Tag: Alfred Molina

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

Tom Holland’s Spider-Man encounters friends and enemies from another franchise or two

Director: Jon Watts

Cast: Tom Holland (Peter Parker/Spider-Man), Zendaya (MJ), Benedict Cumberbatch (Dr Stephen Strange), Jacob Batalon (Ned Leeds), Marisa Tomei (May Parker), Jon Favreau (“Happy” Hogan), Jamie Foxx (Max Dillon/Electro), Willem Dafoe (Norman Osborn/Green Goblin), Alfred Molina (Otto Octavius/Doctor Octopus), Benedict Wong (Wong), Tony Revolori (“Flash” Thompson), Andrew Garfield (Peter Parker/Spider-Man), Tobey Maguire (Peter Parker/Spider-Man), Rhys Ifans (Dr Curt Connors/Lizard), Thomas Haden Church (Flint Marko/Sandman), JK Simmons (J Jonah Jameson)

It’s been out long enough now – and Marvel are even advertising the Guest Stars – so I guess we can worry slightly less about spoiling this massive crossover event. Spider-Man: No Way Home became one of the biggest hits of all time. It’s not hard to see why, in our nostalgia-loving times. But its not just about nostalgia – lovely as it is to see all those old characters once again. It’s also a hugely entertaining, rather sweet film, crammed with slick lines and jokes, while also, like the best of Marvel’s films, having a heart. We’ve got a hero here so humanitarian he goes to huge risks to try and save the villains. That’s refreshingly human.

Picking up after the conclusion of Spider-Man: Far From Home, Peter Parker’s (Tom Holland) secret-identity is known. Parker finds himself at the centre of a massive, world-wide scandal, which ends the college chances of him and his friends MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon). Peter asks Dr Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) for help: namely can the world forget who he is? When the spell goes wrong, people who know Parker’s identity from other realities start appearing. And these guys aren’t happy, with villains like Dr Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina), Electro (Jamie Foxx) and psychopath Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) arriving. But, when Peter discovers sending them back will condemn them to die in the battle against their Spider-man, he decides to do everything he can to try and save them.

No Way Home’s success partly lies on the nostalgia factor, especially for those of us who loved the early Maguire films. And you can sign me up to that: I can’t believe it’s been 20 years since the first one came out! No Way Home throws in characters from all five pre-Holland films and zeros in on the best of the bunch. The films has a lot of fun shuffling and realigning these characters in interesting new combinations, often allowing them to moan about things like origin stories (there is a very funny exchange between Electro and Sandman on the danger of falling into experiments) or just to get on each other’s nerves (Molina’s Doc Ock is spectacularly grumpy).

You pretty much have to have a heart of stone not to enjoy seeing most of these characters again – particularly as they are played with such lip-smacking aplomb. Above all, Dafoe relishes the chance to cement his place as one of the great villains, switching perfectly between gentle and psychotic as the schizophrenic Norman Osborn/Green Goblin (and becoming the nemesis of no-less than two Spider-men). Molina is equally good: pomposity and rage turning into avuncular decency. These two landmark villains from the two best films take most of the limelight, with a smaller share for Jamie Foxx (far more comfortable here than he was in Amazing Spider-Man 2). But every villain is given moments of tragic depth and seeing them react to news of their deaths is strangely moving.

It sets the table rather nicely for a film about redemption. Peter believes he can save these villains from death if he can cure them and restore their humanity. While the pragmatic Strange sees this as pointless, Peter can’t turn his back on a chance to save people. On top of this, No Way Home also serves as a meta-redemption arc for the two previous franchises: Maguire gets a third film worthy of the first two and Garfield is given the sort of rich material he was denied in his failed series.

Which brings us nicely to the biggest returns. Denied by both actors for the best part of a year, this film throws not one, not two but three Spider-men at us, with Maguire and Garfield reprising their incarnations. All three delight in sparking off each other, riffing on everything from web-slingers to making normal life work (“Peter time”) alongside Spider-manning. Maguire settles nicely into the Big-Brother role, giving a worldly experience to the others without losing his gentle idealism. Garfield is sensational – lighter, funnier and warmer than he was in his own films, with a hidden grief that plays out with genuine impact.

Who couldn’t get excited about seeing these three together – or to see the film make these scenes work as well as it does? It shuffles and reassembles things we are familiar with, but presents them in new and intriguing combinations and above all feels true to the characterisations established in previous films. Maguire, Molina and Dafoe in particular feel like they’ve not been away since their own films, while Garfield and Foxx deepen and improve their characters. But it became a mega-hit because it has a truly strong story behind it.

A story staffed by strong, relatable characters. There is a genuine sense of alarm around how Peter and his friends in the film’s opening act are hounded and persecuted by a population scared of them. Even here redemption is key, with Peter going to dangerous lengths to try and get his friends a second chance at getting into MIT. These three characters have a sweet, warm friendship and the chemistry, in particular between Holland (who is sensational, endearing, funny but bringing the role great emotional depth) and Zendaya is stronger than it’s ever been.

And that’s before we hit the film’s genuinely endearing message. Holland’s still-optimistic hero (another excellent contrast with his more damaged alter-egos) is motivated by saving people. And that includes the villains. Maybe it’s the years of Covid, but there is something hugely lovable about a hero who wants to give people a second chance. It’s a living demonstration of “with great power comes great responsibility” (words this film introduces into the Marvel universe with powerful effect, in a mid-film climax). In fact the film is, in some ways, the origin-story Holland’s Spider-Man never had: it gives him a foundational tragedy, leaves him in an isolated position, strips him of his Iron Man style tech and leaves him in a set-up (alone in a cheap apartment, struggling to make ends meet and superheroing on the side) familiar from the comics.

