s a preening show-off whose only qualification for being the toughest guy in town is because he owns the only gun (which he can’t help fetishistically stroking at every opportunity).

The gun is another sign of a culture at crossroads – the major threat to Sanjuro comes not from any human, but from a distance-killing tool that could wipe out his vastly superior tactical and fighting ability in a second. Yojimbo is showing us a Japan tipping over the edge into a future where ruthless gangs, with more brawn than brain, will drive towns like this into the ground – but our hero, a symbol of a bygone age of heroics, isn’t traditionally heroic either: he’s a scruffy, self-interested loner, who despises nobility. Our other samurai, Seibei’s pet-trainer, is hardly a great advert for samurai either, peddling his skills for cash and huffily walking out when his value is not recognised.

All this is wrapped up in a film that is undeniably hugely entertaining. The action, when it comes, is truly exciting. Mifune is superb, charismatic, likeable with a wry charm and scruffy smile. Kurosawa’s dust-blown pseudo-western is brilliantly assembled, and its wry social satire on an increasingly disorganised Japan falling into chaos (with a golden age that wasn’t that golden behind it) never buries the thrills and spills of his masterfully constructed action drama. Yojimbo is certainly his most purely entertaining film, stripped back and avoiding the overindulgence and bombast of his less successful films. It’s a treat.

Training Day (2001)

Pulsating corrupt-cop drama, highly entertaining with a full-throttle Denzel Washington

Director: Antoine Fuqua

Cast: Denzel Washington (Detective Alonzo Harris), Ethan Hawke (Officer Jake Hoyt), Scott Glenn (Roger), Tom Berenger (Stan Gursky LAPD), Harris Yulin (Doug Rosselli LAPD), Raymond J Barry (Lou Jacobs LAPD), Cliff Curtis (Smiley), Dr Dre (Officer Paul), Snoop Dogg (Blue), Macy Gray (Sandman’s wife), Charlotte Ayanna (Lisa), Eva Mendes (Sara)

“King Kong ain’t got nothing on me!” That’s the mantra of larger-than-life legendary cop Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washington), who has immersed himself so much in the dirty neighbourhood gangland of LA that it’s hard to see where cop ends and crook begins. Alonso claims to believe to keep the town clean, you gotta break a few rules. But then he also believes in filling his own pockets with stolen money. It’s all going to come to a head in one day: first day on the job for ambitious boy-scout officer Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke) who thinks he’s auditioning to join an elite squad only to find he’s the victim of a series of elaborate mind-games and dodgy moves by Alonzo, testing to see whether he is potential asset or sacrificial pawn. It’s going to be a long day.

Training Day is basically a massive dance with the devil, offering his little Faustus all the wonders of the world in return for his soul. It’s all there for Hoyt’s taking: respect, glory, standing – and of course oodles of plastic-wrapped dollar bills. All he has to do is sacrifice every inch of his integrity and personal morality to Alonzo Harris, a grandstanding Mephistopheles. This first day is all about Harris pushing Hoyt to see how far he will go. Will he smoke a little dope so he could pass as an undercover druggie? Will he search a house under a false warrant? Will he rough up a suspect? Will he murder a drugdealer and steal his cash?

Throughout all this, Denzel Washington barnstorms to fantastic Oscar-winning effect. This is a delightfully Devilish performance, Washington leaving it all out on the pitch. Alonzo Harris has inhabited the persona of the gangsters he follows for so long he’s basically become one. Harris is scarily charismatic, the unshakeable confident cool he uses to cow and terrify criminals and punks on the street, also making him a hugely attractive figure. This is despite his complete amorality, his ruthless capacity for violence and his shocking willingness to abuse and use almost everyone around him. He does all this by convincing Hoyt for long stretches that his poor treatment, abuse and deception of him is all in Hoyt’s own interest: to toughen up this naïve puppy into a killer.

Hoyt spends half the time if this is some elaborate show-and-test. Who can blame him? Washington’s exuberance plays masterfully on the edges of someone putting on a massive performance. There are neat moment where we see how fragile some of Harris’ control is, once he is outside of his comfort zone: he’s in hoc for millions to Russian gangsters and as events of the day pile up his thermonuclear self-confidence tips into moments of impotent fury. Washington is fantastic as this street monster, whose seductive lines on modern policing (do a little bad to do a greater good) start off sounding like common sense before you realise they tip quickly into justifying open criminality. It’s a performance of perfect physical swagger matched with his limitless charisma, inverting the qualities that made him a perfect Steve Biko or Malcolm X into a Lectorish monster.

Ethan Hawke is also extremely good as his polar opposite, the eager to please rookie who realises there is a lot more going on here than he thought. Training Day suggests there may well be a middle ground between Hoyt’s straight-as-an-arrow idea of policing and Harris’ corruption – and it’s part of Harris’ appeal that his perverted mentoring ends up making Hoyt a tougher, more unrelenting (better?) cop than he was before. But also, Hawke is great at showing that Hoyt (under his sheen of moral uprightness) is also a tough, hardened professional. In classic story-telling style, Harris is a dark reflection of Hoyt: they share a stubbornness, a conviction that they are right, a refusal to be intimidated (Hoyt may nervously try to please Harris at first, but once he realises the score he refuses to be forced into doing anything he doesn’t want to do) and a capacity for throwing themselves into decisive action. There is a reason why this rookie can get the drop on Harris – much to his wicked mentor’s delight and admiration – in a way no one else can.

That alone shows the dark magnetism of people like Harris: like Hoyt we end up wanting their approval even when we hate or fear them. Even as he holds a shotgun to his head, there is a part of Hoyt you suspect is proud that Harris’ gut reaction is to shout an impressed “My man!”. Of course Harris knows his validation is important to people. Monsters like this know the weaker-willed crave their respect. But then Harris also knows no one else in his team – all of them weak-willed bullies, desperately trying to imitate them – have even a quarter of the independence of mind Hoyt has.

What Harris under-estimates is Hoyt’s survival instinct. The final third of the film, the clash that has been building inevitably between these two, again demonstrates both their similarities and their fundamental differences. The main difference between them being Hoyt cares for, and protects others, and Harris cares only about himself. Hoyt’s humanitarianism will save him from dangerous situations and even Harris’ girlfriend (a tough-but-cowed performance from Eva Mendes) recognises Hoyt has shown more concern for her son in a few minutes than his father, Harris, ever has in his whole life.

The final act of Training Day hinges a little too much on one whopper of a coincidence: the sort of narrative contrivance so colossal that, in a less magnetic film, you’d be throwing stuff at the TV shouting “oh come on!” It’s final, inevitable, confrontation between Harris and Hoyt feels rather too much like many, many other films before it in every single beat, while the ending has a whiff of Hays Code morality (all wrongs righted!) about it that rather undermines the edgy, unpredictable film it precedes.

But when Training Day focuses on the sound and the fury of Washington and the Faustian dance on the deep grey lines of street policing, this is a sensational, energetic and highly watchable cop thriller, pulsatingly directed by Antonie Fuqua. With Washington superb and Hawke easy to overlook as his straight-laced partner, it’s a character study that constantly shifts our expectations and leaves us genuinely worried about the fate of its hero. The sort of slick entertainment Hollywood does at its best.

