Color Out Of Space (2019)

A quite brilliant cinematic interpretation of the classic H. P. Lovecraft tale by director Richard Stanley, who also wrote the screenplay with Scarlett Amaris, Color Out Of Space was best summed up by a friend of mine (and podcast co-host, Craig). I cannot recall his exact phrasing, but he basically said that, considering how Stanley's career has panned out, it's easy to view this film as one that has both the assured touch of an experienced craftsman and also the hunger and energy of a first-time director looking to make a big impact. He wasn't wrong.

A strange meteorite lands near a remote farmhouse, which leads to the local ecosystem being gradually overcome and transformed by, well, the color out of space (or colour, for us Brits). Pinks and purples start to fill up the environment, in mist form, insects, foliage, and more. Meanwhile, the Gardner family (headed up by Nicolas Cage, playing the patriarch, Nathan) are directly suffering from the effects of the meteorite. Will a visiting hydrologist (Ward, played by Elliot Knight) be able to help, or is the whole thing so unbelievable that the full danger won't be noticed until it's just too late?

Almost perfect from start to finish, Color Out Of Space should please both fans of Lovecraft and fans of the film-making skills of Stanley. Despite a runtime of 111 minutes, it doesn't feel overlong, and despite a number of moments that will remind horror movie fans of The Thing and The Mist, it manages to feel interesting and unique. This is all thanks to the gorgeous style of the whole piece, both visually and tonally.

Pinks and purples bleed into every frame, as you would expect, and Stanley manages to make everything seem like a threat to human life, due to the way it is shown to be growing and encroaching on what was there before, and the impressive score from Colin Stetson (sometimes more like an aggressive audio assault) also helps.

Some people will always accuse Nicolas Cage of often being too . . . Nicolas Cage, and there are moments of it here, but he's pretty good in one of the main roles, for the most part. Even when he's on about the alpacas that are housed in the barn, or sampling a selection of rotten foods while he rages about them. Joely Richardson is his wife, Theresa, and the two have a nice rapport between them. Richardson also does very well when shown to be in a fugue state. Of the three children, Madeleine Arthur feels like the one focused on, playing Lavinia, a girl interested in Wiccan ways, and she's great, but Brendan Meyer, as the older son (Benny), and Julian Hilliard (as young Jack) both also do well. Knight is a very likeable potential hero, and there's a nice little role for Tommy Chong.

It may be more of a mood piece than anything else, but what a mood piece. With an abundance of impressive practical FX work, gorgeous cinematography throughout, and the development of the obvious colour palette, this ranks as Stanley's best, and I am optimistic that the positive reception to it can help to boost him up at this stage of his career, leading to a well-deserved renaissance for him.

9/10

There's a nice package available here.
Americans can buy a disc here.

Yule Love It: Surviving Christmas With The Relatives AKA Christmas Survival (2018)

Having years ago written the screenplay that would traumatise a generation of married men considering hooking up with a random woman (Fatal Attraction), James Dearden has now decided to write, and also direct, a film all about something with the potential to be equally difficult for many married couples: the family Christmas dinner.

Julian Ovenden and Gemma Whelan are Dan and Miranda, the married couple who have been tasked with delivering a traditional Christmas for visiting relatives. Money is tight, the house is having a lot of work done to it, there's a brand new oven due, and extra strain comes from Miranda's sister, Lyla (Joely Richardson), and her partner, Trent (Michael Landes). The kids have their squabbles, Dan has to try and figure out a way to help his ex-partner with their weed-addicted son, Harry (Jonas Moore), and Aunt Vicky (Ronni Ancona) seems one step away from fooling around with Trent, who seems to be keeping one eye on wherever his next drink may be and one eye on a chance to get frisky.

Pulled from some of Dearden's own experiences, and certainly full of moments that will be recognisable to anyone who has been put in charge of the big family dinner at Christmas time, Surviving Christmas With The Relatives has elements contained within it that work, but that is rarely down to the script or direction, both of which feel fairly perfunctory. It's odd to think that Dearden could somehow think of this being a worthwhile addition to the overstuffed selection of Christmas movies we get every year. I'd go as far as saying that many of the "lesser" TV movies churned out for this time of year have been a bit better than this. At least they stay focused on their simplistic aims, weaving together basic plot elements in a way that seems planned out (most of the time). This, on the other hand, feels like the work of someone who had too many ideas without realising that none of them worked well with the others being forced into screenplay form.