Watts directs the film with real confidence and zest, especially outside the action set-pieces: there is frequent use of ingenious-but-not-flashy single takes and the film’s patient momentum for much of its first half, focusing on character and emotion, really pay off in the second half of fan-service and fights. The camera effects used for Peter’s web-slinging and his spider-sense have a delightful quirky invention. What he really does well though is zero in on the emotion and when events get tragic, he isn’t afraid to commit to that. It gives the film an emotional force that really connected with people.

That heart is what sustains it. It’s a joyful nostalgia trip – that redeems elements of the previous films – but this is a film that really cares about its characters – all of them – and wants you to as well. That gives difficult, emotional struggles to all its Spider-Men, that searches of the humanity in its villains, even the worst of them, making us sympathise with them even as they do dreadful things. Combined with the action and adventure – and the electric pace of the best of Marvel – No Way Home rightly stands as one of the best entries so far.

Promising Young Woman (2020)

Carey Mulligan excels as a Promising Young Woman

Director: Emerald Fennell

Cast: Carey Mulligan (Cassandra Thomas), Bo Burnham (Ryan Cooper), Alison Brie (Madison McPhee), Clancy Brown (Stanley Thomas), Jennifer Coolidge (Susan Thomas), Laverne Cox (Gail), Chris Lowell (Al Monroe), Connie Britton (Dean Elizabeth Walker), Adam Brody (Jerry), Max Greenfield (Joe Macklemore), Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Neil), Alfred Molina (Jordan Green)

It’s late at night, you’ve had a few drinks and someone nice offers to drive you home. If you’re a man you probably think, what’s the problem? If you are woman, this can be just the first act of a night of sexual assault. It’s depressing to think this is the world we live in, but if there is one thing #metoo taught a lot of men, it’s that many women experience danger in situations we wouldn’t think twice about. These ideas are wonderfully explored in Emerald Fennell’s directorial debut, the striking, witty and deeply suspenseful Promising Young Woman.

Cassie Thomas (Carey Mulligan) goes out week after week to clubs. She lolls in the corner, slurs her words and waits for guys to offer her a lift home. Those taxis always swing past their own apartments, they always ask her to pop in for one more drink which swiftly turns into an attempt at sex. At which point, Cassie reveals she is entirely sober… Cassie’s revenge campaign is all about revealing to guys who think they are nice, that they are in fact not nice at all. Dealing with trauma over her past, Cassie’s only meaning in life is this campaign, at the cost of any personal life. But a chance meeting with Ryan (Bo Burnham), someone she used to go to college with, presents her with a choice – a new start or a settling of accounts with the man at the root of her trauma.

Emerald Fennell’s film is a superbly timely drama that brilliantly dances from genre to genre. It’s possibly the sweetest and most romantic revenge drama you’ll ever see, or the funniest shocking tragedy. But it’s primarily a film powered by righteous anger: the world shouldn’t be like this.

Many of the men are of course vile – and perhaps most of all because they are so superbly certain of their self-satisfied niceness. The film opens with one of these nights, Cassie pretending to be utterly wasted in a bar while three men chat about how drunk she is, but also how hot. The guy who seems the nicest pops her in an uber, takes her home, pours her a massive drink and takes her pants off. At which point Cassie, stone-cold-sober announces “What the fuck are you doing?”. Later Neil (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) will whine it’s not fair Cassie has “tricked” him into feeling bad (after he has already assaulted her). As if her not being helpless somehow makes him the victim.

But it’s not just men. Fennell’s film shows several times how many women conspire in keeping this status quo going. Cassie’s focused campaign against the people she holds directly responsible for the rape of her beloved best friend Nina starts with two women. One is the fellow student (now a self-satisfied mum-of-two, played with suburban smugness by Alison Brie) who thought that, by behaving like that, Nina basically had it coming. The second is the Dean of the university (a smoothly uncaring Connie Britton) who didn’t want to ruin the men’s careers. Both of these women are as much a part of the victim-blaming culture as the men Cassie shames on her nights out.

Fennell’s film is a brilliant expose of how toxic a certain kind of masculinity has become. And it’s not just the vile alpha-males responsible for the horror that happened to Nina (when we reach these people late in the film, their basic lack of humanity is staggering – even if Fennell strips them of any possible nuance by making them cartoonish in their Bullingdon-club vileness). The bulk of the men in the film are convinced that because they try and be nice, they therefore are nice.

But it’s still a film with a great deal of compassion. It notably isn’t a straightforward endorsement of revenge. It’s made clear what Cassie is doing is hugely dangerous – she has lucked out that the men she encounters are shamed into pleading and defensive whining. There is the distinct possibility that Cassie could be seriously hurt or worse – for all her planning and determination. That’s not to mention the psychological damage this has on her. She is a deeply disturbed, troubled and unhappy woman whose life is going nowhere.

It’s the emotional heart of Carey Mulligan’s wonderful performance. Mulligan nails the furious calm Cassie has on campaign – and her chilling authority in situations where she is on top. But she also shows Cassie’s emotional damage. She finds it impossible to open herself to any form of relationship, romantic or otherwise. She’s so shutdown she can’t even remember her own birthday. This crusade has sucked everything out of her life, and had a shattering emotional impact on her. Mulligan has never been better: a career defining performance, heartfelt and impassioned, dark and emotionally complex.