Alien: Romulus (2024)

Starting as a cleverly structured homage, it becomes increasingly more nostalgia driven as it goes on

Director: Fede Álvarez

Cast: Cailee Spaeny (Rain), David Jonsson (Andy), Archie Renaux (Tyler), Isabela Merced (Kay), Spike Fearn (Bjorn), Aileen Wu (Navarro), Daniel Betts / Ian Holm (Rook)

It’s always a surprise how many Alien films there actually are (at least nine if you count all the Alien vs Predators). Perhaps we forget because so many of them have been less than great. So, saying Alien: Romulus is the third best Alien film isn’t exactly high praise. After all, beyond Alien and Aliens the bar is pretty low. Alien: Romulus has a lot going for it, not least the fact it’s clearly been made with love by a director who adores the series. It makes it all the sadder that, the longer it goes on, the more it becomes a fan-boy remix of a elements from the other films. It ends up as much of a nostalgia obsessed, easter-egg piece of fan bait as any recent Marvel film, but at least entertaining.

Set some time after Alien – it opens with a mysterious Weyland-Yutani ship plucking the original Xenomorph (wrapped in a protective cocoon) from the Nostromo’s wreckage– ourhero is Rain (Cailee Spaeny), a young worker in a grim mining facility planet. Working for credits for passage home – a target the company constantly changes – she lives with her adoptive ‘brother’ Andy (David Jonsson), a gentle, glitchy synthetic reprogrammed by her late father. They have a chance for freedom when her ex-boyfriend Tyler (Archie Renaux) and his crew asks her and Andy’s help to plunder cryostasis chambers from an abandoned ship so they can survive the nine-year journey to another world. But the ship (Romulus and Remus) is, of course, the one we saw earlier – and on board are a host of facehugger experiments, leading inevitably to Xenomorph slaughter.

Alien: Romulus starts very strongly, carefully reconstructing the stylistic look and feel of the original (right down to the spot-on sound design of all those 70’s future computers blinking into life, chuntering old fax machines). The crapsack colony feels perfectly in-tune with Aliens, as a mix of Western frontier town and industrial hellscape. Álvarez’s film brings the franchise back to its roots, after the mystique-shattering of Ridley Scott’s prequels. Romulus is a haunted house in space, a psychopathic alien lucking around every corner. As the tension slowly builds – helped by the fact we, obviously, know a lot more about what those odd spidery-things suspended in animation are – Alien: Romulus feels like a return to the factors that made the series work in the first place.

Álvarez dials up the sexualised body horror of this revolting creature and its unstoppable relentless cunning. Alien: Romulus is full of the revolting invasiveness of these animals, the icky body horror of creatures hatching inside you, with the nightmare-fuel monstrosities getting worse as the film goes on. Playing out in a poorly lit ship, the creatures scuttle from the corners of the screen to impregnate or dissect their victims. He also has some neat original ideas, including deducing the face-huggers detect body heat and movement (having no eyes) so the only way to evade them is to raise the room temperature and move slowly (such a good idea, you wish he made more of it).

It’s also a film that looks at the all-round weapon nature of these creatures, specifically their acid blood. The team can’t shoot the things – they’ll melt through the decks and cause instant decompression – and when one does die, its blood floats through zero-gravity as an almost impossible to evade thread. One character dies not from the jaws of the xenomorph, but from sticking a cattle prod into its cocoon, acid spilling out into his eyes, hands and chest (not pretty).

It’s opening act also offers an intriguing relationship between its two leads, one a potential proto-Ripley with a strong moral compass, the other a very different type of synthetic. Andy, well-played by David Jonsson, is gentle, clumsy and naïve, a vulnerable people-pleaser who loves cringy Dad jokes, prone to the android equivalent of epileptic fits under pressure. By establishing the closeness between these two characters, Alien: Romulus explores a new angle of the series study of the relationship between humans and their creations: are these synthetics people or property?

Rain clearly loves Andy: she may resent the bullying he receives from some of the anti-synthetic crew, but also willingly reprograms him when needed and plans to leave him behind so as not to fall foul of anti-synthetic laws back home. Reprogramming Andy drastically alters his personality – David Jonsson does a great job switching his body language, demeanour and accent (back to his native British) – as Andy becomes a more familiar Alien electric reflexes and ‘needs-of-the-many’ andriod. What’s intriguing here is its implied part of this is due to Andy’s own suppressed resentment at his treatment by the humans as somewhere between a child and a screwdriver.

The complex relationship between these two is the heart of Alien: Romulus and its most original element. It’s a shame the film loses focus on this the longer it goes on. As Romulus hits it’s second half, Álvarez succumbs to fanboy temptation until finally he can’t go more than thirty seconds without referencing an line or scene from an earlier Alien film. Slowly the parade of painfully recognisable features (even an utterly out-of-character reprise of ‘Get away from her you bitch’) begins to depress you as Alien: Romulus gives up the idea of being something fresh and settles for being a passionate piece of fan-fiction, unable to imagine anything beyond the scenarios it’s already seen play out somewhere else.

Alien: Romulus becomes as much a nostalgia trip as anything else Hollywood makes these days. Right down to recreating a digital version of the late Ian Holm as ‘Rook’, Romulus and Remus’ version of Nostromo’s Ash, for a prominent role. The recreation is pretty good, Rook is an interesting character – sympathetic to the heroes at first, but increasingly reverting to form – but there is something uncomfortable about it. This is, after all, a recreation for nostalgia of a dead actor, without his consent (though with his families) not as a visual cameo but as a crucial character. How long before we get more and more of this?

It’s a slightly unsettling note, even if I ended up enjoying Alien: Romulus more than a should have. Part of me liked seeing Ian Holm again. Hypocritically I don’t mind quite so much riffs on films I like –hypocritical since I was annoyed by the same thing in Deadpool & Wolverine. But I wish Alien: Romulus had settled for subtle recreation of details while striking out somewhere unique. What it actually ends up doing is suggesting that, once you strip it down to its roots, there isn’t much to Alien beyond slasher-in-space. Which makes you think, for all its flaws, perhaps Prometheus was a braver movie for trying to do something that wasn’t that.

But then I’ll also definitely watch it again. So maybe that makes me part of the problem.

The Hidden Fortress (1958)

Kurosawa’s samurai entertainment is overlong but has just enough action and adventure

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Cast: Toshiro Mifune (General Rokurota Makabe), Minoru Chiaki (Tahei), Kamatari Fujiwara (Matashichi), Susumu Fujita (General Hyoe Tadokoro), Takashi Shimura (General Izumi Nagakura), Misa Uehara (Princess Yuki), Eiko Miyoshi (Yuki’s lady-in-waiting), Toshiko Higuchi (Prostitute)

A princess hides in a castle from the wicked forces who have captured her kingdom. Her only hope is a noble general who has concealed the kingdom’s gold in bundles of wood, hidden in a lake at a mysterious castle. The general needs to get the gold and the princess through miles of hostile territory, with only a pair of greedy, incompetent peasants to help. This fairy tale structure is spun by Kurosawa into a samurai action-adventure with Mifune (inevitably) as the general, Misa Uehara as the Princess and Minoru Chiaki and Kamatari Fujiwara as the peasants. It’s good fun, overlong, but an entertaining ride – and one now best known now for its influence over Star Wars.

