Review - The Hangover

‘Stag party gone wrong’ isn’t exactly an original idea for a comedy. Even ‘stag party gone wrong in Las Vegas’ has been done before (the extraordinarily dark Very Bad Things). But what The Hangover lacks in originality of plot if makes up for in hilarity of execution.

Doug (Justin Bartha) goes on his stag weekend to the aforementioned Las Vegas with his two best friends Stu (Ed Helms) and Phil (Bradley Cooper), and his fiancé’s strange brother Alan (Zach Galifianakis). The guys wake up the next morning to find their hotel room in disarray and Doug missing.

The rest of the film follows Stu, Phil and Alan as they try and piece together what happened the night before, which was some night. Writers Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (who recently wrote Four Christmases) have filled the script with loads of belly laughs and bizarre set pieces. The director Todd Phillips is a master of these sorts of things (he also helmed Old School and Road Trip), so delivers in style.

The cast is made up of relative unknowns, but I doubt that will be the case for long. Galifianakis is sweet and weird as the loner trying to fit into the group, Helms gets the audience on his side quickly with his geeky and put-upon character, and Cooper makes a great ‘good looking and cool one’. Heather Graham has a lovely little role, showing her undoubted flair for comedy. The only slightly strange part comes from Ken Jeong as a camp mobster, which is perhaps a bit over the top.

This grown-up version of a frat comedy combines a great set up, great performances and great writing to make the funniest film of the year so far.

Review - Last Chance Harvey

There are lots of films whose trailers are better than the actual feature. Last Chance Harvey is one of them. The ad is the perfect two-minute confection, an adorable romantic comedy with an adorable Dustin Hoffman and an adorable Emma Thompson falling in love in London. He buys her a dress, takes her to his daughter’s wedding and they teach each other how to let go and live again.

All this stuff does happen in the film, but the gaps between these events are long and depressing. Harvey Shine (Hoffman) is a jingle writer (why is jingle writing such a common profession in films and on television?) past his prime and about to lose his job. He travels to London to attend his daughter’s wedding, and finds out she’d rather her step-father give her away during the ceremony (what a bitch!). Hurt and alone, he goes back to Heathrow, but meets Kate Walker (Thompson) who works at the airport, someone else hurt and alone.

The drawn-out ‘meet cute’ and Harvey’s subsequent pursuit of Kate are quite sweet, but all the clichés are wheeled out before the film is through. Every landmark of London is wandered past as they talk (I must say, they take highly convoluted routes to get from A to B) and they talk a lot. This is not a film of action but of conversations, and unfortunately the script is not very funny and just doesn’t ring true.

That’s not to say that the performances aren’t authentic and truthful. No one plays crumpled and disappointed quite as well as Dustin Hoffman and this is really a role made for him. His smile is a little sudden and scary, though. Emma Thompson’s Kate seems like an intelligent and real woman who has just somehow ended up on her own and is therefore sad. Her smile is not scary at all.

This is the sort of film that just about manages to pass the time, but it could have been so much more if the writing had just been a little riskier. A good two minutes spread over one and a half hours makes for a thin gruel indeed.

Review - Drag Me to Hell

Director Sam Raimi goes back to his horror roots after many successful years in the superhero genre with this rollicking comedy chiller. Christine (Alison Lohman) is a country girl who has moved to the big city and found a nice job at a bank and a nice professor boyfriend (Justin Long). One day she refuses an old lady’s plea and repossesses her house, so the old lady curses her. First she will be tormented by evil spirits, and after three days she will be swallowed up into the fiery pit of hell.

This is a horror film that harks back to both the 70s devilish horror films (The Exorcist and The Omen) and 80s tongue-in-cheek splatterfests, an age before Ringu brought the Japanese style of horror to the West, with its crawling, twisted emaciated spirits, washed out colours and haunted technology. The old gypsy lady (Lorna Raver) is a one-woman splatterfest herself, secreting all manner of nasty things into her handkerchief. The fight between her and Christine in a car is a brutal and hysterical highlight.