Fennell shoots the film with a real assuredness. When Cassie is in control, Fennell uses a series of carefully controlled static shots, often centring Cassie in the frame. Its only when events are out of her control that the camera shifts to greater movement and less stable shots. The confrontations are both darkly amusing but also chillingly edge-of-the-seat – because we can’t be sure whether everything will go wrong, or how far Cassie will go. Promising Young Woman is also very witty and even rather sweet – the slow, hopeful romance between Cassie and Ryan (a charmingly sweet Bo Burnham) is hugely endearing and gives the film a sense of hope. We’re torn: we want Cassie to have her revenge, but the damage to her is so huge that we also want her to move on.

It’s what makes Promising Young Woman a kaleidoscope of a film. Every time you shift it, your perspective changes. We thrill at seeing Cassie shame bad men, just as you worry for her safety every time. We never know what to expect from Ryan – after all we’ve seen so many men like him turn out to be predators – but we want him to be genuine. You’ll laugh one scene and have your stomach in knots the next. It culminates in a confrontation that shifts shockingly from black comedy to simply pure dark, more disturbing and difficult than you can imagine. Fennell – and a magnetic Mulligan – maintain all these different beats perfectly. A wonderful, and hugely timely, film.

Chocolat (2000)

Juliette Binoche changes people’s lives with sweet treats in Chocolat

Director: Lasse Hallström

Cast: Juliette Binoche (Vianne Rocher), Judi Dench (Armande Voizin), Alfred Molina (Comte de Reynaud), Lena Olin (Josephine Muscat), Johnny Depp (Roux), Victoire Thivisol (Anouk Roucher), Hugh O’Conor (Pere Henri), Carrie-Anne Moss (Caroline Clairmont), Peter Stormare (Serger Muscat), Leslie Caron (Madame Audel), John Wood (Guillaume Blerot), Elisabeth Commelin (Yvette Marceau), Ron Cook (Alphonse Marceau)

In 1950s France, expert chocolatiere Vianne Rocher (Juliette Binoche), and her six-year-old daughter Anouk (Victorire Thivisol) travel the country following the North Wind accompanied only by Anouk’s imaginary kangaroo. If that sentence alone has too much whimsy for your stomach to take, don’t invest two hours of your time in the rest of the film. Vianne and her daughter rock up in a very traditional town, run by the Comte de Reynaud (Alfred Molina), a stuffed-shirt who won’t admit his wife has left him. The austere Comte is horrified when Vianne’s sweet goodies prove super popular with the townspeople, whose lives suddenly start to change in profound and exciting ways as the quality of the chocolate helps them discover their own suppressed desires.

As if the title alone wasn’t enough of a warning, Chocolat is almost impossibly sweet, like being water-boarded by hot chocolate. Shot in a village that can only be described as chocolate box, it’s twee, sentimental and exhibits practically all the worst elements of cosy women’s fiction. With Miramax muscle behind it, this heavy-going confection briefly persuaded the world it was some sort of easy-going arthouse picture – rather than a smug fable of cliched situations and characters, coated in an unsettling number of scenes of actors eating chocolate with orgasmic grins.

It will not surprise you to hear that Vianne’s arrival in the village is the catalyst for huge change – the sort of change a trailer would surely describe as “their lives were all starters, until she showed them the importance of dessert”. Vianne is played by Juliette Binoche channelling Nigella Lawson as a yummy mummy domestic goddess. Her shop operates with the sort of business model that only exists in escapist fiction: customers spin a sort of Rorschach wheel and whatever they see in the picture decides the chocolate they will buy (no one would dare ask “Do you just have a box of milktray?”). The whimsy is nearly as thick as the molten goodies in the mixing bowl.

The village is stuffed with esteemed actors going through the motions. Judi Dench shows Maggie Smith that she can play crusty-old-women-with-hearts-of-gold as easily as her, as a grandmother who has been refused access to her grandson by his over-cautious mother. (It’s the sort of role people love to see veteran actors do, and duly landed Dench an Oscar-nomination). With some flatly written lines, Dench provides a bit of sparkle in a role she could play standing on her head. Carrie-Anne Moss is pretty good as her daughter, a repressed fusspot, who won’t let her son have fun. John Wood plays a crusty bachelor with the hots for war widow Leslie Caron. You don’t need to be a master confectioner to mix these ingredients together into the expected resolutions.

Hallström keeps events ticking gently along, in a film so soothing it seems designed to help you fall asleep. For a while Hallström was the go-to-guy for middle-brow, unimaginatively “prestige” adaptations of middle-brow, popular novels (this was his second after The Cider House Rules – and he had several to follow – each progressively a bit worse than the one before). The closest genuine emotion comes from Lena Olin’s abused wife of bullying café owner Peter Stormare. Sure, Olin’s problems are solved in about a few minutes, but the threat to her from Stormare is an intrusion of something that feels genuinely dramatic in what is otherwise a souffle. (Olin gets the film’s only memorable line, whacking her husband over the head when he attacks Vianne with the words “Who says I can’t use a skillet”, a line that’s both rather funny and bizarrely out of place.)

Naturally, the stuffy village learning needs to learn to cut lose a bit and embrace life, love and happiness. Alfred Molina’s Comte is the sort of chap who browbeats the local priest (who loves himself a bit of Elvis) into parroting the conservative sermons he’s written for him about the virtue of being miserable. Of course, the Comte is actually a decent guy (when he finds out what a bastard Stormare is, he banishes him at once), just old-fashioned and as much in need of the orgasmic power of chocolate to heal his pain as everyone else. Did Cadburys and Hersheys sponsor this film?