Kurosawa, after pouring his heart and soul into Throne of Blood, needed to relax. He decided it was time for an entertainment, something to please the crowds. The Hidden Fortress is certainly that, Kurosawa’s first film shot on impressive widescreen Tohoscope, with plenty of horse-bound action and swordplay. It’s really a Kurosawa Westerns, with heroes on the trail on a mission with bad guys to foil. But, as is sometimes the case with Kurosawa, it’s length and scope frequently makes it feel slightly indulgent, while it’s mix of comedy and drama doesn’t always sit comfortably together.

The Hidden Fortress is though highly cinematic. As well as Kurosawa’s enjoyment of the wide-angle lens – soaking up the slopes of Mount Fuji, often rolling in a beautiful mist – it frequently employs Kurosawa’s love of fast-editing tricks, in particular fast wipes to move us seamlessly from one place and time to another (one of many flourishes that influenced George Lucas who made these Kurosawa wipes internationally famous). A horse charge, where General Makabe chases down the samurai hunting them, is a grippingly frenetic with its pace and energy.

Kurosawa mixes this with comedy, though his unusual POV characters. In another move cited by Lucas’ as the inspiration for C3PO and R2D2, much of The Hidden Fortress takes place from the perspective of its peasant sidekicks. But, unlike the genial droids, Tahei and Matashichi are greedy, cowardly and selfish, frequently proving themselves untrustworthy. But, then in a touch of social commentary, perhaps they don’t owe anything to a general who treats them as slaves and (initially) plans to kill them once they are no longer useful. They are played with energetic larger-than-life force by Minoru Chiaki and Kamatari Fujiwara that contrasts neatly with the gruff authority of Mifune.

It’s them we follow from the start, feuding over robbing the body of a slain samurai before being flung into the slave mines of the Princess’ former kingdom. One of Hidden Fortress’ gently played themes is the class difference between these two sons-of-the-soil and the upper-classes they (reluctantly) serve. For starters, that service comes with no choice – it never occurs to Makabe that they have a say in the matter – and they are told almost nothing about the purpose of their journey. They are instead tools for a higher purpose, just as the Princess’ similar-looking maid is sent to town to be captured and executed, to help protect the bloodline of the royal family.

It’s an attitude the Princess – well played by Misa Uehara as a stubborn young woman, full of righteous indignation at her restrictive office – comes to deplore. She, unlike anyone else among the elite, questions the idea of the poor as unimportant puppets for their betters, and it is she who is drawn to protect people, including a mis-treated prostitute who she insists Makabe buys the freedom of. It’s also she – more than anyone else, including the two peasants – drawn towards the anarchic Fire Festival they encounter, with its dismissal of worldly goods and embracing of enjoying life. But, perhaps Kurosawa’s point is it’s only the wealthy who can afford to indulge themselves with such thoughts: peasants have far fewer options and no choice but to scrabble in the dirt for coins.

This social commentary would perhaps be more widely discussed if the film had kept Kurosawa’s original title, Three Bad Men in a Hidden Fortress: a title that tips Tahei, Matashichi and Makabe into the same morally ambiguous pot, all obsessed with worldly needs (money or the continuation of the royal house) over any concerns about those around them. But, somehow, it’s easier to focus on the wheedling greed of the peasants, and overlook the lofty cold distance of the general, because he’s a noble guy, brave and daring who spares his opponent after a fair duel.

It’s also because The Hidden Fortress is less focused on these elements – Seven Samurai did the snobbery of the samurai class and the mixed motives of the working classes more effectively in any case – and more on being a rollicking, road-movie entertainment. It’s Western-style (in both ways) misfit band adventures, features expertly filmed action set-pieces. Best of all the previously mentioned chase, and a gripping one-on-one duel between Rakabe and his rival General Tadokoro (a fine performance of quiet dignity from Susumu Fujita), that is edge-of-the-seat in its mix of graceful camera work and exciting sword play.

The Hidden Fortress is entertaining, but it’s hard to escape the feeling there is too much of it. Despite not being as long as Seven Samurai, it feels less forceful narratively, largely features less compelling characters and is less well balanced between depth and action. Its plot feels almost deliberately lightweight and the resolution feels rushed. The film’s fairy-tale simplicity really needs a relatable hero at its heart – but the focus on the sometimes irritating peasants means we don’t get that. Fundamentally, The Hidden Fortress is an adventure story from a director, taking a rest from more complex work. It entertains, but feels like it lives in the shadow of other films, even before its connection to Star Wars turned it into a footnote in another film’s story.

Throne of Blood (1957)

Kurosawa’s Macbeth adaptation beautifully captures much of the spirit of Shakespeare

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Cast: Toshiro Mifune (Taketoki Washizu), Isuzu Yamada (Lady Asaji Washizu), Minoru Chiaki (Yoshiaki Miki), Takashi Shimura (Noriyasu Odagura), Akira Kubo (Yoshiteru Miki), Yōichi Tachikawa (Kunimaru Tsuzuki), Takamaru Sasaki (Lord Kuniharu Tsuzuki), Chieko Naniwa (Forest witch)

Shakespeare is universal. What more proof do you need, than to see Macbeth very much present in Throne of Blood, Kurosawa’s samurai epic version of the Bard’s Scottish play. Kurosawa’s film takes the plot of Shakespeare’s tragedy, with touches of Japanese Noh theatre, told with his distinctive visual eye. It makes for truly great cinema, one of Kurosawa’s undisputed masterpieces – even if it loses some of the greatness of Shakespeare along the way.

You can though see Shakespeare from the beginning in Kurosawa’s mist filled epic (bringing back memories of the Scottish Highlands). A badly-wounded soldier brings news to Lord Tsuzuki (Takamaru Sasaki) of the defeat of his traitorous former friend thanks to the brilliant generalship of Washizu (Toshiro Mifune). Meanwhile, in the forest, Washizu and his fellow general Miki (Minoru Chiaki) encounter a witch (Chieko Naniwa) who prophesies that Washizu will one day be the Lord. When other prophesies proof true, Washizu starts to think how he could make the last true as well. His ambitions are encouraged by his wife Lady Asaji (Isuzu Yamada), who persuades him murder is the best tool for succession. But can they live with the consequences of their crime?

So much, so Shakespeare right? Throne of Blood ingeniously translates Shakespeare’s plot to an entirely different setting, one of feudal Japan. It also translates some of the Bard’s most striking verbal imagery into visuals: the strange mixture of rain and sunshine (‘so foul and fair a day’) that Washizu and Miki wade through before they meet the witch; Miki’s horse thrashing wildly through the courtyard like Duncan’s; the lamps that light the way to Tsuzuki’s chamber (like Macbeth’s dagger). Kurosawa’s visual transformation of the play’s imagery is breathtakingly original.

