The Watched (2024)

AKA The Watchers.

Here is a film in which Dakota Fanning plays someone who spends a large portion of the runtime being watched, hence the title, and it must be said that she's a very watchable presence onscreen.

That doesn't mean that The Watched is one to watch though, sadly. This is a bad, messy, film that starts off weak and then just gets worse and worse, en route to a thoroughly disappointing ending.

Fanning plays Mina, a young woman obviously struggling to get through everyday life while dealing with her emotional/mental health baggage. She ends up in a mysterious forest in Ireland where she encounters a group of trapped individuals, subsequently becoming trapped alongside them. There are rules, there are entities watching them, and Mina might not really mind being caught in such a limbo state that keeps her focused on the here and now.

The feature debut of Ishana Shyamalan, who adapted the story from the novel by A. M. Shine and directed this, that's the most obvious explanation for The Watched feeling like one of the weaker stories presented to audiences by her father, M. Night Shyamalan. That may seem harsh, but it's impossible to spot the familiar surname, watch this film unfold, and not come to the conclusion that this is the work of a child trying, and failing, to emulate/impress a parent. It's a stick figure drawing passed across for the approval of someone who is responsible for some superb oil-on-canvas portraits.

None of the cast are treated very well by the requirements of the script. Fanning languishes, her character fully defined by her unhappiness. Olwen Fouéré plays the nominal leader of the group, Madeline, and she has to deliver exposition and rules that ultimately make no sense. Georgina Campbell, Oliver Finnegan, and Alistair Brammer play the less important characters, and John Lynch appears just in time to test the patience and observation skills of exasperated viewers.

While there are a few nice visual flourishes here and there, nothing is impressive enough to make you forgive the lack of skill in the writing and directing department, which you could also describe as the lack of skill from Shyamalan. Perhaps this would all be more enjoyable if it was a TV episode (maybe one of The X-Files or a 2-part Grimm special), but it's not. It's a full feature film that some people thought would work well enough to enable audiences to suspend their disbelief and enjoy themselves for 102 minutes. 

The attempts to create tension don't work, the attempts to make the lead character sympathetic don't work, the backstory being used to feed into the narrative doesn't work. The Watched just doesn't work. Maybe we'll see Ishana Shyamalan do better with whatever she does next. At least she'll get the luxury of having another bite at the cherry, unlike a number of female film-makers who don't have the same good fortune.

3/10

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Once Upon A Time . . . In Hollywood (2019)

If you take any one scene from Once Upon A Time . . . In Hollywood that features a look at the winding career paths of either Rick Dalton (former movie star, now a TV name, played by Leonardo DiCaprio) or Cliff Booth (main stunt double for Dalton, and good friend, played by Brad Pitt) then you have something pretty wonderful. Also take any scene with Sharon Tate (played by Margot Robbie) being happy and seemingly unspoilt by her near-stardom and you will be smiling, thanks mainly to the wonderful performance from Robbie.

But there's everything else here. Tarantino, for he's long been in the position where we don't have to use his full name, has crafted a fairytale, which the title clearly signifies, but he's done so in a way that loses focus, seems to often have its heart in the wrong place, and just stumbles into a grand finale that is, at best, uncharacteristically graphic and tonally jarring and, at worst, disappointingly disrespectful and distasteful.

The core of the film is based around the relationship between Dalton and Booth, as the former tries to keep working while not allowing his name to lose that star quality. Tate is shown being the kind of woman who lights up any room when she enters it, although those who know what happened to her cannot keep a tinge of sadness at bay, despite suspecting that the fairytale aspect may allow for more QT historical revisionism. And then you have the Manson Family, a shadow looming over the film once they make their first appearance.

Let me make something clear first of all. There are no bad performances here, and Pitt is doing his best work in years (this is arguably more his film than DiCaprio's, although the latter does brilliant with a range of acting, from his natural state off-camera to his cheesier style in some of his TV work). Robbie is phenomenal, if underserved, and there are also excellent turns from Timothy Olyphant, Margaret Qualley, Julia Butters, Bruce Dern, Kurt Russell, and Al Pacino, to name but a few. Even those who turn up just to do a small impression (Damian Lewis is Steve McQueen, Mike Moh is Bruce Lee) do great work.

All of the things that don't work here come from Tarantino, a man who has indulged and deluded himself for so long that I doubt he will see anything wrong in what he may consider the culmination of his career. The soundtrack is what you'd expect, the barrage of movie and TV references are on point (and the second-best thing about it, after the lead performances), the violence appears (but it feels different from other violence he has depicted, it feels . . . more unpleasant and out of place, considering the tone of the rest of the finale, as if he felt everyone would need things to be pushed further and further, like some kind of cathartic release), and you get so many shots of people with their bare feet up in the air/on furniture that it starts to feel like he's trolling us all.

Obviously intended as a love letter to this time, and a way of both celebrating and lamenting the effect that TV had on the careers of many in the movie industry, Tarantino throws everything in the mix without considering how much of it is necessary. Although this allows for more treats (the technical side of things is wonderful, when it comes to capturing the feel of the time, and the many shows shown are wonderful, as are some of the movie clips, both real and re-envisioned with Dalton in a main role), it also allows for the moments that feel most sour. Why have your character shown to be a badass in a number of different ways when you can just have him go toe to toe with Bruce Lee? Why give someone a dark backstory when you can just imply a very similar fate to that of Natalie Wood? Why treat well-known names with a little more respect when they can be bit-players in the lives of the two main characters?