Just when you thought the film’s cosy warmth and supreme heritage gentleness couldn’t get more trying, it tops itself with the arrival of a punch of whimsical Romani people even more smackably smug than Vianne. Worst of all they are led by Johnny Depp at his most lazily teenage dream-boat, sporting a pony-tail and a bizarre Irish accent. He’s even more of a free-spirit than anyone else, strumming his guitar at the drop of his hat. You’ll dream of a hole in his boat taking him to the bottom of the Seine.

It all ends as you might expect: everyone discovers lovely things about themselves and each other, everyone settles down, Depp and Binoche get-it-on (and keep the relationship going as he drifts in-and-out town), the Comte becomes a top bloke and the invisible kangaroo skips away on the North Wind. Eat a box of Quality Street instead.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Harrison Ford goes in search for treasure in Raiders of the Lost Ark

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones), Karen Allen (Marion Ravenwood), Paul Freeman (René Belloq), Ronald Lacey (Major Arnold Toht), John Rhys-Davies (Sallah), Denholm Elliott (Dr Marcus Brody), Wolf Kahler (Colonel Dietrich), Anthony Higgins (Major Gobler), Alfred Molina (Satipo)

Indiana Jones is now one of the most beloved – and instantly recognisable – film characters ever created. So, it’s strange to think that Raiders of the Lost Ark was released to such little fanfare. That soon changed when the film came out. In some cinemas it was so popular it played for the whole year. It became a box-office smash, turned Harrison Ford into Hollywood’s leading movie star for the next 20 years, and made Steven Spielberg Hollywood’s leading director. And it did all that because I’m not sure there is a more entertaining, tightly made, funny, thrilling and (at times) scary adventure film out there. Spielberg and producer George Lucas may have wanted to make a film that aped B-movie adventure serials – but they ended up reinventing an entire genre.

It’s 1936 and the Nazis are in search of occult relics. Their latest target is the Ark of the Covenant, which Hitler believes will make his armies invincible. What chance is there of stopping him finding it? Well obviously the US government must put its trust in Professor Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford), one of the world’s leading archaeologists who also (fortunately) is pretty handy in a fight. Not only that, but his ex-girlfriend Marian Ravenwood (Karen Allen), daughter of his former mentor, holds one of the keys to finding the Ark. Indy and Marian end up on an adventure that crosses continents, taking on the ruthless Nazis and mixing with profound mysteries that man is not meant to know.

Hollywood wasn’t happy about Spielberg making the film. His previous film – the war comedy 1941 – had bombed, losing millions. The studio was insistent with producer George Lucas: if he wanted to see his dream of making an old-fashioned B-movie with his friend Spielberg come true, then he would need to stick tightly to a budget. After all, Spielberg had a reputation for delivering films overtime and overbudget. Our heroes stuck to this deal – and Spielberg has said it was a blessing, as it forced him to keep the film lean, tight and, above all, free of indulgence. Spielberg’s direction is perfect, so good in fact that he set the template for nearly all big-budget directing (in terms of tone, pace, mood and tempo) to come. Every action film since owes something in its DNA to Raiders.

Raiders is far more entertaining – and brilliant – than it has any right to be. It’s effectively a series of set-pieces, threaded together by screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan into a plot. Kasdan’s dialogue though was spot-on – like the film, lean, tight and perfectly focused. With exceptional brevity and focus it brilliantly creates a small core of characters, and then gives them room to bounce off each other. Its dialogue is quotable, fun and punchy. He – with Lucas and Spielberg – also crafts a central character who is flawed but deeply likeable, and a heroine who is independent and dynamic. The script is a big part of the reason why the film is a success – it makes us care deeply for the characters as they get involved in the death-defying stunts and action set pieces that make up a lot of the film.

And we don’t follow any character more than Indy himself. Thank God Tom Selleck had to withdraw at the last minute. George Lucas had resisted casting Harrison Ford as he was worried about the overlap with Han Solo. But the part fits Ford like a glove. Sure, it comes from the same wheel-house as Solo – although Indy is more taciturn, intellectual and a degree less cocksure than Solo, more a man reluctantly forced into danger than a swaggering pirate – but Ford’s skill is faultless. Ford has an everyday quality to him, and he brings a world-weary tiredness to Indiana. He has the confident grin, but he’s just as likely to see that switch to concerned desperation (there is a perfect moment of this in the opening sequence, when the vine he is grasping on a cliff top suddenly works loose). He may be a bit of a rogue (not averse to shooting a swordsman) but he’s also a good man, with the street smarts of a ruffian, who is frequently exasperated by the errors of his sidekicks. This is the sort of man that men want to be and women want to be with – an impossibly difficult trick to pull off.

We relate to Indy because he’s vulnerable. He’s an underdog. The outstanding opening sequence – basically a little mini-movie in itself – showcases this. As Indy heads into a hidden temple for an idol (dodging spiders, bottomless pits, arrows from walls and most famously a huge boulder – a stunt Ford did for real) we get his entire character showcased. He’s astute, resourceful, trusting (sometimes too trusting) and ingenious. But he also takes a hell of a physical pounding, gets scared and above all goes through huge danger only to end up empty-handed. And of course, we find out he can cope with all this, but definitely not snakes (is there a better action set-piece punch line than “Grow a little backbone, will ya!”). It sets the tone for the rest of the film – in fact with the first five minutes alone, Raiders is already better than 99% of all other adventure films.