On its release Throne of Blood was savaged by Western critics for its cheek, before critical consensus shifted to proclaim it one of the greatest of all Shakespeare adaptations. But do you still have Shakespeare without the language (and by that, I don’t mean from English into translation, but its complete removal). Kurosawa’s film makes no attempt to replicate the poetry of Shakespeare (most strikingly, its equivalent of the “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” speech is Washizu shrieking “Fool! Fool” as he sits in frustration, a neat image but one where you’d wish Mifune had been given more to play). But Throne of Blood may not be a complete Shakespeare adaptation, but it’s possibly one of the greatest adaptations ever made of a Shakespeare story.

This is because Throne of Blood captures so many of the core thematic concepts of Macbeth, not least its destructive, nihilistic force and the terrible, crushing burden self-imposed destiny and ambition sets. Toshiro Mifune’s Washizu may more of a brute than Macbeth, but his blustering, aggressive exterior hides a weak man, insecure and dependent on others. His weakness is in fact a lack of imagination, his inability to picture a life outside of the tracks laid down before him by the witch. His lack of independent thought is recognised by his wife, Asaji who nudges and pushes Washizu in the direction she (and he, deep down) wishes at every opportunity.

Washizu is soon trapped in a cycle of murder and disgrace he can’t escape. The walls of the room where he and Asaji plot the murder of Lord Tsuzuki is still smeared with the blood from the seppuku of its former owner who also betrayed Tsuzuki. Whenever he enters the forest, Washizu seems almost wrapped inside its branches, unable to find his way. Before a dinner to host the murdered Miki, Washizu listens (like Claudius) to a noh actor recount details of a crime all too similar to his own. As Lord, Washizu cowers powerlessly in it just as its previous owner did. Even the film itself is a grim cycle of the inevitability of destruction: Kurosawa’s open mist rolls away to reveal a monument to the castle before the castle itself emerges to take its place, the film returning at its end to the same mist-covered monument. These bookends also stress how transient (and pointless) this grappling for power is – nature will eventually claim all.

But it also suggests a world where death is so inevitable, that you might as well seize what power you can when you can. Even Miki – the film’s finest performance from Minoru Chiaki, full of subtle reactions of resignation and disgust – turns a blind eye (despite his sideways glances of disgust at key moments) to Washizu’s crimes, to further his son’s promised hopes for the throne. Asaji is motivated by her belief that there is no sin in seizing what you can from our brief time in this world, firmly telling Washizu that not only is it his duty to deliver the prophecy but – in a world where Tsuzaki gained power by murdering the lord before him – he would hardly be the first and that no previous killer trusts a potential new rival in any case.

Asaji is strikingly played by Isuzu Yamada, a quiet, scheming figure who sees everything and has an inner strength her husband lacks. Like Mifune, she uses the striking poses of Noh theatre to fabulous effect – Asaji herself moves, on the night of the murder, in a noh dance craze – and to communicate the dance of power between them throughout that long night. Kurosawa also uses silence beautifully with Asaji, most strikingly of all her silent, almost supernatural, collecting of drugged saki for Tsuzaki’s guards: as she walks into, disappears into darkness, then reappears carrying the drink all that is heard is the squeak of her robes across the floor. Yamada’s controlled, Noh-chill makes her brief collapse into futile hand-washing madness all the more striking.

After the long night of the murder, Kurosawa presents a world that grows more and more uncontrolled. In a brilliant innovation, Asaji provokes the murder of Miki by lying (perhaps?) about being pregnant, making Washizu desperate to protect the chance of a royal line. Miki’s murder leads to his terrifying pale ghost silently challenging an increasingly wild Washizu, who thrashs weakly around the room seemingly without any control. Mifune’s powerfully gruff Washizu becomes increasingly petulant and desperate, lambasting his troops and clinging to the letter of the prophecies rather than their more detailed meaning. Mifune’s striking poses – inspired by noh theatre – seems to trap him even more as hyper-real passengers in a pre-determined story. If Kurosawa’s adaptation has rinsed much of their complexity out, he firmly establishes the couple at its centre as trapped souls in an inescapable cycle.

Kurosawa innovates further by introducing a sort of Greek chorus of regular soldiers, ordinary warriors under Washizu’s command whose faith in their commander (they clearly know he murdered Tsuzaki) shrinks as Washizu’s grip on the situation fails. Washizu clings to belief in his invulnerablity – even after the prophecy about the impossible circumstances needed for his defeat (as if a forest can ever move!) is told to him in a fit of mocking laughter by the androgynous witch and a string of suspicious woodland spirits.

It culminates in Washizu instigating his own destruction, bragging to his men about the obscure circumstances that will lead to his defeat – leading to his own disillusioned men fragging the panicked lord the second the situation comes to pass. Kurosawa’s ending is visually extraordinary, Washizu pierced with so many arrows he resembles a human porcupine (Mifune’s terror was real, the actor dodging real arrows). Just as Asaji collapses into madness, Washizu’s fate is ignoble – Kurosawa doesn’t even afford him Macbeth’s brave duel against Macduff, this great warrior instead going down without so much as inflicting a scratch on Throne of Blood’s Malcolm and his forces.

Throne of Blood focuses beautifully on some (not all) of the key themes in Macbeth. It presents a fatalistic world where choices are few and the deadly cycle of death never seems to stop. Kurosawa interprets this all beautifully, transferring Shakespeare’s verbal imagery into intelligent, dynamic imagery. Sure, in removing the text it removes the core thing that makes Shakespeare Shakespeare – and also leads to the simplifying of its characters, in particular its leads who lose much of their depth and shade. But as a visual presentation reinvention of one of Shakespeare’s stories, this is almost with parallel, a triumphant and gripping film that constantly rewards.

The Terminator (1984)

Schwarzenegger becomes an icon in Cameron’s masterpiece, a darkly gripping sci-fi chase-thriller

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger (The Terminator), Michael Biehn (Kyle Reese), Linda Hamilton (Sarah Connor), Paul Winfield (Ed Traxler), Lance Henriksen (Hal Vukovich), Bess Motta (Ginger), Rick Rossovich (Matt), Eal Boen (Dr Peter Silberman), Bill Paxton (Punk)

“It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop… ever, until you are dead!”

If that description doesn’t grab your attention, I don’t know what will. James Cameron cemented his place in cult-film history with The Terminator, such a pure shot-to-the-heart of filmic adrenalin, its hard to think it’s been bettered since. Cameron takes a fairly simple story – essentially a long, relentless chase – and fills it with energy, black humour and a genuine sense of unstoppable menace, in a film that barely draws breath until it’s over an hour in and then promptly throws you straight into a final action set-piece. It uses its low budget effectively to create a world of mystery and dark suggestion and leaves you gagging for more. So much so, they’ve tried to recapture the thrill ride six times since (and only Cameron did it right, with Terminator 2).

It’s 1984 and two naked people arrive in Los Angeles in a ball of light. They’re both from 2029, time-travellers looking for the same woman. One of them nicks a tramp’s piss-stained trousers and runs from the police. The other is a stoic, impassive mountain of muscle who offs a few violent punks after they refuse his blunt instruction to hand over their clothes. Which one do you wish you were eh? Unfortunately, the second one is a Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a machine in the skin of a man sent to eliminate Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), mother of the future leader of the post-apocalyptic human resistance to the machines. The first is Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), the man sent to save her. Tough gig, since the Terminator is relentless, almost invulnerable and holds all the cards.