There were so many other ways to do this, ways that didn't have to be signposted less than halfway through the 161-minute runtime (at least I think the moment in which Booth is asked to fix a TV aerial is before the halfway point). This should have been a pure celebration from start to finish, showing the bad with the good but ending on a great upswing. Instead . . . well, it feels completely misjudged, completely gratuitous (sometimes for the better, often for the worse), and completely half-assed, considering how much the viewer is expected to bring to the table in order to fill in the gaps and place characters that ultimately end up being so transformed and/or discarded by Tarantino that they didn't have to be based on ANY reality at all. But then he wouldn't be able to feel quite so self-indulgent, and we all know that QT loves to indulge himself. It's just that his best movies also indulge the audience at the same time. This one doesn't. In fact, I am tempted to say that it ends up being downright insulting at times, but then often manages to make up for it with some little moments of cinematic beauty.

Hugely frustrating, hugely problematic, and still absolutely essential viewing for those who want to see where they stand on another Tarantino film that, at the very least, is once again steeped in the history of the cinema he loves.

5/10

You'll be able to get the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.

Dreamer (2005)

Dreamer is a standard live-action Disney movie that just happens not to actually come from Disney. There isn't one unpredictable moment in it, the music from John Debney keeps reminding viewers that it's all meaningful and life-affirming, and many scenes are shot with an added, warming glow suffusing each frame. Despite these marks against it, I ended up enjoying Dreamer, thanks mainly to a great cast giving decent performances. Sometimes familiarity doesn't breed contempt, sometimes it's just comfortable. Dreamer is just that, a comfort movie. I may not rush to revisit it, but I admit that I enjoyed it while it was on.

Inspired by a true story, Dreamer is all about a horse named Sonador that falls during a big race and sustains what should be a career-ending injury. Horse trainer Ben Crane (Kurt Russell) is angry at the employer (David Morse) who ignored his advice not to race the horse. With his daughter, Cale (Dakota Fanning), by his side, he ends up leaving the stables with the horse, a reduced cash amount for his work and no job. He also has his assistants, Balon (Luis Guzman) and ex-jockey Manolin (Freddy Rodriguez), and a plan to help Sondaor get well enough so that she can at least be used for breeding, even if she will never race again. But Sonador has a strong spirit, as does young Cale, and looks like she may want to race. That will take hard work and money. The hard work isn't a problem, but the money just might not be available.

Written and directed by John Gatins, Dreamer doesn't really have any major flaws apart from the sentimentality and predictability of it all. It's a nice film, probably too nice for many people to be able to stomach.

The big plus point for the film is the cast. Russell puts in another great performance as a decent everyman, Fanning does her usual good work in another film made during the peak of her "wide-eyed years" and the ever-dependable David Morse is as dependable as ever, despite being saddled with (no pun intended) the role of main villain. Guzman and Rodriguez are both a lot of fun, Elizabeth Shue is fine as Ben's wife/Cale's mother and Kris Kristofferson hangs about to be Ben's grumpy father, who may or may not help out and reforge a bond with his son. And then there's Oded Fehr, appearing about 70 minutes into the movie and getting a few minutes of screentime as a character who may as well have been named "plot device #3".

Cynical people should look for hundreds of films that they will prefer to watch before this one, but anyone who can handle the sugar content should find this moderately enjoyable. It's certainly a decent enough family movie so maybe keep it on standby for any time you may have a 7-12 year old in your home.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dreamer-DVD-Dakota-Fanning/dp/B000CSTIIA/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1368707710&sr=1-1&keywords=dreamer

Push (2009)

A decent cast and decent premise are both wasted in this unexciting, muddled, and inevitably inconsequential, superhero movie from writer David Bourla and director Paul McGuigan.

Chris Evans plays Nick Gant, a young man who has the power of telekinesis, even if he is still learning how to use it. His life is thrown into chaos when he's approached by Cassie Holmes (Dakota Fanning), a young woman who can see into the future. Cassie needs his help catch another person with super-powers (Kira Hudson, played by Camilla Belle) and to set a chain of events in motion that will eventually lead to her rescuing her mother from the government officials keeping her captive. There's a high probability that Chris and Cassie could die, as Cassie keeps pointing out, but she tries to remain hopeful that they can succeed in their quest while avoiding the attention of other talented individuals. Xiaolu Li plays another young woman who can see into the future, although she's better at it than Cassie, and Henry Carver (Djimon Hounsou) is an agent determined to retrieve Kira for the benefit of the organisation that he works for.

Sounds like fun? Telekinesis and seeing the future? I've not even mentioned the talent that Kira has for being able to push thoughts, suggestions and false memories into the mind of anyone not mentally prepared to defend against such a sneak attack. Or the guys who can shout/scream so loudly that they can kill people and break glass. Even more fun, right? Wrong.

Push just never delivers, it never rises up to what it could be - an enjoyable adventure featuring folk who never made the cut for X-Men (and don't take that as a highly disparaging remark, I'm a huge fan of Chris Evans and he's the main reason I was able to find this film reasonably enjoyable).

This is mostly due to the poor script and lacklustre direction, but it doesn't help that the majority of the cast, aside from Evans, Fanning and Hounsou, are so forgettable. Camilla Belle is especially disappointing in her role, failing to liven up a character not written all that well in the first place and the least said about those two shouting/screaming guys, the better.

When Bourla plotted out the movie he obviously thought he was being clever and unconventional when he was, in fact, simply being annoying and dull. The plot, twists and turns and all, makes little sense and ends up having no real purpose. It's almost as if the whole thing exists just to set up a sequel that never happened.

The filmmakers may have thought it commendable that they made a movie focused on characters over action, but they forgot to make the characters interesting enough for that approach to work. It's a shame because the potential was there for something much better. This is simply average, at best.

5/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Push-Blu-ray-Chris-Evans/dp/B00206U5XO/ref=sr_1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1359128027&sr=1-2