But then this is a director working at the top of his game. All the elements come together perfectly here: Spielberg always knows when to keep the tempo up, cuts the action superbly and also presents us with a brilliant mixture of tension, excitement and awe. He and Lucas brilliantly understand the power of images – there is a reason why a rolling boulder has become part of cinema’s language. The design of Raiders (one of its five Oscars) is absolutely perfect. Nothing like these temples could really have existed in real life – but as an evocation of 1930s adventure serials they are perfect. Mix that in with that brilliant sound design (those whip cracks for staters) and John Williams’ majestic score (from the classic Indy march to the haunting strains that tie in with the Ark) and this film is a masterclass for affecting the senses.

Then those set-pieces are told with just the right balance between thrills and wit. Again, Harrison Ford is a big part of this: he’s never smug, his trademark furrowed brow suggesting stress as much as his grin communicates relief at surviving. The truck chase – which sees Indy move from horse to truck, to under a speeding truck to back in the driving seat, half the time with a bullet in his arm – is a masterclass in thrills and superb editing. It’s such damn good fun that the film even gets away with a nonsensical beat where a car-load of Nazis is pushed off a huge cliff (the first and last indication that we are anywhere near a cliff in the whole scene!). Just like the opening sequence our hero’s combination of ingenuity, never-say-die determination and vulnerability is what makes it compelling (the Williams score also plays a huge part in building both the excitement and the triumph).

The whole film is a series of triumphant set-pieces. Spielberg also tinges the film with just enough darkness as well. The Nepal gun battle carries a real sense of danger, Indy’s fight with a tough Nazi air mechanic culminates in a quite gruesome death (although the fight beforehand has plenty of wit to it, as Indy is hopelessly outmatched physically by this giant). That’s all before the film’s famous closing sequence as the Ark finally opens up to reveal the power of God – bad news for the assembled Nazis crowded around it. The face-melting horror (and it’s hard to imagine any action adventure film doing something this horrific today) is impossible to forget, brilliantly executed and carries just the right amount of dread.

The darkness though is counter-balanced throughout by sly wit and a sense of fun. Wonderful jokes – from Major Toht’s nunchucks that become a coat hanger to an exhausted Indy responding to Marian’s kisses by falling asleep – pepper the script. The cast are fabulously chosen. Karen Allen is perfect as the independent Marian. Paul Freeman is chillingly austere and charmingly amoral as Indy’s rival Belloq. Denholm Elliott’s Marcus Brody is excellent as an older, wiser version of Indy very different from the comic buffoon he would become. The same can also be said for John Rhys-Davies Falstaffian but shrewd and loyal Sallah.

Raiders of the Lost Ark sees every element come together perfectly. Spielberg’s direction – the film did come in on time and on budget, going on to be the biggest success of its year – is completely perfect. Ford creates a character who from his first appearance is iconic (the zoom to introduce him is a wonderful tip of the hat to John Wayne’s classic entrance in Stagecoach – continuing the homages, the final shot is also a lovely nod to Citizen Kane). Every action set piece is a brilliant mix of thrills, danger, triumph and even a touch of horror (be it gruesome deaths or dreadful beasts). It’s a film that can not fail to entertain, raise a smile – and still have you hiding behind the sofa at points. Lucas and Spielberg wanted to make a film that would remind them of the adventures of our childhood. They were so successful that their film ended up defining the childhoods of millions of us.

Frozen 2 (2019)

The gang are all back together in Frozen 2

Director: Jennifer Lee, Chris Buck

Cast: Kristen Bell (Anna), Idina Menzel (Elsa), Josh Gad (Olaf), Jonathan Groff (Kristoff), Sterling K Brown (Mattias), Evan Rachel Wood (Iduna), Alfred Molina (Agnarr), Martha Plimpton (Yelena), Jason Ritter (Ryder), Ciaran Hinds (Pabbie), Jeremy Sisto (King Runead), Rachel Matthews (Honeymaren)

Frozen was a phenomenon, a film that seemed to come out of nowhere and seized the imagination (and the passions) of audiences. Why did it work so well? It’s got a great bunch of characters, a focus on sibling affection that is very easy to relate to (and very different from most romance-based Disney films), a well-rounded bunch of characters (so easy to relate to, they inspired a number of fan in-jokes in a way that only characters in films you really care about can) and of course that song. Frozen II works very hard to double down as much as possible on the things that worked, and to give you the chance to spend more time with these characters. If it fails to match the magic of the first film, it still makes for an entertaining trip to the cinema.

Elsa (Idina Menzel) and Anna (Kristen Bell) are now living together in the kingdom of Arendelle, and all is peace and contentment. Until one day a siren call that Elsa keeps hearing from across the water occurs at the same time as a series of elemental events in the kingdom, each harnessing earth, fire, air and water. The sisters quickly work out that this must be connected in some way with the stories their parents told them of the Enchanted Forest, a magical land near to Arendelle that disappeared after a mysterious feud between the two kingdoms. Accompanied by living snowman Olaf (Josh Gad), Anna’s boyfriend Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) and his reindeer Sven, the sisters head off to find the cause of the disturbances, solve the mystery of the enchanted forest and save Arendelle. Phew!

Frozen 2 is engaging, fun and has some very good jokes. Its main problem is a plot that feels both sprawling and epic and also muddled and confusing. As the film hits its final act, you may well feel more than a little confused about why events are unfolding like this, what the motivations of certain characters are, why some things happen to characters etc. What the film seems to lack is a compelling unfolding of the plot, and a clear structure of how these events link together to form the overall arc.

