Prime Time: Bedazzled (2000)

It's been a while since I've seen the original Bedazzled, a 1967 feature that showcased the wonderful comedic duo of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, but I remember having a lot of fun with it. Moore is a great "dimwit" and Cook is sardonic and wonderful as George Spiggott AKA the devil, looking to gain another soul from a human who keeps making wishes that deliver unintended consequences, of course. It's a series of sketches nicely smooshed together (apologies for the technical jargon) to make a great comedy film. So just keep in mind the fact that I am a big fan, and will aim to revisit it soon.

This version of the tale, however, feels like a decent remake. Brendan Fraser is the clumsy and awkward Elliot, looking on with puppy dog eyes at Alison (Frances O'Connor), and the devil this time around is played by Liz Hurley. Elliot is given seven wishes. He hopes that he can use them to create a life with Alison, which would make the price tag (his soul) worthwhile.

Directed by Harold Ramis, who also worked on the screenplay with legendary writer Larry Gelbart and less legendary writer Peter Tolan (look, not knocking his work, but check out the respective CVs of both individuals and you'll see what I mean), the biggest thing working against Bedazzled is that it cannot find a double-act equal to Cook and Moore, but that feels like an impossible task. Ramis directs well enough, and the script is full of amusing exchanges, but some people will roll their eyes at the mere thought of Fraser and Hurley being cast in the lead roles. I think it's a good move though, particularly because neither of them feel comparable to the iconic Pete and Dud.

Most people will have encountered a fun and lively incarnation of Fraser in one of his many broad comedies, but the opening scenes here don't play to his strengths at all, making his character far too sad and dull. Thankfully, that starts to fade away once he meets Hurley, and the various wishes allow him to play a fun variety of characters that often make use of his comedy chops. Hurley, on the other hand, is almost consistently wonderful in this. I wouldn't ever nominate her as a great unsung talent of cinema, but I do wish she had a few more roles that allowed her to have as much fun as she seems to be having here. The film makes use of her sex appeal, but it also uses her appearance to sweeten the poisoned apple that she keeps offering people while tempting them into various sins. O'Connor is fine, defined more by how Fraser's character loves her than how she really is, and Miriam Shor, Orlando Jones, Paul Adelstein, and Toby Huss play co-workers who also end up portraying different incarnations of themselves as the wishes are played out.

There's nothing really memorable here, but that doesn't stop it from being fun. Ramis is a dependable director, and he puts together a number of moments that make good use of the two main stars. That's it. It doesn't have the same feeling of anarchic joy that the original film had, and I would have enjoyed some different scenarios in place of one or two weaker sections, but it still aims to provide a mix of laughs and devilish mischief. And Hurley certainly seems to remind some of us that, as AC/DC once informed us, Hell Ain't A Bad Place To Be.

6/10

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The Whale (2022)

I tend to like the films of Darren Aronofsky, even if just for the visuals, and The Whale is a film I was happy to see provide a resurgence for Brendan Fraser, an actor that I (as well as many other people) have always had a soft spot for. A lot of people were quick to praise it, quick to praise Fraser, and it seemed like I was going to find plenty to enjoy here, putting aside the ongoing debate about actors wearing “fat suits”.

I didn’t enjoy The Whale. It has a couple of big problems, and the fat suit is the least of them (although I should note here that I view those items as I view any other make up or wardrobe choices made to help turn any actor into a character, personally). 

Written for the screen by Samuel D. Hunter, adapting his own stage play, the biggest problem is the script. This tale, of a morbidly obese man (Charlie, played by Fraser) looking to reconnect with his daughter (Ellie, played by Sadie Sink) as he searches for something honest and real before his heart gives out, just resonates throughout with an inauthenticity that would make the central character belt out a primal scream. It also has a message at the centre of it that feels like it could have been written by any disenchanted teenager. 

Aronofsky feels redundant in his role, failing to bring much to the table to stop this from feeling like the filmed stage play it is. We rarely leave the confines of Charlie’s home, and there are too few flourishes to make it feel worth actually being presented as a film. Just set up one or two cameras and present a raw, “live”, version of the play. That might have been better. It might have even rendered the use of the fat suit unnecessary.