The Terminator is pulpy, dirty, punchy film-making – and its huge success became James Cameron’s calling card for a lifetime of success. Set in a neon-lit, dingy Los Angeles (it never seems to be daytime in The Terminator), it taps into the core of a million nightmares, the fear of being chased and nothing you do ever sees to get you further away. It’s a really elemental fear which The Terminator brilliantly exploits, as impassive and impossible to negotiate with as your deepest, darkest dreads. Throw into that Cameron’s gift for tension and you’ve got the almost perfect thrill-ride.

It’s also a film that gives us the perfect level of information we need. Unlike the cops (and Sarah Connor) who can’t believe this story Reese is peddling them that they are up against an unstoppable metal killing machine, we know from the start the whole story. It’s enough for us to feel a cheeky frustration as they bend over backwards to fit logical explanations to the things they’ve seen and for us to feel the sneaking dread that storing Sarah away in a police precinct crammed full of heavily armed cops isn’t going to make a jot of difference. He won’t let anything stop him.

Is it any wonder quite a few people came out of the film sympathising with Sarah and Kyle – but feeling a sort of guilty admiration for the Terminator? This is the foundation stone of the Schwarzenegger cult, his role as the monosyllabic machine sending him into the upper echelons of Hollywood stardom. Cameron’s original idea was the Terminator should be a perfect infiltration unit, the sort of guy who wouldn’t stand out in a crowd (the original choice was Lance Henriksen, relegated instead to the second-banana cop behind Paul Winfield’s folksily doomed decent guy, fundamentally out of his depth). That went out of the window when Schwarzenegger came on board: say what you like about the Austrian Oak, but he stands out in a crowd.

Why is the Terminator darkly cool? (After all literally no one ever pretended to be Kyle Reese, but everyone has put on a pair of shades and said “I’ll be BACH”.) Because he embodies all the qualities we’ve been taught by films to respect. He’s strong and silent, calm and confident, never complains, doesn’t need help and never gives up. He’s exactly the sort of guy Hollywood has cast admiring eyes at since film spooled through a camera. We can’t help ourselves.

The film becomes about Schwarzenegger (even if he’s not in the last set piece, replaced by a budget-busting CGI android). Cameron knew how to get the best out him, his tiny number of lines (17 in total) delivered in his emotionless, euro-accent make him seem mysterious, different and cool, frequently responding with either deadpan seriousness or sudden violence. His under-statement lines are funny because we anticipate already the bloodbath that will follow. And, unlike despicable villains, he’s not motivated by greed, jealousy or wickedness: he’s almost the quintessential American hero, taking care of business – it just so happens his business is killing people.

Reese should be someone we admire more: he’s a plucky, resourceful underdog. But, unlike the actions-rather-than-words Terminator, he’s got to speak all the time – while the Terminator is a killing machine, Reese is the exposition machine. Biehn does a terrific job with a difficult role, a decoy protagonist who spends much of the movie alternating between gunplay and spitting out reams and reams of exposition explaining to anyone and everyone the future and terminators. On top of that, while his opponent gets on with, Reese’s constant refrain of how scared he is and everyone else should be (who wants to hear a hero say how terrified he is eh?) and his frustrated whining at no-one listening to his fantastic story marks him as weak. Charismatic heroes persuade their audiences: no one believes Reese until they are literally watching Arnie shrug off a whole clip of ammo.

Reese is, in any case, a decoy protagonist of sorts. His romantic longing for Sarah (having fallen in love with her photo in the future) and nurturing personality actually mark him out as the more conventional ‘female lead’. In the first of several films where Cameron would show-case heroic female characters, the actual ideal rival for the machine is Sarah. One of the most interesting things about The Terminator is watching Linda Hamilton skilfully develop this character from ordinary young woman into the sort of archetypal Western hero the film ends with her as (she even gets the sort of badass kiss-off line “You’re terminated FUCKER” you can’t imagine the less imaginative Reese saying).

On top of this The Terminator is a triumph of atmosphere. With its synth-score, it has an unsettling quality from the off helping to build the sense of grim inevitability that is its stock-in-trade. Just like the Terminator’s never-ending pursuit, the whole film is a well-judged, inevitable, time-loop. Sending people back in time turns out to be the very thing that guarantees that future will happen. Throughout, Cameron’s little titbits about the future (partly constrained by budget) are perfect in giving us just enough information to understand the stakes but leave enough mystery for us to be so desperate to know more, we fill in the gaps from our imagination.

But the reason The Terminator works best is that it’s an undeniably tense thrill ride, an extended chase sequence that rarely eases off and never loses its sense of menace. You never feel relaxed or safe while watching The Terminator and never for a moment that its heroes are on a level playing field with their opponent. Atmospheric, tense and terrifying, it walks a brilliantly fine line (so much so, the Terminator methodically massacring a precinct full of cops is both unnerving and the most popular scene in the film) and never once let’s go of your gut. It’s not only possibly the best, most perfect, Terminator film made also still one of Cameron’s finest hours.

Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

Smug, tiresome gags underpin a shallow piece of fan-pandering that mocks fan-pandering

Director: Shawn Levy

Cast: Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool), Hugh Jackman (Wolverine), Emma Corrin (Cassandra Nova), Matthew Macfadyen (Mr Paradox), Morena Baccarin (Vanessa Carlysle), Rob Delaney (Peter Wisdom), Leslie Uggams (Blind Al), Aaron Stanford (Pyro), Dafne Keen (Laura), Jon Favreau (Happy Hogan)

Deadpool is Marvel Jesus. It’s a joke in the film, but it’s also kinda true. The MCU has struggled in the past few years and it’s hoping the raw-and-ready sociopathic, fourth-wall-breaking merc-with-the-mouth can give its fortunes a jolt. In terms of money take, Deadpool & Wolverine is, I guess, going to do that. In terms of creativity and imagination, we’re still circling the toilet bowl, but hey at least Feige and co are doing it while clutching a wadge of greenbacks.

You say Deadpool’s constant fourth-wall leaning jokes ain’t really funny and that all they do is point out (and neutralising criticism in advance) weaknesses in plot and writing: but that toilet bowl gag was a bit of a turd right?

Wade Wilson aka Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) has been rejected by the Avengers on Earth-616 “The Sacred Timeline” (otherwise known as the one the MCU happens in) and returns to his friends on Earth-10005 (otherwise known as the 20^th Century Fox X-Men Franchise timeline) to retire and work as a used-car salesman. Until he is grabbed by the Time Variance Authority and informed by Mr Paradox (Matthew MacFadyen) his universe is being erased, due to the death of its Anchor Being Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) in Logan. Deadpool’s only chance to save his universe is to find a new Wolverine, eventually pulling in “the worst Wolverine” who failed to save his world. Both are banished to “The Void”, a resting place for “erased” heroes from earlier timelines (aka cancelled movie franchises) run by Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin), the insane sister of Charles Xavier.

You made that tough to follow on purpose, you absolute bell-end. Ain’t you funny!

