300 may be the coolest thing ever. I realised this when watching the Persian messengers galloping across golden fields of corn to Sparta near the beginning. Their Arab headdresses billowing in the wind, they arrive to deliver the news to King Leonidas that Xerxes, King of Persia, has designs on his land. The Spartan’s defence against this threat is an awesome true story that, when embellished by sick puppy Frank Miller, has become an epic blood ballet that really is a must-see.
This is the tale of the Battle of Thermopylae as told around the camp fires in the years after; it is history as myth, and not ashamed of the fact. 300 concentrates on visceral thrills, not characterization and complicated plots; it is made to entertain and astonish, not to give a realistic portrayal of life in Ancient Greece. In that it is very successful, painting the Persians as sensual freaks, and the handful of Spartans that face their massed army as rugged super soldiers, the kind of men that could all be played by Sean Bean.
Unfortunately, none of them are. But Gerard Butler is still excellent as Leonidas, with a six pack to match his warrior discipline and the boomiest voice this side of Brian Blessed. The other Spartans boom along nicely with him, and The Wire’s Dominic West is wonderfully slimy as Theron, the Machiavellian politician back in Sparta with designs on Queen Gorgo (Lena Heady). Heady is the weak link in an otherwise very robust cast, letting the character’s pinched sternness hide any acting that might be going on underneath.
The true star is really the art direction, which is outstanding; the whole look is beautiful, in a stylish muted palette. The CGI backgrounds, as with another Frank Miller adaptation, Sin City, are not designed to be realistic, but to produce a fully-realised fantasy world. Every frame looks like a painting. The fight choreography, so fluid and brutal, is also great, producing a many thrills.
We went to see 300 at the IMAX, and it is really is a film made to be seen in this format (let’s face it, they are unlikely to show a Mike Leigh retrospective there). As we waited for this to begin, people were shouting “This is Sparta!”. 300 has already built up a cult following, and unusually it has the mainstream appeal to become a huge hit.
Tuesday 22 May 2007
Monday 14 May 2007
Review - Sunshine
I was expecting great things from Sunshine, the latest film from Danny Boyle, one of the few good directors working in Britain today. With Shallow Grave and 28 Days Later he’s shown himself to be adept at taut genre thrillers, so the prospect of an intelligent adult sci-fi piece from him was exciting. Unfortunately the simple and effective premise of a ship on a mission to save Earth by kick-starting the dying sun is wasted here, married as it is to two-dimensional characters and a myriad of plot holes.
In the near future, the Icarus 2 and its crew are our planet’s only hope of survival. They must journey to the surface of the sun and deliver a ‘payload’ of a massive nuclear bomb (which looks like something out of The Matrix) in a hope to get the nuclear fusion going again, a mission which spells almost certain doom. Due to bad luck, a badly thought out plan, their own stupidity, and some very silly twists, their situation becomes rapidly even worse. There was a palpable sense of uncomfortable dread throughout this film, which was its most successful feature. The audience, like the crew, don’t want to meet their fate on the burning surface. Another successful element was the production design; the ship’s exterior is beautifully rendered, and the interiors are suitably dark and depressing, harking back to the Alien films’ or Red Dwarf’s industrial futuristic style.
What is less successful includes the crew itself. Although played well, each character ticks some cliché box: the sensitive girl who constantly cries (Rose Byrne), the fearless and stoic leader (Hiroyuki Sanada), the space jock (Chris Evans). We are supposed to be going on a journey to these people’s very souls, but they don’t really have any. It was, however, great to see Benedict Wong (Errol in the wonderful 15 Storeys High) on the big screen in an enjoyably whimpering performance. Cillian Murphy, he of the shocking blue eyes, broods a lot in the lead role of the physicist in charge of their precious cargo, and certainly shows star quality. A small point, perhaps, but what annoyed me most about the crew was that this was a British film made in Britain set in a very international future, and yet there was not one non-American accent. Why couldn’t Murphy keep his Irish one, or Wong his English, or Byrne her Australian?
When it comes to the plot, what starts out promisingly simple ends in a messy jumble. The denouement is extremely confusing and hard to follow, mostly because the mission and the layout of the ship is not adequately set up in the rest of the film to help the audience understand what is going on. The bogeyman element that dominates the end is unnecessary; it would have been more effective to have the psychological terror of the situation being the monster, rather than externalising it into something ridiculous. This is a film which throughout tries to be plausible and scientifically accurate (Dr. Brian Cox, a physicist and This Morning’s resident science explainer, acted as an advisor), so it is disappointing that it didn’t stick to its guns.
All in all this is a missed opportunity to produce some serious sci-fi. Although certainly unnerving in places, the unravelling at the end exasperates more than it excites, leaving little good will for the film from me.
In the near future, the Icarus 2 and its crew are our planet’s only hope of survival. They must journey to the surface of the sun and deliver a ‘payload’ of a massive nuclear bomb (which looks like something out of The Matrix) in a hope to get the nuclear fusion going again, a mission which spells almost certain doom. Due to bad luck, a badly thought out plan, their own stupidity, and some very silly twists, their situation becomes rapidly even worse. There was a palpable sense of uncomfortable dread throughout this film, which was its most successful feature. The audience, like the crew, don’t want to meet their fate on the burning surface. Another successful element was the production design; the ship’s exterior is beautifully rendered, and the interiors are suitably dark and depressing, harking back to the Alien films’ or Red Dwarf’s industrial futuristic style.
What is less successful includes the crew itself. Although played well, each character ticks some cliché box: the sensitive girl who constantly cries (Rose Byrne), the fearless and stoic leader (Hiroyuki Sanada), the space jock (Chris Evans). We are supposed to be going on a journey to these people’s very souls, but they don’t really have any. It was, however, great to see Benedict Wong (Errol in the wonderful 15 Storeys High) on the big screen in an enjoyably whimpering performance. Cillian Murphy, he of the shocking blue eyes, broods a lot in the lead role of the physicist in charge of their precious cargo, and certainly shows star quality. A small point, perhaps, but what annoyed me most about the crew was that this was a British film made in Britain set in a very international future, and yet there was not one non-American accent. Why couldn’t Murphy keep his Irish one, or Wong his English, or Byrne her Australian?
When it comes to the plot, what starts out promisingly simple ends in a messy jumble. The denouement is extremely confusing and hard to follow, mostly because the mission and the layout of the ship is not adequately set up in the rest of the film to help the audience understand what is going on. The bogeyman element that dominates the end is unnecessary; it would have been more effective to have the psychological terror of the situation being the monster, rather than externalising it into something ridiculous. This is a film which throughout tries to be plausible and scientifically accurate (Dr. Brian Cox, a physicist and This Morning’s resident science explainer, acted as an advisor), so it is disappointing that it didn’t stick to its guns.
All in all this is a missed opportunity to produce some serious sci-fi. Although certainly unnerving in places, the unravelling at the end exasperates more than it excites, leaving little good will for the film from me.
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