Fraser is good, and I am happy for the praise he has been getting, but his performance is supported by the make up. Ty Simpkins does well in a few scenes, playing a stranger who enters Charlie’s life at quite a strange time, and Samantha Morton delivers her usual greatness with her all-too-brief screentime (playing Charlie’s ex-partner, and the mother of Ellie). But the best performances come from Sink, a mix of resentment, sass, and intelligence, and Hong Chau, playing Liz, a woman who is trying to help Charlie, despite him not really caring about his own quality of life. Sink and Chau are the highlights of the whole film, and I wish their performances were a larger part of the conversation during this award season, but nobody does bad work, despite working with a pretty bad script.

I know that Aronofsky isn’t exactly known for his subtlety. He is a director who works best when delivering a powerful message through a selection of powerful visuals. I can see why The Whale appealed to him, but I think he made the wrong choice. This needed either more fantastical imagery to distract from the irritating simplicity of the writing or it needed a director willing to strip it down to the bare bones of a naked performance piece.

A film that is saved, if not elevated, by the main performances, The Whale misses so many opportunities to say something really worthwhile. The people involved ensures that many will see it, and many will love it. I would be very surprised if it is well-remembered more than a decade from now.

5/10

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The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor (2008)

The third instalment in this particular selection of Mummy-centric tales, focusing on heroic Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser) and his family, is pretty much what you'd expect it to be, considering the turnaround behind the cameras. It's now Rob Cohen directing, and the writing duties have been taken over by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, but the central concept is still all about someone wanting to come back from the dead and take his place as a beloved warrior and leader. 

There's an opening sequence that explains who the new villain is this time around, the titular Dragon Emperor (played by Jet Li), and then it's time to catch up with the O'Connells once again. Rick is sort of content, but also kind of bored, while Evelyn (Maria Bello replacing Rachel Weisz in the role) seems to be just fine about a life where she's not being put in mortal danger every so often. Or maybe she's just better at keeping up a pretence. Young Alex (Luke Ford) is now old enough to be gallivanting about on his own adventures, which is why he is in Shanghai, as is his uncle, Jonathan (John Hannah). The whole O'Connell family soon ends up in Shanghai, and they end up having to work hard to stop the resurrected Emperor from becoming immortal.

Fraser, Li, Bello, Hannah, Michelle Yeoh, and Isabella Leong, and even Liam Cunningham, all do pretty good here, in relation to the script that they have to work with. It's a messy film that wants to recapture the spectacle of the previous movies without slavishly repeating any of the set-pieces, but it ends up falling flat. I'll put a small part of the blame for that on Ford, playing the youngest of the O'Connell clan. Whether it's a weak script that he can't overcome or just his own inability to emanate any sense of real charisma, Ford is the least of the cast members onscreen here, and that is a problem exacerbated by the way in which his character is foisted upon us as if he could somehow become a natural successor to Fraser's character. I'm maybe being a bit unfair to Ford here. He's certainly not terrible, but he cannot overcome the failings of the script in the same way that everyone else can, because we already know, and already like, most of the other main players.

Gough and Millar obviously wanted to work with a certain structure, but also wanted to keep things at a certain distance from the previous two movies. They want to deliver a nice, comforting, helping of filmic fun that is the same . . . but different. Unfortunately, they completely forget to add the actual fun. Even the fact that the villain doesn't really have any seriously misguided motive for his actions, other than his selfishness, brings everything down a notch. You don't watch this movie for the script, or direction. You watch it to enjoy some of the stars, mainly Li and an underused Yeoh.

Cohen can be a dependable pair of hands for this sort of thing, but he doesn't seem to have any enthusiasm for this story. The plotting has a number of predictable moments you have to trudge through, the set-pieces have their entertainment factor hidden by horrible CGI and cack-handed editing, and any amusing calbacks to past events in the movie series just make you wish that you'd spent your time revisiting the previous films.