The cast are largely responsible for the moments that do work, so it's a shame that Dearden didn't cast his male characters as well as he cast his females. Whelan is incredibly likable , Richardson is incredibly frosty and entitled, and Ancona is the perfect mix of neuroticism, regret, cheer, and good-heartedness. Landes is actually also very good in his role, although he is helped by the fact that he's the one American adult in a family unit made up of bickering Brits. Ovenden doesn't ever get you fully on his side, nor does Moore, but it is difficult to say how much of that stems from them and how much from the script.

If you could at least get a sense that there was something, however incomplete, that Dearden was trying to comment on with his comedy drama then that would be some consolation. There isn't though. It's just a snapshot of moments: Eastern European workmen who aren't always appreciated for what they do, a vicar and his wife showing their own strained relationship, an elderly aunt who has a vibrator packed in her luggage, a pretty female visitor from another country who may end up making quite an impression on a stoned teenager. Hell, if this was an '80s John Hughes movie then it could have ended up as one of my favourites. But it isn't, and it won't. I don't see it ending up as a favourite for anyone.

4/10

You can buy it here.

Red Sparrow (2018)

Although I didn't really dislike Red Sparrow while it was on, it's not a film I can wholeheartedly recommend to anyone, mainly because of the way it constantly wavers between being too slick and neat and being bloody and faux-gritty.

Jennifer Lawrence plays Dominika, a Russian ballerina who ends up struggling after an injury cuts her promising career short. She is then approached by her uncle (Matthias Schoenaerts) with a job offer - seduce a local gangster. That job ends in death, and Dominika is then given the option of either training to become an intelligence agent or being killed, to ensure there are no witnesses left. It's not much of a choice, and Dominika also has an ill mother (Joely Richardson) to consider. She starts her training, which soon puts her at odds with those around her, due to her strong will and determination, and then ends up heading to Budapest, where she meets an American agent (Nate, played by Joel Edgerton) who may end up being able to help her with her predicament. Or maybe she will just do her job, leaving a number of corpses in her week.

Directed by Francis Lawrence, Red Sparrow is certainly an ambitious film, considering the attempt to make an old-fashioned spy movie that will appeal to a wider age range than most. Lawrence did a decent job of mixing pure entertainment with interesting psychological moments in his three movies that made up three of the four The Hunger Games series so it's a shame that he can't do just as well here. Perhaps some of the fault lies with the script, by Justin Haythe, or perhaps the source material, written by Jason Matthews, was just never suited to what feels like a more sanitised telling of the story (despite a few strong moments).

Lawrence does a good job in the lead role, and her accent remains consistently impressive throughout. She's given good support by other fine Russians, such as Richardson, Charlotte Rampling,  Ciaran Hinds, and Jeremy Irons (obviously all picked for their talent and name recognition, as opposed to their actual . . . Russian-ness). Schoenaerts feels more obviously authentic, despite being Belgian, and he does a lot with a role that could have easily been either a pantomime villain or just a forgettable plot device.

Red Sparrow gets a few things right. The performances, the generally clean shot compositions and style (this is not a film for anyone looking out for the next Bourne), a lot of the plotting. But it doesn't ever do anything to make it stand out, cinematically, and the 140-minute runtime feels overlong by a good 20-30 minutes. But it's that inconsistent approach to the material that probably harms it the most. There are scenes that Lawrence knows can't be shown to be cool or sexy, he'd be in big trouble if he tried, but then he tries to keep everything moving along in between those scenes by utilising the star power of his leading lady, who inevitably comes across at times as, well, cool and sexy. It stops the film from having one true identity throughout.

Worth a watch, I'm just not sure of anyone who will love it, and I can't see it being one that anyone will choose to revisit more than once or twice.

6/10

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Vampire Academy (2014)

Marketed as being from the director of Mean Girls, Vampire Academy serves as a sobering reminder that a movie is not made by the director alone. He needs a talented team around him, including a great writer, and a decent cast. Neither of these things are present here.