Flipping heck. If you think that sounds like a lot going on, don’t worry: it hardly matters. For Deadpool & Wolverine the story is just a very loose framework for a series of slightly smug in-jokes about nineties and noughties nostalgia, and gags about corporate mergers. (In case you missed it, Disney bought 20^th Century Fox and swallowed its comic book franchises like a money-Moloch). This matters an awful lot to some. Many others won’t care less. Deadpool & Wolverine very much tailors to the first group. If telling gags about Disney’s caution about jokes on drugs and anal sex, or riffing on the X-Men movies being less-and-less good over many years, sounds like your idea of comedy gold then this is for you.

Moloch and anal sex in the same paragraph – well-read show-off who wants to look cool ain’t ya?

Deadpool & Wolverine prunes a lot of comic mileage (or tries to) from mocking the “special sock” longings of geeks and fanboys, those who wile away hours debating who’s costume looked best or who could beat who in a fight. But this is a film mocking shallow, fanservice wank while itself being a massively shallow, fanservice piece of wank. If the only thing you felt was missing from Hugh Jackman’s previous Wolverine career was that he never wore the yellow-and-blue uniform, then this is the movie for you.

You were so pleased with that fanservice comment I saw you use it several times in Whatsapp hot takes. Twat.

Deadpool & Wolverine mocks fans for their shallow love for the obvious easy hit of seeing Deadpool and Wolverine fight, or a cameo from a well-known actor from an old movie or a celebrity playing a different version of a familiar character, then fills the film with almost literally nothing but this. Am I really meant to get excited seeing an actor revive a comic book role from a noughties superhero film we’ve forgotten and everyone at the time thought was rubbish? For all Deadpool & Wolverine wants to feel like something cheeky and dirty, it’s the safest slab of product out there. Every single thing in it feels like it has been cribbed from a fan’s wishlist on a Reddit thread. It feigns cocking a snook at Disney, but Deadpool is just an in-house jester: tweaking his master’s nose while taking a pay cheque and avoiding anything really pointed in his barbs. After a while you just get tired of it and the film’s embrace of cliché and retreads isn’t justified by Deadpool turning to the camera and pointing it out.

Getting up a head of righteous steam there ain’t you? Still paid to see it didn’t you! Sucker!

Still at least it’s better than when the film tries to have a heart. I’d respect it more if it was willing to make Deadpool a flat-out psychopath with no real sense of morals. Instead, he’s really all (very tiresome) talk, because Deadpool & Wolverine is desperate to turn him into someone the masses can find sympathetic by mixing his mook slaughter with emotive mooning over a group polaroid of the friends he’s trying to save from erasure from existence. Much like Ryan Reynolds’ performance, it often feels like filmmakers enjoying the shock quality of shrieking “FUCK” in a park, before running home to an early bedtime with their families.

Chickened out of writing the C-word there? Guess you don’t want to get blocked.

Deadpool & Wolverine opens with assurance it won’t ‘desecrate’ the legacy of Logan (an actual, good film with a proper story and emotional arc) – before, in one of the film’s better jokes, it has Deadpool dig up the skeleton of the dead Wolverine and use the bones to bloodily slaughter an army of TVA mooks. But then it desecrates it in a different, deliberate, even worse, way by ripping Logan off with shameless abandon. It gives Wolverine pretty much exactly the same plotline, including restaging almost identical emotional conversations, in almost identical locations. In fact, my overwhelming emotion watching Hugh Jackman snooze through this film with a growl was sadness that he came back after his perfect sign-off. But then I guess he get over a dozen million reasons to come back and prostitute himself here for one last runaround.

Like Deadpool doesn’t make that joke himself in the film – if you’re going to knock it, don’t rip it off!

Maybe he thought it was funny. It does feel like a home movie put together by a series of actors in their forties or fifties desperate to show their kids they can do something cool. Is there anything good in Deadpool & Wolverine? There are some good fights, even if Shawn Levy isn’t the best at staging them, but it does spray claret marvellously all over the place to well-chosen Madonna tunes. Matthew MacFadyen, essaying a cartoonish version of Succession’s Tom Wambsgans, is good fun, Emma Corrin makes an effective if under-used villain. There are some good jokes.

Because you gotta give some sugar right?

But the overwhelming air is smugness. None of the fourth-wall, franchise-teasing, corporate digs are that funny and very few of the asides carry any bite (several are about how handsome or muscular its stars are – the only remotely sharp comment is on Hugh Jackman’s divorce). Aside from that it offers nothing new or familiar, its setting is reminiscent of several other films, and it rips off plot galore from Logan and TV’s Loki show. Perhaps worst of all, in a year where an actually original and daring film Mad Max: Fury Road has fatally tanked at the box office, this openly rips off its location and style for The Void and it’s going to make millions.

It’s not as if you were even wild about Furiosa, but like the sanctimonious prick you are, you’ll give a pass to a film from an auteur but then knock a Marvel film. What makes you such a smug, humourless prick eh? Go with the fun!

Look for the last time, it’s not big, clever or funny to just milk some cheap gags out of anticipating the criticism. That’s enough. Fuck off now.

Touchy!

No seriously. Fuck off.

Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2023)

Terminally dull prequel, full of backstory you won’t care about at all

Director: Francis Lawrence

Cast: Tom Blyth (Coriolanus Snow), Rachel Zegler (Lucy Gray Baird), Josh Andrés Rivera (Sejanus Plinth), Viola Davis (Dr Volumnia Gaul), Peter Dinklage (Casca Highbottom), Jason Schwatzman (“Lucky” Flickerman), Hunter Schafer (Tigris Snow), Fionnula Flanagan (Grandma’am), Burn Gorman (Commander Hoff), Ashley Liao (Clemensia Dovecote)

Did you watch Hunger Games and wonder – ‘this is great and all but where did that guy Coriolanus Snow come from, eh’? Not sure I did. And I’m not sure I really needed to know, now that I’ve sat through all interminable 158 minutes of Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes or Hitler: The Early Days. Imagine, if you will, the original Hunger Games movie – but if it was much longer, had an utterly uninteresting lead character and took itself so seriously you’d think it was offering a solution to third world debt and climate change all at once. Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes worst crime isn’t that it goes on forever, that it retreads old ground with no new ideas or that it feels like a pointlessly over-extended footnote. It’s that it is overwhelmingly, crushingly, dull.

People didn’t care about the back story: they cared about Katniss Everdean, a perfectly crafted character, hugely engaging and relatable on every viewing. I cared about her struggle to protect the people she loved not the backdrop of Panem politics. Did anyone? If I was interested in anything in Panem politics it was the way the Games both terrified the huddle masses of the districts and gave them hope. Unfortunately, this film either didn’t understand that, didn’t care or assumed we’d happily invest in the original’s villain if he was buff and had a dreamy girlfriend.

Young Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth, doing his best to sound like Donald Sutherland) is one of the leading students in Panem, selected to mentor a tribute through the 10^th Hunger Games. Young Snow’s loins heat-up when his tribute is manic pixie dream-girl Lucy Gray (Rachel Zegler) from District Twelve. But what excites him more: a tumble with a girl from the sticks, or persuading outlandishly loopy games master Dr Volumnia Gaul (Viola Davis, the only person having fun) he knows how to turn this gladiatorial deathmatch into ratings gold? You got one guess what he picks.