It’s a shame that this ended up being the end of this series (although there are a good number of separate The Scorpion King movies by now) because it almost turns the entire trilogy into a warning to others, perfectly illustrating the standard law of diminishing returns for this kind of stuff. I hope to never watch this again, but the completist in me is happy enough that I finally marked it off the list.

4/10

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The Mummy Returns (2001)

Pretty much everyone returns for this enjoyable sequel to the 1999 supernatural adventure flick, and that's a large part of the appeal. Introducing a character named the Scorpion King (played by Dwayne Johnson, still being billed as The Rock at this point), it may suffer from trying to stir in a few too many new ingredients, but it certainly tries to keep the focus on simple entertainment throughout.

We start with a prologue that explains the origin of the Scorpion King and his army, then it's time to join the O'Connell family as they explore more ancient ruins. Rick (Brendan Fraser) and Evelyn (Rachel Weisz) now have a curious young son, Alex (Freddie Boath), with them. They find the Bracelet of Anubis, which locks on to the arm of young Alex when he tries it on. The bracelet shows him a vision of the modern location of the Scorpion King, where an oasis and pyramid now stand, and that means Alex is then of great interest to people once again trying to resurrect Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo). This includes his love, Meela AKA Anck-su-namun (Patricia Velasquez). Alex is kidnapped, the O'Connells end up in hot pursuit, and someone will probably end up fighting the Scorpion King, otherwise that whole prologue would seem a bit pointless.

It's Stephen Sommers once again taking on the writing and directing duties here, and he has a lot of fun with many of the action set-pieces. The Mummy Returns may be many things, but it's never dull. It is, however, just not able to recapture quite the perfect mix of fun and spookiness that the first film had. This is partly to do with the "let's throw more of everything in and that should be great" approach, and partly to do with the fact that the CGI on display here feels even worse than the CGI in the preceding film. Sommers clearly thought computers were already at a stage where they could create anything onscreen that he could envision. They weren't. The actual Scorpion King himself remains a real eye-sore, and comes along after an extended encounter with some fierce, undead, pygmy creatures that feels like a decent idea executed terribly (scaling back what viewers could actually see, and using some puppetry, would have made that sequence much more effective).

Fraser and Weisz continue to work really well together, and Weisz also gets to do a lot more fighting this time around (as well as take part in some poor flashback scenes that show her in a previous life). Young Boath does well enough, cocky enough until he is reminded of the fact that he is often in the company of adults who wouldn't think twice about actually causing him harm. Vosloo and Velasquez both do solid work, and The Rock makes a good impression before he's replaced by a 32-bit videogame representation of his character. John Hannah is also back, and still a lot of fun, as is Oded Fehr, and you get fun supporting roles for Alun Armstrong and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, playing villains, and Shaun Parkes, as someone who might be able to help the O'Connells.

Although it's more of a mess, in terms of both the attempt to bulk out the thin plot and the CGI, The Mummy Returns still offers up enough solid popcorn pleasure to be a worthy successor to the first film. A lot of that is down to the cast, but the familiarity, while not necessarily breeding contempt, works against it as much as it works for it. Many people, myself included, will always have a soft spot for it though.

7/10

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The Mummy (1999)

Hmmmm, I wonder why I had the urge to revisit this movie series after recently watching Jungle Cruise. Yes, the fact that Jungle Cruise reworked that formula so well put me in mood for some more entertainment in the same vein.

Brendan Fraser stars as Rick O'Connell (feeling for all the world like Rick Dangerous, a late '80s videogame creation based on a very well-known adventure icon). Rick is the daring, reluctant hero in Stephen Sommers' entertaining blockbuster centred around the titular creature of horror infamy and, for those not averse to bombastic fun, it ain't half bad. 

The plot sees Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Omid Djalili and others on their way to the legendary city of the dead, Hamunaptra, to find a significant treasure before anyone else (with the main competition being a party led by the sly Beni, played by Kevin J. O'Connor). And then someone accidentally wakes up Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo) and everyone realises that there's more to fear in the desert than just sunstroke. 