The plot goes thus: Rose Hathaway (Zoey Deutch) is a sorta-vampire who protects nice vampires (in her case, it's her BFF Lissa, played by Lucy Fry) from attack by nasty vampires. They both attend the titular vampire academy, which is ruled over by headmistress Kirova (Olga Kurylenko), and Rose attempts to further her training under the watchful eye of Dimitri (Danila Kozlovsky) while Lissa tries to make life easier for both of them by using magic on those who decide to give them a hard time. And that's quite a few people, although it's hard to figure out just who is the most serious about actually causing any harm to Lissa.

I've probably made Vampire Academy sound better than it really is with that description. Or, if you think I've made it sound pretty dull, I may have got it just right. It's an unexciting, unfunny movie, the kind of tick-the-boxes stuff that makes you feel annoyed while it plays out in all of its smug glory.

Deutch is hampered by the fact that she's not Ellen Page. I'm sorry, but she looks and sounds so much like her that it's impossible to watch the film and not imagine she was the second choice for the role. Fry may not call anyone else directly to mind, but she's eminently replaceable in her role, having no great charisma that shines through. Kozlovsky at least knows that he's there to be the eye candy for the girls, both onscreen and off (I guess), which is more than can be said for the likes of Kurylenko, Gabriel Byrne and Joely Richardson. All three of the relatively bigger names appear for no other reason than to slightly embarrass themselves, although they all have the sense to take roles that don't involve a lot of screentime. Sarah Hyland is the only person who I actually liked seeing onscreen, and she somehow managed to overcome the writing that made her character development painfully obvious.

I'm unfamiliar with the source material (novels by Richelle Mead), but the screenplay by Daniel Waters just doesn't work at all. There's a mythology that already feels stale and overdone, compared to the many other vampire and Young Adult movies to come out in recent years, there's a lack of genuine wit, and there's a lack of . . . . . . . .  well, anything to make this a movie worth your time. I'm not sure how much of the script would have been left in if the director hadn't been his own brother, Mark Waters, therefore both men can share the blame for the bad final product.

It lacks style, tension, a sense of fun. Thankfully, there's just enough technical competence to make it bearable, but that's it. I'd rather rewatch Twilight, THAT'S how bad it is.

3/10

http://www.amazon.com/Vampire-Academy-Blu-ray-Zoey-Deutch/dp/B00HQOFIA0/ref=sr_1_3?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1406370412&sr=1-3&keywords=vampire+academy

Red Lights (2012)

Written and directed by Rodrigo Cortes (who previously stepped behind the camera to helm the excellent Buried), Red Lights may not be quite as clever as it thinks it is, but that doesn't stop it from being a fine slice of entertainment while it's on.

Cillian Murphy plays Tom Buckley, a loyal assistant to Margaret Matheson (Sigourney Weaver). The two of them work, predominantly, on debunking paranormal activity. They also teach students about the many tricks of the trade, from table lifting to psychic readings and more. The only big name in psychic phenomena who seems to be "the real thing" is Simon Silver (Robert De Niro), a major celebrity who announces his comeback after many years out of the limelight. Buckley starts to get frustrated when Matheson refuses to pursue Silver more aggressively, but the latter warns her assistant that chasing a man who has kept his hands clean for so long could prove to be more dangerous than it's worth. But Buckley can't let it go, he knows that Silver is faking it and just needs to figure out how the scheme works.

Anyone who has read Attack Of The Unsinkable Rubber Ducks, and/or anything by Derren Brown (such as this fine work), should know where Red Lights is going. Thankfully, that doesn't make the journey any less enjoyable.

Cortes does a more than competent job in the scripting and directing department, but he's also helped enormously by the great cast. This isn't a sprawling ensemble picture, but to have Murphy, Weaver and De Niro in lead roles is a major plus, especially when the latter star is coaxed into giving one of his better performances in recent years. Toby Jones and Joely Richardson both do fantastic work in their smaller roles, and Elizabeth Olsen is just fine, although a little bit redundant (she is, essentially, just there to allow the audience to receive information).

Always interesting and entertaining, Red Lights may stumble in the last 10-15 minutes, but it does so with such gusto that it kind of gets away with its trickery. The fact that it maintains its own movie-world logic is also a major factor in sugar-coating the pill that the third act delivers.

I enjoyed this movie, as you can tell, but as I wrote this review I realised that I was growing to like it more and more. It's one that I look forward to purchasing and revisiting in the near future. I recommend giving it a go.

8/10

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