Though it takes him a very, very, very long time to pick it. We watch this Proto-Hitler embrace his inner sociopath, through a weary trudge in Hunger Games lore with the origins of virtually every prop in the original movies lovingly laid out for us. Ever wondered why Snow wears that buttonhole? This is the film for you and then some. Almost every single thing in Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is linked to something in the original movies. It’s the sort of unimaginative, world-shrinking yawn-fest where nearly every character shares a surname of a character from the original films – but of course Caesar Flickerman’s dad has exactly the same job, personae and style as he does!

You could let this go if Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes had an interesting story of its own. But it’s tedious, self-important plot makes Attack of the Clones look like Tolstoy. It chucks in a little bit of arena slaughter, but inexplicably makes it unclear how many of Coriolanus’ suggestions for improving the show are actually changing things. When the tributes perform for ‘favour’ is that something they always did (as most people behave like it is) or because Coriolanus scrawled memo suggested it (as the film implies)? The wider impact is also lost: are people bonding with Lucy Gray or having their child-killing-urges ticked in brand new ways by Coriolanus? Who knows.

It doesn’t help that Ballad seems shy about making Coriolanus himself a villain. It gives Tom Blyth a difficult act to pull off and he’s left playing his cards so close to his (inevitably) buff – his future sadism doesn’t stand in the way of a good topless scene in this film – chest that rather than wondering what will top him into sociopathy, he instead becomes a flat, boring character, with even his lust for Lucy fizzling rather than sizzling.

Rachel Zegler gets a bit more fun as this irritating mix of idealist and realist (she is pretty much whatever the plot needs from scene-to-scene – one minute angrily slapping away offerings of food, the next cowering in shocked fear when danger comes calling), with Ballad at least a good vehicle for Zegler’s vocal talents. But Lucy Gray remains too enigmatic – and, to be honest, just as dull in her unknowability – to ever become someone you care about. And never, for one minute, in her flower-crafted dress and perfect make-up do you believe she is a child of the ghetto in the way you did with Jennifer Lawrence.

Honestly the film misses a hero as complex and multi-layered as Katniss and splitting facets of her into two other characters just creates to incomplete characters. Throw in a plot that lacks any energy – it’s lackadaisical second half, with Coriolanus chucked into the wilderness as a Stormtrooper in District 12, goes on forever – and which gets bogged down in an utterly unengaging and confusing rebellion plotline with is resolved with a nonsensical narrative flourish – and it’s a recipe for disaster. It never, ever get the pulse racing as it stumbles, yawningly, to its end.

The stuff that actually is interesting gets shunted to the sidelines. A bored Peter Dinklage gets a late monologue on the creation of the Hunger Games that you desperately want to hear more about it, but don’t. Viola Davis, barrelling over-the-top under a mountain of demented hair, weird contact lenses and bizarre costumes, keeps talking about ‘the purpose of the Hunger Games’ in a portentous way that sounds like its leading somewhere but never does (so much so, I wondered if the filmmakers even understood the bread-and-circuses-as-control metaphor going on here).

Francis Lawrence directs as if this background-filling pamphlet from Suzanne Collins was a newly discovered Testament. The film is slow, stately and gives even the smallest, most inconsequential moments an unbearable level of self-important significance. It lacks pace and interest – so much so that even the slaughter of eleven scruffy, malnourished children and teenagers feels tired and ‘seen it all before’. There is no mystery, no sense of roads-not-taken, not even any peril . Just small elements of a more interesting later story being slotted dutifully in place, you realise you never wondered where Coriolanus Snow came from because it never mattered in the first place.

The Fall Guy (2024)

Very enjoyable action caper and also a rather sweet tribute to the unsung heroes of filmmaking

Director: David Leitch

Cast: Ryan Gosling (Colt Seavers), Emily Blunt (Judy Moreno), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Tom Ryder), Hannah Waddingham (Gail Meyer), Teresa Palmer (Iggy Starr), Stephanie Hsu (Alma Milan), Winston Duke (Dan Tucker), Ben Knight (Dressler)

I’ve seen every single Hollywood Superstar I’ve ever heard of perform miraculous acts of derring-do in front of my very eyes. That all happened right? The camera doesn’t lie! Alas what we saw wasn’t the Legendary Star but instead a well-trained guy, dressed in the same costume, putting life and limb on the line for the big shot. And they don’t even get Oscars for it! The Fall Guy is a witty, exciting and rather sweet tribute to the unsung hero of the movies, the stunt guy, all wrapped up in a pulsating, tongue-in-cheek action-adventure that showcases two likeable stars and, of course, their similarly costumed fall guys.

Our hero is Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling), stuntman of choice for superstar Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a spoilt man-child who brags he does his own stunts but can’t cross a road without a double. Colt is riding high, in a promising relationship with cinematographer Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt), until a stunt goes wrong leaving him badly injured. Colt disappears, breaking-up with Jody and wallowing in depression for eighteen months. However, he comes storming back when summoned to Australia by producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham) who claims Jody personally asked him to double for Tom on her directorial debut, Mad-Max-meets-Independence-Day sci-fi epic Metalstorm. Only turns out she didn’t ask: Colt is in fact tasked by Gail to find the missing Ryder or she’ll be forced to cancel the film and end Judy’s career. Colt soon gets bogged down in drug lords, dead bodies, hitmen who don’t quit and imaginary unicorns. Can he find Ryder and make amends with Judy?

The Fall Guy is fast-paced, loose and funny with a script of punchy Drew Pearce jokes, focused overwhelmingly on giving the viewer a cracking night out at the movies. It leaves very little in the locker room which is fitting for a film is all about celebrating the joy of doing things for real. The Fall Guy pushes the envelope for stunts, be it stupendously high falls, multiple barrel roll cars, furious fisticuffs that use everything going and car chases that leave burnt rubber skid marks on every surface. Basically, it’s a celebration of the art of stunt work, no more than you would expect from Leitch, a former stunt co-ordinator and champion of doing it for real.

It very successfully mixes giddy action thrills with a engaging romantic comedy that uses its two stars to great success. Gosling is relaxed, witty and above all extremely cool, his obvious enjoyment of the material very infectious. Blunt’s comic timing is immaculate. Together their chemistry not only creates plenty of laughs, but makes us invest in wanting them to be together. But The Fall Guy doesn’t just settle for rom-com conventions. A focus of the film is watching Colt get in touch with his feelings (how many other action films feature their stars quietly crying in a car, listening to Taylor Swift?) and accepting his stuntman bravado (it’s the profession where you stick your thumb up at the end of the stunt, regardless what happens) led him to drive Judy away out of twisted shame.

Of course, on the way to getting in touch with his findings, Colt doesn’t half stumble through more than his fair share of brawls. You couldn’t make a film about a stuntman without packing in more death-defying thrills than you can shake a stick at. The Fall Guy delivers two types of stunt thrills. One is the behind-the-scenes on-set stunts Colt executes – death-defying falls, flipping and rolling cars, people being thrown across a field into a rock – where we get to see a few tricks of the trade behind the magic. And then we also get genuine ‘real world’ stunts of epic, popcorn-munching excitement as Colt goes about his search. This is some of the most impressive stuff you’ll see (and its expertly deconstructed in the behind-the-scenes clips that festoon the end-credits), from Colt being hurled and smashed through every inch of Ryder’s apartment to a stunning car-chase that turns into a bare-knuckle dumper-truck fight that’s the film’s mid-act calling card.