As such, we seem to head to several locations and constantly encounter a series of magical creatures, but never really get a firm grasp of how they link together. The film has a series of flashbacks and expands the backstory of the series, but then never really pulls together clearly how the events of the past shaped the present. The moment where this is explained feels rushed and murky, and seems to revolve around a sort of “anti-magic” attitude from a key character in the past that has no context with the rest of the film and never feels really clear.

The plot may not be the strongest, but where the film really does work is in its sense of humour and its fun script, and the engaging riffs Lee and Buck make on the previous film. Fan humour from the first film – not least the close relationship between Kristoff and Sven – is doubled down on in this film with a series of knowing sight gags. Olaf – far more engaging here than in the first film – has a series of excellent fan gags, peaking in a hilarious showpiece moment where he essentially acts out the entire plot of Frozen for the people of the Enchanted forest (all of whom respond like the fans). It’s a hilarious show piece, and a real sign of the film’s strengths, which are often when it is riffing on the first film.

The film also carries across the other things that worked from the first film. The close relationship between the two sisters is central to most of the film’s development (although it also means that Anna seems to have to protest her devotion in virtually every scene). The sense of outsider and isolation in Elsa is also explored further, with her confusion over being happy where she is but still yearning for something more. The film also threads in a charming B-plot of Kristoff’s attempts to propose to Anna, which provides both charm and several moments of comic gold.

The film does struggle to find a replacement song for Let It Go, although Into the Unknown comes close, another inspiring, story-packed, ballad for Idina Menzel to bring to inspired life again. The song also plays well with the several fans who have seen Elsa become a gay icon, with most of the lyrics leaning on the idea of heading out from the safety of knowing where you are to finding your true self in the “unknown”, answering the siren call of your own desires. Also of course, it’s a belting song which you can enjoy on its own merits!

The Front Runner (2018)

Hugh Jackman in the centre of a media scrum in misfiring biopic The Front Runner

Director: Jason Reitman

Cast: Hugh Jackman (Gary Hart), Vera Farmiga (Lee Hart), JK Simmons (Bill Dixon), Alfred Molina (Ben Bradlee), Sara Paxton (Donna Rice), Mamoudou Athie (AJ Parker), John Bedford Lloyd (David S Broder), Spencer Garrett (Bob Woodward), Steve Coulter (Bob Kaiser), Ari Garynor (Ann Devroy), Steve Zissis (Tom Fiedler), Bill Burr (Pete Murphy), Mike Judge (Jim Savage), Kevin Pollak (Bob Martindale)

In the 1988 Democratic primaries, Gary Hart (Hugh Jackman) was the man to beat: a telegenic liberal with an attractive programme of policies and a forward-thinking vision for America. No one could beat Hart. Except for Hart himself. A man with a history of affairs, he became embroiledin a sex scandal after an ill-advised friendship (the film is coy on taking a stance on whether this friendship was sexual or not) with a young woman, Donna Rice (Sara Paxton). Angrily denying anything was going on, Hart unwisely challenged journalists to follow him: which the Miami Herald did, soon finding Hart had skipped campaign events to invite Rice to come and stay with him at his Washington home for a long weekend… Cue a media snowstorm and an imploded campaign.

Reitman’s film is a pretty decent chronicle of this early media sex scandal. I say pretty good because it does what it sets out to do with a solid observation of the facts and a general even handedness between Hart and the media. However it never really quite sparks into life, and Reitman’s attempt to make this story into something with huge relevance for how the modern media has developed, and how the world of politics has led us to Trump, just doesn’t really work.

What the film instead becomes is a slightly dry but enjoyable enough docu-drama, that covers a period of history that should feel tumultuous and should create a sense of setting the table for the future but doesn’t. The idea that it was only at this point that American politicians suddenly had interest from the press in their personal lives is nonsense for anyone who had even a passing knowledge of the careers of Kennedy and Nixon. The film’s attempt to make us sympathise with Hart is also undermined by the high-handed arrogance with which he treats even the slightest inquiry into his personal life from anyone, be it press to members of staff who simply want an explanation of why their leader consistently demonstrates such astonishing poor judgement.

This is despite a decent performance of charisma from Hugh Jackman, possibly better than Hart deserves. The film does demonstrate – amidst its general sympathy for Hart – his willingness to throw Donna Rice under the media bus and his stubborn refusal to acknowledge any wrong-doing on his own part. I can’t say I actually really felt much sympathy for him over the course of the film, which I’m not sure was the film’s intention.

Neither did I really feel the film really skewered journalism. I think it wants to lay a suggestion that this was the first descent on a slippery slope, where gutter press, personality led journalism led to only egotists of mediocre talent wanting to take on the challenge of running the country. Or rather, that we get the politicians we deserve. While you could say there is some merit in this, I’m not sure this film manages to present that fully (Hart’s behaviour is at least partly self-destructive and would have been in any era) or that it really establishes that we are living in the shadow of times like this. And the investigation into Hart’s lies and evasions is hardly gutter press journalism. Neither does the film make a real case for Hart being some sort of potential great leader: while he has some decent, liberal, ideas he’s also short-tempered, lacks focus and has a tendency to snap at or cold shoulder underlings.

A bit of spin in the movie is got out of Jack Kennedy’s numerous affairs not being covered by the press. And while that is true, this seems less because of a natural shyness of the press, but rather because Kennedy was more astute at making friends in the fourth estate, and more willing to share parts of his life outside politics with them for stories (essentially, he made news for the press, making them more willing to keep quiet about his adulteries, while Kennedy avoided doing anything too blatant that the press would find impossible to ignore). Hart’s real problem was less that he was in a more censorious or gutter press era, and more that he was inept at press (and people) management, treating those around him with high handed contempt, mixed with challenges and threats. The film could almost be a textbook on how not to use the media.