Another highlight is Lohman. Female leads in horror films are usually just there to wear tight clothes, and while I wouldn’t say her outfits were loose, Lohman has produced a real character. Christine does some desperate things to try to get rid of the curse, so isn’t all sweetness and screams as you may expect. She exerts a real charm, and seems to be a star in the making.

Raimi has managed to get the tone right throughout, creating a really creepy, funny and satisfying film that feels oven fresh after the stale likes of The Unborn. This is jolly good fun, but be warned: it may leave you with a fear of buttons.

Review - Night at the Museum 2

The first Night at the Museum was probably a bigger hit than people expected, but no-one should ever underestimate how much children enjoy seeing inanimate objects coming to life, especially if they are dinosaur-shaped inanimate objects. The sequel sticks with what worked before, but moves the action from the American Museum of Natural History in New York to the Smithsonian in Washington. Here there are spaceships and paintings, as well as the usual dinosaurs and animals, to be enchanted by the Pharoah’s golden tablet.

Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) is now a successful inventor. When he visits the museum where he used to be a night watchmen, he finds the exhibits packed up ready to be shipped to the Smithsonian. As they arrive at their new home, the magic tablet brings to life an evil Pharoah who wants to take over the world using the tablet’s power. Larry Daley must stop him with the help of his old friends and some new ones, including spunky Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams).

The film is really a succession of cameo appearances, mostly from top notch comic actors. Adams shows the same brilliance with sincerity that she debuted in Enchanted, there is a very funny scene with Superbad’s Jonah Hill, and Hank Azaria is decidedly strange as the Pharoah, but in a good way. An appearance by Christopher Guest as Ivan the Terrible is a bit of a waste (it could really have been played by anyone to the same effect), and the reappearance of a dicky-bowed Ricky Gervais is unwelcome to say the least, but overall it is a assorted box of historical and pop cultural chocolates.

Adults will enjoy the clever references and inventive use of exhibits (the scenes in the National Gallery will be particularly fun for art fans) and children will love the wonder of it all and the silliness. Sure, the plot is fraying at the edges, but this is a film that successfully plays to the crowd. The question is, which museum will host part three?

Review - Star Trek

Prequels to well-loved franchises are big business. By going ‘back to basics’ while simultaneously ‘sexing up’ the characters, new life is breathed into old product. Batman Begins and Casino Royale have been recent success stories for studios, so it was only a matter of time until the origin story of Star Trek, one of the most successful franchises of all time, was explored on the big screen.

Star Trek is not something that is cool to love, but I do. I wouldn’t say I’m a Trekkie, but I know how Captain Picard takes his tea, if you know what I mean (Earl Grey, hot). As for many fans, I’m sure, the prospect of this film was both exciting and troubling for me. Exploring the early life of the Enterprise crew has never been done before, and the thought of someone else playing Spock or Kirk was upsetting. Would they get it right? Would the chemistry be there?

The answer is yes. Star Trek is not, and never has been, only for geeks – the original series and the Next Generation were big hits because they had great characters and loads of interesting ideas. Director J.J. Abrams knows this and has made an exciting and well-paced blockbuster that should appeal to everyone, whether they’ve seen the source material or not. That’s not to say that the feelings of fans have been sidelined by the greed of Hollwood; there are plenty of references to make them feel at home. And if anyone does get angry, they will be sated by the knowledge that this is set in an alternative reality to the TV universe so needn’t impinge on anything that’s gone before. This also cleverly allows writers freedom for future sequels.

The story follows James T. Kirk as he decides to join Starfleet to follow in the steps of his father, who died a hero at the hands of a mysterious Romulan ship. When he realises that the ship and its crew have returned, he must convince Starfleet to stop it, even though he is only a cadet.

Seeing Chris Pine as Kirk took a bit of getting used to, but he actually fits the part very well. Jim is an over-confident idiot, and as a youngster would probably be insufferable. Pine plays him as cocksure dropout with an eye for the ladies. Zachary Quinto is perfect as Spock, and the relationship between Kirk and Karl Urban’s Dr McCoy feels right. The only slightly bum note was made by Simon Pegg as Scottie, here used as comic relief.