The action is somehow even more enjoyable because of the world-weary comedy Ryan Gosling plays it with. After all, being thrown into situations like this is bread-and-butter for Colt, so whether its spending a fight protecting an elusive jet-lag-defeating espresso or working out exactly when he to jump into the road to collide with a car, everything is met with a semi-resigned shrug. He also gets some excellent partners-in-crime, trading stunt-movie facts with colleague Dan (a very funny Winston Duke, shouting the name of the Hollywood stars whose signature moves he’s replicating during fights) and, perhaps best-of-all, a French speaking stunt dog called Jean-Claude who Colt treats like a friend (a dog that bites people in the groin shouldn’t be as funny as this, but I must have been in the right mood). The final battle also sees Colt call on an army of fellow stunt-people.

It makes sense in a film that celebrates this brotherhood. When Colt and the team are working on set, The Fall Guy centralises their creativity and commitment. The shooting of a Metalstorm battle scene is hugely improved by Colt and the team pushing the envelope with suggestions and improvements to the rudimentary script and the whole crew is scrupulously dedicated, professional and committed.

The real threats in The Fall Guy are the things that work against this. Special effects and deep fakes (whch plays into the film’s neat double-meaning title) are the tools of the villains and, in a wider sense, kill the flesh-and-blood of film-making. Hollywood stars and bottom-line Hollywood suits with no respect for the craft are the baddies. Aaron Taylor-Johnson has a lot of fun in a role that parodies almost every star you can think of (Tom Cruise is twice specifically named in the film, as if to stress for the laywers Tom Ryder is not him) while Hannah Waddingham is a smilingly heartless producer, never seen without clutching an oversized diet coke.

The Fall Guy is, above all, a film designed to cheer you up no-end. Crammed with sharp one-liners, expert sight gags and thrilling stunts with a cast having an absolute ball in their roles, it’s the sort of treat that will be remembered long after its slightly disappointing box-office haul has been forgotten.

The Running Man (1988)

Gloriously stupid Arnie vehicle, sort of satire but really a chance for violence and wise-cracks

Director: Paul Michael Glaser

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger (Ben Richards), María Conchita Alonso (Amber Mendez), Richard Dawson (Damon Killian), Yaphet Kotto (William Laughlin), Jesse Ventura (Captain Freedom), Jim Brown (Fireball), Erland Van Lidth (Dynamo), Marvin J. McIntyre (Harold Weiss), Gus Rethwisch (Buzzsaw), Professor Toru Tanaka (Professor Subzero), Mick Fleetwood (Mick)

It’s 2017 and the USA has fallen apart (they were more right than they thought…) with a dictatorial government keeping the population in their place and distracting them from their lost freedoms with the violent TV show The Running Man, where criminals fight to the death in gladiatorial contests. The latest contestant? Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a former cop who everyone believes massacred civilians from his helicopter gunship but who we know is actually the hero who tried to stop it. Running Man host Dawson (Damon Killian) thinks Richards is the guy for a ratings slamdunk. But guess what? Arnie is as tough as he looks and might just bring down the system in prime time.

The Running Man makes an interesting contrast with Rollerball. In fact, it’s really just a souped-up 80s version of the same idea, of corporations using violent entertainment to keep the masses in line. The main difference being Rollerball is a sort-of lingering existentialist character study which mixes ambiguity with high-octane sports action, played out with Kubrick-inspired classical music and lingering slow-mo. The Running Man is a loud, brash, hyper-violent film that allows Arnie to flex both his muscles and his wise-cracking wit. Leaving its roots as a Stephen King adaptation far behind, it’s both a lot more stupid and a whole lot more fun than Rollerball.

The Running Man is a bizarre mix of Cronenbergish media satire and ludicrous camp comedy. It’s in-universe TV show has a parade of killers on it, laughable in their cartoonish violent silliness, with methods of killing so elaborate that they would put Bond villains to shame. Subzero is an ice-skating wrestler with a razor-sharp hockey stick! Buzzsaw dispatches opponents using (you guessed it) a chainsaw that can cut through anything! Dynamo dresses up in an electric suit, sings opera and electrocutes people! Fireball burns everything with his gas-filled flame-thrower!

You think that sounds silly? Well don’t worry because Arnie will (surprise, surprise) send them all to their maker with a karmic death (you have one guess as to how they all die) and an apt pun (“He had to split!” he grins slicing Buzzsaw in half with his own chainsaw). This is Arnie at his eighties height, expanding his brand and transforming The Running Man into his very own star vehicle. (He even squeezes in his “I’ll be back!” catchphrase). Ben is the perfect Arnie character: he’s noble but cool, muscular but witty, makes bad-ass threats and delivers on them, smokes stogies like they’re going out of fashion and waltzes off with the girl at the end after saving the world.

Arnie is sort of working alongside a resistance movement, but they don’t get in the way of his manly independence. The principle function of his resistance movement buddies Laughlin (Yaphet Kotto) and Weiss (Michael J McIntyre) is to symbolically lay down their lives to give Arnie even more moral high-ground – The Running Man makes very clear he doesn’t enter this sadistic blood-sport to protect himself (oddly in this totalitarian dictatorship, criminals still have enough rights to choose not to sacrificed on national television) but to save the lives of his Red Shirt pals. Their deaths also serve to justify the ruthless violence Arnie hands out (though of course he refuses to kill an unarmed, injured opponent just so we know all the other bodies he dropped must have deserved it).

It’s all set in a charmingly quaint 80s view of the future: power-suits for the rich and jump-suits for the convicts, with clunky TVs and worn-out urban environments. The Running Man throws in its odd surreal, camp and bizarre touch, not least the sight of Mick Fleetwood (buried under prosthetics) playing himself as the resistance leader. Its pumped-up TV show is packaged like a hyper-violent 80s mega-smash, hosted by real-life actor-turned-quiz-show-host Richard Dawson, gleefully embracing self-parody as a venal, heartless bully full of two-faced smarm with the audience while treating his staff like dirt.

Dawson, in all his larger-than-life awfulness, actually makes a pretty good foil for the muscle-bound Arnie, not least because he understands exactly what the Austrian Oak wanted from this film. Because Arnie knew people didn’t really want social commentary or satire – they wanted a black-and-white world where the ex-Terminator could smack, punch and shoot things with gleeful abandon while testing out a host of potentially quotable catch-phrases. Essentially The Running Man is a sort of Tom-and-Jerry cartoon with a sheen of social commentary, that panders shamelessly for our love of watching outré villains suffer grim and painful ironic deaths.

And you know what? Arnie was right. Because, however stupid (and its very, very stupid) The Running Man is, no matter how cookie-cutter, uninspired and predictable every single second of it is – it’s perfect, brain-dead, beer-in-hand, Friday night fun. And while the progression of Rollerball to this is a perfect example of how lobotomized Hollywood had become, at least this is fun.