It’s telling Hart’s only real relationship with a reporter in the film is with a young, impressionable (and fictional) Washington Post journalist (played very well by Mamoudou Athie). Hart comforts him through a mild panic attack during a flight and they develop a friendship, which I think the film wants us to think the journalist betrays by asking Hart the difficult questions about his lack of faithfulness and proclivity for affairs (all pretty well documented historically). I’m not sure that is the case. Surely, by this stage almost any thinking human beingin the States was asking these questions, and by putting them to the candidate, surely this journalist was simply doing their job? The “tragedy” of Hart was his incompetence at working with people, rather than his questionable private activities being brought to light.

The film struggles with all these themes and I don’t think it really successfully tackles any of them. The case it tries to set out doesn’t really work and, despite some fine observational moments of politics in action and a good performance from Jackman, it never really takes flight as it should. It’s a decent effort but a misfire.

The Da Vinci Code (2006)

Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou stumble through the dire The Da Vinci Code, possibly one of the dullest films ever made

Director: Ron Howard

Cast: Tom Hanks (Robert Langdon), Audrey Tautou (Sophie Neveu), Ian McKellen (Sir Leigh Teabing), Jean Reno (Captain Bezu Fache), Paul Bettany (Silas), Alfred Molina (Bisoph Aringarosa), Jürgen Prochnow (André Vernet), Étienne Chicot (Lieutenant Jérôme Collet), Jean-Yves Berteloot (Remy Jean), Jean-Pierre Marielle (Jacques Saunière)

In 2003 the world went a little crazy. Maybe it was all the buzz of conspiracy that seemed to be everywhere. Maybe people wanted a bit of escapism from the misery of our post-9/11 world. Or maybe there is just no accounting for taste. But inexplicably, a staggeringly poorly written thriller by a hack author, peddling a tired old conspiracy, became one of the most popular books of all time. Yup, ladies and gentlemen, it was a time of silliness, paranoia and poor taste. It was the time of The Da Vinci Code.

When the curator of the Louvre (Jean-Pierre Marielle) is found dead in the museum, with his body covered with bizarre self-inflicted wounds and symbols, visiting Professor of Symbology from Harvard Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is called in to consult. Langdon quickly finds himself the main suspect and on the run, aided only by the victim’s granddaughter Sophie (Audrey Tautou in a truly thankless part of continual question asking, devoid of any agency). Following a trail of bizarre clues, Langdon ends up investigating a conspiracy that leads to the heart of the Catholic Church – could the Church be founded on a lie? Could Jesus Christ have in fact been married to Mary Magdalene? Could she have been his intended heir? Did she have a child? Has a secret society run (at various times) by the Knights Templar, Leonardo Da Vinci and Isaac Newton worked since the dawn of time to protect the secret? Of course they haven’t, but that’s not going to stop the film.

Okay let’s get the main event out of the way. This is a terrible film. But it’s not terrible for the reason you might think. I mean, sure, it’s poorly scripted bobbins, with poorly developed ciphers for characters, and it peddles a conspiracy theory which is total, illogical nonsense from top to bottom. But that’s not the main reason. The main reason this film is terrible is that it is so unbelievably fucking boring.

The film is an utterly faithful, practically scene-by-scene reproduction of Dan Brown’s book. And it immediately reveals how little Brown knows about how to write a good thriller. The film has two or three action “set pieces” or moments of tension – at least, they would be tense, if only there were any stakes to the situation, or the characters’ motivations or the peril they’re in made the slightest bit of sense. They don’t. You’ll barely remember the car chase, or any of the moments where the heroes are held at gunpoint. None of the characters have any definable personalities, other than what they are invested with by the actors playing them. But then that’s no surprise from a novel where the lead character is defined solely by being brainy, having a Mickey Mouse watch (such a character!) and (film rights pleading ahoy) looking like Harrison Ford.

Just like Dan Brown’s turgid original, this film quickly turns into a series of scenes where characters fling exposition at each other to whizz us through a series of sub-par brainteasers and anagrams, which are only solvable with information the characters have but the audience doesn’t (hardly making it a fun thing to play along with). You’ll find yourself wishing for those anagrams back though, once they move on to spunking the novel’s bizarre conspiracy theory into our ears. The low point of this is when Ian McKellen’s polio-suffering billionaire historian (a billionaire historian! Who has a private plane! Of course he does…) tees up a handy PowerPoint presentation he just happened to have sitting around ready, and regurgitates all the mystic mumbo-jumbo that the film tries to pass off as fact.

I’m sure I don’t need to recap the nonsense of this film, but seeing it boiled down from the book is a real reminder that Brown clearly read widely but with no depth. For starters, most of his understanding of everything from the church, to the Templars, to the history of Europe is bogged down in inaccuracy and misinterpretation. By the time the film is claiming that Isaac Newton’s discovery of gravity angered the church you’ll have lost all ability to take anything the film says seriously (for the record, the Catholic church didn’t have a problem with gravity, and even if they did, as an Anglican living in a Protestant country, Newton wouldn’t have given a damn anyway).