Luckily he’s only in a few scenes, and his presence doesn’t detract from an otherwise extremely well-polished film made with love. For some, the prospect of seeing a Vulcan high school will be worth the price of admission alone. Even if that holds no attraction for you, there is much to enjoy. Star Trek will surely be one of the brightest and most successful blockbusters of the summer.

Review - X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Hugh Jackman was recently named People’s Sexiest Man Alive. I personally find him to be dull as dishwater, if nice and smiley with it. His Wolverine, though, is the coolest creature to wear a pair of jeans since James Dean (must be the sideburns). He was everyone’s favourite in the X-Men films, so a stand-alone adventure makes complete commercial sense. Whether it would make artistic sense was not so clear.

Luckily, I can report that this account of Wolverine’s life before taking residence in Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters stands up well against the modern Marvel pantheon of film adaptations: not as great as the first few Spider-Man or X-Men films, but it beats hands down the lower tier of Hulk, Ghost Rider and Electra.

Jackman is brilliant, wandering around like the cock of the walk. His romance with Lynn Collins is quite sweet, and Liev Schreiber is enjoyably jowly and moody as half-brother Sabretooth.

While this could have been improved with a bigger canvas and more ambition, you get what you need for a Wolverine film: a storyline that actually makes sense within its own universe, deadpan one liners, thrilling fights, and lots of adamantium claws. Job done.

Review - In the Loop

Armando Iannucci is one of Britain’s comedy maestros. He first came to my attention presenting the satirical review The Friday Night Armistice, although I had already unwittingly experienced his writing with the sublime The Day Today. After the painfully funny I’m Alan Partridge, I followed his work with interest, enjoying the more experimental The Armando Iannucci Shows and Time Trumpet (the future versions of Jamie Oliver and June Sarpong being my favourites). Then came The Thick of It.

Widely considered the second best political comedy after Yes, Minister (that clip of John Redwood trying to sing along to the Welsh national anthem comes third in the rankings), it followed a bumbling minister (Chris Langham) attempting to build his career in Westminster, only to be foiled by his own stupidity and the tangled web of deceit and spin that encases our government. Although Langham was officially the main character, the real star of the show was Peter Capaldi’s Malcolm Tucker, the PM’s top communications advisor and the angriest man in Britain.

After Langham’s public fall from grace, they still managed two specials without his character, widening the purview of the programme to include the opposition and the press. In the Loop is almost a natural progression, this time looking at foreign policy instead of domestic. I say ‘almost’, because it doesn’t operate in the same universe as The Thick of It, but in an alternative dimension where all the same faces are there, but they have different names and work in different departments. Only the spin doctors Malcolm and Jamie stay untouched by this shift, which is just slightly strange for fans.

True to form, In the Loop is a bitingly accurate take on the lead up to a war not unlike the Iraq one. Junior Foreign Minister Simon Foster (Tom Hollander) becomes caught in the middle of the battle between hawks and doves in Washington as the Secretaries of State use him as a tiny and very confused pawn. Malcolm must keep him ‘on message’ and sort out the mess, as usual, but he is dealing with bigger fish than ever before.

Worryingly, it is likely that this is a very accurate take on recent events, as Iannucci has had lots of secret advisors from both sides of the Atlantic. It’s all here: 18-year-old interns running state departments, dodgy dossiers being made even dodgier and then being presented to the UN, everything.

As previously noted, the usual players are present, muttering intelligently. They are joined by an American contingent which includes James Gandolfini as a General (he looks very pleased to be dealing with a decent script again after leaving The Sopranos), Mimi Kennedy (Dharma’s mother from Dharma and Greg with very different hair) and Ann Chlumsky (the girl from My Girl!).

But it is the writing that really makes the film. The devastating put-downs and deep social embarrassment mark this out as part of a long British comic tradition. Of course, this is tragi-comedy – we know what happened next. Hilarious, but still quite depressing, this is a must-see piece of work.