There's nothing surprising here, nothing subtle and nothing all that believable but there is a fun action adventure with supernatural elements that should please many movie fans. Will it please fans of the old Universal classics (or even the Hammer versions)? Probably not, though it must be said that there ARE a lot of respectful little nods to past versions of the tale. Sommers directs with a focus on the sheer entertainment side of things, also emphasised in the script that he wrote, from the story worked on with Kevin Jarre and Lloyd Fonvielle.

Fraser and Weisz are two leads who fit perfectly in their roles, both very capable in different ways, and they are thrown from one set-piece to the next, with time spent here and there showing Vosloo's character growing in strength and powers. Nobody has to emote too strongly but everyone does a good enough job of acting beside the various practical and computer effects. We also get the likes of Oded Fehr, Jonathan Hyde and Erick Avari in the cast so there are at least some people on screen to do more than just run and fight stuff.

But never mind the acting anyway, there are booby traps, deadly scarab beetles and, of course, plagues - all rendered nicely enough, even if the pixel count gets uncomfortably high at times. This is a blockbuster,  and it delivers on that score. Maybe not quite the "Indiana Jones" for a new generation, it certainly tries hard with it's mix of thrills, humour and energetic action set-pieces. And the cherry on top is a typically appropriate score from Jerry Goldsmith.

8/10

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Looney Tunes: Back In Action (2003)

Back when Looney Tunes: Back In Action was released in cinemas I recall a sense of mild disappointment. I was one of those people acting mildly disappointed. Rewatching the movie recently, I have no idea a) why most people were so disappointed and b) why I felt the same way as most people. Looney Tunes: Back In Action is a glorious, demented mix of live action and animation, directed by Joe Dante, that stands proudly as exactly what it was meant to be: the anti-Space Jam.

The plot starts off with Daffy Duck being kicked off the Warner Bros. studio lot after he decides that he's had enough of always losing out to that damn Bugs Bunny. Daffy ends up causing a security guard, DJ Drake (Brendan Fraser), to lose his job. He continues to be a pain in the backside, even as DJ finds out that his father, Damien Drake (Timothy Dalton), is in some serious trouble. It turns out that Damien Drake isn't just an actor who played a legendary spy in movies . . . . . . . he's actually a bit of a legendary spy in real life. Daffy and DJ head off on a journey to save pops, while Bugs and a studios exec named Kate (Jenna Elfman) head off to catch Daffy and get him back where he belongs. Everyone is, of course, now at risk from the dreaded ACME Corporation (headed up by Steve Martin).

Written by Larry Doyle, this is a gag-packed, reference-packed, rip-roaring ride through a world populated by some of the best characters to ever appear in animated form (I'll always take a classic Looney Tunes cartoon over a Disney short). You get Bugs, Daffy, Yosemite Sam, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Michigan J. Frog, Foghorn Leghorn, Wile E. Coyote, Marvin The Martian and many more. Think of it as Who Framed Bugs Bunny and you're close. It also features some great cameos, as you'd expect in a Joe Dante movie, from classic sci-fi beasties of yesteryear.

Leading man Fraser proves once again that he's really one of the best in the biz at acting with not much around him. The blend of animation and live action isn't perfect, but it's certainly amongst the very best that you'll ever see, in my opinion. Some of the animated characters display better acting skills than Jenna Elfman anyway, who is someone I have never warmed to (her success always astounded me). Steve Martin has a lot of fun, Dalton is wonderful, Joan Cusack has a few minutes alongside a veritable "greatest hits" selection of aliens. Bill Goldberg is a suitably intimidating henchman, Heather Locklear struts her stuff as Dusty Tails and genre fans will take great pleasure in spotting cameos from the likes of Dick Miller, Roger Corman, Ron Perlman and Mary Woronov.

It's not perfect, but there are times when it comes pretty close. The set-pieces are all brilliant, with a chase through the paintings in The Louvre being the absolute highlight, the characters never feel as if they're being squeezed into the movie just to sell more merchandise and the young will be kept entertained by the slapstic and visuals while adults also get to pick up every sharp gag and in-joke.

8/10

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