None of the film’s (or book’s) ideas are even that original – it was all spewed forth in a book called Holy Blood, Holy Grail (several characters here have names that are anagrams of the writers and editors of these books) in 1982. The idea of Jesus having a whole line of secret descendants is arrant bollocks. The idea of a secret society working to protect this secret is even more stupid (it was revealed after the publication of Holy Blood, Holy Grail to be a total hoax, swallowed whole by that book’s writers). There is not a shred of reality here – rather, it’s typical paranoia and anti-establishment bollocks repackaged as dark reveal.

This is before we even touch on the – heaven help us – “art analysis”. The dark hints of conspiracy in The Last Supper by Da Vinci boil down to: (a) there is no Grail in this painting, (b) the bloke to the left of Jesus looks a bit like a girl so must be Mary Magdelene (“a hint of bosom” McKellen tells us playfully), (c) there is an inverted triangle between Christ and this man/woman – so surely a sign of the female dominance! The fact that the painting shows only 12 disciples and Jesus – meaning that if Mary was there, it should show 14 people not 13 – isn’t considered worth mentioning. But then that’s par for the course for the film’s bullshit clues “discovered” in works of art to support the film’s bullshit, anti-Catholic agenda (the church being staffed in this film exclusively by shadowy, Bond-villain types, with a ruthless agenda for extremist Catholicism and murderous Albino hit-monks they dispatch at will). Give me a break.

But if the film had packaged this all up in a gleefully silly, high energy story, it could still have been an entertaining watch. Unfortunately, it’s completely and utterly boring. It goes on (and on) for almost two and a half hours, and in between unengaging lectures and tedious dialogue scenes it drags like you wouldn’t believe. It’s almost impossible to get engaged in anything at all, and it’s really not helped by the flat, dimly lit, for-the-money direction from Ron Howard. There is no zip or fun about the film whatsoever, as if the book’s massive popularity made the producers worried that if they treated the book like an action adventure yarn, or a fun bit of nonsense, then it might offend people. Instead they treat this nonsense with a deathly reverence usually reserved for Biblical epics that’s fatal for the viewing experience of the entire film.

It’s supremely dull, very self-important, and for all the hard work of an interesting cast of actors (who do their very best) it’s a complete, yawn-filled, pile of stinking crap. As the man said: “Holy Blood? Holy shit.”

An Education (2009)

First love: Never as smooth as you think it will be

Director: Lone Scherfig

Cast: Carey Mulligan (Jenny Mellor), Peter Sarsgaard (David Goldman), Dominic Cooper (Danny), Rosamund Pike (Helen), Alfred Molina (Jack Mellor), Cara Seymour (Marjorie Mellor), Emma Thompson (Miss Walters), Olivia Williams (Miss Stubbs), Sally Hawkins (Sarah), Ellie Kendrick (Tina)

The education in question is the first sexual relationship of a girl who is 16 going on 17. Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is a schoolgirl and prospective Oxford candidate who finds herself winning the attention of charming older man David (Peter Sarsgaard). Jenny is swept off her feet by the world of classy bars, art and culture David introduces her to and begins to lose interest in her literal education: if all education can do is turn women into either lawyers’ wives or teachers what is the point?

Strangely for a film based on a man approaching middle-age taking advantage of a naïve and excited teenager, it’s strangely cosy and charming, with the whiff of “safe” family viewing. Nothing wrong with that of course, but the whole confection is just a little too slight, a little too well packaged, a little too carefully and thoughtfully put together to really leave a lasting impression. Instead it’s an enjoyable enough 90 minutes which doesn’t really have anything that stays with you.

What it does have going for it above all is the marvellous lead performance from Carey Mulligan. At the time best known for appearing in the Blink episode of Doctor Who, Mulligan cements her early promise by demonstrating what a charismatic and vibrant performer she is. Jenny delights in the ease with which David deceives everyone without it ever occurring to her that he might be lying to her, and this teenage arrogance could easily be smackably annoying – but Mulligan makes her deeply engaging and loveable. You want to protect her from making an irrevocable decision that will ruin her life at 16 (sort of the opposite to Bella in Twilight). But Mulligan’s endearingly engaging performance sweeps the audience up into Jenny’s fascination with the exciting life David seems to be offering, and makes you understand why she believes it to be a viable option. She’s a radiant centre to the film and it’s almost impossible to imagine it working at all without her.

It is in fact very well-acted throughout. Sarsgaard underplays the role, suggesting the underlying shallowness and weakness to David which is far clearer to the audience than the characters. The supporting cast are knock-outs: Rosamund Pike is hilarious as a sweet airhead, Alfred Molina embodies the gullibility of the striving middle-classes mixed with great reserves of unspoken love and affection, Olivia Williams is terrific in an underwritten part as Jenny’s concerned teacher.

It’s strange watching the film to see how it romanticizes the sort of behaviour that, if we encountered it today, would be denounced as grooming at best, paedophilia at worst. In fact, the film soft-peddles a lot of the unpleasantness of its characters: David and Danny, it is clear, are conmen and swindlers, though I suspect the film wants us to think of them more as charming rogues. I suppose it’s the impact of seeing the story from Jenny’s perspective, but some more outside commentary would perhaps have been interesting: it also might have been more interesting to see Jenny actually having to deal with the moral consequences of some of the actions that happen around her.

This is a slight affair, almost a shaggy dog story. There are many more things it could have explored (the swindling career of David, the role of women in the 1960s, the changing perceptions of “blue stockings” and their career options) but instead it settles for being a charming period piece. It makes no secret of the fact that, deep down, we are not meant to trust David and nothing in the plot ever really surprises you. It’s a gentle amble through an ill-advised teenage romance. But, despite all that, it’s very well acted and Carey Mulligan proves she was set to become a star.